“Ha! very true,” says Starlight in his dreamy kind of way. “Most true, Richard. Society should make a truce occasionally, or proclaim an amnesty with offenders of our stamp. It would pay better than driving us to desperation. How is Jim? He’s worse off than either of us, poor fellow.”

“Jim’s very bad. He can’t get over being away from Jeanie. I never saw him so down in the mouth this years.”

“Poor old Jim, he’s a deal too good for the place. Sad mistake this getting married. People should either keep straight or have no relatives to bear the brunt of their villainies.‘But soft,’ as they say in the play,‘where am I?’ I thought I was a virtuous miner again. Here we are at this devil-discovered, demon-haunted old Hollow again—first cousin to the pit of Acheron. There’s no help for it, Dick. We must play our parts gallantly, as demons of this lower world, or get hissed off the stage.”

We didn’t do much for a few days, you may be sure. There was nothing to do, for one thing; and we hadn’t made up our mind what our line was to be. One thing was certain: there would be more row made about us than ever. We should have all the police in the country worried and barked at by the press, the people, the Government, and their superior officers till they got something to show about us. Living at the diggings under the nose of the police, without their having the least suspicion who we were, was bad enough; but the rescue of Jim and the shooting of a policeman in charge of him was more serious—the worst thing that had happened yet.

There would be the devil to pay if they couldn’t find a track of us. No doubt money would be spent like water in bribing anyone who might give information about us. Everyone would be tried that we had ever been known to be friendly with. A special body of men could be told off to make a dart to any spot they might get wind of near where we had been last seen.

We had long talks and barneys over the whole thing—sometimes by ourselves with Starlight, sometimes with father. A long time it was before we settled upon any regular put-up bit of work to do.