ble, his gaze resting on the sharp crease of his long trousers, he announced in deliberate, almost scared tones:
"I'm not going back, ever."
Without warning, a few days later, Captain Caxton presented Paul with a steamship ticket, a book of traveller's cheques, and a certificate of honourable discharge made out in his real name. Taken aback by the completeness of these arrangements, Paul feigned acquiescence, but before embarking on the coastal steamer he had the foresight to bribe one of his casual acquaintances—an employé in a bookshop—to send a forged telegram timed to reach him on his arrival in Sydney. With this telegram he would counter any officiousness on the part of well-meaning gentlemen who had been invited to see him safely on his homeward way.
He had not the faintest intention of continuing on the prescribed route to Vancouver and thence overland to Halifax, but of his intentions, which were vague, he said nothing to the captain, who came to see him off. Paul, while grateful to the captain for his goodwill, was hurt at not having been consulted. That, he felt, absolved him of all obligation to confide his plans. The old man had put money—Paul's own, as it now appeared—into his hands and shipped him off, had done his duty, according to his lights—for which he would find his reward in heaven! Henceforth Paul was answerable only to himself, and as he stood on the towering promenade deck of the Kalgoorlie looking over the roofs of warehouses and down at the figures on the quay—the "sisters and cousins and aunts" of his fellow-passengers—the boy smiled with a timorous exultation at the enormity of his plot. The great adventure was beginning with a vengeance.
The steamer drew slowly away from the dock and for a few moments rested in mid-stream. As the last hawser
