ace nearest the town. He has got two of the best horses out
here--at least so Redgrave, that shepherd I was talking to today, told
me--and a well filled store of provisions. If he will let us have them
without rumpus, all well and good; if not, it will be the worse for
him. My idea is that we should ride two or three hundred miles along the
coast until we get to a river, follow it up till we find a tidy place
for a camp, and stop there for three or four months, then come back
again and keep ourselves quiet until we find out that a ship is going to
sail; then we will do a night among the farmhouses, and clean them out
of their watches and money, manage to get on board, and hide till we
are well out to sea. We must get a fresh fit out before we go on board;
these clothes are neither handsome nor becoming. We must put on our best
manners, and tell them that we are men who have served our full time,
and want to get back, and that we were obliged to hide because we had
not enough to pay our full passage money, but that we have enough to pay
the cost of our grub, and are ready to pull at a rope and make ourselves
useful in any way. If we are lucky we ought to get enough before we
start to buy horses and set ourselves up well in business at home."

"I think that is a very good plan," the other agreed, "and I am quite
sure the sooner we make ourselves scarce here the better."

CHAPTER VI.

While arranging for young Bastow being sent out with the first batch of
convicts John Thorndyke had been introduced to several of the officials
of the Department, and called upon them at intervals to obtain news of
the penal colony. Three years after its establishment a Crown colony had
been opened for settlement in its vicinity. As the climate was said to
be very fine and the country fertile, and land could be taken up without
payment, the number who went out was considerable, there being the
additional attraction that convicts of good character would be allotted
to settlers as servants and farm hands.

Six years after Arthur Bastow sailed the Squire learned that there
had been a revolt among the convicts; several had been killed, and the
mutiny suppressed, but about a dozen had succeeded in getting away.
These had committed several robberies and some murders among the
settlers, and a military force and a party of warders from the prison
were scouring the country for them.

"Of course, Mr. Thorndyke," the official said, "the Gove