infatuated fool could see it
last thing at night and first in the morning, was an enlarged photograph
of the bushranger himself.

It had been taken in audacious circumstances a year or two before. A
travelling photographer had been one of yet another coach-load turned
out and stood in a line by the masterful masterless man.

"Now you may take my photograph. The police refuse to know me when we do
meet. Give them a chance."

And he had posed on the spot with eye-glass up and pistols pointed, as
he saw himself now, not less than a quarter life-size, in a great gaudy
frame. But while he stared Mrs. Melvin had been rummaging in a drawer,
and when he turned she was staring in her turn with glassy eyes. In her
hands was an empty mahogany case with velvet moulds which ought to have
been filled by a brace of missing revolvers.

"He kept it locked--he kept them in it!" she gasped. "He may have done
it this very night!"

"Done what?"

"Stuck up the Deniliquin mail. That is his maddest dream. I have heard
him boast of it to his friends--the brainless boys who alone look up to
him--I have even heard him rave of it in his dreams!"

Stingaree was heavy for a moment with a mental calculation. His head was
a time-table of Cobb's coaches on the Riverina road-system; he nodded it
as he located the imperilled vehicle.

"A dream it shall remain," said he. "But there's not a moment to lose!"

"Do you propose to follow and stop him?"

"If he really means it."

"He may not. He will ride at night. He is often out as late."

"Going and coming about the same time?"

"Yes--now I think of it."

"Then his courage must have failed him hitherto, and it probably will
again."

"But if not!"

"I will cure him. But I must go at once. I have a horse not far away. I
will gallop and meet the coach; if it is still safe, as you may be sure
it will be, I shall scour the country for your son. I can tell him a
fresh thing or two about Stingaree!"

"God bless you!"

"Leave him to me."

"Oh, may God bless you always!"

His hands were in a lady's hands once more. Stingaree withdrew them
gently. And he looked his last into the brave wet eyes raised gratefully
to his.

The villain-worshipper was indeed duly posted in a certain belt of trees
through which the coach-route ran, about half-way between the town and
the first stage south. It was not his first nocturnal visit to the spot;
often, as his prototype divined, had the mimic would-be