boy. But I was very anxious to
get back, for there has been a serious rising among the convicts, and
two parties have escaped to the bush. I was afraid you might be having
a visitation."

"They're taken by this time, Braydon, depend upon it," said Sir John.
"My people will not rest till they are. There, I'm tired out. You'll
excuse me to-night?"

"I beg your pardon, O'Hara," said the doctor. "Yes, bed for us too.
Good night, Nic. To-morrow you will have to render me an account of
your stewardship."

Nic sought his bed that night with mingled feelings of pleasure and
pain.

It was delightful to feel the warm grip of his father's hand again, and
to see Lady O'Hara's merry, cheery face; but, on the other hand, after
being captain of the station so long, there was a slight suspicion of
regret at having to give up his independent position; and then there was
the trouble about the convict. His father said he would go and see Mr
Dillon, and there was what the magistrate would say about him. Then his
conscience smote him for that which was a lapse of duty. He had made so
great an intimate of Leather, and he felt as if he had been helping him
to defy the law. Sir John O'Hara was sleeping under their roof now, and
he was governor, judge--a regular viceroy in the colony. What would he
say?

Above all, what would the doctor do?

It was a long time before Nic could settle off to sleep that night, and
in consequence he was very late the next morning.

CHAPTER FORTY.

THE DOCTOR PLAYS MAGISTRATE.

Do I mean Nic did not get down till breakfast was ready, about eight
o'clock?

No, I do not. This was Australia in its earlier days of the colony, and
people's habits were different from ours.

Nic Braydon's lateness consisted in his being fast asleep when the
piping crow began to run up and down its scales to announce that the
stars were paling faster, when the laughing jackasses chuckled at the
loud crowing of the cocks; and he was dreaming about Mayne being brought
up to the station by mounted police when the sun had been visible an
hour.

Nic started up in a profuse perspiration, jumped out of bed and dressed
rapidly, eager to get out in the paddocks to see that the bullocks and
horses that brought the party on the previous day were properly attended
to.

He now met the three men who had come with the waggon busy enough
unpacking, and he found that Brookes, old Sam, and the three blacks were
all hard