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 "No. I never missed them; they are not like any I ever had."

"Don't you remember the man who chased you out and misfired at you six times? He was the overseer on the station; his name may come back to me, but his face I shall never forget. He had a revolver in his pocket, but he dared not lower a hand. I took it out of his pocket and was to hand it up to him when I got the chance. Until then I was to keep it under my shawl. That was when I managed to unload every chamber. These are the cartridges I took out, and they have been my mascot ever since."

She looked years younger than she had seemed even singing in the Town Hall; but the lines deepened on the bushranger's face, and he stepped back from her a pace.

"So you saved my life," he said. "You had saved my life all the time. And yet I came to ask you to do as much for me as I had done for you!"

He turned away; his hands were clenched behind his back.

"I will do more," she cried, "if more could be done by one person for another. Here are jewels." She stripped her neck of its rope of pearls. "And here are notes." She dived into a bureau and thrust a handful upon him. "With these alone