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Rh still and leave this dog to me. A woman, do you say? An impudent slut who’s at the bottom of the whole mischief, and shall go back to Government to-morrow! Be off, you hussy! Be off to your bed before I have you taken there by force!”

Peggy glanced at Tom, and only went at his nod; the tacit interchange brought Nat to a sitting posture with doubled fists.

“I was ordering her there myself,” he vowed. “I had found her prowling about.”

“A brazen baggage!” cried Dr. Sullivan. “Not another female will I ever apply for; they are ten times worse than the men. So you thought he was going to strike her, did you? Anything else, I wonder?”

“Nothing that you will believe. But he was at the bottom of a plot to get me flogged for nothing: he had bribed two of the men to steal those saddles that you see, and put it on me; but I followed them and had got your property back, when at the gate here—”

“I’ll stop his lies!” said Nat, and staggered to his feet, but the doctor pinned him by the arm.

“You will not! You will leave him to me,” said the father, sternly. He was the stronger man; the son stood quelled. “We know they’re lies,” the doctor added; “all convicts are liars. Have any two men been out of the huts to-night, Roberts?”

“Not one, sir—out of the huts. I can swear to that. How this one escaped me—”

“It makes no matter,” said Dr. Sullivan, gripping his son’s arm still. “The saddles are not the point. I saw the blow, and shall inquire into nothing else. The blow, you ruffian, you shall answer for tomorrow before the nearest magistrate. Now take him away. Clap him in