“Bless my soul,” says Starlight, “of course, it is as clear as your beautiful eyes. Jim is to shave his beard, talk like a Yankee, and go in Joe Moreton’s place. I see it all. Maddie persuading Joe to con sent to the exchange of duties.”

“But what will his employer say?”

“Oh! he’s as bad as bad can be with the sandy blight,” says Maddie, “wears green goggles, poor old gentleman. He’ll never know nothing, and he’ll be able to swear up for Jim if the police pull him anywhere this side of the Murray.”

We’d told Maddie that money needn’t stand in the way, so she was to promise Joe the full sum that he was to get for his contract would be paid to him in cash that night—Jim to pay his own ex penses as he went, the same as he was to do himself. Of course she could get the money from old Jonathan. A word from us then was worth a deal more than that’d come to. Money wasn’t the worst thing we had to care about.

They would have to change clothes, and he’d tell Jim about the horses, the stages, and how to answer the old cove, and what to do to humour him as they went along. If he’d had his full eyesight he might have noticed some difference, but as it was, it was as much as the poor old chap, she believed, could see there was a driver at all. His eyes was bound up mostly; he had a big shade over ‘em, and was half the night swabbing and poulticing, and putting lotion into ‘em. He’d got sandy blight that bad it would take months to get right. Once you get a touch like that it’s a terror, I can tell you. I’ve had it that bad myself I had to be led about.