right curves towards the sea. He looked over all the beauty
and undeveloped wealth of Gipp's Land, which shall yet, please God, in
fulness of time, be one of the brightest jewels in the King of
England's crown, but with eyes that saw not. He turned towards the
snow, and mounting his horse, which he had led up the cliff, held
steadily westward.

His plans were well laid. Across the mountain, north of Lake Omeo, not
far from the mighty cleft in which the infant Murray spends his youth,
were two huts, erected years before by some settler, and abandoned.
They had been used by a gang of bushrangers, who had been attacked by
the police, and dispersed. Nevertheless, they had been since inhabited
by the men we know of, who landed in the boat from Van Diemen's Land,
in consequence of Hawker himself having found a pass through the
ranges, open for nine months in the year. So that, when the police were
searching Gipp's Land for these men, they, with the exception of two or
three, were snugly ensconced on the other water-shed, waiting till the
storm should blow over. In these huts Hawker intended to lie by for a
short time, living on such provisions as were left, until he could make
his way northward, on the outskirts of the settlements, and escape.

There was no pursuit, he thought: how could there be? Who knew of this
route but himself and his mates? hardly likely any of them would betray
him. No creature was moving in the valley he had just ascended; but the
sun was beginning to slope towards the west, and he must onwards.

Onwards, across the slippery snow. At first a few tree-stems, blighted
and withered, were visible right and left, proving that at some time
during their existence, these bald downs had either a less elevation or
a warmer climate than now. Then these even disappeared, and all around
was one white blinding glare. To the right, the snow-fields rolled up
into the shapeless lofty mass called Mount Tambo, behind which the hill
they now call Kosciusko,--as some say, the highest ground in the
country,--began to take a crimson tint from the declining sun. Far to
the south, black and gaunt among the whitened hills, towered the
rounded hump of Buffaloe, while the peaks of Buller and Aberdeen showed
like dim blue clouds on the furthest horizon.

Snow, and nothing but snow. Sometimes plunging shoulder deep into some
treacherous hollow, sometimes guiding the tired horse across the
surface frozen over unknown depths. He