htn't this time, unless she wants to smother you
altogether, and don't mind who she hurts along with you.'

'There's one good thing in it,' says I; 'there's no police nearer than
Trielgerat, and it's a long day's ride to them. We made it all right
before we left the Turon. All the police in the country is looking for
us on the wrong road, and will be for a week or two yet.'

Then I told him about Aileen putting Sir Ferdinand on the wrong lay, and
he said what a clever girl she was, and had as much pluck and sense as
two or three men. 'A deal more than we've ever showed, Dick,' says he,
'and that's not saying much either.'

He laughed in his quiet way when he heard about Starlight's
advertisement in the 'Turon Star', and said it was just like him.

'He's a wonderful clever fellow, the Captain. I've often thought when
I've been by myself in Melbourne, sitting quiet, smoking at night, and
turning all these things over, that it's a wonder he don't shoot himself
when he thinks of what he is and the man he ought to be.'

'He's head enough to take us safe out of this dashed old Sydney side,'
says I, 'and land us in another country, where we'll be free and happy
in spite of all that's come and gone. If he does that, we've no call to
throw anything up to him.'

'Let him do that,' says Jim, 'and I'll be his servant to the day of my
death. But I'm afeard it isn't to be any more than going to heaven right
off. It's too good, somehow, to come true; and yet what a thing it is
to be leading a working honest life and be afraid of no man! I was very
near like that in Melbourne, Dick,' he says; 'you've no notion what a
grand thing it was--when I'd done my week's work, and used to walk about
with Jeanie and her boy on Sundays, and pass the time of day with decent
square coves that I knew, and never dreamed I was different; then the
going home peaceful and contented to our own little cottage; I tell you,
Dick, it was heaven on earth. No wonder it regular broke my heart to
leave it.'

'We're close up to the township now,' says I. 'This wire fence and the
painted gate ain't more than a couple of miles off, that chap said at
the inn. I wish there was a fire-stick in it, and I'd never gone inside
a door of it. However, that says nothing. We've got to meet Starlight
somehow, and there's no use in riding in together. You go in first, and
I'll take a wheel outside the house and meet you in the road a mile or
two ahead. Where's your pistol?