When the boys woke it was morning, and the mother stood by the bed.
"You needn't get up yet, and don't say anyone was here last night if
you're asked," she whispered, and went out. They were up on their
knees at once with their eyes to the cracks, and got the scare of
their young lives. Three mounted troopers were steaming their legs at
the fire--their bodies had been protected by oilskin capes. The
mother was busy about the table and the sister changing the baby.
Presently the two younger policemen sat down to bread and bacon and
coffee, but their senior (the sergeant) stood with his back to the
fire, with a pint-pot of coffee in his hand, eating nothing, but
frowning suspiciously round the room.
Said one of the young troopers to Aunt Annie, to break the lowering
silence, "You don't remember me?"
"Oh yes, I do; you were at Brown's School at Old Pipeclay--but I was
only there a few months."
"You look as if you didn't get much sleep," said the senior-
sergeant, bluntly, to the settler's wife, "and your sister too."
"And so would you," said Aunt Annie, sharply, "if you were up with
a sick baby all night."
"Sad affair that, about Brown the schoolmaster," said the younger
trooper to Aunt Annie.
"Yes," said Aunt Annie, "it was indeed."
The senior-sergeant stood glowering. Presently he said brutally--
"The baby don't seem to be very sick; what's the matter with it?"
The young troopers move uneasily, and one impatiently.
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