ame of hide-and-seek. "What are you doing here, sir?"

The black grinned, and, supporting himself on one leg by help of his
spear, made playful clutches at the delighted dogs with his right foot,
whose toes worked about as he used it as if it were a great awkwardly
shaped hand.

"_R-r-r-ur_!" growled the dogs together, as they now justified their
names, and blundered over one another in a make-believe attempt to bite
and worry the foot; Nic looking on amused as they threw themselves down,
rolling over and grovelling along on their sides and backs to get close
up and feel the black's toes tickle them, and catch hold of their shaggy
hair.

"Why don't you speak, sir? Why are you not at work?" cried Nic.

"Little White Mary say, `Bung, go along see master.'"

"What! did my sister send you?"

The black nodded and laughed.

"Then just you go back, sir, directly, and take those dogs with you."

"Little White Mary say come along," persisted the black.

"I don't care what any one said," cried Nic. "Be off back."

"Little White Mary say, `Gun no shoot--mumkull.'"

"Put down that spear," cried Nic, who now pointed the gun at Bungarolo,
who replied by striking an attitude, holding his spear in a graceful
position as if about to hurl it at the boy's head.

"No mumkull Bung?" cried the black.

"Not if you run off back," cried Nic. "If you don't I'll pepper you."

"No pepper Bung, no mumkull. Baal shoot gun. Little White Mary fellow
say Bung come."

"You go back home," cried the boy, following him up.

"Little White Mary say--"

"Go home."

"Little--"

"Will you go, sir? Here, Rum--Turn! Run him home."

The dogs made a rush, and the black darted off, but a hundred yards away
ran behind a tree, where the dogs hunted him out.

"Home!" roared Nic, and the black darted on again, Nic riding after him
again and again, till, satisfied that the black was really making for
the station, followed by the dogs, he made a circuit in among the trees,
and rode hard for a time, altering his course at last, and not pausing
till he was close up to the precipitous edge of the huge gorge.

Here the boy dismounted in a patch of rich grass surrounded by mighty
trees, hobbled his horse, removed the bit, which he hung to the saddle,
and then paused to think.

"He's here somewhere," the boy said to himself, "but the thing is
where."

He was not long coming to the conclusion that the convict had devoted
himself during his