left along
the creek channel, throwing himself down on his face among the bushes,
when the whole four of 'em jumps down the bank after him.

'Stand!' says Moran, and they looked up and saw him and Daly covering
them with their revolvers. Before they'd time to draw, two of 'em rolls
over as dead as door-nails.

The other two were dumbfoundered and knocked all of a heap by suddenly
finding themselves face to face with the very men they'd been hunting
after for weeks and weeks. They held up their pistols, but they didn't
seem to have much notion of using them--particularly when they found
father had rounded on 'em too, and was standing a bit away on the side
looking very ugly and with his revolver held straight at 'em.

'Give in! Put down your irons,' says Moran, 'or by----, we'll drop ye
where ye stand.'

'Come on,' says one, and I think he intended to make a fight for it.

He'd 'a been better off if he had. It couldn't have been worse for him;
but the other one didn't see a chance, and so he says--

'Give in, what's the good? There's three to two.'

'All right,' says the other chap, the big one; and they put down their
pistols.

It was curious now as these two were both men that father and Moran had
a down on. They'd better have fought it out as long as they could stand
up. There's no good got by givin' in that I ever seen. Men as does so
always drop in for it worse in the end.

First thing, then, they tied 'em with their hands behind 'em, and let
'em stand up near their mates that were down--dead enough, both of them,
one shot through the heart and one through the head.

Then Moran sits down and has a smoke, and looks over at 'em.

'You don't remember me, Mr. Hagan?' says he, in his drawling way.

'No,' says the poor chap, 'I don't think I do.'

'But I remember you devilish well,' says Moran; 'and so you'll find
afore we leave this.' Then he took another smoke. 'Weren't you warder in
Berrima Gaol,' says he, 'about seven year ago? Ah! now we're coming to
it. You don't remember getting Daniel Moran--a prisoner serving a long
sentence there--seven days' solitary on bread and water for what you
called disobedience of orders and insolence?'

'Yes, I do remember now. I'd forgotten your face. I was only doing my
duty, and I hope you won't bear any malice.'

'It was a little thing to you, maybe,' says Moran; 'but if you'd had to
do seven long days and long cold nights in that devil's den, you'd 'a
thought more