“How many men were with him?”

“Only two; and they’re to pass through Bargo Brush about sun-down tonight, or a bit earlier. I asked one of the men the road; said I’d lost myself, and would be late home. Ha! ha! ha!”

And how the young villain laughed till the tears came into his eyes, while he danced about like a blackfellow.

“See here, Billy,” I said,“here’s another pound for you, and there’ll be a fiver after if you stick well to me to-day. I won’t let Jim be walked off to Berrima without a flutter to save him. It’ll be the death of him. He’s not like me, and he’s got a young wife besides.”

“More fool he, Dick. What does a cross cove want with a wife? He can’t never expect to do any good with a wife follerin’ of him about. I’m agin marrying, leastways as long as a chap’s sound on his pins. But I’ll stick to you, Dick, and, what’s more, I can take you a short cut to the brush, and we can wait in a gully and see the traps come up. You have a snack and lie down for abit. I seen you were done when you came up. I’ll have the horses ready saddled up.”

“How about the police? Suppose they come this way.”

“Not they. They split and took across towards the Mountain Hut, where you all camped with the horses. I didn’t see ‘em; but I cut their tracks. Five shod horses. They might be here to-morrow.”

A bush telegraph ain’t a bad thing. They’re not all as good as Billy the Boy. But the worst of ‘em, like a bad sheep dog, is a deal better than none.