nk--no bohunk!" assented the Pole, and there was that in his
voice boded ill for proof to the contrary. "No bohunk . . .
maybe. . . . I don't think."

Tressa came running round the nearest shack, rifle in one hand and a
small automatic in the other. She saw the blood on Adrian's collar and
made straight for him. For a moment her father frowned jealously.

"A man brings a daughter into the world," he sulked, "frets and stews
and labours over her until she's old enough--to fall in love with some
young fellow who never had a moment's worry about her."

"And so it has been since ribs ceased to become women," grinned Conrad.
"It's only another beauty mark, Tressa. It's stopped bleeding
already." He turned angrily on Koppy. "You saw this fight from the
first--"

"I come as soon as I see," protested the Pole indignantly.

"You lie! You wanted to see it get beyond us. You thought they'd do
for us, didn't you?"

"Why do I fight, then?" enquired Koppy, with lifted eyebrows.

"Heaven only knows," muttered Conrad. "But you saw we had 'em licked."

"Don't be an ass," chided Torrance, his eyes still on the trees. "We
can lick four hundred and ninety-five of them, but it was that fellow
in there did for the extra five. Find him for me, Koppy, and I'll put
him in your place and kick you to hell."

"If Koppy find him, you no need," replied the Pole, the expression of
his face clearing away the ambiguity of his words. "I find him."

As if in challenge, the unseen rifle replied. Koppy leaped aside,
stooping to examine a long slit in the side of his high boots.

"I find him," he hissed, shaking his fist at the trees.

Torrance chuckled delightedly. "A dandy eye for beauty, that chap has.
He seems to like us; I'd hate to have him shooting the boots off me
like that."

He started for home, but bethought himself.

"Get the wounded rounded up, Koppy. Nobody dead. Just as well.
Funerals are a nuisance. Can't see why a bohunk can't sneak off into
the bush and die without any bother. If there's more than one speeder
load to lug that seventy-five miles to the hospital, there'll be the
devil to pay. You and the cooks have your hands full bandaging the
rest of the evening, I guess. Come up in an hour and report."

As they toiled up the slope to the trestle Torrance broke a long
silence.

"In your prayers to-night, Tressa, you might put in a word for a
mysterious stranger with an eye like an eagle. I think we'