pretty girl outside, laid out on the
table a much-thumbed, dirty pack of cards.

"Cut them, Bill. Drat you! what 'd you do that for, George? You know
you ain't never lucky--you oughter let Bill do it. No--no--no luck. Two,
three, nine o' spades, 'tis ill luck all through."

"Well, let Bill do it, Gran," said George with an oath, as he flung
down the cards, and they were picked up and shuffled, and cut again and
again; the old woman shook her head solemnly.

"'Tis bad luck the night," she said, "bad, bad luck. Don't you touch
Macartney's mob, or you 'll rue it. There's death some-wheres, but it
doesn't point to none o' you."

"Macartney probably," said another man, who was leaning against the slab
wall, and intently watching the girl in the doorway. "Come, Gran, don't
be croaking; if the cards ain't lucky, put 'em away till they are."

He looked cleaner and smarter than the other three--Nellie's brothers,
who were young fellows, little over twenty. They were good-looking,
strapping fellows, but the sweet simplicity in her face was in theirs
loutish stupidity, and their companion stood out beside them, though
probably he was nearly twice their age, as cast in a very different
mould. He was dressed as they were, in riding-breeches and shirt, but
the shirt was clean, his black hair and beard were neatly trimmed, the
sash round his waist was new and neatly folded, and the pistols therein
were bright and well kept. Gentleman Jim, the Durhams called him; as
Gentleman Jim he was known to the police throughout all the length and
breadth of New South Wales. What he had been once no man knew, though
evidently he was a man of some little culture and education; what he
was now was patent to every man--escaped convict, bushranger,
cattle-duffer--even a murder now and again, it was whispered, came not
amiss to Gentleman Jim. It was an evil face, with the handsome dark
eyes set too closely together, and when there is evil in a man's face at
forty, there is surely little hope for him; but bad as it was, to Nellie
Durham it was the one face in the world. Cattle-duffing--it hardly
seemed a sin to her. Ever since she could remember, her grandfather, and
her father, and when he died, her brothers, had driven off a few head
of cattle from the mobs that passed, and she in her simplicity hardly
realized the heinousness of the offence; and for the rest, she simply
believed nothing against her hero. He had been cruelly ill-treated,
cruelly