suspected him, but he was not rendered less hearty or free-and-easy on
that account.

In the course of conversation Paul chanced to refer to Betty.

"Ah! me frund," said the stranger, "has you brought you's vife to dis
vile contry!"

"No, I haven't," replied Paul, bluntly.

"Oh, pardon. I did t'ink you spoke of Bettie; an surely dat is vooman's
name?"

"Ay, but Betty's my darter, not my wife," returned Paul, who resented
this inquisition with regard to his private affairs.

"Is you not 'fraid," said the botanist, quietly helping himself to a
marrow-bone, "to leave you's darter at Simpson's Gully?"

"Who told you I left her there?" asked Bevan, with increasing asperity.

"Oh! I only t'ink so, as you's come from dere."

"An' why should I be afraid?"

"Because, me frund, de contry be full ob scoundrils."

"Yes, an' you are one of the biggest of them," thought Fred Westly, but
he kept his thoughts to himself, while Paul muttered something about
being well protected, and having no occasion to be afraid.

Perceiving the subject to be distasteful, the stranger quickly changed
it. Soon afterwards each man, rolling himself in his blanket, went to
sleep--or appeared to do so. In regard to Paddy Flinders, at least,
there could be no doubt, for the trombone-tones of his nose were
eloquent. Paul, too, lay on his back with eyes tight shut and mouth
wide open, while the regular heaving of his broad chest told that his
slumbers were deep. But more than once Fred Westly raised his head
gently and looked suspiciously round. At last, in his case also, tired
Nature asserted herself, and his deep regular breathing proved that the
"sweet restorer" was at work, though an occasional movement showed that
his sleep was not so profound as that of his comrades.

The big botanist remained perfectly motionless from the time he lay
down, as if the sleep of infancy had passed with him into the period of
manhood. It was not till the fire had died completely down, and the
moon had set, leaving only the stars to make darkness visible, that he
moved. He did so, not as a sleeper awaking, but with the slow stealthy
action of one who is already wide awake and has a purpose in view.

Gradually his huge shoulders rose till he rested on his left elbow.

A sense of danger, which had never left him even while he slept, aroused
Fred, but he did not lose his self-possession. He carefully watched,
from the other side of the extinct fire,