is heart is."

"Keep your remarks to yourself," said Mr. Wright, sternly, addressing
the prostrate man; but that they had no intention of doing, for, like
all desperadoes, they were determined to appear "game" to the last.

"Don't you think, master, dear, that I'd better string 'em on me spear
like herring? 'Twould save a dale of trouble," asked Mike.

"That death would be too easy for them. They must die on the gallows,"
Mr. Wright said, impressively.

"And how do you know which is the easiest, old cock?" demanded Bill.
"Was you ever hung for sheep stealing, or skewered for house breaking?"

"Pay no attention to them, sir," Nancy exclaimed. "They are demons from
the other world, and will soon be at home."

"Amen," piously ejaculated the ghost.

We managed, after some little persuasion, to get the women upon their
feet, and inspire them with energy enough to undertake the journey to
the house.

[Illustration: "Don't harm her!" exclaimed the younger woman, removing
her hands from her face, and endeavoring to shelter the person of her
companion; but the bushrangers were regardless of her entreaties, and
pushed her aside with rudeness.]

As for the horses and the dead bushranger, we left them at the ford
until morning, when Mr. Wright proposed to send men out to bury the
one, and secure the others, and, if possible, return them to their
owners.

As we walked along, Nancy related to me the adventures which she had
encountered since leaving Melbourne. She was an old campaigner in
Australia, and was on her way to Tares Creek to join her husband, who
had been mining in that location ever since gold was first discovered.

He had intrusted her with a few hundred pounds to visit the city and
purchase provisions and articles of daily use sufficient to last them
through the wet season, and she had performed her mission, and instead
of waiting for one of the regular freighting teams to take her to the
creek, she had engaged passage with two miners, one of whom had his wife
with him, and who owned a pair of horses and a wagon. Luckily Nancy had
left her goods in the city, with orders to forward them by the freight
wagons, so that she lost nothing personally, even if the ruffians did
search her person, disbelieving her assertion that she was destitute of
money and valuables.

The bushrangers had ambushed the party and shot them at their leisure,
and did the business as coolly and with as much indifference as though
the