de, while Jim held him.

"What do we do with the game?" said he.

"Oh, Jerry will be along on our tracks presently," said Jim. "He brings
me the tail, and does what he likes with the rest. I wonder where Sam
and Alice are?"

"Oh, they are right enough," said Halbert, laughing. "I dare say they
are not very anxious about the kangaroo, or anything else. That's 'a
case,' I suppose?"

"Well, I hope it is," said Jim; "but you see I don't know. Girls are so
odd."

"Perhaps he has never asked her."

"No; I don't think he has. I wish he would. You are not married, are
you?"

"My God--no!" said Halbert, "nor ever shall be."

"Never?"

"Never, Jim. Let me tell you a story as we ride home. You and I shall
be good friends, I know. I like you already, though we have only known
one another two days. I can see well what you are made of. They say it
eases a man's mind to tell his grief. I wish it would mine. Well;
before I left England I had secretly engaged myself to marry a
beautiful girl, very much like your sister, a governess in my
brother-in-law's family. I went off to join my regiment, and left her
there with my sister and her husband, Lord Carstone, who treated her as
if she was already one of the family--God bless them! Two years ago my
father died, and I came into twenty thousand pounds; not much, but
enough to get married on in India, particularly as I was getting on in
my profession. So I wrote to her to come out to me. She sailed in the
Assam, for Calcutta, but the ship never arrived. She was spoken off the
Mauritius, but never seen after. The underwriters have paid up her
insurance, and everyone knows now that the Assam went down in a
typhoon, with all hands."

"God bless you," said Jim! "I'm very sorry for that."

"Thank you. I have come here for change of scene more than anything,
but I think I shall go back soon."

"I shall come with you," said Jim. "I have determined to be a soldier,
and I know the governor has interest enough to get me into some
regiment in India." (I don't believe he had ever thought of it before
that morning.)

"If you are determined, he might. His services in India were too
splendid to have been forgotten yet."

"I wonder," said Jim, "if he will let me go? I'd like to see Alice
married first."

They jogged on in silence for a little, and slowly, on account of the
wounded dogs. Then Jim said,--

"Well, and how did you like your sport?"

"Very much, indeed; but I thought bus