'George worships the ground she treads on, and she can't make herself care two straws about him.

Perhaps she will in time.

She'll have the best home and the best chap in the whole district if she does.' 'There's a deal of "if" in this world,' I said; 'and "if" we're "copped" on account of that last job, I'd like to think she and mother had some one to look after them, good weather and bad.' 'We might have done that, and not killed ourselves with work either,' said Jim, rather sulkily for him; and he lit his pipe and walked off into the bush without saying another word.
I thought, too, how we might have been ten times, twenty times, as happy if we'd only kept on steady ding-dong work, like George Storefield, having patience and seeing ourselves get better off--even a little--year by year.

What had he come to?
And what lay before us?
And though we were that fond of poor mother and Aileen that we would have done anything in the world for them--that is, we would have given our lives for them any day--yet we had left them--father, Jim, and I--to lead this miserable, lonesome life, looked down upon by a lot of people not half good enough to tie their shoes, and obliged to a neighbour for help in every little distress.
Jim and I thought we'd chance a few days at home, no matter what risk we ran; but still we knew that if warrants were out the old home would be well watched, and that it was the first place the police would come to.
So we made up our minds not to sleep at home, but to go away every night to an old deserted shepherd's hut, a couple of miles up the gully, that we used to play in when we were boys.

It had been strongly built at first; time was not much matter then, and there were no wages to speak of, so that it was a good shelter.