That night three boys--three of the faithful--Jacker McKnight, Phil Doon,
and Billy Peterson, stole through Wilson's paddock carrying mysterious
bundles, and taking as many precautions to avoid observation and pursuit
as if they were really, as they pretended to be with the fine imagination
of early boyhood, desperate characters bent upon an undertaking of
unparalleled lawlessness and great daring. They crossed the creek and
crept along in the shadow of the hill, for the moon, although low down in
the sky, was still bright and dangerous to hunted outlaws. Off to the
left could be heard the long-drawn respirations of the engines at the
Silver Stream, and the grind of her puddlers, the splashing of the
slurry, and the occasional solemn, significant clang of a knocker. They
passed the old Red Hand shaft, long since deserted and denuded of poppet
legs and engine-houses, its comparatively ancient tips almost overgrown
and characterless, with lusty young gums flourishing amongst its
scattered boulders. Waddy venerated the old Red Hand as something so
ancient that its history left openings for untrammelled conjecture, and
the boys associated it with not a few of the mysteries of those grand
far-off ages when dragons abducted beautiful maidens and giants were
quite common outside circuses. The mouth of the shaft was covered with
substantial timbers, save for a small iron-barred door securely
padlocked. The pit now served a useful purpose as air-shaft for the
Silver Stream, and the iron-runged ladders still ran down into its black
depths.

The boys kept to the timber, and presently found themselves climbing down
the rugged rocks where the hillside suddenly became an abrupt wall. From
here had been blasted the thousands of tons of rock that went to the
building of that grim prison in Yarraman, the town where Frank Hardy lay,
a good half-day's tramp across the wide flat country faced by the
township The quarry, too, was overgrown again; being almost inaccessible