Jim and I stared. Dad was outside, seeing the horses fed, with Warrigal. We made sure at first it was Mrs. Buxter's watch and chain; but he knew better than to give the girl anything that she could be brought into trouble for wearing, if it was identified on her; so he'd sent the cash down to Sydney, and got the watch sent up to him by one of father's pals. It was as right as the bank, and nobody could touch it or her either. That was Starlight all over; he never seemed to care much for himself. As to anything he told a woman, she'd no call to trouble herself about whether it would be done or not.

'It'll be my turn next,' says Maddie. 'I can't afford to wait till—till—the Captain leaves me that beauty horse of his. It's too long. I might be married before that, and my old man cut up rough. Jim Marston, what are you going to give me? I haven't got any earrings worth looking at, except these gold hoops that everybody knows.'

'All right,' says Jim. 'I'll give you and Bell a pair each, if you're good girls, when we sell the horses, unless we're nailed at the Turon. What sort of a shop is it? Are they getting much gold?'

'Digging it out like potatoes,' says Bella; 'so a young chap told us that come this way last week. My word! didn't he go on about the coach being stuck up. Mad and I nearly choked ourselves laughing. We made him tell it over twice. He said a friend of his was in it—in the coach, that is—and we could have told him friends of ours was in it too, couldn't we?'

'And what did he think of it all?'

'Oh, he was a new chum; hadn't been a year out. Not a bad cut of a young feller. He was awful shook on Mad; but she wouldn't look at him. He said if it was in England the whole countryside would rise up and hunt such scoundrels down like mad dogs; but in a colony like this people didn't seem to know right from wrong.'

'Did he, indeed?' says Starlight. 'Ingenuous youth! When he lives a little longer he'll find that people in England, and, indeed, everywhere else, are very much like they are here. They'll wink at a little robbery, or take a hand themselves if it's made worth their while. And what became of your English friend?'

'Oh! he said he was going on to Port Phillip. There's a big diggings broke out there too, he says; and he has some friends there, and he thinks he'll like that side better.'

'I think we'd better cut the Sydney “side”, too,' says Starlight. 'What do you say, Maddie? We'll be able to mix up with these new chum Englishmen and Americans that are coming here in swarms, and puzzle Sergeant Goring and his troopers more than ever.'

'Oh! come, now! that would be mean,' says Maddie. 'I wouldn't be drove away from my own part of the country, if I was a man, by anybody. I'd stay and fight it out. Goring was here the other day, and tried to pick out something from father and us about the lot of you.'