e strongly fatalistic. Commit one's way to God, you
say; then, shut one's eyes, drive ahead anyhow, and--the end will be
sure to be all right!"

"No, I did not say that. With the exception of the first sentence, Tom,
that is your way of stating the case, not God's way. If you ask in any
given difficulty, `What shall I do?' His word replies, `Commit thy way
unto the Lord. Trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass.' If
you ask, `How am I to know what is best?' the Word again replies, `hear,
ye deaf; look, ye blind, that you may see.' Surely that is the reverse
of shutting the eyes, isn't it? If you say, `how shall I act?' the Word
answers, `A good man will guide his affairs with discretion.' That's
not driving ahead anyhow, is it?"

"You may be right," returned Tom, "I hope you are. But, come, what does
your wisdom suggest in the present difficulty?"

"The first thing that occurs to me," replied the other, "is what
Flinders said, just before we were ordered off by the robbers. `Keep
round by Bevan's Gully,' he said, in the midst of his serio-comic
leave-taking; and again he said, `Bevan's Gully--sharp!' Of course
Paddy, with his jokes and stammering, has been acting a part all through
this business, and I am convinced that he has heard something about
Bevan's Gully; perhaps an attack on Bevan himself, which made him wish
to tell us to go there."

"Of course; how stupid of me not to see that before! Let's go at once!"
cried Tom, starting up in excitement. "Undoubtedly he meant that. He
must have overheard the villains talk of going there, and we may not be
in time to aid them unless we push on."

"But in what direction does the gully lie?" asked Fred, with a puzzled
look.

Tom returned the look with one of perplexity, for they were now a
considerable distance both from Bevan's Gully and Pine Tree Diggings, in
the midst of an almost unknown wilderness. From the latter place either
of the friends could have travelled to the former almost blindfold; but,
having by that time lost their exact bearings, they could only guess at
the direction.

"I think," said Fred, after looking round and up at the sky for some
time, "considering the time we have been travelling, and the position of
the sun, that the gully lies over yonder. Indeed, I feel almost sure it
does."

He pointed, as he spoke, towards a ridge of rocky ground that cut across
the western sky and hid much of the more distant landscape in th