ropper."

Mr. Cumshaw pulled the bushes apart and found that he was standing on
the verge of a sheer descent.

"Mind your eye," said the voice of the still invisible Mr. Bradby. "I've
found the very place we've been looking for."

CHAPTER III.

THE HIDDEN VALLEY.

Abel Cumshaw caught at the bushes to save himself from slipping and
turned a curious eye on the scene before him. Really there wasn't very
much for him to see. Bradby had fallen into a miniature valley so small
that it looked like the creation of a child. The place was heavily
timbered, and almost all definable features were masked beneath the
trees. Abel saw even in the first glance that here was just that ideal
hiding-place for which they had been searching. Softly and cautiously he
commenced to descend. The slope was slippery with green grass, and he
finished the last few yards with a run. He came down amongst a lot of
bracken and fern, and suffered no worse harm than the shock of a sudden
stoppage. Mr. Bradby, he saw, was sitting almost buried in a mass of
bracken, and looking much cheerier than his recent utterance would seem
to suggest.

"Are you hurt?" Cumshaw asked him. He held out a helping hand. Mr.
Bradby struggled to his feet and smiled at his questioner.

"Hurt? No," he said. "Only surprised. Why, Abel, here's the very place
we want. We could hide here for years, and they could be scouring the
country for us, and them not a penny the wiser. That tumble of mine was
just the luckiest thing imaginable. You talk about falling into hell!
Why, man, we've fallen into heaven, and if we don't make the best use we
can of the place we're the biggest duffers alive."

"How are we to get the horses down here?" queried the practical Mr.
Cumshaw.

Mr. Bradby eyed the slope down which he had come so precipitately, and
then pursed up his lips.

"It don't look so easy from here," he said at length. "And from what I
can see this place is walled in all round."

"Whether it is or not," said Cumshaw, "we've got to get those horses
down, and get them down at once."

"But how?"

"That's what we've got to find out," said Cumshaw. And with that he
commenced to climb up the slope again. It was hard work, much harder
than coming down, but in the end he managed it. When he reached the top
he turned, to find that Bradby was almost at his heels. He surveyed the
place with the eye of a trained bushman; then he said, "We can manage
it, Jack. It's a case o