[Begun in the November number.]

CHAPTER XX.

CONCLUSION.

THERE WAS a careful watch kept in camp that night, the greater part of the vigilance being exercised by Yip, for that good dog's mind was disturbed about something. Once he made a rush and was absent for some time in the bush, but he came back with a wagging tail and a satisfied expression of countenance. Perhaps the next best watch was kept by Ned and Hugh, a little before dawn. Marsh was on sentry duty, and he was sound asleep, trusting to Yip, when Ned and Hugh slipped quietly out of camp. Ned carried a travelingbag, and Hugh had a small portmanteau.

They were gone for only about half an hour, and they came back empty-handed.

"No, Hugh," said Ned, as they got to the camp; "it's all right. That's where he told us to leave them, between the two grape-trees."

"I hope nothing has happened to him," said Hugh. "He's a daring fellow, and ready to run any risk.”

an effort to appear cool and unconcerned, whatever the reason might be. He recovered his composure, however, the moment he and the boys were in the saddle.

"Tom Gordon runs a great risk," he muttered, as they rode out into the forest.

"I hope not, Sir Frederick," remarked Ned Wentworth. "He's very savage-looking, you know."

"That's the strong point," said the baronet. Then suddenly he cried out:

"Tom Gordon! Is it possible?"

There, between the grape-trees, on the ground, lay the luggage Ned and Hugh had carried out. Beside it lay a lot of little leather bags. In front of them stood a tall man and near by were tethered seven horses.

The man was dressed from head to foot in clothing as stylish and as costly as Sir Frederick Parry could provide.

"Well, Sir Frederick," he replied laughingly, "what do you think? Do they fit?"

Was he there?"

feet for a few days. I must n't try to walk

"But that head of hair! The sooner I play barber the better. I've brought a pair of scissors-"

"Do your best," said Tom. "My neck may depend upon having my hair properly cut!"

Sir Frederick dismounted, and the tangled hair fell to the ground in masses.

"I will make it as close a cut as mine," said the baronet. "How shall I trim your beard?" "Cut off all my whiskers, and I'll wear only mustaches. Change my face all you can."

"What do you think of that, Ned?" exclaimed Sir Frederick, as the long, shaggy, red beard was shorn away.

"Think?" said Ned. "Why, he would n't

"It's all here," said Tom. "You know I told you I had some bags sunk in the ruin-a heavy horse-load of nuggets. I went there and got them out. Then I found the horses of that gang picketed by their camp. That told me what had become of the owners. I just took them to the cave and loaded them up. The horse-blankets you and the boys gave me helped me make packs. Some of the loads are heavy-more than they ought to carry far."

those horses?

What have you been doing? How about the blackfellows?"

"Why, you know how it is with them," replied Tom. "They never stay where they 've done such a piece of work as they did yesterday. They're far enough away-the few that 's left of them."

"Why, were any of them knocked over?" asked Sir Frederick.

"I can't say," said Tom. "I did n't try to find out how many. I think they had a fight among themselves. What I wanted was to keep clear of them."

"But these bags?" said the baronet.

"We can put part of it in the wagon," said Sir Frederick. "But how about the blast ?" "You must go and look at that, after breakfast," said Tom. "It's only five or six miles, going straight. Now we 'll load up and go in." "It's the best plan we can adopt," said the baronet.

Lady Parry and Helen were uneasy after the baronet and the boys had ridden away. They grew more and more uneasy and fidgety every minute, until at last Bob McCracken shouted:

"There they come!-and Mr. Thomas Gordon is with them!"

"Yes, there he is!" exclaimed Helen.

"Helen," whispered Lady Parry, "I never expected to see him look like that, I'm sure. It is really wonderful!"

"How changed he is!" Helen answered.

In another minute the riders had dismounted, but Lady Parry said:

"Tom, come into the tent! Come in, Fred and Helen! I can't speak to him out here."

"Bob," said the baronet, before he disappeared, "Mr. Thomas Gordon has not had his breakfast."

"All right, sir! Yes, sir," said Bob, darting toward the coffee-pot and the frying-pan. "Get me some more wood, boys."

A few minutes later he remarked to them: "Did ye ever see the like o' the Gordons and Parrys? They 'll all dress up and shave clean, out in the bush, as if it was at the Grampings. There 's Mr. Thomas Gordon, now, right from the mines, and he looks as if he 'd stepped out of a bandbox!"

Within the tent there had been greetings and even tears; and at last Sir Frederick remarked to his wife:

"My dear, Ned's idea will work perfectly, if we can go straight through to England."

"I am sure I do not wish to stop a needless hour anywhere," she said; "not even at the Grampians."

"I have no doubt," said Tom Gordon, “that Ned's entire plan is the safest for me." "His entire plan?" asked Helen. is it, Uncle Tom?

"What

"Why, Helen," he replied. "I wish to see England again, of course, but it will not do for me to stay there. Ned is going there with me, as soon as he can get the consent of his father and mother. We can see all we wish to see, and then we leave for the United States."

"Do you see, Maude?" asked her husband. "Nothing could be better. As for America, not only will he be entirely safe there, but he can step into business at once

"Ned says I could start a new city, or go to Congress," said Tom, laughing. “I shall indeed have capital enough to start on. Something like half a million, counting it in dollars.”

"Count it in dollars, of course," said Sir Frederick, smiling. "You 're going to America! Come to breakfast, now, and then if you 're sure the woods are clear, we 'll go to see what your blasting-powder and dynamite did for that mountain."

"I think we are perfectly safe in going," said Tom; "and, while we are gone, the men can get things ready for a start. I can pilot you to the Grampians."

The men were left in charge of the camp, with instructions to take down the tents, pack the wagon, and make ready for moving.

"We can make quite a journey before dark," said Sir Frederick, “and we 've been here long enough."

"Indade we have, sir," said Bob, heartily.

The ladies had many questions to ask as they rode along, and Tom told them his experiences. At last, after a long ride through the forest, they came out again on the river bank.

"Why!" exclaimed Helen. "This is where Ned Wentworth found me, when I was lost. Yip found me here, too."

"I wanted to look up-stream from this point," said Tom. "Yes, there's a cleft in the hill. There always was a sort of deep gorge there, I think, where the stream came out from the chasm. Listen!"

"It sounds like a waterfall," said Sir Frederick. "Was there one there?"

"My house is gone," exclaimed Gordon. "The whole cave has fallen in. When I was here last night, I could only get in far enough to reach my gold."

"The roof fell in?" asked Hugh.

"Yes," said Tom, "and filled the deep chasm. It made a great gorge—what the Yankees call a cañon. Everything was ready to tumble, and the blast and the fire did the business! That stream won't run underground any more at least at this point."

"Aunt Maude!" shouted Helen. "Look! Look under the tree-right at Uncle Tom's front door!"

"I declare," exclaimed Tom. "I knew the water inside must be setting back and rising, but I did n't expect that. Splendid spring it makes, too."

"Hurrah!" shouted Hugh. "Ned, see it burst out!

There, indeed, bubbling and gushing, was a fine young rivulet, forced out at the burrow between the roots of the tree. It had easily pushed away the bark door, and now it poured forward, seeking a channel for its further passage.

"It'll turn all this forest into a swamp for a while," remarked Sir Frederick.

"The chasm is gone," replied Tom, "but that spring won't run a great while-only till the river has plowed its new channel among the rocks and rubbish."

Suddenly Tom Gordon cried :

"Follow me! Quick! There is danger!" They wheeled their horses and followed him, as he dashed away, but he rode only a short distance before he pulled in and turned his head toward his former home.

"We got away only just in time," he said. "See that? I could see that the roots had been loosened, but the water has been undermining them all night. The tree always leaned a little southerly. It's coming, now!"

The party were silent, looking expectantly at the vast bulk of the forest king.

The great tree was swaying, tottering, and the air was full of a strange, groaning, tearing sound, that grew louder until it burst into a re

there was an awful crash, and the very earth shook as the gigantic trunk came thundering down. The big trees of common kinds that it fell among splintered like dry reeds. Its outreaching roots tore up the soil in all directions, and their rugged mass stood up, over the deep cavity left behind them, like the side of a small hill.

"That is one of the grandest sights I ever saw!" said Sir Frederick. "It is really sublime. But Tom, we brought you out of that cave only just in time." "Somehow or other," said Tom, "a great many things happen only just in time. I don't quite understand, yet, why I came to be out here at all, or what brought you here. It's a puzzle."

"Is n't it time we went to the camp?" asked Ned.

Several months later, the same party that had gathered in Sir Frederick Parry's tent that morning in the Australian bush, were gathered again in a breezy, open-windowed drawingroom of a stately country-seat. They were in the ancient English home of the Parry family.

"Well, Ned," said Lady Parry, "I am sorry you must go home, but I'm glad you and Tom have had time to see England."

"I'm so glad I have seen it," said Ned. "It's a great country, and I'm coming over again, some day."

There was some general conversation, and then Sir Frederick remarked: "Ned's plan has worked perfectly, Tom. I don't see why you need go to the States. Why can't you stay here?"

"Stay here?" said Tom Gordon. "Why, you are going back to Australia, just to see your sheep-farm again, and to be where there's plenty of room. It's just so with me. I 've got to live in a new country, to be comfortable. I'm going away out west when I get to America,-to some place where there are mountains, and forests, and mines. I want some Indians, to take the place of the black

fellows. There will be wolves there, too, and deer, and buffaloes, instead of kangaroos." "You can open as large a sheep-farm as you wish," said Sir Frederick.

Hugh had been looking out of a window, across a closely cut lawn upon which deer were feeding.

"Ned," he remark

ed, "it does seem so unnatural to have regular hot January weather right in the middle of July, with a warm breeze from the south, instead of from the north. I want to

get back to Australia, where things come in their regular season. What are you going to do, first, after you get home?"

"Oh," said Ned, "Father and Mother are there, long before this. I 've got to go to college, but I'm going west, first thing, with Mr. Gordon, to see him settled."

"By the way, Maude," said Tom. "I've attended to that; I have settled enough on Ned to set him up handsomely for life. He is all the boy I have, you know."

They had known that Tom Gordon intended to make provision for Ned, and they all were de

lighted, excepting Ned himself. He was silent, until Helen Gordon said to him: "I am so glad of it, Ned! But I am not going back to Australia. I'm not to go to college, exactly,

through college, I will come to India, unless you are in Australia by that time."

"Will you, Ned?" said Helen. "Do come!" "I will surely come!" said Ned.