m then,
as I knew by long experience. I was going to ask him where he'd put the
gold, but thought it best to leave that for some other time.

By and by, when we all turned out and had some breakfast, we took a bit
of a walk by ourselves and talked it over. We could hardly think it was
all done and over.

'The gold escort stuck up. Fourteen thousand ounces of gold taken.
Sergeant Hawkins shot dead. The robbers safe off with their booty.'

This is the sort of thing that we were sure to see in all the papers. It
would make a row and no mistake. It was the first time such a thing had
been thought of, much less carried out 'to rights', as father said,
'in any of the colonies.' We had the five thousand ounces of gold, safe
enough, too. That was something; whether we should be let enjoy it, or
what chance we had of getting right away out of the country, was quite
another matter. We were all sorry for Sergeant Hawkins, and would have
been better pleased if he'd been only wounded like the others. But these
sorts of things couldn't be helped. It was the fortune of war; his luck
this time, ours next. We knew what we had to expect. Nothing would make
much difference. 'As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.' We were up to
our necks in it now, and must fight our way out the best way we could.

Bar any man betraying the secret of the Hollow we might be safe for
years to come, as long as we were not shot or taken in fair fight. And
who was to let out the secret? No one but ourselves had the least notion
of the track or where it led to, or of such a place as the Hollow being
in the colony. Only us five were in possession of the secret. We never
let any of these other men come near, much less to it. We took good care
never to meet them within twenty miles of it. Father was a man that,
even when he was drunk, never let out what he didn't want other people
to know. Jim and I and Starlight were not likely to blab, and Warrigal
would have had his throat cut sooner than let on about anything that
might be against Starlight, or that he told him not to do.

We had good reason, then, to think ourselves safe as long as we had such
a place to make for whenever we were in danger or had done a stroke.
We had enough in gold and cash to keep us comfortable in any other
country--provided we could only get there. That was the rub. When we'd
got a glass or two in our heads we thought it was easy enough to get
across country, or to make away one by on