Chapter IX.

Midnight in the Tent.

You can't think how full a bullock's foot is of bones," said Vanborough reflectively. He had placed a mass of soft, brownish jelly upon an earthen-ware dish and was touching it up with an iron spoon. Nigel Tremaine lay in a hammock, looking rather white and worn from the effects of his feverish attack; the warm air came in from the tent opening, and Geoffrey was pre-paring his friend's breakfast—Paraguay tea, corn-cakes, and very primitive calfsfoot jelly.

"Where did you get the bullock's feet?" asked Tremaine.

"Oh, they were given me. Carson told me what could be done with them, and took off the shoes. I soaked them for one night and let them boil for twelve hours more—this savoury jelly is the consequence. It is very good for you; but I repeat that you will never know how difficult it is to cut up bullock's feet, because you simply cannot imagine how full they are of bones."

"You are becoming a first rate cook," said Nigel, taking a portion of the jelly; upon his plate.

"A good plain cook," said Van-borough, pulling down his sleeves and proceeding to pour the tea into a tin pannikin; "but I don't pretend to emulate Carson." Carson was another Englishman who had recently joined the party. "He brought in an ostrich's egg yesterday morning for himself and Darenth and made an omelet for their breakfast. When it was done he remembered that Soyer always tossed an omelet in the open air; so he would go outside and toss it. I saw him from afar, and told him what would happen, but he would not listen. Up it went, and about one quarter came down into the frying-pan again."

"What a fool!"

"So I called him," said Geoffrey, plunging his spoon into the jelly.

"And what happened yesterday? The men came in swearing that you were the best drover among them. I was too lazy to inquire about it at the time."

"The mules all went different ways," said Geoffrey, laughing, "and so did we. At last I got down and put my ear to the ground in order to ascertain whether I could not hear some large body of them coining my way; and I did. They had turned round and were coming back, so I just headed them, and when the other fellows page 166 turned up I had got every one—not a single mule missing. We drove them into a mule-yard then, you know, and some of the men took charge of them. Now we are nearly at our journey's end, and shall have no more work of that sort just yet."

"You are happy in this life, Geoffrey?"

"I like it very well. It is a change from mess room and parade, isn't it?"

"And how about the home-ties?" said Tremaine, with a keen glance of his eagle eyes at the broad-shouldered, fine-looking man before him, who had adapted himself with such apparent ease to the exigencies of a colonist's life.

Vanborough was silent for a moment; then laughed rather defiantly.

"You don't expect me to go into those pros and cons over breakfast, with a day's work before me, do you?" Then, seeing that Nigel took this speech with a curiously grave, considerate look, he added, "You must not press me too hard, Nigel. You forget that while you are soon going back to English life, I am not."

"That is just what I want to talk about. Not now, though, while you are so desperately colonial. But I must be getting back to Buenos Ayres in a few days, remember, and I have a thing or two on my mind to say."

"All right, old fellow. I beg pardon for my roughness. It's awfully hard to hear you talk of going back; though, of course, the time-must come sooner or later. Now I must be off—there's no help for it."

"I shall be out, too, presently. I want to see your mesmerising friend before I go."

"Don't," said Geoffrey, with an accent of such hearty disgust that Nigel laughed as they separated. "Besides," Vanborough turned back to say, "I believe he has left the camp."

Sebastian Vallor had been hanging about the camp for some time earning his living in precarious ways. Occasionally he prescribed for various diseases, and seemed to have a good deal of knowledge of herbs, acquired perhaps amongst the Indians, with whom he said he had lived for many months at a time; sometimes he told fortunes, even cast nativities in some rude way, and predicted the course of events by the stars. These latter accomplishments aroused a good deal of superstitious feeling among the Spaniards and native Americans; but the English and Yankee settlers, of whom there were several, laughed unmercifully at his pretensions to supernatural lore. His mesmeric influence was put into requisition more than once, but never to such good effect as in the case of the little Indian boy on the night of Vallor's arrival at the camp. Indeed he seemed to shrink from any such exhibition of his powers, and confined himself to common-place tricks and sleight-of-hand, in which he was an adept. His cleverness in card games brought him at first into much repute, but when he was found to win steadily, the settlers became slow to play with him, and the gains thus made rapidly melted away. However, there was always plenty of work to be done, and ready hospitality extended to a stranger; so that, after all, Vallor was not badly off.

He had made little use of his connexion with Luke Darenth; in fact, he seemed to hold himself somewhat apart from him, intimating now and then in a mysterious manner that he knew more than he thought well to confide to such a country booby; but he was particular in his inquiries about Charnwood, and also about the Tremaines and the Vanboroughs. He speedily gathered that Captain Vanborough was on bad terms with his family, and plied Luke with questions as to the reason; but Luke had no answer to give, and grew silent and sulky when he thought the conversation lasted too long. But Vallor returned to the charge more than once.

"What did Mr. Tremaine come out here for?" he asked one day, when Luke seemed more amiable than usual.

"For friendliness to the Captain," said Luke. "They're like brothers, those two, and they're to be real brothers some time or other."

"How is that?"

"By marriage," said Luke nodding. "Mr Tremaine worships the very ground that Miss Clarice treads on. But he's done himself an ill turn by coming out here with Mr Geoffrey."

page 167

"Indeed! and how?"

"Oh, Sir Wilfred's taken against him! by all accounts," said Luke. "He didn't like Mr. Tremaine holding to Mr. Geoffrey in opposition to him, but I suppose it will come right in course of time."

"Why had Sir Wilfred quarrelled with his son?" asked Vallor with evident interest.

"Tain't no business of mine," said Luke. "No, I don't know, nor does any one else—except themselves and Mr. Tremaine. Unless, p'r'aps it would be Joan," he added, in a low tone to himself.

"Joan? Ah, that is your sister's name?" said Vallor, interrogatively. Then, with a look as if some new idea were occurring to him, he said, "But your sister—she was very friendly with Miss Vanborough and your Captain—was she not? He might tell her things that he would not tell you or me?"

"He might," said Luke, stolidly un-conscious of the conclusion that Vallor was drawing from his words.

"Your sister, then," pursued the Spaniard, "she is beautiful?"

"She's a fine, strapping lass," said Luke, with calm satisfaction. "Why, you heard that little Pépé describe her to a hair, though how he knew what she was like is more than I can understand."

"That was your sister, was it?" said Sebastian Vallor, "The girl with the dark eyes and the ribbon round her neck—oh, I should know her again so well!—whom Pépé was describing when your Mr. Geoffrey interrupted us with his angry frown and terrible voice? Oh, now I understand. My good Luke, if I was ever to visit Charnwood, I think I could turn your information to good account."

And his eyes assumed so crafty an expression that Luke was suddenly put upon his guard, and began to bethink himself of what he had said. On reflection he could not see that he had betrayed more of his master's business than was well known to all the world at Charnwood. But as a matter of fact Sebastian Vallor had learnt far more than Luke himself could have expressed in words.

"Mr. Tremaine's going back to Eng-land soon, is he not?" he asked Luke presently.

"Next week, I expect; he wants doctoring."

"Why does he not have a doctor from Buenos Ayres? Is he not rich enough to pay the cost? It is seven or eight dollars the mile, and it is forty miles—true; but if he is so rich?——"

"Oh, money matters nothing to him," said Luke, with an Englishman's desire to uphold the honour of his countryman in the presence of a stranger. "Still," he added, upon re-flection, "seven dollars a mile for forty miles is a tidy lot of money, to be sure."

It was noticed after this conversation that Sebastian Vallor was found several times in the vicinity of the tent occupied by Vanborough and Tremaine during their absence; and a certain settler, who was acting one day as cook for the community, felt it his duty to warn him that, "if he didn't give them premises a wide berth for the future he would know the feel of a bullet afore long, or his name wasn't Jonathan Elkins." After which remark Sebastian Vallor absented himself from the camp altogether, and was supposed to have gone back to his lonely hut in the forest at some miles' distance. And therefore Vanborough told his friend, who as yet had observed Vallor only in the most cursory manner possible, that the Spaniard had finally quitted the little settlement.

In the dusk of the evening, when Nigel and Geoffrey were both out of doors, a keen observer might have distinguished a dark form lying almost motionless upon the ground near their tent. A few log cabins had been hastily run up for the use of the cattle-drivers when they came that way, but Vanborough preferred the free ventilation and portability of his canvas dwelling, although he was warned that it was more easily accessible to thieves. He was strong and well-armed, and had no fear. And yet there might have been room for fear in the mind of any one who had descried the stealthy approach of that dark figure through, the grass. It writhed itself along by slow degrees, like a snake, and finally page 168 reached the very edge of the tent, where it lay still for a long time. When night had fallen it wormed itself just inside the tent, and lay hidden in the darkness between the canvass and a rude wooden box which stood at one side of the tent. Thus the man, whoever he was, lay not a yard from Nigel Tremaine's hammock, and close to the box which he was in the habit of using as a table on which he sometimes carelessly deposited his watch and pocket-book, side by side with his revolver.

It was with this dangerous visitant crouched within four feet of him that Nigel Tremaine that night opened a conversation with Geoffrey. The lights were out, and Vanborough was just sinking into slumber, when his friend's voice aroused him.

"Geoffrey, old fellow, I'm sorry to disturb you, but as I can never get a quiet word with you in the day time, I must ask you to listen to me now."

"Say on," said Vanborough, sleepily. "You wouldn't be so ready to talk if you had been as many hours in the saddle as I have to-day. I'm afraid I shall snore in the middle of the conversation, that is all."

"Not when you hear what I have to say. I want to talk about your home people."

Geoffrey's voice took a wakeful tone at once.

"What is it? I'm listening."

"I'm not going to pretend to be disinterested," said Tremaine, deliberately. My words are spoken from purely selfish motives, and you must not mind if they sound harsh. You know how deep my attachment to Clarice is?"

"Yes."

"You know that I was denied admittance to your father's house a fortnight before I came away?"

"Unhappily I do."

"I expected Sir Wilfred's soreness about our friendship and my expedition with you to die away in a short time, but I am sorry to say that it seems to have become exasperated I hear from Clarice that she is now forbidden to go to Beechhurst to see my mother and the girls—or to write to me any longer."

"She never told me that," said Geoffrey, sitting up, with something like a groan.

"Of course I shall demand an explanation when I go back."

"You ought never to have come."

"Yes, I ought. I don't think your father will hold out against both Clarice and myself. The fact that makes me most anxious, and that has very considerably astonished me, is that Gilbert takes the same view as Sir Wilfred and opposes our engagement with all his might."

Geoffrey was so still for a moment that Nigel could not even hear him breathe. Then he drew a long sigh, as of one utterly heart-sick and weary. "Well," he said, "is there anything in that to surprise you?"

"Yes," Nigel answered emphatically, "very much." He paused for a moment, and then went on in clear and rapid tones—"I am surprised, because I thought the bond between you was so strong. I know how he used to cling to you when we were all boys together; how considerate you were of him, how dependent he was on you. You were a model elder brother, Geoffrey; Gilbert used to look to you for all sorts of aid long after his boyhood; and you were absurdly, romantically generous and good to him. Oh, yes, I know the history of his lameness; you needn't remind me of it. You all i attach an undue importance to your share in that accident. Practically he owes more than half his success and happiness in life to you; I've heard him acknowledge it when he was in an amiable mood. And for him to say that he believes that you would commit forgery! Why, he must know that it is a moral impossibility as well as I do. I am lost in amazement at Gilbert's action in the matter."

"I wish you would let it rest."

"I can't and won't let it rest. Do you ever let it rest? You know that it haunts you night and day. This is the last time we may be able to talk the matter out. Hitherto I have respected your silence. Now I am going back to encounter the obstacles which between us we have managed to raise up in the way of my engagement to Clarice. For her sake and mine you ought to help me. The easiest way of removing the difficulty would be to clear yourself of suspicion. And I think I page 169 have a right to ask a question or two."

"This is just your old trick of bullying me which you had at school," said Vanborough. "It has lost its power now, you know. You have a right to ask questions, certainly; and I have a right to decline answering them Go on."

"Do you want this matter cleared up?"

"No."

"Do you want to come back to England?"

"No."

"You prefer expatriation? Why? When Sir Wilfred rests with your fathers, you will come home with your fortune gained in sheep-shearing and colt-breaking, and take your proper place in the country."

"I think it is probable," said Geoffrey, "that my father may have made some provision in his will to render my return to England all but impossible. He is in possession of certain papers which would lodge me in prison at once, if he chose to place them in proper hands."

"And you will submit to that?"

"I prefer remaining in South America."

"But what do you hope for? What are your prospects of happiness?"

"I have none," said Geoffrey bitterly. "What is there for me to hope for here? I don't blow my brains out, be-cause I hold that a man who commits suicide is a coward; also because there are two or three people in the world to whom my death would bring some little shade of grief. If you had not taken the management of me at the critical moment I think I should have joined the army here instead of going sheep-farming; and then I should have probably been shot in the next revolution. Still, I find that Indians, sun-stroke, fever, and accident make the average death-rate rather high. So much the better."

"I never heard you take that tone before."

"It is not a manly one, I know. You shall not hear it again. Only spare me any more questions."

"One moment, Geoffrey. Will you do nothing to clear yourself?"

"Nothing."

"I believe that I have my finger on the truth. Shall I point it out?"

"No."

"You understand that you are throwing away your character and your life?"

"Indeed I do."

"And for whose sake?"

There was a long silence. Nigel was content to Jet his question do its own work. When Vanborough spoke it was in a low, pained tone.

"I can't help it, Nigel. Think of it as being for my own sake—my own safety. I can't go back."

"The whole truth would not be half so bad for yourself, and for others, as this concealment. If I said to your father——"

"Nigel, I can't listen."

"You must listen, or I shall have to precipitate matters by writing my views to Sir Wilfred in a way that might be called rash."

"Dear old boy, I wish you would hold your tongue. You make matters worse, not better. Do be quiet and go to sleep."

"Not till I have told you a story which justifies my interference. Now don't interrupt me with any such frivolous statement as that you know the tale already, or the parties concerned. Remember you have not heard the comments on it that late years have suggested to me. There were once two brothers, boys of eleven and sixteen. They were at a tutor's house together. One day there was a great row because pipes, and spirits, and various materials for feasting had been smuggled into one of the bedrooms. Everybody in the house denied any knowledge of it—be quiet, I say, and listen—until damning evidence against one Mr. G. Vanborough was found in the shape of a label tied round the neck of a bottle, and addressed to him. Mr. Geoffrey Vanborough was accordingly accused, condemned, and expelled—or would have been expelled, but for the officiousness of a friend who had looked hard into the face of G. Vanborough the younger, saw something there that the general public did not see, and extorted the truth from him. G. stands for Gilbert as well as Geoffrey, you see. The page 170 elder brother had been fool enough—yes, fool enough—to shield the younger at his own expense, on the ground that he was young, lame, delicate—heaven knows what besides!—and forgot that his over softness and tenderness to the lad might hinder any chance of his growing up brave and honest in after life. In my opinion you did Gilbert much greater harm by trying to protect him from the consequences of his own wrong-doing than when you were the innocent cause of his lameness. There; I have done. History repeats itself; that is all."

"You are going too far, Tremaine."

"You told me so on that former occasion, I recollect."

"Don't, Nigel; for God's sake, don't! You make me sorry that I ever sought you out on that unhappy night last summer. Don't say another word, or we shall quarrel."

"Vanborough, your love for your brother Gilbert makes a perfect fool of you. Well, what are you going to do?"

"Going out. I'll have no more of this. I can't stand it."

"Lie down again. I have nothing more to say to-night."

"No," said Geoffrey, who had risen from his bed; "I must get a breath of fresh air. I am stifled."

He lifted up the flap of the tent door and disappeared.

Nigel sighed as he turned upon his pillow. He had made one last attempt to alter his friend's determination and had failed. There was nothing left for him to do but to go back to England next week and do what he could with Gilbert and Sir Wilfred. Thus musing he fell asleep, and Geoffrey, broad awake outside, lay under a solitary eucalyptus tree with the night-breezes cooling his feverish hands and head.

And all the time the dark figure of a man, with ears on the alert and nerves a-strain, had crouched three feet from Nigel's head and listened to every word.

Geoffrey had become almost sleepy when his attention was aroused by a sudden cry which seemed to proceed from the tent. He started up, listened, and then rushed towards it at full speed. It was Nigel's voice that had called him, and as he approached he could hear the noise of a struggle, and then the report of a pistol, which roused the whole camp.

He entered the tent just in time to hinder the escape of a man who was crawling away under the canvas with a knife in his hand. Geoffrey seized him by the throat and disarmed him, knowing as he did so that the would-be thief and assassin was Sebastian Vallor. And when he had secured him he turned to the floor, where Nigel Tremaine lay, the still smoking pistol dropping from his hand, the dark blood oozing slowly from more than one ugly wound, and staining all his arm and side; a deathly pallor upon his lifeless face.

Chapter X.

The Vengeance of the Camp.

These was a tumult of words and voices, a-crowding of angry faces round the entrance to the tent, a storm of curses on the prisoner's head. Vallor lay on the ground, bound hand and foot, looking ghastly. It seemed to him that his last hour had surely come. If any man present chose to lift his deringer and put a bullet through the culprit's head, no stigma of blame would attach to the perpetrator of such an act of summary justice. But this act was not performed. The men left it to Vanborough, the natural avenger of his friend's blood, and Vanborough was too much absorbed by the sight of Nigel's danger to have thought for any one but him.

An old and experienced colonist, who was in charge of the expedition, and well versed in the treatment of accidents, came and knelt down at Tremaine's side, felt his pulse, and raised his eyelid with one finger and thumb. "Only a faint," he said tren-chantly; "he'll come round." Then he looked at the circle of faces, some scowling, some curious, some sympa-thetic, pointed to the door and uttered one expressive monosyllable—

"Git!"

In two seconds the tent was clear.

"We'll keep 'im till you come out, Cap'en," said one of the men to Van-borough, as he assisted in removing the page 171 captive; "darn me if anyone but you has the right to shoot him."

"Keep him safe, then, Geoffrey answered rather grimly.

At that moment he felt himself quite prepared to shoot the murderer with his own hand, should Nigel die.

The manager's rough surgery soon showed, however, that the wounds were not quite as serious as they looked. The knife had penetrated his side very deeply, and his arm was severely wounded, but it did not ap-pear that the injury was a mortal one, as Geoffrey had feared at first.

"Can't we get a doctor?" Vanborough asked by and by.

"None nearer than Buenos Ayres. Eight or ten dollars a mile."

"That doesn't matter. I'd better go myself, perhaps. Or shall I get Darenth to go?"

The squatter thought that "one of the boys "would do the business better than Darenth, and that Vanborough himself should stay by his friend.

"If he wakes up and sees yer gone, he may be just a trifle on reasonable. Sick folk often air, any way. I calc'-late too that Hiram Gregg knows Buenos Ayres more closely 'n you or Darenth neither. If he rides Black Pete he'll be there an' back like a flash o' greased lightning. I'll go and find him."

Geoffrey was left alone with his friend. The bleeding from the wound had hitherto continued, but now he thought he saw signs of its becoming allayed. In a little time Nigel opened his eyes, fixed them earnestly upon Vanborough, and smiled.

"All right," said Geoffrey, softly. "Don't talk; you've been hurt, but you'll soon be better."

Nigel glanced down at his arm and side, seemed to recollect something, and was silent. The kindly settler now returned, and motioned Geoffrey to the door of the tent, where Hiram Gregg, the man guaranteed to go to Buenos Ayres and back "like a flash o' greased lightning," was already in waiting. Vanborough had to furnish him with a part of the money which the doctor would require as a fee; some portion of it, he was told, being often paid beforehand in sign of good faith.

Hiram Gregg, who, like the old colonist, was a North American, waited a moment to add, in an odd, unmodu-lated voice, which it was vain to hush—

"The boys is gettin' wild out thyar. [unclear: Sezthey] want to kna wot yer gwine ter dew with Vallor. Sez they'll lynch him ef yer not raound soon to put a bullet inter him yerself. They 'low yer may as well hev the satisfaction o' dewing it with yer own deringer."

"I'll come out," said Vanborough. He was hardly conscious of what he meant to do—whether he should protect the criminal or allow "the boys" to take vengeance upon him—but he strode back into the tent for his own pistol, as a precautionary measure. And there his eyes encountered Nigel's again; Nigel's blue eyes fixed upon him with something of their old keen brightness.

"Geoffrey," he said.

"Don't speak, don't talk," said Van-borough, hurriedly. "You will hurt yourself."

"Was it Vallor?" the wounded man persisted.

"Yes," and Geoffrey's brow grew dark.

"Remember—I should not have been hurt—but for my resistance—don't let them—kill the fellow."

Vanborough shrugged his shoulders. He was not disposed to interfere in behalf of the man who had half killed Tremaine. But Nigel spokeagain, with the gasping impatience of weakness.

"Look after it, will you? Don't let him be killed—on my account."

"All right. Do keep quiet Nigel. I'll do all I can."

And Geoffrey sallied forth, very doubtful as to his line of conduct. No sooner was he outside the tent than he was beset by buzzing groups of men, anxious to see what he would do, and to know what he wished them to do. With the rough honour of comradeship, they had not touched a hair of their prisoner's head; they had left the task of vengeance for Geoffrey's hand. They had already grown fond of the three Englishmen, who seemed united by a stronger tie than the one generally admitted among fellow-settlers in that part of the world. And they were page 172 quite prepared to see Geoffrey Van-borough do justice on the man who had stabbed his friend.

Their surprise was not great then when Vanborough, seeing that he was expected to do or say something definite, sprang upon an oak stump and made them a short speech. Vallor Jay on the ground at some distance, and whether he heard or did not hear the words that Vanborough spoke could not be told.

"Gentlemen," said Geoffrey, who was not unpractised in the art of addressing a body of men, and had learnt on parade how to make his voice heard, "gentlemen, my friend, Tremaine, is now conscious, and is likely to do well. I have sent to Buenos Ayres for a doctor. As regards the man Vallor, I must say that a short time ago I should have felt much pleasure in shooting him." (Applause—suppressed however, for fear of disturbing the wounded man's repose.) "But—much as I think he deserves punishment—I have passed my word not to shoot him, and to do my best to prevent your shooting him also. What do you think has induced me to give that promise? Who, but the man whom yonder ruffian stabbed in the arm and side—my friend, Tremaine!"

There was no applause this time, but a murmur, half-admiring, half-savage. Then questions, hisses, cries—"We're not safe if a thief like that is to be let off!" "What did he do that for?" "What a darned fool he must be!"

"He says," continued Vanborough, still dominating the passions of the little crowd by the command of his resonant voice, and stately, soldierly-like presence, "he says that the man wanted to rob, not to kill; that he would not have attacked him if he—Tremaine himself—had not fired at him first, and that therefore he is not to be treated as if he was a murderer. Now, whether Tremaine is right or wrong I don't say. I only say that it will be a shame it I have to go back on my word to him while he's lying there helpless. I promised I'd save the man's life, and I'll defend him to the last, because I promised it; but I'd sooner you kicked him out of camp with a recommendation not to come back again. Now, whoever shoots Vallor will have me to deal with afterwards; and with Tremaine, as soon as he gets better, after me; and with Darenth after both of us. We three are on the same side."

He had spoken loudly, almost roughly, using tone and words most likely to impress the men's minds, and his loyalty to his friend's wishes and to the promise he had given, extorted from them a sullen submission. They muttered that it was no business of theirs any way; and if Vanborough and Tremaine and Darenth liked to be such cursed fools, it was their own look out, and not that of the settlers now in the camp.

Vanborough got down from his stump, and was moving away when the head man, generally known as Ohio Bill, put a horny hand on his arm, and brought his grizzled face very close to the Englishman's brown beard.

"Look hyar," said he, "ef we cave in to the wishes of yond' Britisher, and spare that darned coon's life, it air but right that our feelings should be considered as regards the robbery."

"What now?" said Vanborough.

The American raised his wrinkled forefinger. "It's consid'able hard line's on us, to think we're going to stand by and see a robber make tracks without punishment. Camp air not safe, I reckon, no more than ef the Injuns was on us, if robbery goes unpunished. Neither Tremaine nor you oughter deny that."

"What would you do?"

"Let the boys sorter amuse them-selves with him a little. Not to hurt him partiklar, as you're so sot on begging him off. Duck him once or twice, or give him a taste of a tar brush, and let him run for it; that'll spile his good looks a bit, I reckon. 'Taint for the morrils of the camp to let him go scot-free, Cap'en. I speak for the boys."

"I don't want him to go scot-free. I should like him to be punished," said Vanborough. "I don't want him killed, that is all. Short of that, I don't see that I need interfere."

"I'll see him safe off the camp ground arterwards," said Ohio Bill, with a wink of his left eye, and a look of intense satisfaction; and Vanborough page 173 went back to the tent not at all sorry to think that Sebastian Vallor would meet with some punishment. In his indignation against the man he did not think it necessary to consider whether the punishment was likely or not to be one practised in civilised countries.

Work was suspended for the day. "The boys" were determined to vindicate the honour of their settlement by a solemn trial of the offender. Bench and bar were rigged up by means of planks and logs. Ohio Bill was chosen as judge, and twelve of the men, with Carson the Englishman as their head, constituted a jury. The trial took place at ten o'clock.

There would have been an element of burlesque in the whole affair but for the tragical light in which the prisoner evidently regarded it. To him, not knowing that Tremaine had secured his life, it was a matter of the most serious import. And the jeers, the scoffs, the roars of laughter, commingled with the threats and execrations which occasionally fell upon his ears, must have made those waiting hours torture to him.

Vanborough was summoned to give evidence, which he did with his usual careless calm demeanour. A deputation also waited upon Tremaine to see if he was capable of adding anything to Vanborough's account; but he was in a state bordering upon insensibility, and, considering that "the assassin," as, for purposes of rhetoric, Vallor was now dubbed, had been taken red-handed, there was no necessity, in Ohio Bill's opinion, to wait for Tremaine's return to consciousness. The deputation returned to the improvised courthouse, and Vanborough sat down again at Nigel's bedside to wait for the doctor. He had no curiosity about the verdict or the punishment inflicted.

The trial was over. He could hear a sudden rush of trampling feet, a sudden outcry of voices, oaths, laughter, noisy jests; and then Luke Darenth looked in with a face from which the ruddy colouring had somewhat paled.

"Well,', said Vanborough, in a low tone, "what are they going to do with him?"

"I don't know for certain, sir.," said Luke, rather sullenly. "Seems to me it's a heathen kind of way that they're treating a Christian man, for all he's a robber."

"I'll go and see," said Vanborough. "Remember he nearly killed Mr. Tremaine, Luke. Stay here till I come back."

He walked out, saw an excited group near the great ox-waggons, and proceeded thither. As he drew close to it a pale figure eluded the grasp of his rough guards, and flew to Geoffrey Vanborough's feet.

"Save me! save me! They will kill me! You are English; you are better than these demons—these savages—these——"

"What are you doing?" said Van-borough in a voice of thunder. "Did you not say that the man's life should not be harmed? Back! If one of you lays a finger on him I'll fire!"

There was a moment's pause. Vallor cowered at his feet. Geoffrey held the men at bay with levelled revolver and flashing eye. But their passions were up, and could not now be controlled. Before he knew what they were doing a dozen strong arms had seized him from behind; half-fiercely, half good-humouredly, he was warned to be quiet or he might share Vallor's fate. A rough hand was laid over his mouth when he tried to protest; his revolver was wrested from him and pointed, half in jest and half in earnest, at his own forehead. There were full thirty men against him, and the thirty men would have their way. He was forced to be silent and passive in their hands, which submission became easier to him when he was soon convinced that after all, they had no intention of putting Vallor to death

The man was pallid, his eyes were almost starting out of his head with fear, but as yet he had suffered little bodily harm. His clothes were almost torn off his back by the rough handling he had received, and his wrists were cut and swollen from the chafing of the rope with which he had been tied, but it was evident that he was undergoing more mental than physical pain. He was dragged away to the great bullock waggons which stood at one side of the camp, and then Vanborough knew what punishment the settlers had page 174 determined to inflict upon Sebastian Vallor. He was to be "staked out."

"Staking out" is a punishment with which South American settlers are familiar. Strips of raw hide are fastened from the wheels of one oxen-waggon to the wheels of another, and the culprit is stripped and suspended over them, head downwards, at a height of five or six feet from the ground, for a space of time varying from five to fifteen minutes. More, it is said, human life could not sustain, for the suffering inflicted is intense.

Vanborough was forced to watch the infliction of this punishment in comparative silence, and bitterly regretted that, while he had the power, he had not freed Sebastian Vallor entirely. It was a mistake which he had cause afterwards still more deeply to deplore. But as he could not check the suffering so barbarously imposed, he braced his nerves to witness it with stoical calmness. Not a trace of the disgust he felt could be seen in his grave, impassive face. But when it was over, and his rough captors set him free, he turned aside with a sensation of absolute sickness. Vallor had fallen fainting to the ground. When he recovered consciousness he was led out of the camp, and dismissed with the intimation that if he showed his face there again he would be shot—without trial.

But as he was marched away he passed Geoffrey Vanborough, and favoured him with a look expressive of as much malevolence as lips and eyes could well betray.

"It was your doing I" he hissed out painfully, panting with the strain put upon swoollen muscles and quivering nerves, almost black in the face with anguish and wrath alike; "I shall make you repent it still! You have not heard of me for the last time yet."

And then he was silenced and thrust forward, and the camp was rid of him at last.

It was between four and five o'clock in the afternoon when Hiram Gregg at last put his head into Vanborough's tent.

"I've come, Cap'en," he said. The title of "Captain" had been learnt from Luke Darenth, and was applied to Van-borough by all his rough comrades.

"At last," said Geoffrey, rising and turning to the entrance. I thought your horse was a fast one."

"There ain't no faster than Black Pete," said Hiram sullenly, "but you can't allers find a doctor to kum when you want him, can you? I had to wait about a mighty long spell, and arter all he didn't come himself, but sent a friend as was staying along of him,"

"A friend? Is he a doctor, too?"

"Well, I calc'late he must be. He's mighty peart and noticing like. Told me more about the perrairies than I ever knew," said Hiram, with an air of mingled disdain and superior wisdom.

Geoffrey smiled. "Where is he? Let him come in."

"He's here," said Hiram, standing aside, and then the doctor entered.

A man of thirty or thirty-five years; lean, wiry, energetic-looking; not an ounce of superfluous fat anywhere; a keen, dark resolute, masterful face with very little hair upon it, vivacious dark eyes, a long nose, thin lips, a good, broad forehead and square jaw; these were the outward characteristics of the the new doctor. He had one or two cases in his hand, and a wallet at his side. He was dressed in grey linen, and he wore a Panama hat.

"This is my patient, I suppose," he said, after the briefest possible greeting to Geoffrey. "Ah!" And his eye ran rapidly over the details of the scene before him, seeming to note everything in sight—from Nigel Tremaine's white, exhausted face and Vanborough's grave features to the smallest article of camp furniture. Then he devoted his attention exclusively to his patient, and scarcely spoke again, save to issue one or two peremptory orders to Geoffrey until his examination of the patient and the dressing of his wounds were completed. But Tremaine and Van-borough speedily became aware that no tyro in surgical art was before them. The light, skilful touch, the calm certainty of every movement, inspired so much confidence, that when the dressing was over Nigel looked up with a smile and said cheerily—

"That's better—I shall do now."

"I hope so," said the doctor. "Be good enough not to talk for the present, page 175 however. Are you disposed to obey Orders or not?"

"To obey," said Nigel, smiling.

"Then don't open your lips again to-night without absolute necessity. I will look at you again in an hour or two. Captain Vanborough, may I speak to you?"

Vanborough quitted the tent with him, leaving Darenth in charge. And then the doctor gave him orders as to his management of the patient, and put matters in such fair train, and spoke so hopefully about his recovery, that Vanborough's mind was more lightened and cheered than he could have expected it to be.

He invited his guest to stay the night, an invitation which was at once frankly accepted. The camp had by this time become a scene of drunken revelry, and Vanborough was glad to have a companion at his own evening meal, which otherwise he would have felt very solitary.

He was soon led into giving an account of Nigel's encounter with Vallor, but he happened not to mention the Spaniard's name until the very close of his narrative. And then the doctor, who had been smoking, put down his long cigarette with a rather curious expression of countenance.

"What name did you-say?"

"Vallor. Do you know it?"

"I have heard it before," said the doctor, coolly beginning to smoke again. "Do you know his Christian name?"

"Sebastian."

"Ah! What was he doing here?"

"Gambling chiefly, I believe."

"Has he a wife?"

"I fancy not. He brought some news of his sister-in-law to a man in the camp—that was perhaps his first motive in coming here."

"I knew something once of a man of that name," said the doctor slowly, as if weighing his words, "but he was married."

"This man may have been married too for aught I know," said Vanborough lightly. "He only spoke to Darenth about his brother and his brother's wife."

The doctor repeated the word "Darenth" with an abstracted air.

"It is curious," he said presently, "to find that you mention the name Darenth' in connection with that of Vallor. I know them in connection too."

"Have you been to England?"

"Ten years ago."

"Perhaps you visited a little place called Charnwood? You might have heard both those names there."

"Do you know Charnwood?" asked the doctor.

"Intimately. I was born there."

A sudden light flashed into the man's dark eyes. But he spoke quietly, almost carelessly.

"Excuse my asking you another question. Can you tell me whether a relation of the Darenth family has returned to them yet from America?' Her name was Vallor: she had married a man called Constantine Vallor.

"I should have heard of such a person had she arrived at the Darenths' farm," said Geoffrey. "I can safely assure you that no one of that name has been seen there. Besides,-I suppose, from the man Vallor's account, that it was she who was drowned in the wreck of some ship, seven or eight years ago, with her husband."

The doctor paled a little and frowned. "Neither she nor her husband was drowned," he said. "I was there."

"During the wreck? "

"Yes; and afterwards: I had the pri-vilege of knowing Madame Vallor well."

There was a silence. Vanborough felt the presence of some unusual emotion in his visitor's mind, and did not wish to intrude observation upon it. But before long the doctor spoke again.

"I believe," he said "that Madame Vallor and her husband are both alive. I have not seen either of them for many years. But if either of them had died, I fancy I should have heard. Then he paused. "I have not yet introduced myself by name, Captain Vanborough. I am sufficiently civilised, even in South America, to carry my card about with me sometimes. Allow me to offer it to you."

Vanborough's eyes fell with some curiosity upon the card thus presented to him. But the name upon it was utterly unknown to him. It ran thus—

"Oliver Burnett Lynn."

(To be continued.).