the hand it held, while the upper man
yet lay like a log under those drowsy, dreadful eyes.

Stingaree took a last look at the barrel drooping from the slackened
hand; the back of the hand lay on the ground, the muzzle of the barrel
was filled with sand, and yet the angle was such that it was by no means
sure whether a bullet would bury itself in the sand or in Stingaree. He
took the risk, and with his bare toe he touched the trigger sharply.
There was a horrible explosion. It brought the drowsy Superintendent to
his senses with such a jerk that it was as though the smoking pistol had
leapt out of his hand a thing alive, and so into the hand that flashed
to meet it from the sling. And almost in the same second--while the
double cloud of smoke and sand still hung between them--Stingaree
sprang from the ground, an armed man once more.

"Sit where you are!" he thundered. "Up with those hands before I shoot
them to shreds! Your life's in less danger than mine has been all day,
but I'll wing you limb by limb if you offer to budge!"

With uplifted hands above his ears, the deformed officer sat with head
and shoulders depressed into the semblance of one sphere. Not a syllable
did he utter; but his upturned eyes shot indomitable fires. Stingaree
stood wriggling and fumbling at the coil which bound his left arm to his
side; suddenly the revolver went off, as if by accident, but so much by
design that there dangled two ends of rope, cut and burnt asunder by
lead and powder. In less than a minute the bushranger was unbound, and
before the minute was up he had leapt upon the Superintendent's
thoroughbred. It had been tethered all this time to a tree, swishing
tails with the station hack which Stingaree had ridden as a captive; he
now rode the thoroughbred, and led the hack, to the very feet of the
humiliated Cairns.

"I will thank you for that water-bag," said Stingaree. "I am much
obliged. And now I'll trouble you for that nice wideawake. You really
don't need it in the shade. Thank you so much!"

He received both bag and hat on the barrel of the Government revolver,
hooking the one to its proper saddle-strap, and clapping on the other at
an angle inimitably imitative of the outwitted officer.

"I won't carry the rehearsal any further to your face," continued
Stingaree; "but I can at least promise you a more flattering portrait
than the last; and this excellent coat, which you have so considerately
left strapped to your sad