“I feel content with the paper which contains my pardon, and think that I am amply rewarded.  I desire nothing more from government.”

Finding that the subject was distasteful to the old man, we said no more, but after the table was cleared away, we lighted our pipes and planned the business which was to occupy us early the next morning.  Our arrangements were soon completed and agreed upon.  We readily came to the conclusion to unload all of our baggage excepting what we should want while absent; and instead of taking eight oxen, we concluded to take only four, as that number could be provided for much easier than all of them.  We also concluded to leave our horses, and let the old man’s daughter keep her eyes on them during the day, and confine them in the enclosure which was used for herding sheep during the night.

With this idea, we began making our preparations for an early start.  Our shovels and pickaxes were articles which we should want in digging, and three days’ provisions were also placed upon the cart, together with our bedding and mosquito bars to prevent the insects from eating us alive during our sleeping hours.

Our rifles were also examined, and at length satisfied that we were ready for an early start, we bid our host and daughter good night and retired to our usual sleeping place, under the cart, with Rover at our feet, ready to give notice of the slightest appearance of danger.

It was still dark when the stockman aroused us, but a pale light in the eastern heavens showed that day would soon break.  Although we were tired with our long journey, yet we did not stand a second call, and in an hour’s time after being aroused, we had despatched our hastily cooked breakfast, and were on the road and urging the cattle towards the dark and sombre appearing woods where the gang of Black Darnley had been signally defeated.

It was about eight o’clock when we reached the place where we had entered formerly.  Every thing appeared as we had left it.  The forest path seemed to have been untrodden since the day when we had made a funeral pile of the remains of the bushrangers, yet there was one peculiarity that struck me as rather odd—­the entire absence of parrots, whose croakings used to attract our attention, and whose plumage, gaudy and varied, commanded our admiration.

While Smith unyoked the cattle and chained them to a tree, under which a good supply of grass was to be had, I took my rifle, and calling to Rover, started towards the bushrangers’ camp, or rather where it had stood before we had given it to the flames.

I had not walked ten rods before I thought I saw the figure of a man glide from behind a tree and disappear in a thicket of brush.  I stopped, and with rifle on the cock, waited for his re-appearance; but as I heard nothing from him, I concluded that I would beat up his quarters before the rest of my party came along.