We didn’t think it safe to stay on the Turon an hour longer than we were forced to do. We had seen the diggings, and got a good notion of what the whole thing was like; sold the horses and got the money, that was the principal thing. Nothing for it now but to get back to the Hollow. Something would be sure to be said about the horses being sold, and when it came out that they were not Muldoon’s there would be a great flare-up. Still they could not prove that the horses were stolen. There wasn’t a wrong brand or a faked one in the lot. And no one could swear to a single head of them, though the whole lot were come by on the cross, and father could have told who owned every one among them.

That was curious, wasn’t it?

We put in a night at Jonathan Barnes’s on our way back. Maddie got the earrings, and Bella the making of a new riding habit, which she had been wanting and talking about for a good while. Starlight dressed up, and did the new chum young Englishman, eyeglass and all, over again, and repeated the conversation he had with the Inspector of Police about his friend, Mr. Muldoon’s, illness, and the colts he recommended. It was grand, and the girls laughed till they cried again. Well, those were merry days; we did have a bit of fun sometimes, and if the devil was dogging us he kept a good way out of sight. It’s his way at the start when fellows take the downward track.

We got back safe enough, and father opened his eyes when he saw the roll of notes Starlight counted over as the price of the colts. “Horse-breeding’s our best game,” says the old man, “if they’re going to pay such prices as this. I’ve half a mind to start and take a lot over to Port Phillip.”

Chapter XXV

CHAPTER XXV