When I’d gone a mile or two there was Jim riding steadily along the road, looking very dull and down-like, just the way he used to do when he was studying how to get round a job of work as he wasn’t used to. He brightens up a bit when he sees me, and we both jumped off, and had a good shake-hands and a yarn. I told him about mother and Aileen, and how I’d left dad all by himself. He said Jeanie and the boy were all right, but of course he’d never heard of ‘em since, and couldn’t help feeling dubersome about meeting her again, particularly now this blessed woman had dropped across us, and wouldn’t keep her mouth shut.

“As sure as we’ve had anything to do with her, bad luck’s followed up,” says Jim; “I’d rather have faced a trooper than seen her face again.”

“She can’t do much now,” says I. “We’re across the border. I wonder where Starlight is—whether he’s in the township or not? As soon as we meet him we can make straight for the ship.”

“He’s there now,” says Jim. “He was at Kate’s last night.”

“How do you know that?”

“I heard her mutter something about it just when she went into that fit, or whatever it was. Devilment, I think. I never saw such a woman; and to think she’s my Jeanie’s sister!”

“Never mind that, Jim. These things can’t be helped. But what did she say?”

“Something like this: ‘He thought I didn’t know him, passing himself off as a gentleman. Warrigal, too. Kate Morrison’s eyes are too sharp for that, as he’ll find out’.”

“Think she’ll give us away again, Jim?”

“God only knows. She mightn’t this time, unless she wants to smother you altogether, and don’t mind who she hurts along with you.”

“There’s one good thing in it,” says I; “there’s no police nearer than Trielgerat, and it’s a long day’s ride to them. We made it all right before we left the Turon. All the police in the country is looking for us on the wrong road, and will be for a week or two yet.”

Then I told him about Aileen putting Sir Ferdinand on the wrong lay, and he said what a clever girl she was, and had as much pluck and sense as two or three men. “A deal more than we’ve ever showed, Dick,” says he,“and that’s not saying much either.”

He laughed in his quiet way when he heard about Starlight’s advertisement in the Turon Star, and said it was just like him.