on for Jonathan's. I
got there early, and it's well I did. I rode the sorrel hard, but I knew
he was pretty tough, and I was able to pay for him if I killed him. I
trusted to leaving him at Jonathan's, and getting a fresh horse there.
What with the walk over the bluff and the forest, having no sleep the
night before, and the bother and trouble of it all, I was pretty well
used up. I was real glad to see Jonathan's paddock fence and the old
house we'd thought so little of lately. It's wonderful how soon people
rise grand notions and begin to get too big for their boots.

'Hello, Dick, what's up?' says Jonathan. 'No swag, 'lastic-side boots,
flyaway tie, new rifle, old horse; looks a bit fishy don't it?'

'I can't stop barneying,' I said. 'Have you a decent horse to give
me? The game's up. I must ride night and day till I get home. Heard
anything?'

'No; but Billy the Boy's just rode up. I hear him a-talkin' to the gals.
He knows if anybody does. I'll take the old moke and put him in the
paddock. I can let you have a stunner.'

'All right; I'll go in and have some breakfast. It's as much as I dare
stop at all now.'

'Why, Dick Marston, is that you? No, it can't be,' said both girls
together. 'Why, you look like a ghost. He doesn't; he looks as if he'd
been at a ball all night. Plenty of partners, Dick?'

'Never mind, Dick,' says Maddie; 'go and make yourself comfortable in
that room, and I'll have breakfast for you while you'd let a cow out of
the bail. We don't forget our friends.'

'If all our friends were as true as you, Maddie,' I said, rather
down-like, 'I shouldn't be here to-day.'

'Oh! that's it, is it?' says she; 'we're only indebted to somebody's
laying the traps on--a woman of course--for your honour's company. Never
mind, old man, I won't hit you when you're down. But, I say, you go and
have a yarn with Billy the Boy--he's in the kitchen. I believe the young
imp knows something, but he won't let on to Bell and I.'

While the steaks were frying--and they smelt very good, bad as I felt--I
called out Master Billy and had a talk with him. I handed him a note to
begin with. It was money well spent, and, you mark my words, a
shilling spent in grog often buys a man twenty times the worth of it in
information, let alone a pound.

Billy had grown a squarish-set, middle-sized chap; his hair wasn't
so long, and his clothes were better; his eye was as bright and
bold-looking. As he stood tapping one of his boo