We rode hardish (some people
would have called it a hand-gallop) most of the way; up hill and down,
across the rocky creeks, through thick timber. More than one river we
had to swim. It was mountain water, and Starlight cursed and swore, and
said he would catch his death of cold. Then we all laughed; it was the
first time we'd done that since we were out. My heart was too full to
talk, much less laugh, with the thought of being out of that cursed
prison and on my own horse again, with the free bush breeze filling my
breast, and the free forest I'd lived in all my life once more around
me. I felt like a king, and as for what might come afterwards I had
no more thought than a schoolboy has of his next year's lessons at the
beginning of his holidays. It might come now. As I took the old horse by
the head and raced him down the mountain side, I felt I was living again
and might call myself a man once more.

The sun was just rising, the morning was misty and drizzling; the long
sour-grass, the branches of the scrubby trees, everything we touched and
saw was dripping with the night dew, as we rode up a 'gap' between
two stiffish hills. We had been riding all night from track to track,
sometimes steering by guesswork. Jim seemed to know the country in a
general way, and he told us father and he had been about there a good
deal lately, cattle-dealing and so on. For the last hour or so we had
been on a pretty fair beaten road, though there wasn't much traffic
on it. It was one of the old mail tracks once, but new coach lines had
knocked away all the traffic. Some of the old inns had been good big
houses, well kept and looked after then. Now lots of them were empty,
with broken windows and everything in ruins; others were just good
enough to let to people who would live in them, and make a living by
cultivating a bit and selling grog on the sly. Where we pulled up was
one of these places, and the people were just what you might expect.

First of all there was the man of the house, Jonathan Barnes, a tall,
slouching, flash-looking native; he'd been a little in the horse-racing
line, a little in the prize-fighting line--enough to have his nose
broken, and was fond of talking about 'pugs' as he'd known intimate--a
little in the farming and carrying line, a little in every line that
meant a good deal of gassing, drinking, and idling, and mighty little
hard work. He'd a decent, industrious little wife, about forty times too
good for