|THE sun had risen, and the long waste of Down stretched far and wide on all sides; a broad and level track as smooth as any lawn, with here and there a long but gentle slope, marked the exercising-ground used by Mr Chifney's horses. This glistened in the early rays like a path of silver. But fringing it on one side lay a great patch of gorse, and this quite twinkled with green and gold from the gossamers, whose slender fibres covered it as with a veil. The air was fresh and odorous with a hundred pleasant scents and in the distant vale the morning mists were lifting from field and farm, from tower and town, as at the command of some enchanter. Nothing was heard but the occasional “tink, tink” of a sheep-bell from the still sleeping folds. It was a scene to charm eye and ear; but Captain Walter Lisgard of the 104th Dragoons, and Mr Derrick from Cariboo, were persons upon whom the Dawn and its concomitants were a good deal thrown away. “You are sure this is the right place?” inquired the Colonist as they reached a long low-shuttered building, half brick half wood, where the horses were wont to be rubbed down after their gallops. “Ay, this is it right enough,” was the reply. “I dare say they are all inside there waiting for us. It does not do to be seen at this sort of work. Yes, here they are.” Inside the doorway of the shed in question stood Mr Tite Chifney, in company with a gentleman of advanced years, in a white greatcoat and a new broad-brimmed hat, somewhat resembling a bishop's. “How are you, Lisgard?” “How do you do, my Lord?” were the only salutations that passed between the members of the two parties, who had met entirely upon business. “Come and beat the furze with me, will you, Derrick? the captain has not his gaiters on. It is well to make quite sure that we are all alone before we begin,” said the horse-trainer. The two men accordingly stepped into the gorse, and commenced walking through it in parallel lines, as though in pursuit of game. When he came to a patch of gorse a little higher and thicker than the rest, Mr Chifney struck it violently with his foot as if for rabbits. All of a sudden, there was a violent ejaculation from Derrick; he threw himself down upon some crouching object, and then came a struggle and a choking scream. “Hollo, don't kill the fellow,” exclaimed Chifney running up. “See, he's black in the face, man.--Master Walter, my Lord---help, here, help!” The two men who had been left in the rubbing-house came quickly forward, but it took the combined strength of all three of them to release the poor wretch from the powerful grasp of the Cariboo miner. “Damn the rogue; I 'll teach him to come spying here,” cried he, nodding with his head towards a shattered telescope, upon which he had just stamped his foot. “I'll squeeze his throat for him.”