So they talked away until they had finished their breakfast. I couldn’t touch a mouthful for the life of me, and as soon as it was all over they ran up my horse and put the saddle on. But I wasn’t to ride him. No fear! Goring put me on an old screw of a troop horse, with one leg like a gate-post. I was helped up and my legs tied under his belly. Then one of the men took the bridle and led me away. Goring rode in front and the other men behind.

As we rose the hill above the place I looked back and saw mother drop down on the ground in a kind of fit, while Aileen bent over her and seemed to be loosening her dress. Just at that moment George Storefield and his sister rode up to the door. George jumped off and rushed over to Aileen and mother. I knew Gracey had seen me, for she sat on her horse as if she had been turned to stone, and let her reins drop on his neck. Strange things have happened to me since, but I shall never forget that to the last day of my miserable life.

Chapter XVII

CHAPTER XVII

I wasn’t in the humour for talking, but sometimes anything’s better than one’s own thoughts. Goring threw in a word from time to time. He’d only lately come into our district, and was sure to be promoted, everybody said. Like Starlight himself, he’d seen better days at home in England; but when he got pinched he’d taken the right turn and not the wrong one, which makes all the difference. He was earning his bread honest, anyway, and he was a chap as liked the fun and dash of a mounted policeman’s life. As for the risk—and there is some danger, more than people think, now and then—he liked that the best of it. He was put out at losing Jim; but he believed he couldn’t escape, and told me so in a friendly way. “He’s inside a circle and he can’t get away, you mark my words,” he said, two or three times. “We have every police-station warned by wire, within a hundred miles of here, three days ago. There’s not a man in the colony sharper looked after than Master Jim is this minute.”

“Then you only heard about us three days ago?” I said.

“That’s as it may he.” he answered, biting his lips. “Anyhow, there isn’t a shepherd’s hut within miles that he can get to without our knowing it. The country’s rough, but there’s word gone for a black tracker to go down. You’ll see him in Bargo before the week’s out.”