"The impudent scoundrel! Just look at this, mamma. I should like to see him at it," exclaimed Sydney Lawson in great wrath, as he handed his mother a very dirty note which a shepherd had brought home. On coarse, crumpled grocer's paper these words were written in pencil:

"Master Sidney i Want your Mare the chesnit with the white starr, soe You Send her to 3 Mile flat first thing Tomorrer Or i Shall Have to cum an Fetch Her.

"Warrigal."

"Sam says," Sydney went on to say, "that the fellow was coward enough to give it him just down by the slip-panels. He wouldn't have dared to talk about sticking us up if he hadn't known father was away. Send him my mare Venus! I seem to see myself doing it!"

Sidney Lawson, who made this indignant speech, was a tall, slim lad of fourteen. He and his mother had been left in charge of the station while his father took some cattle to Port Philip.

Sydney was very proud of his charge; he thought himself a man now, and was very angry that Warrigal, a well-known desperado, should think he could be frightened "like a baby."

Warrigal was a bushranger who with one or two companions wandered about in that part of New South Wales, doing pretty much as he liked. They stopped the mail, and robbed draymen and horsemen on the road by the two and three dozen together. The police couldn't get hold of them.

The note that Sydney had received caused a great deal of excitement in the little station.

Miss Smith, who helped Mrs. Lawson in the house, and taught Sydney's sisters and his brother Harry, was in a great fright.

"Oh! pray send him the horse, Master Sydney," she cried, "or we shall all be murdered. You've got so many horses one can't make any difference."

Mrs. Lawson was as little disposed as Sydney to let Mr. Warrigal do as he liked. She knew that her husband would have run the risk of being "nabbed," if he had been at home, rather than have obeyed the bushranger's orders; and that he would be very pleased if they could manage to defy the rascal.

Still it was a serious matter to provoke Messrs. Warrigal & Co. to pay the house a visit. She felt sure that Sydney would fight and she meant to fire at the robbers herself if they came; but would she and Sydney be able to stand against three armed men?

Not a shepherd, or stockman, or horse-breaker about the place was to be depended on; and Ki Li, the Chinaman cook, though a very good kind of fellow, would certainly go to bed in his hut if the robbers came by day, and stay in bed if the robbers came by night. John Jones, the plowman, whose wife was Mrs. Lawson's servant, slept in the house, and he was too honest to band with the bushrangers in any way; "but then, he's such a sheep, you know, mamma," said Sydney.

There was time to send word to the police in Jerry's Town; but who was to go?

Ki Li would be afraid to go out in the dark, and John Jones would be afraid to ride anything but one of the plow horses, and that only at an amble. It wouldn't do for Sydney to leave the place, since he was the only male on it who was to be depended upon, so what was to be done?

Little Harry had heard his mother and brother talking; and as soon as he made out their difficulty he looked up and said:

"Why, mamma, I can go. Syd, lend me your stock-whip and let me have Guardsman."

Neither mother nor brother had any fear about Harry's horsemanship, but they scarcely liked to turn the little fellow out for a long ride by night.

However, he knew the way well enough, and if he did not fall in with any of the Warrigal gang nobody would harm him.

So Sydney put the saddle and bridle on Guardsman and brought him round to the garden-gate, where Harry stood flicking about Sydney's stock-whip very impatiently, while his mamma kissed him and tied a comforter round his neck.

Harry shouted "Good-night," gave Guardsman his head, and was off like a wild boy.

Sydney stabled Venus, his favorite mare, and—an unusual precaution—turned the key in the rusty padlock; and when he had given a look about the outbuildings it was time for him to go in to supper and family prayers.

He read the chapter and Mrs. Lawson read the prayers. She was a brave woman, but with her little girls about her and her little boy away she couldn't keep her voice from trembling a little when she said, "Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night."

Sydney went into his mother's bedroom and looked at the blunderbuss that stood by the bedhead (Mrs. Lawson had selected the blunderbuss as her weapon, because she thought she "must be sure to hit with that big thing") and he showed her once more how to pull the trigger.

Then he bade her "good-night," and went along the veranda to his own little room at one end, where he locked himself in, and drew the charge of his rifle and loaded it again, and looked at the chambers of his revolver, and put the caps on, and laid it down on a chair, ready to his hand.

When his preparations were completed he said his prayers and tumbled into bed with his clothes on.

Harry wasn't expected home until the next day. He had been told to sleep at the tavern in Jerry's Town, when he had left his message at the barracks, and come home at his leisure in the morning.

About four miles from Wonga-Wonga, the dreariest part of the road to Jerry's Town, begins a two-mile stretch of dismal scrub. Harry put his heels into Guardsman's sides to make him go even faster than he was going when they got into the scrub, and was pleased to hear a horse's hoofs coming toward him from the other end.

He thought it was a neighbor riding home to the next station; but it was Warrigal. As soon as Harry pulled up Guardsman to chat a minute, Warrigal laid hold of the bridle and pulled Harry on to the saddle before him.

"Let's see, you're one of the Wonga-Wonga" (that was the name of his father's station) "kids, ain't you?" said the robber. "And where are you off to this time of night? Oh, oh, to fetch the traps, I guess; but I'll put a stop to that little game."

Just then Harry gave a coo-ey. He couldn't give a very loud one, for he was lying on a sack on the robber's horse; but it made Warrigal very savage.

He put the cold muzzle of a pistol against Harry's face and said, "You screech again, youngster, and you won't do it no more."

And then Warrigal took Harry and the horses into the scrub, and gagged Harry with a bit of iron he took out of his pocket, and tied him up to a crooked old honeysuckle-tree with a long piece of rope he carried in his saddle-bags.

"Don't frighten yourself, I'll tell yer mar where you are, and you'll be back by breakfast," said Warrigal, as he got on Guardsman and rode off, driving his own tired horse before him.

Next morning, just as the day was breaking, Warrigal and his two mates, with crape masks on, rode up to Wonga-Wonga.

They made as little noise as they could; but the dogs began to bark and woke Sydney.

When he woke, however, Warrigal had got his little window open, and was covering him with a pistol.

Sydney put out his hand for his revolver, and though Warrigal shouted, "Throw up your hands, boy, or I'll shoot you through the head," he jumped out of bed and fired.

He missed Warrigal, and Warrigal missed him; but Warrigal's bullet knocked Sydney's revolver out of his hand, and one of Warrigal's mates made a butt against the bedroom door and smashed it; and he and Warrigal rushed into the room, and threw Sydney down on the bed, and pinioned his arms with a sheet.

The other bushranger was watching the horses.

By this time the whole station was aroused. The men peeped out of their huts, half frightened, half amused; not one of them came near the house. John Jones and his wife piled their boxes against their room door, and then crept under the bed.

Miss Smith went into hysterics; and Gertrude and her sisters couldn't help looking as white as their night-dresses.

Mrs. Lawson had fired off her blunderbuss, but it had only broken two panes of the parlor window, and riddled the veranda posts; so Wonga-Wonga was at the bushrangers' mercy.

They ransacked the house, and took possession of any little plate, and jewelry, and other portable property they could find. When the robbers had packed up what they called the "swag," and put it on one of their horses, they pulled Ki Li out of bed, and made him light a fire, and cook some chops and boil some tea.

Then they marched Mrs. Lawson, and Miss Smith, and Sydney, and his sisters, and Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and Ki Li, into the keeping-room, and sat down to breakfast, with pistols in their belts, and pistols laid, like knives and forks, on the table.

The bushrangers tried to be funny, and pressed Mrs. Lawson and the other ladies to make themselves at home, and take a good meal. One of the robbers was going to kiss Miss Smith; but Sydney, pinioned as he was, ran at him, and butted him like a ram.

He was going to strike Sydney; but Gertrude ran between them, calling out, "Oh, you great coward!" and Warrigal felt ashamed, and told the man to sit down.

"We call him Politeful Bill," Warrigal remarked, in apology; "but he ain't much used to ladies' serciety."

When breakfast was over, Warrigal asked Sydney where the mare was.

"Find her yourself," said Sydney.

"Well, there won't be much trouble about that," answered Warrigal. "She's in the stable, I know; and you've locked her in, for I tried the door. I suppose you are too game to give up the key, my young fighting-cock? But since you're so sarcy, Master Sydney, you shall see me take your mare. You might as well ha' sent her instead of sending for the police, and then I shouldn't ha' got the bay horse too;" and he pointed to Guardsman, hung up on the veranda.

There was no time to ask what had become of Harry.

Warrigal hurried Sydney by the collar to the stable, while the other men mounted their horses, and unhooked Guardsman, to be ready for their captain.

Warrigal blew off the padlock with his pistol; but Venus was fractious, and wouldn't let him put on her halter. While he was dodging about the stable with her, Sydney heard hoofs in the distance. Nearer and nearer came the tan-ta-ta-tan-ta-ta-tan-ta-ta.

Four bluecoats galloped up to the slip-panels, three troopers and a sergeant; the sergeant with Harry on his saddlebow.

In a second Harry was down, and in three seconds the slip-panels were down too.

The waiting bushrangers saw the morning sun gleaming on their carbines, as the police dashed between the aloes and the prickly pears, and letting Guardsman go, were off like a shot.

Sydney banged to the stable door; and, setting his back against it, shouted for help. His mother, Gertrude, and even John Jones, as the police were close at hand, ran to his aid; and up galloped the troopers.

Warrigal fired a bullet or two through the door, and talked very big about not being taken alive; but he thought better of it, and in an hour's time he was jogging off to Jerry's Town with handcuffs on, and his legs tied under his horse's belly.

If Warrigal had not taken up little Harry, most likely he would not have been caught; for when Harry had got to Jerry's Town, he would have found all the troopers away except one. In the scrub, however, Harry heard the sergeant and his men returning from a wild-goose chase they had been sent on by the bush telegraphs; and managing at last to spit the gag out of his mouth, he had given a great co-oo-oo-oo-oo-ey.

After that night Miss Smith always called Sydney Mr. Sydney; and Sydney let Harry ride Venus as often as he liked.