out from the river. It was settled, therefore, that the three boys should bestride Sandy's stout cob, which was well able to carry these juvenile desperadoes.

"Mother!" shouted Joe, as he strode into the house in the late afternoon, from the wood-pile, where he had been chopping the next day's supply, "we're going to have grand fun to-night."

"What sort of fun, my son?"

"Bushranging along the sawmill road. Can I go mother? We've got such a grand plot."

"Well, I don't mind; but don't be out late."

"S'pose I can have the gun?"

"The g-u-n!"

"Yes, mother. No need to fear. It's all play."

"Well, don't load it."

"Only with powder to make a bang."

"I don't like the idea, my boy. Gun accidents often happen in play. You remember Jim Andrews——"

"Oh yes, mother, but that's different! It was loaded."

In the end, owing to the boy's importunity, Mrs. Blain reluctantly consented.

Early tea being duly dispatched, the boys made the necessary preparations for their dark deed. Joe produced a pair of knee-boots, the some time property of his father. He made them fit by sticking rags into the toes. He thrust his trousers' legs into the boot-tops, and wound a red scarf round his waist, through which he stuck a boomerang and nulla-nulla. A 'possum-skin cap adorned his head. His final act was to fasten on a corn-tassel moustache, and to strap his gun across his back. The broad effect of the costume was to make this youthful outlaw a cross, as it were, between Robinson Crusoe and a Greek brigand.

Indeed he quite terrified his two sisters, as he suddenly entered the sitting-room to the accompaniment of a blood-curdling yell. This the girls match with a shriek that wakes up the sleeping baby, bringing the mother in with a rush.

For a moment Mrs. Blain, seeing Joe in the half-light, thought some ruffian had entered.

"It's very thoughtless and wrong of you, Joe, to frighten your sisters. I—I—I'm quite angry with you——"

"Very sorry, mater," said Joe, with a serio-comic air. "I only meant to give them a start."

The girls, however, began to laugh, Joe looked such an oddity. They turned the tables on him by quizzing him most unmercifully. At last our young hero was very glad to beat a retreat to the backyard, where he found Sandy busy in saddling the horse.

Joe's confederate had roughened himself as much as circumstances permitted. In lieu of a skin cap he tied a big handkerchief round his hat, and stuck a couple of turkey-tail feathers through it. He had manufactured a brace of pistols out of short lengths of bamboo, with corn-cobs, stuck in bored holes at an angle, to form the stocks. These, with a boomerang and nulla-nulla slung at either side, and a short spear fixed in his belt at the back and standing over his head, made him in appearance more like a red Indian than a Colonial free-booter.

"All ready, Hawkeye?"

"Yes, ole pal. The mustang is waiting, and the brave will vault into the saddle at Thundercloud's word of command," answered Hawkeye in bastard Cooperese. Fenimore of that ilk was Sandy's favourite author.

"Hast thou heard the signal of Red Murphy?" said Joe, falling into the strain of speech.

"No, Thundercloud. No sound from our brither of the hither shore hath been borne on the wings of the wind across the——"

"Oh, stow that rot, Sand—Hawkeye! I wonder?——"

"Yon's the cry of the chiel," broke in the would-be brave, as at that moment the cooee of Tom Hawkins, alias Red Murphy, rose in the still air, faint from the distance, but distinct.

"A single cooee! Rippin! he's comin'. Let's mount and wait at the landing."

Hardly had the boys reached the river-bank ere Red Murphy appeared, attired much as the others, with the addition of an old blunderbuss belonging to his father.

"It's all right, boys! Hurroar! Dad broke the handle of the corn-sheller this evening, and sent me over with it to the blacksmith's. I'm to wait till it's mended. Wait a jiff an' I'll be with you," cried he, as he ran to the smithy, returning as fast as his legs could bring him, with the news that the broken handle could not be repaired under three hours owing to other urgent work.

Joe rapidly detailed the plan, informing Tom, at the same time, that his name and character were to be that of Red Murphy, one of the blood-thirstiest and most rapacious cut-throats in the Colonies.

CHAPTER III

A DESPERATE ENCOUNTER

"Falstaff: I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have 'scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet; four through the hose; my buckler cut through; my sword hacked like a handsaw ecce signum. I never dealt better since I was a man; all would not do."—SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV.

Joe had barely made his explanations before the rumbling of the approaching cart was heard. It was the Royal Mail starting on its adventurous trip.

"Time to be off, pals!" cried the leader. "Now then, Hawkeye, whip 'em up."

Off started the trio, Thundercloud, Hawkeye, and Red Murphy; each delivering a blood-curdling yell which rang up and down the street, as they passed through it at a smart canter. It had never fallen to the lot of horse, before, to bear upon its back at the same time three such ferocious outlaws, bent on so diabolical an errand. Behind them, and at a slower pace, came the Royal Mail goatcart, drawn by four strong billies, skilfully driven by coachman Jimmy, and attended by Trooper Billy astride his cud-chewing steed.

After leaving the township the road skirted the river for a mile or so, then, crossing a plank bridge, bore away to the hills. The silver moon shone from the clear sky through the pure air, making the tree shadows as they lay across the road to resemble fallen timber. The nocturnal 'possum, having ventured to the ground to feed upon the tender grass, scudded up the trees, frightened by the rumbling vehicle and the baaing steeds. The thud of paddy-melon[#] and wallaby could be distinctly heard, as they smote the earth in their jumping movements; while from the heights of some lofty tree the mopoke[#] tolled his mournful cry.

[#] "Paddy-melon," a small marsupial or pouch-bearing mammal.

[#] "Mopoke," the Australian crested goat-sucker.

The coach had now passed the three-mile creek, and still there was no sound of