is it?" he asked.

"Goliath of Gath--or his brother!" said Paddy, pointing to a little
eminence behind which the sun had but recently set.

The horseman, who had come to a halt on the eminence and was quietly
regarding them, did indeed look as if he might have claimed kinship with
the giant of the Philistines, for he and his steed looked stupendous.
No doubt the peculiarity of their position, with the bright sky as a
glowing background, had something to do with the gigantic appearance of
horse and man, for, as they slowly descended the slope towards the fire,
both of them assumed a more natural size.

The rider was a strange-looking as well as a large man, for he wore a
loose shooting-coat, a tall wideawake with a broad brim, blue spectacles
with side-pieces to them, and a pair of trousers which appeared to have
been made for a smaller man, as, besides being too tight, they were much
too short. Over his shoulder was slung a green tin botanical box. He
carried no visible weapons save a small hatchet and a bowie-knife,
though his capacious pockets might easily have concealed half a dozen
revolvers.

"Goot night, my frunds," said the stranger, in broken English, as he
approached.

"The same to yersilf, sor," returned Flinders.

Anyone who had been closely watching the countenance of the stranger
might have observed a sudden gleam of surprise on it when the Irishman
spoke, but it passed instantly, and was replaced by a pleasant air of
good fellowship as he dismounted and led his horse nearer the fire.

"Good night, and welcome to our camp. You are a foreigner, I perceive,"
said Fred Westly in French, but the stranger shook his head.

"I not un'erstan'."

"Ah! a German, probably," returned Fred, trying him with the language of
the Fatherland; but again the stranger shook his head.

"You mus' spok English. I is a Swedish man; knows noting but a leetil
English."

"I'm sorry that I cannot speak Swedish," replied Fred, in English; "so
we must converse in my native tongue. You are welcome to share our
camp. Have you travelled far?"

Fred cast a keen glance of suspicion at the stranger as he spoke, and,
in spite of himself, there was a decided diminution in the heartiness of
his tones, but the stranger did not appear to observe either the change
of tone or the glance, for he replied, with increased urbanity and
openness of manner, "Yis; I has roden far--very far--an' moche wants
meat an' sleep."

As he spok