Sometimes we should have been hard pushed when we were making across country at night only for him. Hour after hour he’d ride ahead through scrub or forest, up hill or down dale, with that brute of a horse of his—he called him “Bilbah”—ambling away, till our horses, except Rainbow, used to shake the lives out of us jogging. I believe he did it on purpose.

He was a fine shot. and could catch fish and game in all sorts of ways that came in handy when we had to keep dark. He had pluck enough, and could fight a pretty sharp battle with his fists if he wasn’t overweighted. There were white men that didn’t at all find him a good thing if they went to bully him. He tried it on with Jim once, but he knocked the seven senses out of him inside of three rounds, and that satisfied him. He pretended to make up, but I was always expecting him to play us some dog’s trick yet. Anyway, so far he was all right, and as long as Starlight and us were mixed up together, he couldn’t hurt one without the other. He came gliding up to the old hut in the dull light by bits of moves, just as if he’d been a bush that had changed its place. We pretended to be asleep near the fire.

He peered in through a chink. He could see us by the firelight, and didn’t suppose we were watching him.

“Hullo, Warrigall” sung out Jim suddenly,“what’s up now? Some devil’s work, I suppose, or you wouldn’t be in it. Why don’t you knock at a gentleman’s door when you come-a-visiting?”

“Wasn’t sure it was you,” he answered, showing his teeth; “it don’t do to get sold. Might been troopers, for all I know.”

“Pity we wasn’t,” said Jim; “I’d have the hobbles on you by this time and you’d have got ‘fitted’ to rights. I wish I’d gone into the police sometimes. It isn’t a bad game for a chap that can ride and track, and likes a bit of rough-and-tumble now and then.”

“If I’d been a police tracker I’d have had as good a chance of nailing you, Jim Marston,” spoke up Warrigal. “Perhaps I will some day. Mr. Garton wanted me bad once, and said they’d never go again me for old times. But that says nothin’. Starlight’s out at the back and the old man, too. They want you to go to them—sharp.”

“What for?”

“Dunno. I was to tell you, and show the camp; and now gimme some grub, for I’ve had nothing since sunrise but the leg of a ‘possum.”

“All right,” said Jim, putting the billy on; “here’s some damper and mutton to go on with while the tea warms.”