ord to him I'd pay him out one of these fine days,' he drawled
out, 'and he'll find that Dan Moran can keep his word.'

He picked a time when he knew Whitman was away at another station. I
always thought Moran was not so game as he gave himself out to be. And
I think if he'd had Whitman's steady eyes looking at him, and seeing a
pistol in his hand, he wouldn't have shot as straight as he generally
did when he was practising at a gum tree.

Anyhow, they laid it out all right, as they thought, to take the place
unawares. They'd been drinking at a flash kind of inn no great way off,
and when they rode up to the house it seems they were all of 'em
three sheets in the wind, and fit for any kind of villainy that came
uppermost. As for Moran, he was a devil unchained. I know what he was.
The people in the house that day trembled and shook when they heard the
dogs bark and saw five strange horsemen ride through the back gate into
the yard.

They'd have trembled a deal more if they'd known what was coming.

Chapter 36

When we found that by making darts and playing hide and seek with the
police in this way we could ride about the country more comfortable
like, we took matters easier. Once or twice we tried it on by night, and
had a bit of a lark at Jonathan's, which was a change after having to
keep dark so long. We'd rode up there after dark one night, and made
ourselves pretty snug for the evening, when Bella Barnes asked us if
we'd dropped across Moran and his mob that day.

'No,' says I. 'Didn't know they were about this part. Why, weren't they
at Monckton's the day before yesterday?'

'Ah! but they came back last night, passed the house to-day going
towards Mr. Whitman's, at Darjallook. I don't know, but I expect they're
going to play up a bit there, because of his following them up that time
the police nearly got Moran.'

'What makes you think that? They're only going for what they can get;
perhaps the riding-horses and any loose cash that's knocking about.'

'Billy the Boy was here for a bit,' says Maddie. 'I don't like that
young brat, he'll turn out bad, you take my word for it; but he said
Moran knew Mr. Whitman was away at the Castlereagh station, and was
going to make it a warning to them all.'

'Well, it's too bad,' said Bella; 'there's no one there but Mrs. Whitman
and the young ladies. It's real cowardly, I call it, to frighten a
parcel of women. But that Moran's a brute and hasn't the feeling