rst awakened in him long months before.

*****

It was five o'clock on Sunday afternoon. The fierce, blinding sun had
just disappeared behind the hideous basalt range twenty miles away
from the "Big Surprise," when Nell Lawson put on her white sun-hood and
walked slowly towards the old alluvial workings. When well out of sight
from any one, near the battery, she turned off towards the creek and
made for a big Leichhardt tree that stood on the bank. Underneath it,
and evidently waiting for her, was a black fellow, a truculent-looking
runaway trooper named Barney.

"You got him that fellow Barney?" she asked, in a low voice.

"_Yo ai_," he replied, keeping one hand behind his back. "Where that
plenty fellow money you yabber me vesterday?"

"Here," and she showed him some silver; "ten fellow shilling."

Barney grinned, took the money, and then handed her an old
broken-handled crockery teapot, which, in place of a lid, was covered
over with a strip of ti-tree bark, firmly secured to the bottom by a
strip of dirty calico.

As soon as the black fellow had gone she picked up that which he had
given her and walked quickly along the track till she reached the old
mail tin. She stood awhile and listened. Not a sound disturbed the
heated, oppressive silence. Placing the teapot on the ground, she lifted
the stiff, creaking lid of the tin and pushed it well back. Then, taking
up the teapot again, she placed one hand firmly upon the ti-tree bark
covering the top, while with the other she unfastened the strip of rag
that kept it in position. In another moment, grasping the broken spout
in her left hand, she held it over the open tin, and, with a rapid
motion, turned it upside down, and whipped away her right hand from the
piece of bark.

Something fell heavily against the bottom of the tin, and in an instant
she slammed down the lid, and threw the empty teapot in among the
boulders, where it smashed to pieces. Then, an evil smile on her dark
face, she placed her ear to the side of the tin and listened. A faint,
creeping, crawling sound was all she heard. In another minute, with hand
pressed tightly against her wildly beating heart, she fled homewards.

*****

"This will be my last ride over, dear Ted," was the beginning of the
letter to Ballantyne that lay in Channing's bosom. "Father is very ill,
and I cannot leave him. Do let me tell him, and ask his forgiveness; it
is so miserable for me to keep up this deceit."

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