kward customer.

"If he had been armed," said the Doctor, as he rode along, "I should
have been killed: he evidently came back after that pistol. Now, I
wonder where I am? I shall know soon at this pace. The little horse
keeps up well, seeing he has been out all night."

In about two hours he heard a dog bark to the left of the track, and,
turning off in that direction, he soon found himself in a courtyard,
and before a door which he thought he recognised: the door opened at
the sound of his horse, and out walked Tom Troubridge.

"Good Lord!" said the Doctor, "a friend's face at last; tell me where I
am, for I can't see the end of the house."

"Why, at our place, Toonarbin, Doctor."

"Well, take me in and give me some food; I have terrible tidings for
you. When did you last see Lee?"

"The day before yesterday; he is up at an outlying hut of ours in the
ranges."

"He is lying murdered in his bed there, for I saw him so not three
hours past."

He then told Troubridge all that had happened.

"What sort of man was it that attacked you?" said Troubridge.

The Doctor described Moody.

"That's his hut-keeper that he took from here with him; a man he said
he knew, and you say he was on horseback. What sort of a horse had he?"

"A good-looking roan, with a new bridle on him."

"Lee's horse," said Troubridge; "he must have murdered him for it. Poor
William!"

But when Tom saw the pistol and read the name on it, he said,--

"Things are coming to a crisis, Doctor; the net seems closing round my
unfortunate partner. God grant the storm may come and clear the air!
Anything is better than these continual alarms."

"It will be very terrible when it does come, my dear friend," said the
Doctor.

"It cannot be much more terrible than this," said Tom, "when our
servants are assassinated in their beds, and travellers in lonely huts
have to wrestle for their lives. Doctor, did you ever nourish a passion
for revenge?"

"Yes, once," said the Doctor, "and had it gratified in fair and open
duel; but when I saw him lying white on the grass before me, and
thought that he was dead, I was like one demented, and prayed that my
life might be taken instead of his. Be sure, Tom, that revenge is of
the devil, and, like everything else you get from him, is not worth
having."

"I do not in the least doubt it, Doctor," said Tom; "but oh, if I could
only have five minutes with him on the turf yonder, with no one to
interfere betwee