his admirers even in Victoria, where the
old tale of popular sympathy with a picturesque rascal was responsible
for not the least of the Sub-Inspector's difficulties. But even this
struck Kilbride as yet another of those obstacles which were more easily
surmounted alone than at the head of a talkative squad; and with that
conviction he pushed his thoroughbred on and on through a whole cool
night and three parts of an Australian summer's day. Imagine, then, his
disgust at the apparition of a mounted trooper galloping to meet him in
the middle of the afternoon, and within a few miles of a former
hiding-place of the bushranger, where the senior officer had strong
hopes of finding and surprising him now.

"Where the devil do you come from?" cried Kilbride, as the other rode
up.

"Jumping Creek," was the crisp reply. "Stationed there."

"Then why don't you stop there and do your duty?"

"Stingaree!" said the laconic trooper.

"What! Do you think you're after him too?"

"I am after him."

"So am I."

"Then you're going in the wrong direction."

Kilbride flushed a warm brown from beard to helmet.

"Do you know who you're speaking to?" cried he. "I'm Sub-Inspector
Kilbride, and this business is my business, and no other man's in this
Colony. You go back to your barracks, sir! I'm not going to have every
damned fool in the force charging about the country on his own account."

The trooper was a dark, smart, dapper young fellow, of a type not easily
browbeaten or subdued. And discipline is not the strong point of forces
so irregular as the mounted police of a crescent colony. But nothing
could have been more admirable than the manner in which this rebuke was
received.

"Very well, sir, if you wish it; but I can assure you that you are off
the track of Stingaree."

"How do _you_ know?" asked Kilbride, rudely; but he was beginning to
look less black.

"I happen to know the place. You would have some difficulty in finding
it if you never were there before. I only stumbled across it by accident
myself."

"Lately?"

"One day last winter when I was out looking for some horses."

"And you kept it to yourself!"

The trooper hung his head. "I knew we should have him across the river
again," he said. "It was only a question of time; and--well, sir, you
can understand!"

"You were keen on taking him yourself, were you?"

"As keen as you are, Mr. Kilbride!" owned the younger man, raising bold
eyes, and looking his