‘With Mr. and Mrs. Summers, J.P.’

‘Gerrout! yer can’t stuff me.’

’Oh, all right, Jacker, don’t excite yerseif.  Perhaps they didn’t give me a load o’ cherries to bring away, an’ strawberries—­thumpin’ ripe strawberries, hid somewhere what I know of.  Oh, I think not.  An’ maybe I wasn’t told to come up to The House Sundays an’ help myself.  Very likely not.’  All this in an airy whisper.

‘Halves!’ hissed Jacker.

‘Quarters!’ murmured Peterson from his hiding place behind the desk.

‘P’raps I don’t know somethin’ too,’ continued Jacker mysteriously.

Dick Haddon cocked his eye.

‘Pompey, the woodjammer, tol’ me he see that bandy whimboy what you fought at the picnic ridin’ your billy down to Cow Flat, an’ Butts seemed to like it.’

This was serious.  The idea of Butts becoming attached to another master gave Dick a real pang.  Already he had suffered many twinges of conscience in consequence of his neglect of the goat in captivity.

‘Wait till r get hold o’ that cove,’ he said bitterly.  ‘I’ll murder him.’

‘Ain’t we never goin’ after them goats?’ asked Jacker.

Dick nodded emphatically.

‘My oath, I’ll fix it.’

‘An’ you’ll shell out wif the strawb’ries?’

Dick nodded again; Jacker went peacefully to his work and Peterson crawled back to his seat.  Confidence was restored.

CHAPTER X.

Harry Hardy’s first few shifts below only served to convince him of the difficulties of the task he had set himself.  The Silver Stream was a big alluvial mine working two levels, and there were close upon a hundred hands below on each shift.  All these he could not watch; but he was working in the same drive and with the set of men Frank had worked with, and was always alert for hint or sign that would give him a clue, whilst at the same time being careful not to set the thieves on their guard.  He must watch closely without letting it be seen that he was watching at all.  Keen as he was in the pursuit of his object, he found, with some self-resentment, that his mind frequently reverted to another subject altogether; and that subject was Miss Christina Shine.  When he caught himself absorbed in a reverie in which Miss Chris was the centre of interest, he metaphorically took himself by the neck and shook himself up, and during the next few minutes reviewed with quite extravagant ferocity the excellent reasons he had for hating Chris for her father’s sake.  It was a melancholy pleasure to him to see the searcher pawing his clothes about, digging into his pockets and his billy, and examining his boots.  His old instinct would have prompted him to attack Ephraim on the floor of the shed, but now, with lamentable unreason and injustice, he nursed the insult as good and sufficient cause for contemning the daughter.  He had seen Chris once since Sunday, and then only from the recesses of a clump of scrub into which he had retreated on seeing her approach; but he felt, without admitting the knowledge even to himself, that he would need all the excuses he could find, just or unjust, reasonable or otherwise, to battle with something that was rising up within him to drive him on his knees to the feet of this grey-eyed girl, a humble and abject penitent.