as he produced pipe and tobacco; but it was
not his sinister smile; it was rather that of the victor who salutes the
vanquished in his heart. Meanwhile a more striking and a more subtle
change had come over the face of Kilbride. It was not joy, but it was
quite a new grimness, and in his own preoccupation the bushranger did
not notice it at all. He sauntered nearer with his knife and his
tobacco-plug, and there was some compassion in his pensive stare.

"Cheer up, man!" said he. "There's no disgrace in coming out second best
to me. You may smile. You'll find it's generally admitted in New South
Wales. And after all, you needn't tell little crooked Cairns how it
happened. So that stops your smile! But he's the best man left on my
tracks, and I shouldn't be surprised if he's the first to find you."

"No more should I!" said a harsh voice behind the bushranger. "Hands up
and empty, Stingaree, or you're the next dead man in this little
Colony!"

Quick as thought Stingaree stepped in front of the tied Victorian. But
his hands were up, and his eye-glass dangling on its string.

"Oh, you don't catch me kill two birds," rasped the newcomer's voice,
"though I'm not sure which of you would be least loss!"

Stingaree stood aside once more, and waved his hands without lowering
them, bowing from his captor to his captive as he did so.

"Superintendent Cairns, of New South Wales--Inspector Kilbride, of
Victoria," said he. "You two men will be glad to know each other."

The New South Welshman drawled out a dry expression of his own
satisfaction. His was a strange and striking personality. Dark as a
mulatto, and round-shouldered to the extent of some distinct deformity,
he carried his eyes high under the lids, and shot his piercing glance
from under the penthouse of a beetling brow; a lipless mouth was pursed
in such a fashion as to shorten the upper lip and exaggerate an already
powerful chin; and this stooping and intent carriage was no less
suggestive of the human sleuth-hound than were the veiled vigilance and
dogged determination of the lowered face. Such was the man who had
succeeded where Kilbride had failed--succeeded at the most humiliating
moment of that most ignominious failure--and who came unwarrantably from
the wrong side of the Murray. The Victorian stood in his bonds and
favored his rival with such a glare as he had not levelled at Stingaree
himself. But not a syllable did Kilbride vouchsafe. And the
Superintende