IX

IN the four days and a half of their first week on the field Burton and

Done cleared close upon seven hundred pounds. By the end of the second

week they had worked out their first mine, and Jim possessed eight

hundred pounds. They tried another claim, and bottomed on the pipeclay.

The hole was a duffer. They tried a third, and cut the wash once more.

This claim was not nearly so rich as their first, but rich enough to pay

handsomely, and Mike, young as he was, was too old a miner to abandon a

good claim on the chance of finding a better. By this time Jim was

feeling himself quite an experienced digger; he could sink a straight

shaft, knock down wash-dirt with the best, and pan off a prospect as

neatly and with as workmanlike a flourish as any man on the field. He was

rapidly coming into close touch with the life about him, adopting the

manners of his associates, and slowly wearing down that diffidence which

still clung to him in the society of strangers. He was reticent, but

there remained no suspicion, no animosity towards his kind. Looking back

a year, he could hardly recognise himself; the Jim Done of Chisley seemed

an old man by comparison. Already Jim of Forest Creek could laugh at Jim

o' Mill End, but the consciousness of an escape from a horror remained.

How serious he had been in those days! How he had permitted himself to

suffer! Thank God, it was all gone!

Going into the tent on the afternoon of the second Sunday, Jim found his

mate asleep on one of the bunks. In the hollow of his out-thrown hand lay

a cheap lacquered frame containing a daguerreotype of a girl's face. A

sudden contrition smote Jim; he turned anxiously to his bunk, throwing

the clothes left and right. The vest he had worn when he left the Francis

Cadman lay under the pillow. He dived his finger into the watch-pocket,

and heaved a sigh of relief. Yes, it was there, safe and sound. He held

Lucy Woodrow's miniature, gazing on it, suffused with chastened emotions.

Heavens! how beautiful she was, and so gentle and generous! What an ass

he had been! He kissed the picture very tenderly, and with a bit of twine

secured it in the pocket of his jumper in dangerous proximity to his

heart.

Jim Done had now seen much of the fanciful night life of the camps. A

populous lead presented a picturesque appearance by night. The

illuminated tents and the flaring camp-fires dotted the field thickly,

and where the tents of the business people were drawn in line and

something like a main street formed, slush lights and kerosene torches

flamed and swinging oil-lamps lit up the scene. Here the wilder spirits

assembled and drank square gin, and gambled in the canvas shanty bars, or

danced with fine frenzy to music provided by some enterprising German

Fräulein stolidly grinding a hurdy-gurdy. There were numerous sly

grog-shops amongst the tents, and most of the storekeepers sold illicit

drink with open impudence. These places were often centres of roaring,

ribald life after nightfall; but the majority of the diggers lay in

groups about their camp-fires, chatting quietly or reading the most

recent papers available, and were peaceably inclined, easy-going

citizens.

It was the fiercer side of existence on the fields that appealed most

directly to Jim; he loved the strong colour, the exultant animation, the

devil-may-care character, that marked the gatherings in the bars and the

gambling-saloons. He took little active part in the playing and the

drinking, but the feverish energy of the men and the stirring scenes

provided such vivid contrast to what he had hitherto known and seen of

life that his soul was greedy for it all. To Mike these scenes were all

familiar; his attitude towards them was one of quiet indifference, and he

regarded Jim's rapture with the amused tolerance a sedate, elderly

gentleman feels for the enthusiasm of a little boy.

The mates had shifted their tent to a convenient position near the claim

they were now working, and were camped within two hundred yards of the

establishment of Mrs. Ben Kyley, laundress and baker. Mrs. Kyley was a

big-limbed, fresh-coloured, dimpled woman, whose native canniness did

not, militate in the least against an amazonian joviality that made her

hail-fellow-well-met with half the diggers on the field. Her voice was

the loudest amid the clamouring tongues in her large tent at night, and

her guffaw overbore everything; it was one of the wonders of Forest

Creek. Many a time its echoes, rebounding from Boulder Hill, had set all

Diamond Gully grinning in sympathy. It was not known whether Mrs. Kyley

and Ben were married or merely mates, but popular opinion tended to the

latter belief, legal unions being incompatible with a nice adjustment of

forces at the rushes. The exigencies of life on the diggings made sudden

changes of scene necessary to the men, and a woman like Mrs. Kyley

couldn't be expected to abandon her business for the sake of a husband,

seeing that it was so much easier to set up another husband than another

establishment. But the most important branch of the business, that of sly

grog-selling, made a man who could handle the riotous and evil-disposed

quite essential. Ben Kyley's appearance, broad, thickly-set, solid as a

gum-butt, broken-nosed and heavy-handed, and his reputation as the man

who was beaten by Bendigo only after an hour's hard fighting, marked him

as the fittest man on the field for the position he held. For the rest,

Ben was a quiet, mild man, whose voice was seldom heard, and whose

subjugation to Mrs. Ben was almost comical. Ben worked on his claim by

day, and at night he officiated as 'chucker-out' in Mrs. Kyley's bar--for

a bar it was, to all intents and purposes. Ben's duty was not to suppress

disorder, but merely to see that the common disorder did not develop into

licentiousness, to the danger of Mrs. Kyley's property or the detriment

of her trade.

Mrs. Ben Kyley made bread because bread-baking at three shillings a loaf

was an exceedingly profitable business. For the same reason she washed

shirts at twelve shillings the half-dozen. But selling rum at a shilling

a nobbler to 'flash' diggers who despised change was much more profitable

still. The industrious woman, who washed and baked all day, was kept busy

for the greater part of the night retailing rum to insatiable diggers,

and the mystery was that, although nobody could see rum in the bottle or

in bulk anywhere about the place, it was rare that the supply ran short.

Jim had visited the tent on one or two occasions, walking from the other

side of the gully; he went again on the Saturday afternoon following

their removal to buy bread. Mrs. Kyley's big camp-ovens were nestled in

the fires outside the tent, three of them in a row; Mrs. Kyley herself,

half smothered in suds, was washing with the rapidity and the

indefatigability of a machine.

'Aurora will attend to you, my boy,' blared Mrs. Kyley, blowing a storm

of suds out of her mop of hair.

Aurora! Jim entered the tent wondering, and found three or four men at

the counter, conversing with a young woman, twenty-three perhaps, tall,

black-haired, dark-eyed, flushed with colour, happy in temperament, free

in manner, a striking representative of a not uncommon type of the time,

meeting men on a mutual footing, asking no concessions and making

none--Jim's 'Spaniard' of the Melbourne dance saloon. She recognised him

immediately.

'Hello!' she cried. 'Look now! if it ain't the boy wid the blushes, an'

there's the blush to prove it agin' him.'

Jim was blushing; his rebellious blood gave the lie to his assumption of

easy indifference.

'How are you?' he said. 'I knew you at once.'

'To be sure. 'Twould be indacent to forgit, seem' it's my debtor ye are,

for the price of a dance.'

'Which you gave me for natural love and affection.'

''Deed, then 'twas because you were poor an' motherless in a strange

land, but now the gold's a worry to you, I doubt.'

Jim laughed and shook his head. 'I want a loaf,' he said. 'My mate is

hungry and waiting.'

'Heigho!' sighed Aurora; 'devil a scrap of gallantry have these slips of

boys, Quigley! You wouldn't leave me for all the mates on earth, would

you, now?'

The big bearded digger banged his fist on the counter, and swore a firm,

fluent oath that he would not.

'Worse luck,' added Aurora, with a twinkling eye. 'Here's yer bread,

Teddy-was-me-darlin', an' ye'd have it fer love if 'twas me own to give.'

Aurora assumed and dropped the musical brogue according to her whim.

Ordinarily her English was as pure as Mrs. Kyley's, and Mrs. Kyley had

the reputation of being a lady of vast attainments.

'There's the money,' said Jim, 'and will you take this for the dance?' He

offered her a nugget he had picked from the week's yield, a flat,

heart-shaped slug, curiously embossed.

''Deed, an' it's mighty fine,' said the girl, 'but I'd rather have ye me

debtor for life.'

'Take it for natural love and affection, then.'

'Ah, if it's the heart you're givin' me, I'll be uncommon greedy, so I

will.' She kissed the nugget, and slipped it into her breast.

Jim went away, glowing with the satisfaction a very young fellow feels in

having provoked the admiration of a woman and the jealousy of a man.

Aurora's of interest was open and unabashed. Quigley's jealous passion

was just as artless and free from disguise. Done had intended to send

that nugget as a natural curiosity to Lucy Woodrow. He put the shade of

regret the recollection provoked hastily out of his mind. Mike had heard

a good deal of talk about the new girl at Mrs. Kyley's, now Jim swelled

the chorus of admiration. Both young men spent that evening at the

washerwoman's tent.

The Kyley establishment consisted of a tent some fifty feet long, divided

into two compartments with a canvas partition. This screen ran just

behind the counter, and through it Mrs. Kyley dived to replenish her jug

of rum; but that room at the back represented the sanctity of the Kyley

home-life, and to it the diggers never penetrated. The public portion was

furnished with two long deal tables, at which the men sat on the Bush

stools and diced and drank, or played monotonous, if noisy, games of

euchre and forty-fives.

That night Aurora--surnamed Australis by a facetious digger--was

particularly attentive to Done. Jim was flattered by her open preference,

dazzled by her bright eyes and glowing cheeks, and piqued by her

bantering manner, for she still implied that he might be allowed

indulgences because of his beardless, boyish face and his seeming

ingenuousness. As a protest against this attitude, Done was impelled to

drink rather more rum than was good for him, and under the influence of

the fiery spirit he lost some thing of his habitual reserve, and a fight

with Quigley was only averted by the tactful intervention of Burton.

'Didn't like interferin', Jim,' said Mike next morning, 'but Quigley's a

hard nut and an ugly fighter. He'd have eaten you if you'd taken him on

as you stood.'

'I'm much obliged, old man,' answered Done mournfully. 'I suppose I made

an outrageous ass of myself.'

But he went back to Mrs. Kyley's bar again on the Monday evening, and

there got good advice from Aurora.

'You don't like this rubbish, Jimmy,' she said, serving him with the

drink he had asked for. The remark was made with an air of positive

assurance. They were alone.

'Well, no, I don't particularly,' he admitted.

'Then, don't be a fool. Don't gammon you do. You need not drink it. I

don't want you to. See here, Jimmy,' she continued gravely, 'Quigley

doesn't like you; he is looking for a chance to do you a mischief, and he

would have had his chance the other night if I hadn't overlooked you like

a mothering hen, and sold you good creek water at a shilling the nip.'

'I did act the fool, I admit.'

'Never a bit; but don't give Quigley his chance by numbing your good

sense with Mary Kyley's rum. Sure,' said Aurora, dropping into her honied

brogue, 'it's fer the love of me ye're comin', not for the dthrop o'

drink. Murther! would ye kill me wid denyin' it?' She was sitting on the

counter; she pressed her fingers on his lips, and laughed in his face

with happy impudence, her large handsome mouth full of pearls, her eyes

flashing a challenge. Jim's arm stole to her waist of its own initiative.

Then Mrs. Ben Kyley came roaring into the tent. 'Inveigling my girl

away!' she cried. 'Get out, you kidnapper! Where's your taste, anyhow,

philandering with a slip of a girl when there's a fine woman about with a

heart as empty as a big sieve?' And the bouncing washerwoman bore down

upon him, and bombarded him out of the place with gusts of laughter.

As yet, Done had seen little of the trials and tribulations of the

diggers. Diamond Gully was a prosperous rush, and the impositions under

which the Victorian miners complained so bitterly had not come home to

many on this field; but he had heard a great deal. The political and

social wrongs of the diggers were the staples of conversation about the

camp-fires. To Jim's great surprise, he found these men, surrounded with

the exciting conditions of their peculiar life, allowing their minds to

be occupied with aspirations after political freedom. The failure of

Chartism in England had driven thousands of hot-blooded champions of

popular rights to Australia, and these were the leaven that leavened the

whole lump. They talked of people's parliaments, manhood suffrage, and

payment of members in a country governed by a pack of British nominees

who had no knowledge of the bulk of the people and no sympathy with their

aspirations. The ideas stirred the miners; they found a lodgment in every

breast, and already men spoke of an Australian Republic south of the

Murray, governed on the liberal principles enunciated by Fergus O'Connor.

Jim had supposed the tolerance of man towards man, the absence of petty

prejudices, and the large appreciation of individual liberty that

belonged to the character of a brave, self population to be

manifestations of an absolute freedom; he found the men fired with a

passionate aspiration for liberty, just as the masses in England had been

five years earlier, and possessed of even more substantial reasons for

revolt. The idea of the young republic delighted him; he was already

prepared to shed his blood in establishing that glorious ideal. Stories

he had heard of the indignities to which the miners were subjected by an

insolent bureaucracy, of men being hunted down like dingoes and beaten

with the drawn swords of the troopers because of their failure to comply

with the outrageous licensing decrees, bred in him a hatred akin to that

felt by the diggers who had suffered in person.

But Done's first experience of a license-hunt was largely farcical. Mr.

Commissioner McPhee had chosen a sweltering hot day for his hunt. Most of

the diggers on Diamond Gully were below, sheltered from the mordant rays

of a sun that blazed in the cloudless sky, so close to earth that its

heat struck the face like a licking flame. Jim had just brought some

picks from the smithy, when he saw the troopers, headed by the magnate on

a fine chestnut, descend upon the gully, their glazed cap-peaks and their

swords flashing gaily in the sun. The mounted men divided at the head of

the gully, and came down on each side of the lead; the foot police

followed Commissioner McPhee, head Serang and cock of the walk from

Sawpit Gully to Castlemaine. The duty of the foot police was to rouse the

diggers out of their drives, and enforce the orders of the high and

mighty McPhee. On Diamond Gully the wash was so shallow that the police

had no difficulty in getting the men to the surface, and the inrush of

the troopers was the signal for a swarming The men poured from the

crowded claims, and in a few seconds the gully was awakened to violent

action, and given over to tumult.

The air resounded with the yells of the miners, raised in warning and

derision. 'Jo!--Jo!--Jo!' The cries travelled the whole length of the

lead, like a salute of musketry. Mike came up the rope, hand over hand.

'A license-hunt,' he said. 'Now you'll see how these gaol warders amuse

themselves.'

'What are we supposed to do?'

'Have your license handy. Show it to Huntsman McPhee, and keep your hands

off his hounds.'

Mr. Commissioner was not having much trouble; he came through the claims

like a monarch demanding obeisance and tribute, and the shouts of the

miners followed him. 'Jo!--Jo!--Jo!' The men made a sort of chorus of the

jibe. A fistful of wet pipe-clay thrown from the cover of a tip struck

the sergeant of troopers in the face, and he spurred his horse furiously

towards the spot. There was a rush of police and diggers, and a bit of a

melee resulted, but Sergeant Wallis received no satisfaction. Four or

five unlicensed diggers had been captured, luckless workers for whom

Fortune had spread no favours, and these were handed over to the mounted

police, who guarded them with drawn swords, accelerating their movements

with blows of the blade and not infrequent prickings, for the hatred in

which the diggers held the troopers was not more fierce than the

troopers' hatred for the men.

Done and Burton stood on the little hillock of mulluck about their shaft,

watching the course of events, when the Grand Serang rode at them. He was

a fine stamp of a man, and loved an effect in which he was the central

figure. It was becoming in a mere digger to make way for the horse of Mr.

Commissioner. Burton, however, stood his ground, the flush burning

through his tan, and, rather than give way an inch or be run down, raised

his hand and struck the noble nag of the big official on the nose with

his palm, with the result that the chestnut went up on his hind-legs,

pawing the air, and rattled down the tip on his heels, while the crowding

diggers, to whom any indignity inflicted upon a commissioner, however

trivial, was a joy and a solace, set up a shout of scornful laughter.

'What the devil, sir, do you mean by striking my horse?' thundered the

irascible McPhee.

'I don't care to be ridden down like a thieving dingo' replied Mike.

'Sergeant, search this impudent jackanapes, and if his license isn't

O.K., jam the beggar into the logs!'

At this point another handful of white clay was thrown from the back of

the crowd, and this time McPhee was the target. The clay struck hint in

the breast, and clung to his black cloth. Again there was a rush of

indignant and amazed under-strappers, and the Commissioner, crimson with

wrath, raised himself in his stirrups and shouted orders, the execution

of which it was beyond even his great power to enforce. They enjoined the

immediate precipitation of the offenders into the Bottomless Pit.

A diversion was created by the sudden appearance of a new quarry. A slim

youth had darted from behind one of the piles of mullock, and was running

at full speed up the lead towards the head of the gully, followed by

three foot police.

'After him!' shouted McPhee.

A couple of troopers and two more foot police joined in the chase, but

the youngster was a good runner and very cunning. He kept to the mined

ground, where the troopers would certainly have broken their necks had

they put their horses after him, and springing like a wallaby he cleared

the holes, and darted in and out amongst the tips, to the utter confusion

of the lubberly and ill-conditioned pursuers. Straight up the lead he

ran, and now all the foot police were hunting him, while the troopers

rode along the right and the left of the gully to keep him from breaking

for the tents, or for Boulder Hill, where there were hiding places

amongst the big rocks and in the wombat-holes under them.

'Run him down!' shouted McPhee, furious after the indignities that had

been put upon his high office. 'Five pounds to the man who nabs him!'

The diggers shouted a grand chorus of encouragement to the lad, and added

a cry of contempt for Mr. Commissioner and all his horde. A number of the

men joined in the chase, to add to the confusion of the police. The rest,

crowded on the higher ground, formed a large audience, and a more

enthusiastic audience, or a more vociferous one for its size, had never

witnessed a sporting event in wide Australia. The excitement grew with

every successful trick of the runaway, and now he was leading his hunters

in and out amongst the claims at the gully's head, apparently quite

indifferent to the heat of the day or the stress of the chase. The miners

were giving the youth all the assistance they could by devising

hindrances for the police. Barrows, picks, shovels, buckets, and

hide-bags found their way under the legs of the pursuers, windlass-ropes

were stretched to trip them up, and preoccupied miners jostled them at

every turn, and endeavoured to detain them in argument.

Presently the prisoners, in the charge of three troopers, finding

attention diverted from them, seized the opportunity to make a bolt for

the hunted digger's haven of refuge, Boulder Hill, and the confusion of

tongues swelled to one rapturous howl at the sight. The unlicensed

diggers spread, running their best, and dodging smartly to avoid the

horses. One poor devil went down under the hoofs of a big roan, and there

arose another roar of different portent.

The youngster was being hemmed in amongst a few claims on the extreme

left. The troopers had stationed themselves beyond, and the police were

closing in on him, while the crowd yelled encouragement and advice. With

a rush and a reckless spring from a mullock-heap, the youth cleared his

enemies again, and came racing up the gully once more, the baffled police

and a number of miners following pell-mell, the troopers cantering on the

wings of the hunt. If the boy could reach the crowd where it was thickest

there was a chance for him, but he was running straight at Commissioner

McPhee, who sat upon his horse watching the chase, and relieving his

official feelings with a flow of elegant objurgation.

On came the young digger, the cheers swelling as he advanced. The men of

Diamond Gully had never so thoroughly enjoyed anything in the nature of a

chase. It seemed that the race was to be to the swift. The crowd parted

to take the runner to its heart, when Sergeant Wallis threw himself from

his horse, and the young digger simply sank panting into his arms. Wallis

put on a grip that had reduced many a recalcitrant convict to order, and

looked inquiringly at McPhee, who had ridden to the spot. The crowd

closed round, overlooking the scene from mullock-heaps and

windlass-stands.

'Produce your license, you rascal!' roared the Commissioner.

The youth was too short of breath to speak, and remained panting under

Wallis's hand.

'He has no license, sergeant. Run him in!' said McPhee.

'Sure, Commissioner dear, what'd I be doin' wid a license whin I'm only a

woman?' The captive plucked the billycock from her head, and a mass of

black hair fell over her shoulders.

Done, who had pressed to the front, recognised Aurora. That section of

the crowd which saw and understood sent up a shout of surprise and

jubilation. Wallis retained his grip on the girl, and the sight of his

hands upon her stirred a savage resentment in Jim. He made a rush at the

sergeant, but Mike was beside him and held him.

'Don't be a fool, Jim. Don't give them a chance,' he said. 'She's right

as rain. McPhee can do nothing to her; he'll lumber you if you only open

your mouth!'

'What'll I do with him--her, sir?' asked Wallis.

'A pretty chase you've led us, you vixen!' blurted the Serang. 'For two

pins I'd chain you to the nearest log, and give the flies a treat.'

'Would hairpins do, Mack dear?' panted Aurora, thrusting an impertinent,

flushed, handsome face up at the Serang, and feeling amongst her tangled

hair.

There had been an expectant hush upon the men for the last few moments.

On this broke a great bovine roar of merriment from the opulent lungs of

Mrs. Ben Kyley, who stood foremost in the ring surrounding McPhee, the

sergeant, and the girl, her strong white hands, suspiciously pipeclayed,

supporting her shaking sides. The familiar guffaw was infectious; the

diggers caught it up, and, laughing like madmen, closed in on Wallis,

snatched his prisoner from his hands, and, hoisting her shoulder high,

bore her off in triumph.

Commissioner McPhee, surrounded by his minions, rode from Diamond Gully

that afternoon with one prisoner--the man who had been run down, and the

crowd that ushered him out bore Aurora Griffiths aloft, and sang a long

chant of derision, which, keenly as he felt it, the Serang did not dare

resent.

X

NATURALLY, Aurora's popularity was greatly increased, and the tent of

Mrs. Ben Kyley became a favourite rendezvous. The girl's good looks and

her good and Mrs. Kyley's own breezy, genial disposition, were sufficient

to assure a large interest on the part of the men; but Aurora, in taking

action against the troopers, had identified herself with the enemies of

officialdom. Thenceforth she was a public character. There were not so

many women about the rush but that scores of sober, reputable diggers

would have travelled far and drunk much indifferent rum merely for the

privilege of gazing upon the merry, handsome face of a girl like Aurora

Griffiths. Now she was in some measure their championess there was more

reason for offering devotion at her shrine, and Kyley's saw busy nights.

'Why did you do it?' asked Jim a few nights later, throwing into his

words a hint of reproach. Done was unconsciously assuming some little air

of proprietorship over Aurora. Whenever the girl noticed it smiles

sparkled in the corners of her brown eyes.

'Pure devilment! What else?' she answered.

'Wasn't it a little--just a little--' He was at a loss to express

himself, and Aurora's laugh chimed in.

'The dear boy's brought his sinse iv propriety wid him!' she cried.

'Maybe ye' have a few words to say on moral conduct an' the dacent

observances iv polite society, an' ye'll be axin' me to put on a proper

decorum before the min. Arrah! ye have some purty maxims for young

ladies, an' a heap iv illegant an' rare ideals iv yer own as to what's

good an' becomin' in young persons iv the other sex, haven't ye, dear?'

'No, no, no!' cried Done, shocked to find how easily he had slipped into

the attitude of the common moralist.

'I stand on my merits and my lack of them, Jimmy. There's only one of me

here!' She touched her breast. 'And good, bad, or indifferent, my friends

must take me whole.'

'Whole, then.'

'Wait, boy, you don't know a fifth of it yet.'

'Do your worst, and test my devotion, Aurora. I defy you!' Jim was

getting on.

'Devil doubt you. You're a bold man, Mister Jimmy Done, an' I like your

cheek, for all it's as smooth as my own.' She touched his face

caressingly with her fingers, and turned to serve clamouring customers at

the other end of the counter.

'Good-night, mate,' said a quiet voice at Jim's elbow. Done turned

quickly, and started back a step with some amazement on beholding the

pale, impassive face of the stranger who had attacked Stony at their camp

in the Black Forest. The man was smoking a cigar. He was dressed after

the manner of a successful digger, with a touch of vanity. He regarded

Jim earnestly, and the young man experienced again the peculiar feeling

the first sight of this stranger had provoked.

'Good-night,' he said.

'I see you recollect me.'

'Oh yes. Did Stony quite escape you that night?'

'He did, thank's to you, Done.'

'A man couldn't see murder done under his very nose without stirring a

hand.'

'Don't apologize. I have no grievance. If I had killed him I should have

regretted it more than the death of my dearest friend, although no man

from the time of Cain had better excuse for murder. I suppose you have

not seen the man since?'

'No!' answered Jim with emphasis.

'Meaning that you would not tell me if you had. You need not fear being

an accessory before the act. I want Stony alive, Mr. Done.'

'Mister Done!' Jim laughed. 'I did not think there was a Mister on the

camp. But how do you know my name?'

'I have heard it here to-night half a dozen times. My name is Wat

Ryder--Walter Ryder, but mono syllabic Christian names are insisted on

amongst our friends.' He pointed his cigar towards the diggers at the

tables. 'Forgive me,' he continued in an even voice, 'but your scrutiny

of me is suggestive. May I ask what there is in my appearance or my

manner that disturbs you?'

The question was put without feeling of any kind, but it startled Jim a

little. He was surprised to find that he had betrayed any trace of his

emotion.

'Well,' he said, 'my experience of you has not been commonplace.'

'You mean that affair in the Bush?--a casual fight, with the usual loud

language merely, for all you know.' Ryder maintained silence for a few

moments. He was studying his cigar when he spoke again. 'By the way,' he

said abruptly, 'I know a good deal about you, Done, if you came out in

the Francis Cadman. He expected this announcement to have some effect.

'I saw you one day in Melbourne,' Jim replied. 'You were driving with

Mrs. Macdougal.'

'Mrs. Donald Macdougal of Boobyalla,' said Ryder gravely.

'She was a shipmate of mine.'

Yes; and you saw my face for a moment in Melbourne and remembered it. You

observe narrowly and quickly, Mr. Done. It was not Mrs. Macdougal who was

most communicative on the interesting subject I have broached, however,

but a very charming young friend of hers, Miss Woodrow. The young lady's

concern was excusable in view of certain services, but nevertheless

flattering. She asked me to constitute myself a sort of foster-Providence

over you if we ever met, Mr. Done.'

Jim laughed to smother a pang.

'Do I need it, Mr. Ryder?' he asked. He fancied there was a flutter of

the other's eye towards Aurora, but Ryder did not reply to the question.

'Miss Woodrow told me of the rescue,' he said, 'of your solitary

disposition, and spoke of a life of suffering in England.'

Done's lips tightened; he squared his shoulders. The fear that had

possessed him on leaving his birthplace was no longer upon him, but he

desired no revelations, no digging into the past, and there was a hint of

motive in the other's tone--he was inviting confidence. For a few moments

Ryder bent a keen glance upon the younger man, his face bowed and in

shadow, toying with his cigar.

'Jo!' yelled a voice out in the darkness.

Instantly every pannikin was emptied on the floor, and thrust into a

digger's shirt.

'The traps!' cried Mrs. Ben, and her rum-jug flew into a tub of water

behind the counter. Several bundles of washing were tossed out, a loaf of

bread was thrust upon Done, and at the same moment the door was thrown

back, and in marched Sergeant Wallis, followed by five police. Mrs. Ben

Kyley was not surprised, and had expected that Aurora's imposition would

bring a raid down upon her sooner or later, and here it was.

'You're selling sly grog here, ma'am,' said Wallis, sniffing like a

retriever.

Ben Kyley rose silently from his stool and approached Wallis.

'Sit you down, Ben Kyley!' roared Mrs. Ben; and Kyley returned as

silently to his seat, and sat smoking throughout the scene that followed,

apparently quite listless.

'Am I selling sly grog, Mr. Sergeant? Then it's a miracle where it comes

from. I haven't a drop in the place, or I'd stand you a nobbler gladly.

It's my opinion there are worse-looking men than Sergeant Wallis in

gaol.'

'Rubbish, ma'am! the place reeks of rum,' said Wallis.

'A bit of a bottle Quigley shouted for the boys, this being his

birthday.'

'Quigley has too many birthdays. Search the place, boys!'

The police commenced a systematic search of the tent, examining both

compartments, and trying the earthen floor for a secret cellar. They

found nothing, and meanwhile Mrs. Kyley was bantering Wallis with

boisterous good-fellowship.

'The idea of an officer of your penetration, sergeant, mistaking a poor

washerwoman's tent for a grog-shop.'