n't cold. We've got to be in Bargo
barracks to-night, so there's no time to lose.'

It was all over now--the worst HAD come. What fools we had been not to
take the old man's advice, and clear out when he did. He was safe in the
Hollow, and would chuckle to himself--and be sorry, too--when he heard
of my being taken, and perhaps Jim. The odds were he might be smashed
against a tree, perhaps killed, at the pace he was going on a horse he
could not guide.

They searched the house, but the money they didn't get. Jim and I had
taken care of that, in case of accidents. Mother sat rocking herself
backwards and forwards, every now and then crying out in a pitiful way,
like the women in her country do, I've heard tell, when some one of
their people is dead; 'keening', I think they call it. Well, Jim and I
were as good as dead. If the troopers had shot the pair of us there and
then, same as bushmen told us the black police did their prisoners when
they gave 'em any trouble, it would have been better for everybody.
However, people don't die all at once when they go to the bad, and take
to stealing or drinking, or any of the devil's favourite traps. Pity
they don't, and have done with it once and for all.

I know I thought so when I was forced to stand there with my hands
chained together for the first time in my life (though I'd worked for
it, I know that); and to see Aileen walking about laying the cloth for
breakfast like a dead woman, and know what was in her mind.

The troopers were civil enough, and Goring, the senior constable, tried
to comfort them as much as he could. He knew it was no fault of theirs;
and though he said he meant to have Jim if mortal men and horses could
do it he thought he had a fair chance of getting away. 'He's sure to be
caught in the long run, though,' he went on to say. 'There's a warrant
out for him, and a description in every "Police Gazette" in the
colonies. My advice to him would be to come back and give himself
up. It's not a hanging matter, and as it's the first time you've been
fitted, Dick, the judge, as like as not, will let you off with a light
sentence.'

So they talked away until they had finished their breakfast. I couldn't
touch a mouthful for the life of me, and as soon as it was all over
they ran up my horse and put the saddle on. But I wasn't to ride him. No
fear! Goring put me on an old screw of a troop horse, with one leg like
a gate-post. I was helped up and my legs tied und