thing and meaning another--ain't
as safe a game, let alone the profits of it, as mooching about
cattle-duffing and being lagged in the long run all the same.'

Chapter 23

'Because it's too late,' growled father; 'too late by years. It's sink
or swim with all of us. If we work together we may make ten thousand
pounds or more in the next four or five years, enough to clear out with
altogether if we've luck. If any of us goes snivelling in now and giving
himself up, they'd know there's something crooked with the lot of us,
and they'll run us down somehow. I'll see 'em all in the pit of h--l
before I give in, and if Jim does, he opens the door and sells the pass
on us. You can both do what you like.' And here the old man walked bang
away and left us.

'No use, Dick,' says Jim. 'If he won't it's no use my giving in. I can't
stand being thought a coward. Besides, if you were nabbed afterwards
people might say it was through me. I'd sooner be killed and buried a
dozen times over than that. It's no use talking--it isn't to be--we had
better make up our minds once for all, and then let the matter drop.'

Poor old Jim. He had gone into it innocent from the very first. He was
regular led in because he didn't like to desert his own flesh and blood,
even if it was wrong. Bit by bit he had gone on, not liking or caring
for the thing one bit, but following the lead of others, till he reached
his present pitch. How many men, and women too, there are in the world
who seem born to follow the lead of others for good or evil! They get
drawn in somehow, and end by paying the same penalty as those that meant
nothing else from the start.

The finish of the whole thing was this, that we made up our minds to
turn out in the bush-ranging line. It might seem foolish enough to
outsiders, but when you come to think of it we couldn't better ourselves
much. We could do no worse than we had done, nor run any greater risk to
speak of. We were 'long sentence men' as it was, sure of years and years
in prison; and, besides, we were certain of something extra for breaking
gaol. Jim and Warrigal were 'wanted', and might be arrested by any
chance trooper who could recollect their description in the 'Police
Gazette'. Father might be arrested on suspicion and remanded again and
again until they could get some evidence against him for lots of things
that he'd been in besides the Momberah cattle. When it was all boiled
down it came to this, that