built man, and seemed at first sight,
merely a sleepy half-witted fellow, but at a second glance you might
perceive that there was a good deal of cunning, and some ferocity in
his face. He sat for some time, and was beginning to think that he
would like a smoke, so he got out his knife preparatory to cutting
tobacco.

The hut stood at the top of a lone gully, stretching away in a vista,
nearly bare of trees for a width of about ten yards or so, all the way
down, which gave it the appearance of a grass-ride, walled on each side
by tall dark forest; looking down this, our hutkeeper saw, about a
quarter of a mile off, a horseman cross from one side to the other.

He only caught a momentary glimpse of him, but that was enough to show
him that it was a stranger. He neither knew horse nor man, at least
judging by his dress; and while he was still puzzling his brains as to
what stranger would be coming to such an out-of-the-way place, he heard
the "Chuck, kuk, kuk, kuk," of an opossum close behind the hut, and
started to his feet.

It would of course have startled any bushman to hear an opossum cry in
broad day, but he knew what this meant well. It was the arranged signal
of his gang, and he ran to the place from whence the sound came.

George Hawker was there--well dressed, sitting on a noble chestnut
horse. They greeted one another with a friendly curse.

As is my custom, when recording the conversation of this class of
worthies, I suppress the expletives, thereby shortening them by nearly
one half, and depriving the public of much valuable information.

"Well, old man," began Hawker, "is the coast clear?"

"No one here but myself," replied the other. "I'm hut-keeping here for
one Bill Lee, but he is away. He was one of the right sort once
himself, I have heard; but he's been on the square for twenty years, so
I don't like to trust him."

"You are about right there, Moody, my lad," said Hawker. "I've just
looked up to talk to you about him, and other matters,--I'll come in.
When will he be back?"

"Not before night, I expect," said the other.

"Well," said Hawker, "we shall have the more time to talk; I've got a
good deal to tell you. Our chaps are all safe and snug, and the traps
are off. Only two, that's you and Mike, stayed this side of the hill;
the rest crossed the ranges and stowed away in an old lair of mine on
one of the upper Murray gullies. They've had pretty hard times, and if
it hadn't been for the ca