“No, he won’t; for this reason, we shall all ride different ways as soon as we leave here. A good while before we get near the place where we all meet we shall find Warrigal on the look-out. He can take the Captain in by another track, and there’ll be only Jim and I and Dick and the old dog, the only three persons that’ll go in the near way.”

“And when shall we see—see—any of you again?”

“Somewheres about a month, I suppose, if we’ve luck. There’s a deal belong to that. You’d better go and see what there is for us to eat. We’ve a long way and a rough way to go before we get to the Hollow.”

Aileen, was off at this, and then she set to work and laid a clean tablecloth in the sitting-room and set us down our meal—breakfast, or whatever it was. It wasn’t so bad—corned beef, first-rate potatoes, fresh damper, milk, butter, eggs. Tea, of course, it’s the great drink in the bush; and although some doctors say it’s no good, what would bushmen do without it?

We had no intention of stopping the whole night, though we were tempted to do so—to have one night’s rest in the old place where we used to sleep so sound before. It was no good thinking of anything of that kind, anyhow, for a good while to come. What we’d got to do was to look out sharp and not be caught simple again like we was both last time.