"Look here, sir. You'd better lock up all the guns, and keep 'em till they're wanted, or maybe we shall be having mischief done."

"What do you mean?"

"Mean, sir? As Brooky's always going about with a gun, and on the watch. He don't want a gun to go and look round o' they cows. He feels as Leather's close handy somewhere, and afraid he'll take him unawares.

If you was to ask him, he'd tell you he was sure the blacks knew where Leather's hiding. There, I'm sorry for him after all."

"So am I, poor fellow."

"Nay, I don't mean Leather: I mean Brooky. He can't even sleep of a night for fear Leather should come and pay him out. It sarves him right, I know, for he always was a brute to Leather; but there, he's being paid back pretty severe. You go and talk to them there black boys. You'll get it out of them with that jam."

Nic strode across toward the wool-shed, and found the blacks jabbering away hard, and evidently quite excited; but they heard his steps, and three rough black heads came softly into sight, one round each doorpost, and the other above a couple of broad boards which ran in grooves, used to keep pigs or other animals from entering to make a warm bed in the wool. But the moment they caught sight of their young master they disappeared, the middle man going off cart-wheel fashion, like a black firework, with arms and legs flying, so as to get behind a stack of wool.

"Here, you fellows," cried Nic, looking over the board, "come here!"

"Baal go floggee blackfellow," protested Bungarolo.

"No mine no flog," cried Nic.

"Mas Nic corbon budgery (very good). All come along."

This brought out the other two grinning.

"Mine come fish?" cried Damper.

"No; I want to find Leather fellow. You boys pidney where he is."

The faces ceased grinning, and looked as if carved out of some burned wooden stump, all hard, solid, and immovable.

"There, I know: so no nonsense. You all take me and show me Leather fellow's mandowie, and I'll give you plenty damper, plenty mutton, plenty sugar and jam."

"Mine no find mandowie (tracks)," said Rigar. "You pidney (know), Damper?"

"Mine no pidney," said Damper. "Mandowie myall. Bungarolo pidney?"

"Bung no pidney," said that gentleman.

"Yes, you all pidney--more sugar, more jam, more damper," cried Nic.

But the men only stared blankly; and growing impatient at last with the three ebony blacks, Nic left them to go back to Sam, but turned sharply, to see that they were all three watching him with their faces in a broad grin.

This exasperated him so that he made a rush back to look into the long dark shed, where he could see wool everywhere, but no traces of the blacks, who seemed to have disappeared.

"I'll bring a whip," he shouted, and then went away, laughing at the way the men were scared.

"Sam's right," he said: "they are like big black children. Here! Hi!

Samson," he shouted, and the old man came to meet him. "They don't know."

"Don't know, sir? What makes you say that?"

Nic related his experience, and Sam grinned.

"And they laughed at you," he said, showing his teeth. "Why was that?

On'y because they enjoyed being as they thought too clever for you, Master Nic. They know, sir; but it's no use--they won't tell. They like you and me; but if they'd speak out to us as they do to one another, they'd say, 'No mine tell Leather fellow, Mas Nic, plenty mine jam, damper. Leather fellow mumkull.'"

"Mumkull? Afraid Leather would kill them for telling?"

"That's it, sir, safe."

There was something to stir the pulses of Nic soon after, and he somehow felt glad that he did not know the convict's hiding-place, for a dozen of the colonial mounted police rode up, followed by half a dozen black trackers and a couple of chained and muzzled, fierce-looking dogs, whose aspect sent a shiver through Nic, excited the indignation of the collies, and drove Nibbler into a fit of fury, making him bound to the end of his chain so savagely that he dragged his tub kennel out of its place and drew it behind him, making him look like some peculiar snaily quadruped trying to shed its sh.e.l.l.

"Better shut up your dogs, sir," said the policeman who had been once before. "Letter for Mrs Braydon."

The dogs were quieted and shut away, so that they could not commit suicide by dashing at the powerful brutes held in leash; and once more, while the police were being refreshed, Mrs Braydon read her letter over to her children, who learned that the governor was no better, that the doctor was bound to stay, and that while he regretted this, and the bad news about the a.s.signed servant, every a.s.sistance ought to be given to the police who had come to fetch him back to the chain gang.

Nic said nothing, but after a time he saddled Sorrel, and rode with the police leader as they started for their first search.

"Now, Mr Braydon," said the man, "your father said that we must take this fellow; so as in all probability you know where he is, perhaps you'll tell us which way to go and capture him."

"I don't know," said Nic quickly.

The man smiled.

"You needn't disbelieve me," said Nic warmly. "I tell you I haven't the least idea."

"And if you had, you wouldn't tell us, eh?"

"I'm not going to answer questions," said Nic. "But mind this: if you find him, I won't have him shot down."

"Then he mustn't shoot at us, sir," said the man, smiling, "so you'd better send him word if you know where he is. Forward!" he cried, and the party trotted toward the Wattles, but turned off a little over half-way there, and to Nic's horror he felt that they had hit upon the place where he and the convict parted that night just as the storm came on. And here, after a few words from the head of the little force, two of the blacks came forward and began to quarter the ground like dogs, their bodies and heads bent forward, and their eyes searching the gra.s.s with the keenest eagerness.

But it was a long time before either of them showed that he had found signs.

Then one stopped short, dropped upon his knees, uttered a cry, and his fellows ran softly up behind him, keeping close to each other, and being careful not to go near the track or whatever it was that he had found.

Then began a low excited jabbering, during which the mounted men sat fast, one of them holding the leash which restrained the dogs.

At last the quick discussion ended, and the first black rose from his knees and made a sign to the police leader to come forward, Nic without hesitation following and peering over the blacks, who gave way a little, while the first pointed down to something which Nic expected to find was a footstep, but which proved to be a big common knife, rusted by exposure to rain and air.

This was picked up now and handed to the leader, while Nic's eyes dilated a little, for he felt sure that he had seen the knife before; and in the convict's hands, when he was eating his cold meat and damper beneath a tree.

"Yes," he said to himself with a little shiver, "that is his knife. He must have dropped it here. It had a buckhorn handle, and on the other side three crosses had been filed pretty deeply." He remembered that fact well.

Just then the police leader turned round sharply, saw his interested look, and said, in a decisive, imperative tone of voice:

"You know that knife, sir?"

To gain time the boy held out his hand, drawing his breath hard, and striving to control his voice and make it firm.