er saw him.

Next thing I saw was Starlight being brought in, handcuffed, between
two troopers, and looking as if he'd ridden a long way. He was just as
easy-going and devil-may-care as ever. He said to one of the troopers--

'Here we are at last, and I'm deuced glad of it. It's perfectly
monstrous you fellows haven't better horses. You ought to make me
remount agent, and I'd show you the sort of horses that ought to be
bought for police service. Let me have a glass of beer, that's a good
fellow, before I'm locked up. I suppose there's no tap worth speaking of
inside.'

The constable laughed, and had one brought to him.

'It will be some time before you get another, captain. Here's a long one
for you; make the most of it.'

Where, in the devil's name, is that Warrigal? I thought to myself. Has
he given them the slip? He had, as it turned out. He had slipped the
handcuffs over his slight wrists and small hands, bided his time, and
then dashed into a scrub. There he was at home. They rode and rode, but
Warrigal was gone like a rock wallaby. It was a good while before he was
as near the gaol again.

All this time I'd been wondering how it was they came to drop on our
names so pat, and to find out that Jim and I had a share in the Momberah
cattle racket. All they could have known was that we left the back of
Boree at a certain day; and that was nothing, seeing that for all they
knew we might have gone away to new country or anywhere. The more I
looked at it the more I felt sure that some one had given to the
police information about us--somebody who was in it and knew all about
everything. It wasn't Starlight. We could have depended our life on him.
It might have been one of the other chaps, but I couldn't think of any
one, except Warrigal. He would do anything in the world to spite me
and Jim, I knew; but then he couldn't hurt us without drawing the net
tighter round Starlight. Sooner than hurt a hair of his head he'd have
put his hand into the fire and kept it there. I knew that from things
I'd seen him do.

Starlight and I hadn't much chance of a talk, but we managed to get news
from each other, a bit at a time; that can always be managed. We were to
be defended, and a lawyer fetched all the way from Sydney to fight our
case for us. The money was there. Father managed the other part of it
through people he had that did every kind of work for him; so when the
judge came up we should have a show for it.

The wear