“Keep your remarks to yourself,” said Mr. Wright, sternly, addressing the prostrate man; but that they had no intention of doing, for, like all desperadoes, they were determined to appear “game” to the last.

“Don’t you think, master, dear, that I’d better string ’em on me spear like herring?  ’Twould save a dale of trouble,” asked Mike.

“That death would be too easy for them.  They must die on the gallows,” Mr. Wright said, impressively.

“And how do you know which is the easiest, old cock?” demanded Bill.  “Was you ever hung for sheep stealing, or skewered for house breaking?”

“Pay no attention to them, sir,” Nancy exclaimed.  “They are demons from the other world, and will soon be at home.”

“Amen,” piously ejaculated the ghost.

We managed, after some little persuasion, to get the women upon their feet, and inspire them with energy enough to undertake the journey to the house.

[Illustration:  “Don’t harm her!” exclaimed the younger woman, removing her hands from her face, and endeavoring to shelter the person of her companion; but the bushrangers were regardless of her entreaties, and pushed her aside with rudeness.]

As for the horses and the dead bushranger, we left them at the ford until morning, when Mr. Wright proposed to send men out to bury the one, and secure the others, and, if possible, return them to their owners.

As we walked along, Nancy related to me the adventures which she had encountered since leaving Melbourne.  She was an old campaigner in Australia, and was on her way to Tares Creek to join her husband, who had been mining in that location ever since gold was first discovered.

He had intrusted her with a few hundred pounds to visit the city and purchase provisions and articles of daily use sufficient to last them through the wet season, and she had performed her mission, and instead of waiting for one of the regular freighting teams to take her to the creek, she had engaged passage with two miners, one of whom had his wife with him, and who owned a pair of horses and a wagon.  Luckily Nancy had left her goods in the city, with orders to forward them by the freight wagons, so that she lost nothing personally, even if the ruffians did search her person, disbelieving her assertion that she was destitute of money and valuables.

The bushrangers had ambushed the party and shot them at their leisure, and did the business as coolly and with as much indifference as though the poor fellows had been sheep, and the ruffians hungry and in want of mutton.  They didn’t seem to think that they had done a cruel action; and when the younger female, whose name was Betsey Trueman, shed bitter tears at her loss, the brutes jested at her grief, and promised to supply his place with a fresher and more active husband.  They couldn’t understand why a woman should mourn for one man when there were others ready to take his place.