y. "What have you been doing to get into
this scrape?"

"Have you ever been in that--that place I was in last night?" asked
Kirkland.

Rufus Dawes nodded.

"Does the Commandant know what goes on there?"

"I suppose so. What does he care?"

"Care! Man, do you believe in a God?" "No," said Dawes, "not here. Hold
up, my lad. If you fall, we must fall over you, and then you're done
for."

He had hardly uttered the words, when the boy flung himself beneath the
log. In another instant the train would have been scrambling over his
crushed body, had not Gabbett stretched out an iron hand, and plucked
the would-be suicide from death.

"Hold on to me, Miss Nancy," said the giant, "I'm big enough to carry
double."

Something in the tone or manner of the speaker affected Kirkland to
disgust, for, spurning the offered hand, he uttered a cry and then,
holding up his irons with his hands, he started to run for the water.

"Halt! you young fool," roared Troke, raising his carbine. But Kirkland
kept steadily on for the river. Just as he reached it, however, the
figure of Mr. North rose from behind a pile of stones. Kirkland jumped
for the jetty, missed his footing, and fell into the arms of the
chaplain.

"You young vermin--you shall pay for this," cries Troke. "You'll see if
you won't remember this day."

"Oh, Mr. North," says Kirkland, "why did you stop me? I'd better be dead
than stay another night in that place."

"You'll get it, my lad," said Gabbett, when the runaway was brought
back. "Your blessed hide'll feel for this, see if it don't."

Kirkland only breathed harder, and looked round for Mr. North, but Mr.
North had gone. The new chaplain was to arrive that afternoon, and it
was incumbent on him to be at the reception. Troke reported the ex-bank
clerk that night to Burgess, and Burgess, who was about to go to dinner
with the new chaplain, disposed of his case out of hand. "Tried to bolt,
eh! Must stop that. Fifty lashes, Troke. Tell Macklewain to be ready--or
stay, I'll tell him myself--I'll break the young devil's spirit, blank
him."

"Yes, sir," said Troke. "Good evening, sir."

"Troke--pick out some likely man, will you? That last fellow you had
ought to have been tied up himself. His flogging wouldn't have killed a
flea."

"You can't get 'em to warm one another, your honour," says Troke.

"They won't do it."

"Oh, yes, they will, though," says Burgess, "or I'll know the reason
why. I won't have my