usage a cove meets for giving you something to eat,
and looking after yer hanimals. Take the cuss off, can't ye, and not let
him stand over me this way?"

"Call off the dog," whispered Murden; "I am afraid that the animal will
choke him to death, and then, lazy as he is, he still would be a loss,
for he gives me information at times concerning the movements of
bushrangers, which I can obtain nowhere else."

"Did he ever give you tidings that led to the arrest of thieves?" I
asked.

"No. I think not," replied the officer, after a moment's reflection;
"but that, you know, is no fault of Bimbo's. By his advice, I have twice
been near capturing parties of marauders. Something, however, has
happened to prevent me--either I would get the intelligence too late, or
the robbers had just changed their haunts."

"I see," replied Fred, with a grin; "the lazy, ignorant Bimbo has
blinded the eyes of one of the smartest lieutenants of police in
Australia, and by pretending to furnish information, has gained his
confidence, simply to place him on the wrong track."

"What mean you?" asked Murden, astonished.

"I mean that this scamp"--and by this time we were beside the fellow,
whose face bore every mark of the most abject terror--"has been in
league with the bushrangers for years; that he just entered into a
contract with Jim Gulpin, to set his gang free, and that he picked the
pocket of Maurice to get the key of the robber's irons, and that our
deaths were deliberately planned, and would have been carried into
effect, had we not chanced to overhear the bargain."

"So help me God, lieutenant, it's a lie!" shouted Bimbo, struggling to
his feet, a proceeding which the hound did not exactly like, and he
looked into my face as much as to ask whether it was all right, and
manifested hostility even when I called him away.

"You knows very well, lieutenant, that I've been the best spy on this
route for years, and that I always tells you all that happens, and now
to think that these strangers should come here, and try and take my
character away, it's too bad, it is," and the dirty scamp dug his filthy
fingers into his eyes, and tried to force a tear, but the effort was a
failure.

"How about the stolen articles in the cellar of the hut, a portion of
which you were to receive for setting the gang free?" asked Fred.

"There's none there," whined the fellow, "so help me God, there's none
there, and there's no use in searching."

"W