e all the credit, is she, sir?"

"Anyhow they sha'n't have any on the other side, or I'll know the
reason!" the Victorian swore. "I--I--by Jove, I'd as lief lose my man
again as let them have a hand in taking him!"

"But why?"

"Why? Do you live so near the border, and can you ask? Did you never
hear a Sydney-side drover blowing about his blooming Colony? Haven't you
heard of Sydney Harbor till you're sick? And then their papers!" cried
Kilbride, with columns in his tone. "But I'll have the last laugh yet!
I swore I would, and I will! I swore I'd take Stingaree----"

"So I heard."

"Yes, they put it in their infernal papers! But it was true--take him I
will!"

"Or die in the attempt, eh?"

"Or die and be damned to me!"

All the bitterness of previous failure, indeed of notorious and
much-criticized defeat, was in the Sub-Inspector's tone; that of his
subordinate, though light as air, had a touch of insolence which an
outsider could not have failed--but Kilbride was too excited--to detect.
The outsider might possibly have foreseen a rivalry which no longer
entered Kilbride's hot head.

Meanwhile the country was changing even with their now leisurely
advance. The timbered flats in the region of the river had merged into a
gully which was rapidly developing into a gorge, with new luxuriant
growths which added greatly to the density of the forest, suggesting its
very heart. The almost neutral eucalyptian tint was splashed with the
gay hues of many parrots, as though the gum-trees had burst into flower.
The noise of running water stole gradually through the murmur of leaves.
And suddenly an object in the grass struck the sight like a lantern
flashed at dead of night: it proved to be an empty sardine tin pricked
by a stray lance from the slanting sun.

"We must be near," whispered Kilbride.

"We are there! You hear the creek? He has a gunyah there--that's all.
Shall we rush it on horseback or creep up on foot?"

"You know the lie of the land, Bowen; which do you recommend?"

"Rushing it."

"Then here goes."

In a few seconds they had leaped their horses into a tiny clearing on
the banks of a creek as relatively minute. And the gunyah--a mere funnel
of boughs and leaves, in which a man could lie at full length, but only
sit upright at the funnel's mouth--seemed as empty as the space on every
hand. The only other sign of Stingaree was a hank of rope flung
carelessly across the gunyah roof.

"He may be watc