appear in a thicket of brush. I stopped,
and with rifle on the cock, waited for his re-appearance; but as I heard
nothing from him, I concluded that I would beat up his quarters before
the rest of my party came along.

I examined the thicket, and to my surprise, found that it was composed
of a species of brier, with long, needle-like thorns upon every twig,
and that the idea of a man's passing through it, unless dressed in
armor, was impossible, as he would have been punctured in every pore,
and would have shed blood at every step. I did not like to think that I
had been subjected to an optical delusion, and so I continued on for a
short distance, but could find no trail, although I observed that Rover
snuffled around in an unusual manner, and appeared uneasy.

"Hullo," cried Fred, who had now entered the woods with the rest of the
party, "what are you doing away from the path?"

I returned a trivial answer, and joined them in their walk towards the
clearing; yet I felt as though I had not done my duty, and examined the
mysterious disappearance of the shadow which I saw, with sufficient
attention. A fear of ridicule and a dread of wasting time alone
prevented me from speaking.

"The woods are unusually quiet," the stockman said, as we moved along in
Indian file. "I never visited here without being provoked at the
ceaseless chatter of the parrots, and yet to-day but few are to be heard
and none seen. They have become shy, and an explanation would be
satisfactory to account for the fact."

As no surmise was made by either of the party, the conversation
dropped, and it was not until we were standing over the half charred
bones of the bushrangers, which had been pawed around by the fox-like
animals of the woods, that we again spoke.

The ashes of the burned hut were still visible, so that its location was
defined without trouble, but the great question to be solved was where
the treasure lay buried. To determine this we had purchased an excellent
pocket compass in Melbourne, and upon taking the bearings we found that
the bushrangers were exactly in a south-west direction from where the
hut stood.

"Now," said the old stockman, "repeat the exact words of Gulpin, when
telling you of the buried money."

"Ten paces in a south--," I replied, promptly.

"Nothing more?" he demanded.

"Not a syllable."

"Then let us set the compass and pace off the distance in a south-west
line, and begin digging."

The ten paces we