I'll beg Mr
Raydon to send help to you though, directly."

"Yes; do, my lad. I shall be in rather a dangerous position. Say I beg
of him to try and give me protection, for though I am fighting against
him here, all this was sure to come, and I might as well grow rich as
any one else."

I promised eagerly that I would; and we were hurrying through our
breakfast, when there was the trampling of feet and the breaking of wood
just below.

Gunson looked up and seized his rifle, to stand ready; and directly
after a man strode out of the dense forest and stood before us.

"Grey!" I exclaimed, wonderingly.

"Yes," he said, stolidly. "Morning."

"Have some breakfast?" said Gunson.

"Yes. Bit hungry," said Grey. Then turning to me and Esau--"Chief says
I'm to tell you both that as you have chosen to throw in your lot with
Mr Gunson here, you are not to come back to the Fort again."

I dropped my knife and sat half stunned, wondering what Mr and Mrs
John would say; and as I recovered myself, it seemed as if when a few
words of explanation would have set everything right, those words were
never to be spoken.

Esau had been as strongly affected as I was; but he recovered himself
first.

"Not to come back to the Fort again?" he cried.

"No," said Grey, with his mouth full. "Chief said if you were so mad
after gold, you might go mad both of you."

"Hurray!" cried Esau. "Then I'm going to be mad as a hatter with hats
full."

"Right," said Grey, stolidly, as he munched away at the cake and bacon.
"You're in the right spot."

"But hold hard," cried Esau, as another thought struck him. "This won't
do. He ain't going to keep her shut up in the Fort. I want my mother."

"Right," said Grey, setting down the tin mug out of which he drank his
hot tea. "I'll tell him you want your mother."

"Yes, do. I don't mind. I wanted to come up here."

"Well, Gordon, what have you to say?" cried Mr Gunson. "Any message to
send back?"

"Yes," I said, flushing and speaking sharply. "Tell Mr Raydon--no,
tell Mr and Mrs John that I have been cruelly misjudged, and that some
day they will know the whole truth."

"Right," said Grey. "I won't forget. Nothing to say to the chief?"

"No," I said; "nothing."

"Yes; a word from me," said Gunson. "Tell him that something ought to
be done to preserve order here, for the people are collecting fast, and
some of them the roughest of the rough."

"Yes," said Grey. "I'll te