r it; now we had got it, and had to bear it. Not for want of
warning, neither. What had mother and Aileen been saying ever since we
could remember? Warning upon warning. Now the end had come just as they
said. Of course I knew in a general way that I couldn't be punished
or be done anything to right off. I knew law enough for that. The
next thing would be that I should have to be brought up before the
magistrates and committed for trial as soon as they could get any
evidence.

After breakfast, flour and water or hominy, I forget which, the warder
told me that there wasn't much chance of my being brought up before
Christmas was over. The police magistrate was away on a month's leave,
and the other magistrates would not be likely to attend before the end
of the week, anyway. So I must make myself comfortable where I was.
Comfortable!

'Had they caught Jim?'

'Well, not that he'd heard of; but Goring said it was impossible for him
to get away. At twelve he'd bring me some dinner.'

I was pretty certain they wouldn't catch Jim, in spite of Goring being
so cocksure about it. If he wasn't knocked off the first mile or so,
he'd find ways of stopping or steadying his horse, and facing him up to
where we had gone to join father at the tableland of the Nulla Mountain.
Once he got near there he could let go his horse. They'd be following
his track, while he made the best of his way on foot to the path that
led to the Hollow. If he had five miles start of them there, as was most
likely, all the blacks in the country would never track where he got to.
He and father could live there for a month or so, and take it easy until
they could slip out and do a bit of father's old trade. That was about
what I expected Jim to do, and as it turned out I was as nearly right
as could be. They ran his track for ten miles. Then they followed his
horse-tracks till late the second day, and found that the horse had
slued round and was making for home again with nobody on him. Jim was
nowhere to be seen, and they'd lost all that time, never expecting that
he was going to dismount and leave the horse to go his own way.

They searched Nulla Mountain from top to bottom; but some of the
smartest men of the old Mounted Police and the best of the stockmen
in the old days--men not easy to beat--had tried the same country many
years before, and never found the path to the Hollow. So it wasn't
likely any one else would. They had to come back and own that t