I had a good guess where Jim would make for, and he knew enough to hide his tracks for the last few miles if there was a whole tribe of trackers after him.

That night we rode into Bargo. A long day, too, we’d had—we were all tired enough when we got in. I was locked up, of course, and as soon as we were in the cell Goring said, “Listen to me,” and put on his official face—devilish stern and hard-looking he was then, in spite of all the talking and nonsense we’d had coming along.

“Richard Marston, I charge you with unlawfully taking, stealing, and carrying away, in company with others, one thousand head of mixed cattle, more or less the property of one Walter Hood, of Outer Back Momberah, in or about the month of June last.”

“All right; why don’t you make it a few more while you’re about it?”

“That’ll do,” he said, nodding his head, “you decline to say any thing. Well, I can’t exactly wish you a merry Christmas—fancy this being Christmas Eve, by Jove! but you’ll be cool enough this deuced hot weather till the sessions in February, which is more than some of us can say. Good-night.” He went out and locked the door. I sat down on my blanket on the floor and hid my head in my hands. I wonder it didn’t burst with what I felt then. Strange that I shouldn’t have felt half as bad when the judge, the other day, sentenced me to be a dead man in a couple of months. But I was young then.

Christmas Day! Christmas Day! So this is how I was to spend it after all; I thought, as I woke up at dawn, and saw the gray light just beginning to get through the bars of the window of the cell.