in' agin' letters,' said McKnight sullenly.

'No,' answered his mate, 'but really miners ain't supposed to have
mothers runnin' after 'em, like if they were kids.'

'Well,' said the other, on the defensive, 'your mother comes to me at
dinner time, an' she says: 'I s'pose 'taint likely you'll see my Dick,
Jacker.' I said,' No, Missus Haddon, 'taint, s'elp me.' Then she says,
'Well, if he should come to see you, will you give him this?' So I took
it, an' there you are.'

Dick read the letter slowly; it was a very artful letter, most pathetic,
and sprinkled with drops which might have been tears. The writer spoke
despondingly of her loneliness and her desolation, and the fears she
endured when by herself in the house at night, knowing there was a camp
of blacks in the corner paddock, and so many rough cattlemen about. She
was entirely helpless since her only protector had deserted her, and she
supposed that it only remained for her to be resigned to her fate. She
signed her self, 'Your forsaken and sorrow-stricken mother.'

When Dick had finished reading he started to put on his clothes.

'What's up, Morgan?' asked Phil.

'Knock off!' was the brief reply.

'But what yer goin' to do?'

'I'm goin' home.'

'Home!' cried Peterson. 'Why?'

'Because!'

Dick had the instincts of a leader; he demanded reasons for everything,
but gave none.

Before the lads parted that night young Haddon proffered Ted McKnight
excellent advice.

'Your dad's night shift, ain't he?' he said. 'Well, don't you go in till
near twelve. He'll be gone to work then, an' when he comes off in the
mornin' he'll be too tired to lick you much.' This, from an orphan with
practically no experience of paternal rule, argued a fine intuition.

CHAPTER V.

DICK HADDON did not enter his home immediately after parting with his
mates. Mrs. Haddon's little cottage, four roomed, with a queer skillion
front, was surrounded by a tumbled mass of tangled vegetation miscalled a
garden, and Dick loitered in the shadow of the back fence to consider
what manner of entrance would be most politic. He was shrewdly aware that
his mother might be tempted to make an attack on the impulse of the
moment, her most pathetic letter notwithstanding, and it was a point of
honour with him to offer no resistance and make no evasion when Mrs.
Haddon felt called upon to administer corporal punishment. To be sure the
maternal beatings occasioned very little physical inconvenience