“All right, Captain,” he answered, quiet enough. “I started on ahead the moment I saw ‘em leave the camp. They’re safe to be here in ten minutes now. You can see ‘em when they came into the flat. I’ll clear out to the back for a bit. I want ‘em to think I come up permiskus-like when it’s over.” So the young rascal galloped away till the trees hid him, and in a quarter of an hour more we saw the leaders of the four-horse drag that carried the escort gold turn round on the forest road and show out into the flat.

It gave me a queer feeling just at first. We hadn’t, been used to firing on the Queen’s servants, not in cold blood, anyhow, but it was them or us for it now. There was no time to think about it. They came along at a steady trot up the hill. We knew the Turon sergeant of police that drove, a tall man with a big black beard down to his chest. He had been in an English dragoon regiment, and could handle the ribbons above a bit. He had a trooper along side him on the box with his rifle between his knees. Two more were in the body of the drag. They had put their rifles down and were talking and laughing, not expecting anything sudden. Two more of the mounted men rode in front, but not far. The couple behind were a good way off. All of a sudden the men in front came on the trees lying across the road. They pulled up short, and one of them jumped down and looked to see if anything could be done to move them. The other man held his horse. The coach drove up close, so that they were bunched up pretty well together.

“Who the devil has been doing that?” sung out the sergeant. “Just as if the road isn’t bad enough without these infernal lazy scoundrels of bullock-drivers cutting down trees to make us go round. It’s a beastly track here at the best of times.”

“I believe them trees have been fallen on purpose,” says the trooper that was down. “There’s been men, and horses, too, about here to-day, by the tracks. They’re up to no good!”

“Fire!”

The order was given in Starlight’s clear, bold voice. just like a horn it sounded. You might have heard it twice as far off. A dozen shots followed the next second, making as much row as fifty because of the way the sound echoed among the rocks.

I never saw a bigger surprise in my life, and wasn’t likely to do, as this was my first regular battle. We had plenty of time to take aim, and just at first it looked as if the whole blessed lot of the police was killed and wounded.