g; have you found any thing yet?"

Before we had time to answer that question, Maurice called the officer's
attention, and relieved us of a reply.

"If you please, sir, there's a dog out here at the edge of the clearing,
and he's got a bushranger down, and has had him there ever since they
run for their lives. The animal won't let one of us come near him, and
threatens the throat of the robber, every time he offers to move. I
can't tell, in the dark, what kind of a dog he is, but I think it's the
one the gentlemen own."

"Poor Rover, I have missed him for an hour or two. Let us go and see
whom he has taken as prisoner," I said.

We followed Maurice to the spot, and found Rover standing sentry over a
prisoner, whose slightest motion caused a growl of warning. I called off
the dog, and ordered the fellow to get up, so that we could see who he
was.

"Vell, of all the games that I ever seed, this is a beater!" cried a man
whose voice was familiar to me.

"Ah, Mr. Steel Spring," said Fred, seizing the individual by the collar;
"we have you in our power again."

"Vell, if I haint thankful to think that I've hescaped from them ere
villains, and got into decent company again. I 'ave trembled at the
profanity of the brutes, and feared for my life ever since I've been
with 'em."

"Do you think, you long-legged wretch, that you can impose upon us for
the second time? Do you suppose that after betraying us into the hands
of your companions you are to be spared?" we demanded, indignantly.

"Vell, 'ere's a go. All through my life I 'ave been suspected vithout
cause. Fust, I'm cast hoff by my hungrateful parents, and left to seek
my living, and artervords I'm made a fool of, and gets transported, and
now the very coves vot I thought friends, turns agin me. Vot a vorld
this is!"

"Why, you hypocritical rascal, did you not first deceive us by saying
that there were no bands of bushrangers in the woods, and while we were
digging did you not raise an alarm which brought upon us Nosey and all
of his gang?"

"Ha, ha!" roared Steel Spring; "vot a funny man that Nosey is! so
handsome, too!"

"You rascal, you will laugh differently in a few minutes. Lieutenant,
let him be tied to a tree, and give him a few dozen across his bare
back."

"No, don't do that," cried the fellow, in some alarm. "I never could
stand a flogging, and my proud spirit vill break if I get's one."

"Tie him up, Maurice," said Murden, coolly. "I recollect