“I got my sheepskins all ready during the day, ’cos I saw that you was idling round doing nothing, and I ’spected that the evening would be selected to begin work.

“I hunted up my old bullock’s head, with the horns on, and which has seen some service, although I don’t think that I shall be able to wear it again, ’cos your confounded pistol shot about used it up.  Here it lays at your feet—­examine it.”

I found that the head had been cut and trimmed off, and then lined with pieces of old clothes, until it fitted the cranium of Day like a huge helmet.

The shot from my revolver had shattered the dry bones so that it was ready to tumble apart, and had to be handled quite carefully.  I no longer wondered at our mistaking Day for the devil, and I congratulated myself that I was not frightened worse than I really was.

“I could hardly keep from yelling with laughter when I saw you two running, and then when I heard one of you tumble into the bog, I thought to myself that’s an end of him.  Now, Day, you jist go along and get the money that they expected to, and be a rich man for life.”

“Then you knew that I was struggling for life, and would not come to my assistance?” asked Mr. Brown.

“Why should I?” demanded Day, with great sang froid.  “I didn’t know you or care for you.  All that I desired was to drive you off as fast as possible, and d——­ me if I didn’t do it!”

“What did you think when you saw us return the second time?” I inquired.

“Well, the fact of it is, you rather started me then, ’cos I had no idea of the thing.  I thought if I couldn’t frighten you away with groans, my time as a ghost was ’bout over.  You couldn’t pay me for the head which you destroyed, could you?”

We declined to do so, and advised him to be thankful that he did not lose his life in his attempt to assume a character that did not belong to him; but Day treated our advice with neglect.

“If I couldn’t hit a man at a distance of ten rods, ghost or no ghost, I’d never shoot again.  Why, my old gun, that you hold on to as though you feared it would go off, can knock over a kangaroo at thirty rods distance, and never miss once out of a dozen shots.  I tell you I have had to practise shooting since I have been a shepherd.  The only thing my proprietor is liberal in furnishing is powder and lead.”

I was just about requesting Day to remove his person from the place where he had been digging, to allow us to make an examination for the concealed treasure, when we heard the discharge of a gun in the direction of the mountain, separated from us by several valleys, where immense flocks of sheep were feeding.

The shepherd started to his feet, and looked eagerly in the direction of the sound; but nothing was to be seen.

“What is the meaning of that?” asked Mr. Brown.

“It means that Buskin’s band of bushrangers is all the more alarmed at the sound of your pistol.  They will search every inch of ground between here and the Lodden, but they will find out the occasion of the firing, and if you are men of the law, as you say, the highest tree in this section will serve for your gallows to-morrow.”