the consequence being that his
satchel was well filled with bread, meal, and cake; and he rode off
after seeing that all was going on right about the place, and in a
matter-of-fact sort of way as if he had been used to it for years.

He cantered gently till he was out of sight, and then gave Sorrel his
head and skimmed over the ground till he was compelled to draw rein and
walk the horse in and out among the trees, besides being careful to
avoid the blocks of stone which here and there thrust their grey heads
out of the slope.

For he was nearing the spot where he had hidden the meal, and he had
determined to fetch it and carry it over his saddle-bow as nearly as he
could to where he had parted from the convict.

To his delight, on reaching the hiding-place he found that the bag was
gone, and for the moment he was convinced that Leather had fetched it;
but Nic's next thought was startling:

"Suppose Brookes had been suspicious--had seen it and taken it away."

The thought was horrible, but he dismissed it, telling himself that he
was too ready to imagine things; and, determined to try and find the
convict again, he mounted and rode along parallel with the edge of the
gorge till he was as nearly as he could guess to where the patch of rock
had slipped down.

Here, in a shut-in tract of grassy land, he dismounted, cast his hobbled
horse loose to graze, and shouldering his gun, went in among the trees
and tried to find the stone trap in which he had been caught.

He looked around him, and then started off in the direction Leather had
taken that evening, keeping about fifty yards from the edge so that this
distance would serve for his guidance back, and kept looking to right
and left for some signs of the convict having passed that way, but
finding none.

Every step he took for quite an hour led him through fresh beauties. He
had no desire to use his gun; so, as if in consequence, birds of
brilliant plumage flitted from tree to tree, or rose in flocks to fly
shrieking to the coverts. Twice over he saw snakes; lizards seemed to
be wonderfully plentiful wherever the stones lay scorching in the
sunshine. Every now and then he saw the Blue Mountains, rising up tier
after tier, across the gorge, and as he peered through the various
openings he could not help noticing how thoroughly they deserved their
names.

But he only saw one natural object in his mental view, and that was the
great deep crack, which he felt sur