unds well,
doesn't it? Yet I bet you'd feel the same in my place--if you knew who
he was!"

Rigden stood mute.

"You won't cut me out for the reward, Mr. Rigden, if I tell you who it
is, between ourselves? You needn't answer: of course you won't.
Well--then--it's good old Bovill the bushranger!" And the sergeant's
face shone like the silver buttons of the sergeant's tunic.

"Captain Bovill!" gasped Rigden, but only because he felt obliged to
gasp something.

"Not so loud, man!" implored the sergeant, who had sunk his own voice to
the veriest whisper. "Yes--yes--that's the gentleman. None other!
Incredible, isn't it? Of course it wasn't Darlinghurst he escaped from,
but Pentridge; only I thought you'd guess if I said; it's been in the
papers some days."

"We get ours very late, and haven't always time to read them then. I
knew nothing about it."

"Well, then, you knew about as much as is known in Victoria from that
day to this. The police down there have lost their end of the thread,
and it was my great luck to pick it up again by the merest chance last
week. I'll tell you about that another time. But you understand what it
would mean to me?"

"Rather!"

"To land him more or less single-handed!"

"I won't tell a soul."

"And don't you go and take the man himself behind my back, Mr. Rigden!"
the policeman was obliged to add, with such jocularity as men feign in
their deadliest earnest.

But Rigden's laugh was genuine and involuntary.

"I can safely promise that I won't do that," said he. "But ask the other
fellows if they've seen the kind of man you describe; if they haven't,
no harm done."

The unprofitable inquiry was conducted in Moya's presence, who abruptly
disappeared, unable to bear any more and still hold her peace. Thereupon
Rigden breathed more freely, and offered supper with an improving grace;
the very tracker was included in the invitation, which was accepted with
the frank alacrity of famished men.

"And it's not the last demand we shall have to make on you," said
Harkness, as he washed in Rigden's room; "we've ridden our cattle off
their legs since we were here in the afternoon. We must hark back on our
own tracks first thing in the morning. Beds or bunks we shall want for
the night, and fresh horses for an early start."

Rigden thought a moment.

"By all means, if you can stand the travellers' hut. It's empty, but in
here we're rather full. As for horses, I've the very three for you.