Daylight broke when we were close up to the Black Range, safe enough, a little off the line but nothing to signify. Then we hit off the track that led over the Gap and down into a little flat on a creek that ran the same way as ours did.

Jim had managed for father and Warrigal to meet us somewhere near here with fresh horses. There was an old shepherd’s hut that stood by itself almost covered with marshmallows and nettles. As we came down the steep track a dog came up snuffing and searching about the grass and stones as if he’d lost something. It was Crib.

“Now we’re getting home, Jim,” says Starlight. “It’s quite a treat to see the old scamp again. Well, old man,” he says to the dog, “how’s all getting on at the Hollow?” The dog came right up to Rainbow and rubbed against his fetlock, and jumped up two or three times to see if he could touch his rider. He was almost going to bark, he seemed that glad to see him and us.

Dad was sitting on a log by the hut smoking, just the same as he was before he left us last time. He was holding two fresh horses, and we were not sorry to see them. Horses are horses, and there wasn’t much left in our two. We must have ridden a good eighty miles that night, and it was as bad as a hundred by daylight.

Father came a step towards us as we jumped off. By George, I was that stiff with the long ride and the cold that I nearly fell down. He’d got a bit of a fire, so we lit our pipes and had a comfortable smoke.

“Well, Dick, you’re back agin, I see,” he says, pretty pleasant for him. “Glad to see you, Captain, once more. It’s been lonesome work—nobody but me and Jim and Warrigal, that’s like a bear with a sore head half his time. I’d a mind to roll into him once or twice, and I should too, only for his being your property like.”

“Thank you, Ben, I’ll knock his head off myself as soon as we get settled a bit. Warrigal’s not a bad boy, but a good deal like a Rocky Mountain mule; he’s no good unless he’s knocked down about once a month or so, only he doesn’t like anyone but me to do it.”

“You’ll see him about a mile on,” says father. “He told me he’d be behind the big rock where the tree grows—on the left of the road. He said he’d get you a fresh horse, so as he could take Rainbow back to the Hollow the long way round.”