it for two or three weeks--we were started on horseback with four
troopers overland all the way back. We went easy stages--we couldn't
ride any way fast--both of us handcuffed, and our horses led.

One day, about a fortnight after, as we were crossing a river,
Warrigal's horse stopped to drink. It was a swim in the middle of the
stream, and the trooper, who was a young chap just from the depot, let
go his leading rein for a bit. Warrigal had been as quiet as a lamb all
the time, and they hadn't a thought of his playing up. I heard a splash,
and looked round; his horse's head was turned to the bank, and, before
the trooper could get out of the river, he was into the river scrub and
away as fast as his horse could carry him. Both the troopers went after
him, and we waited half-an-hour, and then went on to the next police
station to stop till they came back.

Next day, late, they rode in with their horses regularly done and
knocked up, leading his horse, but no Warrigal. He had got clear away
from them in the scrub, jumped off his horse when they were out of
sight, taken off his boots and made a straight track for the West Bogan
scrub. There was about as much chance of running him down there as a
brumbie with a day's start or a wallaroo that was seen on a mountain
side the week before last. I didn't trouble my head that much to think
whether I was glad or sorry. What did it matter? What did anything
matter now? The only two men I loved in the world were dead; the two
women I loved best left forsaken and disgraced; and I--well, I was on my
way to be hanged!

I was taken along to Turon and put into the gaol, there to await my
trial. They didn't give me much of a chance to bolt, and I wouldn't have
taken it if they had. I was dead tired of my life, and wouldn't have
taken my liberty then and there if they'd given it me. All I wanted was
to have the whole thing done and over without any more bother.

It all passed like a dream. The court was crowded till there wasn't
standing room, every one wanting to get a look at Dick Marston, the
famous bush-ranger. The evidence didn't take so very long. I was proved
to have been seen with the rest the day the escort was robbed; the
time the four troopers were shot. I was suspected of being concerned in
Hagan's party's death, and half-a-dozen other things. Last of all, when
Sub-Inspector Goring was killed, and a trooper, besides two others badly
wounded.

I was sworn to as being one o