One night Jim and I were strolling about with some of our Yankee friends, when someone said there’d been a new hotel opened by some Melbourne people which was very swell, and we might take a look at it. We didn’t say no, so we all went into the parlour and called for drinks. The landlady herself came in, dressed up to the nines, and made herself agreeable, as she might well do. We were all pretty well in, but one of the Americans owned the Golden Gate claim, and was supposed to be the richest man on the field. He’d known her before.

“Waal, Mrs. Mullockson,” says he, “so you’ve pulled up stakes from Bendigo City and concluded to locate here. How do you approbate Turon?”

She said something or other, we hardly knew what. Jim and I couldn’t help giving one look. Her eyes turned on us. We could see she knew us, though she hadn’t done so at first. We took no notice; no more did she, but she followed us to the door, and touched me on the shoulder.

“You’re not going to desert old friends, Dick?” she said in a low voice. “I wrote you a cross letter, but we must forgive and forget, you know. You and Jim come up to-morrow night, won’t you?”

“All right, Kate,” I said, and we followed our party.

Chapter XXVII

CHAPTER XXVII

This meeting with Kate Morrison put the stuns upon me and Jim, and no mistake. We never expected to see her up at the Turon, and it all depended which way the fit took her now whether it would be a fit place for us ‘to live in any longer. Up to this time we had done capital well. We had been planted as close as if we had been at the Hollow. We’d had lots of work, and company, and luck. It began to look as if our luck would be dead out. Anyhow, we were at the mercy of a tiger-cat of a woman who might let loose her temper at any time and lay the police on to us, without thinking twice about it. We didn’t think she knew Starlight was there, but she was knowing enough for anything. She could put two and two together, and wait and watch, too. It gave me a fit of the shivers every time I thought of it. This was the last place I ever expected to see her at. However, you never can tell what’ll turn up in this world. She might have got over her tantrums.