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Mates at Billabong

by Mary Grant Bruce · English · Gutenberg #4050 · 388,062 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Mates at Billabong

Author: Mary Grant Bruce


        
Release date: May 1, 2003 [eBook #4050]
                Most recently updated: June 5, 2022

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4050

Credits: Produced by Col Choat.  HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATES AT BILLABONG ***




Produced by Col Choat.  HTML version by Al Haines.









MATES AT BILLABONG.


by

Mary Grant Bruce (1878-1958).




CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I     NORAH'S HOME
  CHAPTER II    TOGETHER
  CHAPTER III   BATH--AND AN INTRODUCTION
  CHAPTER IV    CUTTING OUT
  CHAPTER V     TWO POINTS OF VIEW
  CHAPTER VI    COMING HOME
  CHAPTER VII   JIM UNPACKS
  CHAPTER VIII  A THUNDERSTORM
  CHAPTER IX    THE BILLABONG DANCE
  CHAPTER X     CHRISTMAS
  CHAPTER XI    "LO, THE POOR INDIAN!"
  CHAPTER XII   OF POULTRY
  CHAPTER XIII  STATION DOINGS
  CHAPTER XIV   CUNJEE v. MULGOA
  CHAPTER XV    THE RIDE HOME
  CHAPTER XVI   A CHILD'S PONY
  CHAPTER XVII  ON THE HILLSIDE
  CHAPTER XVIII BROTHER AND SISTER
  CHAPTER XIX   THE LONG QUEST
  CHAPTER XX    MATES




CHAPTER I

NORAH'S HOME

    The grey old dwelling, rambling and wide,
    With the homestead paddocks on either side,
    And the deep verandahs and porches tall
    Where the vine climbs high on the trellised wall.
    G. ESSEX EVANS.


Billabong homestead lay calm and peaceful in the slanting rays of the
sun that crept down the western sky. The red roofs were half hidden in
the surrounding trees--pine and box and mighty blue gums towering above
the tenderer green of the orchard, and the wide-flung tendrils of the
Virginia creeper that was pushing slender fingers over the old walls.
If you came nearer, you found how the garden rioted in colour under the
touch of early summer, from the crimson rambler round the eastern bay
window to the "Bonfire" salvia blazing in masses on the lawn; but from
the paddocks all that could be seen was the mass of green, and the
mellow red of the roof glimpsing through. Further back came a glance of
rippled silver, where the breeze caught the surface of the lagoon--too
lazy a breeze to do more than faintly stir the reed-fringed water.
Towards it a flight of black swans winged slowly, with outstretched
necks, across a sky of perfect blue. Their leader's note floated down,
as if in answer to the magpies that carolled in the pine trees by the
stables. The sound seemed to hang in the still air.

Beyond the tennis-court, in the farther recesses of the garden, a
hammock swung between two grevillea trees, whose orange flowers made a
gay canopy overhead; and in the hammock Norah swayed gently, and
knitted, and pondered. The shining needles flashed in and out of the
dark blue silk sock. Outsiders--mothers of prim daughters, whom Norah
pictured as finding their wildest excitement in "patting a doll"--were
wont to deplore that the only daughter of David Linton of Billabong was
brought up in an eccentric fashion, less girl than boy; but outsiders
are apt to cherish delusions, and Norah was not without her share of
gentle accomplishments. Knitting was one; the sock grew quickly in the
capable brown fingers that could grip a stock-whip as easily as they
handled the needles. All the while, she was listening.

About her the coo of invisible doves fell gently, mingling with the
happy droning of bees in the overhead blossoms. Somewhere, not far off,
a sheep bell tinkled monotonously, the only outside sound in the
afternoon stillness. It was very peaceful. To Norah, who knew that the
world held no place like Billabong, it only lacked one person for the
final seal of perfection.

"Wish Dad would come," she said aloud, puckering her brow over a knot
in the silk. "He's late--and it is jolly dull without him." The knot
came free, and the needles raced as though making up for lost time.

Two dogs lay on the grass: a big sleepy collie that only moved
occasionally to snap at a worrying fly; and an Irish terrier, plainly
showing by his restlessness that he despised a lazy life, and longed
for action. He caught his mistress's eye at last, and jumped up with a
little whine.

"If YOU had the heel of a sock to turn, Puck," said Norah, "you'd be
more steady. Lie down, old man."

Puck lay down again discontentedly, put his nose on his paws, and
feigned slumber, one restless eyelid betraying the hollowness of the
pretence. Presently he rolled over--and chancing to roll on a spiky
twig, rose with a wild yelp of annoyance. Across Norah's laugh came a
stock-whip crack; and the collie came to life suddenly, and sprang up,
as impatient as the terrier. Norah slipped out of the hammock.

"There's Dad!" she said. "Come along!"

She was tall for her fourteen years, and very slender--"scraggy," Jim
was wont to say, with the cheerful frankness of brothers. Norah bore
the epithet meekly--she held the view that it was better to be dead than
fat. There was something boyish in the straight, slim figure in the
blue linen frock--perhaps the quality was also to be found in a frank
manner that was the product of years of the Bush and open-air life. The
grey eyes were steady, and met those of others with a straight level
glance; the mouth was a little firm-set for her years, but the child
was revealed when it broke into smiles--and Norah was rarely grave. No
human power had yet been discovered to keep in order the brown curls.
Their distressed owner tied them back firmly with a wide ribbon each
morning; but the ribbon generally was missing early in the day, and
might be replaced with anything that came handy--possibly a fragment of
red tape from the office, or a bit of a New Zealand flax leaf, or haply
even a scrap of green hide. Anything, said Norah, decidedly, was better
than your hair all over your face. For the rest, a nondescript nose,
somewhat freckled, and a square chin, completed a face no one would
have dreamed of calling pretty. In his own mind her father referred to
it as something better. But then there was tremendous friendship
between the master of Billabong and his small daughter.

The stock-whip cracked again, nearer home this time; and Norah crammed
the blue silk sock hastily into a little work-bag, and raced away over
the lawn, her slim black legs making great time across the buffalo
grass. Beside her tore the collie and Puck, each a vision of embodied
delight. They flashed round the corner of the house, scattered the
gravel on the path leading to the back, and came out into the yard as a
big black horse pulled up at the gate, and the tall man on his back
swung himself lightly to the ground. From some unseen region a black
boy appeared silently and led the horse away. Norah, her father, and
the dogs arrived at the gate simultaneously.

"I thought you were never coming, Daddy," said the mistress of
Billabong, incoherently. "Did you have a good trip?--and how did Monarch
go?--and did you buy the cattle?--and have you had any dinner?" She
punctuated each query with a hug, and paused only for lack of breath.

"Steady!" said David Linton, laughing. "I'm not a ready reckoner! I've
bought the bullocks, and Monarch went quite remarkably well, and yes,
I've had dinner, thank you. And how have you been getting on, Norah?"

"Oh, all right," said his daughter. "It was pretty slow, of course--it
always is when you go away, Daddy. I worked, and pottered round with
Brownie, and went out for rides. And oh, Dad! ever so many letters--and
Jim's coming home next week!" She executed an irrepressible pirouette.
"And he's got the cup for the best average at the sports--best
all-around athlete that means, doesn't it? Isn't it lovely?"

"That's splendid!" Mr. Linton said, looking as pleased as his daughter.
"And any school prizes?"

"He didn't mention," Norah answered. "I don't suppose so, bless him!
But there's one thing pretty sickening--the boys can't come with him.
Wally may come later, but Harry has to go to Tasmania with his
father--isn't it unreasonable?"

"I'm sorry he can't come, but on the whole I've a fellow feeling for
the father," said Jim's parent. "A man wants to see something of his
son occasionally, I suppose. And any news from Mrs. Stephenson?"

"She's better," Norah answered, her face growing graver. "Dick wrote.
And there's a letter for you from Mrs. Stephenson, too. She says she's
brighter, and the sea-voyage was evidently the thing for her, 'cause
she's more like herself than at any time since--since my dear old Hermit
died." Norah's voice shook a little. "They expect to be in Wellington
all the summer, and perhaps longer."

"It was certainly a good prescription, that voyage." Mr. Linton said.
"I don't think she would have been long in following her husband--poor
old chap!--if they had remained here. But one misses them, Norah."

"Horrid," said Norah, with emphasis. "I miss her all the time--and it's
quite rum, Dad, but I do believe I miss lessons. Over five weeks since
I had any! Are you going to get me another tutor?"

"We'll see," said her father. They were in the big dining-room by this
time, and he was turning over the pile of letters that had come during
his three days' absence from the station. "Any chance of tea, Norah?"

"Well, rather!" said Norah. "You read your letters, and I'll go and
tell Sarah. And Brownie'll be wanting to see you. I won't be long,
Daddy." She vanished.

A few minutes later Mr. Linton looked up from a letter that had put a
crease into his brow. A firm, flat step sounded in the hall, and Mrs.
Brown came in--cook and housekeeper to the homestead, the guide,
philosopher and friend of everyone, and the special protector of the
little motherless girl about whom David Linton's life centred.
"Brownie" was not a person lightly to be reckoned with, and her master
was wont to turn to her whenever any question arose affecting Norah. He
greeted her warmly now.

"We're all glad to welkim you back, sirr," said Brownie. "As for that
blessed child, she's not like the same 'uman bein' when you're off the
place. Passed me jus' now in the passige, goin' full bat, an' turned
'ead over 'eels, she did--I didn't need to be told you'd got 'ome!" She
hesitated: "You heard from Mrs. Stephenson, sir?"

"Yes," said Mr. Linton, glancing at the letter in his hand. "As I
thought--she confirms our opinion. I'm afraid there's no help for it."

"I knew she would," said Mrs. Brown, heavily, a shadow falling onto her
broad, pleasant face. "Oh, I know there's no 'elp, sir--it has to be.
But--but--" She put her apron to her eyes.

"We're really very lucky, I suppose," Mr. Linton said, in tones
distinctly unappreciative, at the moment, of any luck. "Mrs. Stephenson
has been a second mother to Norah, these two years--between you and her
I can't see that the child needed anything; and with Dick as tutor she
has made remarkable progress. Personally, I'd have let the arrangement
go on indefinitely. Now that they've had to leave us, however--" He
paused, folding up the letter slowly.

"She couldn't stay 'ere, poor lady," Mrs. Brown said; "'tain't in
reason she'd be able to after the old gentleman's death, with the place
full of memories an' all. An', of course, she'd want Mr. Dick along
with her. Anyway, the precious lamb's getting a big girl to be taught
only by a young gentleman--" and Brownie pursed up her lips, looking
such a model of all the proprieties that Mr. Linton smiled
involuntarily.

"She's all right," he said shortly. "Of course, her aunt has been at me
for ever so long to send her to school."

"Beggin' your pardon, sir, Mrs. Geoffrey don't know everythink," said
Mrs. Brown, bridling. "Her not havin' any daughters of 'er own, 'ow can
it be expected that she'd understand? An' town ladies can't never
compre'end country children, any'ow. Our little maid's jus' grown up
like a bush flower, an' all the better she is for it."

"But the time comes for change, Brownie, old friend," said Mr. Linton.

"Yes," said Mrs. Brown, "it do. But what the station'll do is more'n I
can see just at present--an' as for you, sir--an' let alone me--" Her
comfortable, fat voice died away, and the apron was at her eyes again.
"What'll Billabong be, with its little girl at school?"

"At--WHERE?" asked Norah.

She had come in with the tea-tray in her hands--a little flushed from
the fire, and her brown face alight with all the hundred-and-one things
she had yet to tell Daddy. On the threshold she paused, struck
motionless by that amazing speech. She looked a little helplessly from
one face to the other; and the two who loved her felt the same
helplessness as they looked back. It was not an easy thing to pass
sentence of exile from Billabong on Norah.

"I--" said her father. "You see, dear--Dick having gone--you know, your
aunt--" He stopped, his tongue tied by the look in Norah's eyes.

Brownie slipped into the breach.

"You're so big now, dearie," she said, "so, big--and--and--" With this
lucid effort at enlightenment she put her apron fairly over her head
and turned away to the open window.

But Norah's eyes were on her father. Just for a moment the sick sense
of bewilderment and despair seemed to crush her altogether. She had
realized her sentence in a flash--that the home that meant all the world
to her, and from which Heaven only differed in that Mother was there,
was to be changed for a new, strange world that would be empty of all
that she knew and loved. Vaguely she had always known that the blow
hung over her--now that it had fallen, for a moment there was no room
for any other thought. Her look, wide with grief and appeal, met her
father's.

And then she realized slowly that he was suffering too--that he was
looking to her for the response that had never failed him yet. His
silence told her that this thing was unavoidable, and that he needed
her help. Mates such as they must stand by one another--that was part of
the creed that had grown up in Norah's heart. Daddy had always said
that no matter what happened he could rely upon her. She could not fail
him now.

So, just as the silence in the room became oppressive, Norah smiled
into her father's eyes, and carefully put the tea-tray upon the table.

"If you say it's got to be, well, that's all about it, Daddy," she
said. The voice was low, but it did not quiver. "Don't worry, darling;
it's all right. Sarah was out, and Mary goodness knows where, so I made
tea myself; I hope it's drinkable." She brought her father's cup to his
side and smiled at him again.

"My blessed lamb!" said Mrs. Brown, hastily--and fled from the room.

David Linton did not take the cup; instead he slipped his arm round the
childish body.

"You think we can stand it, then?" he asked. "It's not you alone,
little mate; your old Dad's under sentence too."

"I think that makes things a lot easier," said Norah, "'cause you and
I always do things together, don't we, Daddy? And--and--" Just for a
moment her lips trembled. "Must we, Dad?"

He tightened his arm.

"Yes, dear."

There was a pause.

"After Christmas?"

"Yes--in February."

"Then I've got nine weeks," said Norah, practically. "We won't talk
about it more than we can help, I think, don't you? Have your tea,
Daddy, or it'll be cold and horrid." She brought her own cup and sat
down on the arm of his chair. "How many bullocks did you buy?"




CHAPTER II

TOGETHER

    And you and I were faithful mates.
    HENRY LAWSON.


Afterwards--when the blow was a little less heavy as Norah grew
accustomed to it--they talked it over thoroughly.

Norah's education, in the strict sense of the term, had only been
carried on for about two years. In reality it had gone on all her life,
spent mostly at her father's side; but that was the kind of education
that does not live between the covers of books. Together, David Linton
and his daughter had worked, and played and talked--much more of the
former condition than of either of the latter. All that the bush could
teach her Norah knew, and in most of the work of the station--Billabong
was a noted cattle-run--she was as handy as any of the men. Her father's
constant mate, every day shared with him was a delight to her. They
rode together, fished, camped and explored together; it was the rarest
occurrence for Mr. Linton's movements not to include Norah as a matter
of course.

Yet there was something in the quiet man that had effectually prevented
any development of roughness in Norah. Boyish and offhand to a certain
extent, the solid foundation of womanliness in her nature was never far
below the surface. She was perfectly aware that while Daddy wanted a
mate he also wanted a daughter; and there was never any real danger of
her losing that gentler attribute--there was too much in her of the
little dead mother for that. Brownie, the ever watchful, had seen to it
that she did not lack housewifely accomplishments, and Mr. Linton was
wont to say proudly that Norah's scones were as light as her hand on
the horse's mouth. There was no doubt that the irregular side of her
education was highly practical.

Two years before Fate had taken a new interest in Norah's development,
bringing as inmates of the homestead an old friend of her father's,
with his wife and son. The latter acted as Norah's tutor, and found his
task an easy one, for the untrodden ground of the little girl's brain
yielded remarkable results. To Mrs. Stephenson fell the work of gently
moulding her to womanly ways--less easy this, for while Norah had no
desire to be a tomboy, she was firmly of the opinion that once lessons
were over, she had simply no time to stay inside the house and be
proper. Still, the gentle influence told, imperceptibly softening and
toning her character, and giving her a standard by which to adapt
herself; and Norah was nothing if not adaptable. Then, six months
previously, the old man they all loved had quietly faded out of life;
and after he had gone his widow could no longer remain in the place
where he had died. She pined slowly, until Dick Stephenson, the son,
had taken her almost forcibly away. The unspoken fear that the parting
was not merely temporary had merged into certainty. Billabong would
know them no more. The question remaining was what to do with Norah.

"I want you to have the school training," Mr. Linton said, when they
talked the matter over. "You must mix with other girls--learn to see
things from their point of view, and realize how many points of view
there are outside Billabong. Oh, I don't want you to think there are
any better "--he laughed at the vigorous shake of the brown curls--"but
the world has wider boundaries, and you must find them out. There are
other things, too"--vaguely--"dancing and deportment, and--er--the use of
the globes, and I think there's a thing called a blackboard, but I'm
not sure. Dick didn't know. In fact, there's a regulation mill, and I
suppose you must go through it--I don't feel afraid that they'll spoil
my little girl's individuality in the process."

"Is it a big school, Daddy?"

"Yes, I believe so. Several people I know send their girls there. And
it's a great place for sports, Norah. You'll like that. They're keen on
hockey and cricket and all sorts of things girls never dreamed about
when I was young. Possibly I may live to see you a slow bowler yet, and
playing in a match! Honestly, Norah, I believe you'll be very happy at
school."

"And what'll you do, Daddy?"

"I don't know," he said, heavily. "I told you I was under sentence."

They sat awhile in silence. It was evening, and they were on the
verandah; Mr. Linton in a big basket chair, and Norah curled up at his
feet in the way she loved. She could not see his face--just then she did
not want to. She said nothing. The moon climbed up slowly, and the
frogs were merry in the lagoon. Far off the cry of a bittern boomed
across the flats.

"Well, at least we've got nine weeks," Norah said at length. "Nine
weeks to be mates--and Jim'll be home next week, and he'll be mates,
too. Don't let's get blue about it, Daddy. It'll be so horrid when the
time comes, that it's no good letting it spoil these nine weeks. Can't
we try to forget it?"

"We can try," said David Linton.

"Course, we won't do it," Norah said. "But don't let's talk about it.
I'm going to put it out of my head as much as ever I can, and have this
time for just Billabong and us. Will you, Daddy?"

"I'll do all I can, my girlie," said her father. "You mustn't start off
with any bad memories; we'll have the most crowded nine weeks of our
lives, and make a solemn resolve to 'buck up.' I'd like to plan
something for this week, but, upon my word, I'm too busy to play,
Norah. There's any amount to be done."

"But I don't want to play," Norah said. "Work's good enough for ME,
Daddy, if I can work with you. Can't I come, too?"

"I'll be exceedingly glad of your help," said her father--which was
exactly what Norah wanted him to say, and went far to cheer her. She
put the dismal future resolutely from her, and set out upon the present
with a heart as light as possible.

It was never dull at Billabong. Always there were pets of all kinds to
be seen to. Mr. Linton laid no restriction on pets if they were
properly tended, and Norah had a collection as wide as it was beloved.
Household duties there were, too; but these could be left if
necessary--two adoring housemaids were always ready to step into the
breach if "business on the run" claimed Norah's attention. And beyond
the range of the homestead altogether there lay an enchanted region
that only she and Daddy shared--the wide and stretching plains of
Billabong dotted with cattle, seamed with creeks and the river, and
merging at the boundary into a long low line of hills. Norah used to
gaze at them from her window--sometimes purple, sometimes blue, and
sometimes misty grey, but always beautiful to the child who loved them.
Others might know Billabong--visit it, ride over it, exclaim at its
beauties; but Norah always felt that there were only two who really
understood and cared--Daddy and herself.

Of course there was Jim--the big brother who was seventeen now, and just
about to leave school. Norah was immensely proud of him, and the
affection between them was a thing that never wavered. Jim loved
Billabong, too; but it was only to be expected that six years of school
in Melbourne would make something of a difference. He knew, in the
words of the old Roman, "There is a world elsewhere." But Norah knew no
world beyond Billabong.

For all that, Jim was distinctly desirable as a brother. He had always
made a tremendous chum of Norah, and the friends he brought home found
they were expected to do the same. This might cause them surprise at
first, but they very soon found that "the kiddie" was quite excellent
as a mate, and could put them up to a good deal more than they usually
knew about the Bush. Norah was invariably Jim's first thought. He was a
big, quiet fellow, very like his father; not over-brilliant at books,
but a first-rate sport, and without a trace of meanness in his generous
nature. At school he was worshipped by the boys--was not he captain of
the football team, stroke of the eight, and best all-round athlete?--and
liked by the masters, who found him inclined to be careless over work
but absolutely reliable in every other way. Such a fellow does not win
scholarships, but he is a tower of strength to his school.

For the week preceding Jim's return Norah and her father worked hard,
clearing up various odd jobs so that their time might be free when the
boy arrived. There was a quaint side to this, in that Jim would without
doubt have been delighted to help in any station work, which always
presented itself to him as "no end of a lark" after the strenuous life
at school. But it was a point of honour with those at home to leave
none of their work until the holidays and the last week was invariably
the scene of many labours.

Not that there were not plenty of hands on the station. It was a big
run, and gave employment in one way or another to quite a band of men.
But Mr. Linton preferred to keep a very close watch over everything,
and he had long realized that the best way of seeing that your business
is done is to take a hand yourself. The men said, "The boss was
everywhere," and they respected him the more in that he was no
kid-glove employer, but was willing to share in any work that was going
forward. Especially he insisted on working among the cattle, and--Norah
was nearly always with him on his rides--they had a more or less
accurate knowledge of every beast on the place. Outside the boundary
fences they went very seldom; the nearest township, seventeen miles
away, Norah regarded as merely a place where you called for the mail,
and save that it meant a ride or drive with her father, she had never
the slightest desire to go there.

Summer was very late that year, and "burning-off" operations on the
rougher parts of the run had been carried on much longer than was
generally possible. Norah always regarded "burning-off" as an immense
picnic, and used to beg her father to take her out. Night after night
found them down on the flats, getting rid of old dead trees, which up
to the present had refused obstinately to burn. It was picturesque
work, and Norah loved it, though she would have been somewhat
embarrassed had you hinted that the picturesqueness had anything to do
with its attractions.

One after another, they would light the stumps, some squat and solid,
others rising thirty or forty feet into the air. Once the fires were
lit, it was necessary to keep them going; moving backwards and forwards
among the trees, stoking, picking up fallen bits of burning timber and
adding them to the fires, coaxing sullen embers into a blaze, edging
the fire round a tree, so that the wind might do its utmost in helping
the work--there were no idle moments for the "burners-off." Sometimes it
would be necessary to enlarge a crack or hole in a tough stump, to gain
a hold for the fire. Norah always carried a light iron bar, specially
made for her at the station forge, which she called her poker, and
which answered half a dozen purposes equally well, and though not an
ideal weapon for killing a snake, being too stiff and straight, had
been known to act in that capacity also. Every scrap of loose timber on
the ground would be picked up and added to the flames. Some stumps were
very obstinate and resisted all blandishments to burn; but careful
handling generally ensured the fate of the majority.

There are few sights more weird, or more typically Australian, than a
paddock at night with burning-off in process. Low and high, the red
columns of fire stand in a darkness made blacker by their lurid glow.
Where the fire has taken hold fairly the flames are fierce, and showers
of sparks fall like streams of gold. Sometimes a dull crack gives
warning of the fall of a long-dead giant; and the burning mass leans
slowly over, and then comes down with a crash, while the curious
bullocks, which have poked as near as they dare to the strange scene,
fling round and lumber off in a heavy gallop, heads down and tails up.
From stump to stump flit the little black figures of the workers,
standing out clearly sometimes, by the light of a blaze so fierce that
to face it is scarcely possible; or half seen in the dull glow of a
smouldering tree poking vigorously--seeming as ants attacking living
monsters infinitely beyond their strength. Perhaps it is there that the
fascination of the work comes in--the triumph of conquering tons of
inanimate matter by efforts so small. At any rate it is always hard to
leave the scene of action, and certainly the first glance next morning
is to see "which are down."

Then there were days spent among the cattle--days that always meant the
high-water mark of bliss to Norah. She road astride, and her special
pony, Bobs, to whom years but added perfection, loved the work as much
as she did. They understood each other perfectly; if Norah carried a
hunting-crop, it was merely for assistance in opening gates, for Bobs
never felt its touch. A hint from her heel, or a quick word, conveyed
all the big bay pony ever needed to supplement his own common sense, of
which Mr. Linton used to say he possessed more than most men. The new
bullocks arrived, and had to be drafted and branded--during which latter
operation Norah retired dismally to the house and the socks that had to
be finished in time to be Jim's Christmas present. Then, after the
branding, came a most cheerful time, putting the cattle into their
various paddocks.

One day was spent in mustering sheep, an employment not at all to
Norah's taste. She was frankly glad that Billabong devoted most of its
energies to cattle, and only put up with the sheep work because, since
Daddy was there, it never occurred to her to do anything else but go.
But she hated the slow, dusty ride, and hailed with delight a gallop
that came in their way towards the end of the day, when a hare jumped
up under Bob's nose as they rode homewards from the yards. The dogs
promptly gave chase; and, almost without knowing it, Norah and Bobs
were in hot pursuit, with Monarch shaking the earth behind them. The
average sheep dog is no match for a hare, and the quarry easily escaped
into the next paddock, after a merry run. Norah pulled up, her eyes
dancing.

"Don't you know it's useless to try to get a hare with those fellows?"
asked Mr. Linton, checking the reeking Monarch, and indicating with a
nod the dogs, which were highly aggrieved at their defeat.

"But I never wanted to get it," said his daughter, in surprise. "It's
perfectly awful to get a hare; they cry just like a baby, and it makes
you feel horrid."

"Then why did you go after it?"

"Why?" asked Norah, opening her eyes. "Well, I knew the dogs couldn't
catch it--and I believe you wanted a gallop nearly as much as I did,
Daddy!" They laughed at each other, and let the impatient horses have
their heads across the cleared paddock to the homestead.

There a letter awaited them.

Norah, coming in to dinner in a white frock, with her curls unusually
tidy, found her father looking anything but pleased over a closely
covered sheet of thin notepaper.

"I wish to goodness women would write legibly," he said, with some
heat. "No one on earth has any right to write on both sides of paper as
thin as this--and then across it! No one but your Aunt Eva would do
it--she always had a passion for small economies, together with one for
large extravagances. Amazing woman! Well, I can't read half of it, but
what she wants is unhappily clear."

"She isn't coming here, Daddy?"

"Saints forbid!" ejaculated Mr. Linton, who had a lively dread of his
sister--a lady of much social eminence, who disapproved strongly of his
upbringing of Norah. "No, she doesn't mention such an extreme course,
but there's something almost as alarming. She wants to send Cecil here
for Christmas."

"Cecil! Oh, Daddy!" Norah's tone was eloquent.

"Says he's been ill," said her father, glancing at the letter in a vain
effort to decipher a message written along one edge. "He's better, but
needs change, and she seems to think Billabong will prove a
sanatorium." He looked at Norah with an expression of dismay that was
comical. "I shouldn't have thought we'd agree with that young man a
bit, Norah!"

"I've never seen him, of course," Norah said unhappily, "but Jim says
he's pretty awful. And you didn't like him yourself, did you, Daddy?"

"On the rare occasions that I've had the pleasure of meeting my nephew
I've always thought him an unlicked cub," Mr. Linton answered. "Of
course it's eighteen months since I saw him; possibly he may have
changed for the better, but at that time his bumptiousness certainly
appeared to be on the increase. He had just left school then--he must be
nearly twenty now."

"Oh--quite old," said Norah. "What is he like?"

"Pretty!" said Mr. Linton, wrinkling his nose. "As pretty as his
name--Cecil--great Scott! I wonder if he'd let me call him Bill for
short! Bit of a whipper-snapper, he seemed; but I didn't take very much
notice of him--saw he was plainly bored by his uncle from the Bush, so I
didn't worry him. Well, now he's ours for a time your aunt doesn't
limit--more that that, if I can make a guess at these hieroglyphics,
I've got to send a telegram to say we'll have him on Saturday."

"And this is Wednesday--oh, Dad!" expostulated Norah.

"Can't be helped," her father said. "We've got to go through with it;
if the boy has been ill he must certainly have all the change we can
give him. But I'm doubtful. Eva says he's had a 'nervous breakdown,'
and I rather think it's a complaint I don't believe in for boys of
twenty."

The dinner gong sounded. Amid its echoes Norah might have been heard
murmuring something about "nervous grandmother."

"H'm," said her father, laughing; "I don't think he'll find much
sympathy with his more fragile symptoms in Billabong--we must try to
brace him up, Norah. But whatever will Jim say, I wonder!"

"He'll be too disgusted for words," Norah answered. "Poor old Jimmy! I
wonder how they'll get on. D'you suppose Cecil ever played football?"

"From Cecil's appearance I should say he devoted his time to
wool-work," said Mr. Linton. "However, it may not turn out as badly as
we think, and it's no use meeting trouble halfway, is it? Also, we've
to remember that he'll be our guest."

"But that's the trouble," said Norah, laughing. "It wouldn't be half so
bad if you could laugh at him. I'll have to be so hugely polite!"

"You'll probably shock him considerably in any case," said her father.
"Cecil's accustomed to very prim young ladies, and it's not at all
unlikely that he'll try to reform you!"

"I wish him luck!" said Norah. But there was a glint in her eyes which
boded ill for Cecil's reformatory efforts.




CHAPTER III

A BATH--AND AN INTRODUCTION

    Quiet and shy, as the Bush girls are,
    But ready-witted and plucky, too.
    A. B. PATERSON.


The telegram assuring a welcome to Cecil Linton was duly dispatched,
and the fact of his impending arrival broken to Mrs. Brown, who sniffed
portentously, and gave without enthusiasm directions for the
preparation of his room. "Mrs. Geoffrey" was rather a bugbear to
Brownie, who had unpleasant recollections of a visit in the past from
that majestic lady. During her stay of a week, she had attempted to
alter every existing arrangement at Billabong--and when she finally
departed, in a state of profound disapproval, the relief of the
homestead was immense. Brownie was unable to feel any delight at the
idea of entertaining her son.

Norah and her father made the utmost of their remaining time together.
Thursday was devoted to a great muster of calves, which meant unlimited
galloping and any amount of excitement; for the sturdy youngsters were
running with their mothers in one of the bush paddocks, and it was no
easy matter to cut them out and work them away from the friendly
shelter and refuge of the trees. A bush-reared calf is an irresponsible
being, with a great fund of energy and spirits--and, while Norah loved
her day, she was thoroughly tired as they rode home in the late
evening, the last straggler yarded in readiness for the branding next
day. Mr. Linton sent her to bed early, and she did not wake in the
morning until the dressing gong boomed its cheerful summons through the
house.

Mr. Linton was already at breakfast when swift footsteps were heard in
the hall above; a momentary silence indicated that his daughter was
coming downstairs by way of the banisters, and the next moment she
arrived hastily.

"I'm so sorry, Dad," Norah said, greeting him. "But I DID sleep! Let
me pour out your coffee."

She brought the cup to him, investigated a dish of bacon, and slipped
into her place behind the tall silver coffee pot.

"What are we going to do to-day, Dad?"

"I really don't quite know," Mr. Linton said, smiling at her. "There
aren't any very pressing jobs on hand--we must cut out cattle to-morrow
for trucking, but to-day seems fairly free. Have you any ideas on the
subject of how you'd like to spend it? I've letters to write for a
couple of hours, but after that I'm at your disposal."

Norah wrinkled her brows.

"There are about fifty things I want to do," she said. "But most of
them ought to wait until Jim comes home." She thought for a moment. "I
don't want to miss any more time with Bobs than I have to--could we ride
over to the backwater, Dad, and muster up the cattle there? You know
you said you were going to do so, pretty soon."

"I'd nearly forgotten that I had to see them," Mr. Linton said,
hastily. "Glad you reminded me, Norah. We'll have lunch early, and go
across."

Norah's morning was spent in helping Mrs. Brown to compound Christmas
cakes--large quantities of which were always made and stored well before
Christmas, with due reference to the appetites of Jim and his friends.
Then a somewhat heated and floury damsel donned a neat divided riding
skirt of dark-blue drill, with a white-linen coat, and the collar and
tie which Norah regarded as the only reasonable neck gear, and joined
her father in the office.

"Ready? That's right," said he, casting an approving glance at the trim
figure. "I've just finished writing, and the horses are in."

"So's lunch," Norah responded. "It's a perfectly beautiful day for a
ride, Daddy--hurry up!"

The day merited Norah's epithet, as they rode over the paddocks in the
afternoon. As yet the grass had not dried up, thanks to the late rains,
and everywhere a green sea rippled to the fences. Soon it would be dull
and yellow; but this day there was nothing to mar the perfection of the
carpet that gave softly under the horses' hoofs. The dogs raced wildly
before them, chasing swallows and ground-larks in the cheerfully
idiotic manner of dogs, with always a wary ear for Mr. Linton's
whistle: but as yet they were not on duty, and were allowed to run
riot.

An old log fence stretched before them. It was the only one on
Billabong, where all station details were strictly up-to-date. This one
had been left, partly because it was picturesque, and partly at the
request of Jim and Norah, because it gave such splendid opportunities
for jumping. There were not many places on that old fence that Bobs did
not know, and he began to reef and pull as they came nearer to it.

"I don't believe I'll be able to hold him in, Daddy!" said Norah, with
mock anxiety.

"Not afraid, I hope?" asked her father, laughing.

"Very--that you won't want to jump! I'd hate to disappoint him,
Daddy--may I?"

"Oh, go on!" said Mr. Linton. "If I said 'no' the savage animal would
probably bolt!" He held Monarch back as Norah gave the bay pony his
head, and they raced for the fence; watching with a smile in his eyes
the straight little form in the white coat, the firm seat in the
saddle, the steady hand on the rein. Bobs flew the big log like a bird,
and Norah twisted in her saddle to watch the black horse follow. Her
eyes were glowing as her father came up.

"I do think he loves it as much as I do!" she said, patting the pony's
neck.

"He's certainly as keen a pony as I ever saw," Mr. Linton said. "How
are you going to manage without him, Norah?"

Norah looked up, her eyes wide with astonishment.

"Do without BOBS!" she exclaimed. "But I simply couldn't--he's one of
the family." Then her face fell suddenly, and the life died out of her
voice. "Oh--school," she said.

The change was rather pitiful, and Mr. Linton mentally abused himself
for his question.

"He'll always be waiting for you when you come home, dear," he said.
"Plenty of holidays--and think how fit he'll be! We'll have great rides,
Norah."

"I guess I'll want them," she said. Silence fell between them.

The scrub at the backwater was fairly thick, and the cattle had sought
its shade when the noonday sun struck hot. Well fed and sleek, they lay
about under the trees or on the little grassy flats formed by the bends
of the stream. Norah and her father separated, each taking a dog, and
beat through the bush, routing out stragglers as they went. The echoes
of the stock-whips rang along the water. Norah's was only a light whip,
half the length and weight of the one her father carried. It was
beautifully plaited--a special piece of work, out of a special hide;
while the handle was a triumph of the stockman's art. It had been a
gift to Norah from an old boundary rider whose whips were famous, and
she valued it more than most of her possessions, while long practice
and expert tuition had given her no little skill in its use.

She worked through the scrub, keeping her eyes in every direction, for
the cattle were lazy and did not stir readily, and it was easy to miss
a motionless beast hidden behind a clump of dogwood or Christmas
bush--the scrub tree that greets December with its exquisite white
blossoms. When at length she came to the end of her division and drove
her cattle out of the shelter she had quite a respectable little mob to
add to those with which her father was already waiting.

It was only to be a rough muster; rather, a general inspection to see
how the bullocks were doing, for the nearest stockyards were at the
homestead, and Mr. Linton did not desire to drive them far. He managed
to get a rough count along a fence--Norah in the rear, bringing the
bullocks along slowly, so that they strung out under their owner's eye.
Occasionally one would break out and try to race past him on the wrong
side. Bobs was as quick as his rider to watch for these vagrants, and
at the first hint of a breakaway he would be off in pursuit. It was
work the pair loved.

"Hundred and thirty," said Mr. Linton, as the last lumbering beast
trotted past him, and, finding the way clear, with no harrowing
creatures to annoy him and head him back to his mates, kicked up his
heels and made off across the paddock.

"Did any get behind me, Norah?"

"No, Daddy."

"That's a good girl. They look well, don't they?"

Norah assented. "Did you notice how that big poley bullock had come on,
Dad?"

"Yes, he's three parts fat," said Mr. Linton. "All very satisfactory,
and the count is only two short--not bad for a rough muster."

They turned homewards, cantering quickly over the paddocks; the going
was too good, Norah said, to waste on walking; and it was a delight to
feel the long, even stride under one, and the gentle wind blowing upon
one's cheeks. As he rode, Mr. Linton watched the eager, vivid little
face, alight with the joy of motion. If Bobs were keen, there was no
doubt that his mistress was even keener.

They crossed the log fence again by what Norah termed "the direct
route," traversed the home paddock, and drew up with a clatter of hoofs
at the stable yard. Billy, a black youth of some fame concerning
horses, came forward as they dismounted and took the bridles. But Norah
preferred to unsaddle Bobs herself and let him go; she held it only
civil after he had carried her well. She was leading him off when the
dusky retainer muttered something to her father.

"Oh, all right, Billy," said Mr. Linton. "Norah, those fellows from
Cunjee have come to see me about buying sheep. I expect I shall have to
take them out to the paddock I don't think you'd better come."

"All right, Dad." Sheep did not interest Norah very much. "I think I'll
go down to the lagoon."

"Very well, don't distinguish yourself by falling in," said her father,
with a laugh over his shoulder as he hurried away towards the house.

Left to herself, Norah paid a visit to Brownie in the kitchen, which
resulted in afternoon tea--there was never a bush home where tea did not
make its appearance on the smallest possible pretext. Then she slipped
off her linen jacket and brown leather leggings and, having beguiled
black Billy into digging her some worms, found some fishing tackle and
strolled down to the lagoon.

It was a broad sheet of water, at one end thickly fringed with trees,
while in the shallower parts a forest of green, feathery reeds bordered
it, swaying and rustling all day, no matter how soft the breeze. The
deeper end had been artificially hollowed out, and a bathing box had
been built, with a springboard jutting out over the water. Under the
raised floor of the bathing box a boat was moored. Norah pulled it out
and dropped down into it, stowing her tin of worms carefully in the
stern. Then she paddled slowly into the deepest part of the lagoon,
baited her line scientifically, and began to fish.

Only eels rewarded her efforts; and while eels are not bad fun to pull
out, Norah regarded them as great waste of time, since no one at
Billabong cared to eat them, and in any case she would not let them
come into the boat--for a good-sized eel can make a boat unpleasantly
slimy in a very short time. So each capture had to be carefully
released at the stern--not a very easy task. Before long Norah's white
blouse showed various marks of conflict; and being by nature a clean
person, she was rather disgusted with things in general. When at length
a large silver eel, on being pulled up, was found to have swallowed the
hook altogether, she fairly lost patience.

"Well, you'll have to keep it," she said, cutting her line; whereupon
the eel dropped back into the water thankfully, and made off as though
he had formed a habit of dining on hooks, and, in fact, preferred them
as an article of diet. "I'm sure you'll have shocking indigestion,"
Norah said, watching the swirl of bubbles.

The boat had drifted some way down the lagoon, and a rustle told Norah
that they were near one of the reedy islands dotted here and there in
the shallows. There was very little foothold on them, but they made
excellent nesting places for the ducks that came to the station each
year. The boat grounded its nose in the soft mud, and Norah jumped up
to push it off. Planting the blade of the oar among the reeds, she
leant her weight upon it and shoved steadily.

The next events happened swiftly. The mud gave way suddenly with a
suck, and the oar promptly slithered, burying itself for half its
length; and Norah, taken altogether by surprise, executed a graceful
header over the bow of the boat. The mud received her softly, and clung
to her with affection; and for a moment, face downward among the reeds,
Norah clawed for support, like a crab suddenly beached. Then, somehow,
she scrambled to a sitting position, up to her waist in mud and
water--and rocked with laughter. A little way off, the boat swayed
gently on the ruffled surface of the water.

"Well--of all the duffers!" Norah said. She tried to stand, and
forthwith went up to one knee in the mud. Then, seeing that there was
no help for it, she managed to slip into deeper water--not very easy,
for the mud showed a deep attachment to her--and swam to the boat. To
get into it proved beyond her, but, fortunately, the bank was not far
off, and, though her clothes hampered her badly--a riding skirt is the
most inconvenient of swimming suits--she was as much at home as a duck
in the water, and soon got ashore.

Then she inspected herself, standing on the grass, while a pool of
water rapidly widened round her. Alas, for the trim maiden of the
morning! soaked to the skin, her lank hair clinging round her face, her
collar a limp rag, the dye from her red silk tie spreading in artistic
patches on her white blouse! Over all was the rich black mud of the
lagoon, from brow to boot soles. Her hat, once white felt, was a sodden
black-streaked mass; even her hands and face were stiff with mud.

"Thank goodness, Daddy's out!" said the soaked one, returning knee-deep
in the water to try and cleanse herself as much as might be--which was
no great amount, for lagoon mud defies ordinary efforts. She waded out,
still laughing; cast an apprehensive glance at the quarter from which
her father might be expected to return, and set out on her journey to
the house, the water squelching dismally in her boots at every step.

In the garden at Billabong walked a slim youth in most correct attire.
His exquisitely tailored suit of palest grey flannel was set off by a
lavender-striped shirt, with a tie that matched the stripe. Patent
leather shoes with wide ribbon bows shod him; above them, and below the
turned-up trousers, lavender silk socks with purple circles made a very
glory of his ankles. On his sleek head he balanced a straw hat with an
infinitesimal brim, a crown tall enough to resemble a monument, and a
very wide hat band. His pale, well-featured face betrayed unuttered
depths of boredom.

The click of the gate made him turn. Coming up the path was a figure
that might have been plaintive but that Norah was so immensely amused
at herself; and the stranger opened his pale eyes widely, for such
apparitions had not come his way. She did not see him for a moment.
When she did, he was directly in her path, and Norah pulled up short.

"Oh!" she said weakly; and then--"I didn't know anyone was here."

The strange youth looked somewhat disgusted.

"I should think you'd--ah--better go round to the back," he said
condescendingly. "You'll find the housekeeper there."

This time it was Norah's turn to be open-eyed.

"Thanks," she said a little shortly. "Were you waiting to see anyone?"

The boy's eyebrows went up. "I am--ah--staying here."

"Oh, are you?" Norah said. "I didn't know. I'm Norah Linton."

"You!" said the stranger. There was such a world of expression in his
tone that Norah flushed scarlet, suddenly painfully conscious of her
extraordinary appearance. Then--it was unusual for her--she became angry.

"Did you never see anyone wet?" she asked, in trenchant tones. "And
didn't you ever learn to take your hat off?"

"By Jove!" said the boy, looking at the truculent and mud-streaked
figure. Then he did an unwise thing, for he burst out laughing.

"I don't know who you are," Norah said, looking at him steadily. "But I
think you're the rudest, worst-mannered boy that ever came here!"

She flashed past him with her head in the air. Cecil Linton, staring
after her with amazement, saw her cross the red-tiled verandah
hurriedly and disappear within a side door, a trail of wet marks behind
her.

"By Jove!" he said again. "The bush cousin!"




CHAPTER IV

CUTTING OUT

    And the loony bullock snorted when you first came into view,
    Well, you know, it's not so often that he sees a swell like you.
    A. B. PATERSON.


Norah did not encounter the newcomer again until dinner-time.

She was in the drawing-room, waiting for the gong to sound, when Cecil
came in with her father. For a moment he did not recognize the soaked
waif of the garden whom he had recommended "to go round to the back."

A hot bath and a change of raiment had restored Norah to her usual
self; had helped her also to laugh at her meeting with her cousin,
although she was still ruffled at the memory of the sneer in his laugh.
Perhaps because of that she had dressed more carefully than usual.
Cecil might have been excused for failing to recognize the grave-faced
maiden, very dainty in her simple frock of soft white silk, with her
still-moist curls tied back with a broad white ribbon.

"As you two have already met, there's no need to introduce you," said
Mr. Linton, a twinkle in his eye. "Sorry your reception was so
informal, Cecil--you took us by surprise."

"I suppose the mater mixed things up, as usual," Cecil said, in a bored
way. "I certainly intended all along to get here to-day, but she's
fearfully vague, don't you know. I was lucky in getting a lift out."

"You certainly were," his uncle said, dryly. "However, I'm glad you
didn't have to wait in the township. You'd have found it slow."

"I'd probably have gone back," said Cecil.

"Ah--would you?" Mr. Linton looked for a moment very much as though he
wished he had done so. There was an uncomfortable pause, to which the
summons to dinner formed a welcome break.

Dinner was very different from the usual cheery meal. Cecil was not
shy, and supplied most of the conversation as a matter of course; and
his conversation was of a kind new to Norah. She remained unusually
silent, being, indeed, fully occupied in taking stock of this novel
variety of boy. She wondered were all city boys different from those
she knew. Jim was not like this; neither were the friends he was
accustomed to bring home with him. They were not a bit grown up, and
they talked of ordinary, wholesome things like cricket and football,
and horses, and dormitory "larks," and were altogether sensible and
companionable. But Cecil's talk was of theatres and bridge parties,
and--actually--clothes! Horses he only mentioned in connexion with
racing, and when Mr. Linton inquired mildly if he were fond of dances,
he was met by raised eyebrows and a bored disclaimer of caring to do
anything so energetic. Altogether this product of city culture was an
eye-opener to the simple folks of Billabong.

Of Norah, Cecil took very little notice. She was evidently a being
quite beneath his attention--he was secretly amused at the way in which
she presided at her end of the table, and decided in his own mind that
his mother's views had been correct, and that this small girl would be
all the better for a little judicious snubbing. So he ignored her in
his conversation, and if she made a remark contrived to infuse a faint
shade of patronage into his reply. It is possible that his amazement
would have been great had he known how profoundly his uncle longed to
kick him.

Dinner over, Norah fled to Brownie, and to that sympathetic soul
unburdened her woes. Mr. Linton and his nephew retired to the verandah,
where the former preferred to smoke in summer. He smiled a little at
the elaborate cigarette case Cecil drew out, but lit his pipe without
comment, reflecting inwardly that although cigarettes were scarcely the
treatment, though they might be the cause, of a pasty face and a
"nervous breakdown," it was none of his business to interfere with a
young gentleman who evidently considered himself a man of the world. So
they smoked and talked, and when, after a little while, Cecil confessed
himself tired, and went off to bed, he left behind him a completely
bored and rather annoyed squatter.

"Well, Norah, what do you think of him?"

Norah, sitting meekly knitting in the drawing-room, looked up and
laughed as her father came in.

"Think? Why, I don't think much, Daddy."

"No more do I," said Mr. Linton, casting his long form into an
armchair. "Of all the spoilt young cubs!--and that's all it is, I should
say: clearly a case of spoiling. The boy isn't bad at heart, but he's
never been checked in his life. Well, I'm told it's risky for a father
to bring up his daughter unaided, but I'm positive the result is worse
when an adoring mother rears a fatherless boy! Possibly I've made
rather a boy of you--but Cecil's neither one thing nor the other. Why
didn't you come out, my lass?"

"Felt too bad tempered!" said Norah; "he makes me mad when he speaks to
you in that condescending way of his, Daddy. I'll be calmer to-morrow."
She smiled up at her father. "Have a game of chess?"

"It would be soothing, I think," Mr. Linton answered. He laughed. "It's
really pathetic--our Darby and Joan existence to be ruffled like this!
Thank goodness, he's in bed, for to-night, at any rate!" They got out
the chessmen, and played very happily until Norah's bedtime.

"Do you ride, Cecil?" Mr. Linton asked next morning at breakfast.

"Ride? Oh, certainly," Cecil answered. "I suppose you're all very keen
on that sort of thing up here?"

"Well, that's how we earn our living," his uncle remarked. "Norah is my
right-hand man on the run."

"Ah, how nice! Do you find it hard to get labour here?"

"Oh, we get them," said Mr. Linton, his eyes twinkling. "But I prefer
to catch 'em young. We're cutting out cattle for trucking to-day. Would
you care to come out?"

"Delighted," said the nephew, glancing without enthusiasm at his
flannels. "But I didn't dress for riding."

"Oh, we're not absolute sticklers for costume here," Mr. Linton said,
laughing outright. "Wear what you like--in any case, we shan't start for
an hour."

It was more than that before they finally got away. The delay was due
to waiting for the visitor, whose toilet was a lengthy proceeding. When
at length he sauntered out, in blissful ignorance of the fact that he
had been keeping them waiting, no one could have found fault with his
clothes--a riding suit of very English cut, with immensely baggy
breeches, topped by an immaculately folded stock, and a smart tweed
cap.

"That feller plenty new," said black Billy, gazing at him with
astonishment.

Mr. Linton chuckled as he swung Norah to her saddle.

"Let's hope his horsemanship is equal to his attire!"

Norah smiled in answer. Bobs was dancing with impatience, and she
walked him round and round, keeping an eye on her cousin.

A steady brown mare had been saddled for Cecil--one of the "general
utility" horses to be found on every station. He cast a critical eye
over her as he approached, glancing from her to the horses of his uncle
and cousin. Brown Betty was a thoroughly good stamp of a stock horse,
with plenty of quality; while not, perhaps, of the class of Monarch and
Bobs, she was by no means a mount to be despised. That Cecil
disapproved of her, however, was evident. There was a distinct curl on
his lip as he gathered up the reins. However, he mounted without a
word, and they set off in pursuit of Murty O'Toole, the head stockman,
who was already halfway to the cutting-out paddock.

The Clover Paddock of Billabong was famous--a splendid stretch of
perfect green, where the cattle moved knee-deep in fragrant blossoming
clovers, with pink and white flowers starring the wide expanse. At one
end it was gently undulating plain, towards the other it came down in a
gradual slope to the river, where tall gums gave an evergreen shelter
from winter gales or summer heat. The cattle were under them as the
riders came up--great, splendid Shorthorns, the aristocracy of their
kind, their roan sides sleek, their coats in perfect condition, and a
sprinkling of smaller bullocks whose inferiority in size was
compensated by their amazing fatness. It was evident that this week
there would be no difficulty in making up the draft for the Melbourne
market.

The cattle were mustered into one herd; no racing or hastening now, but
with the gentle consideration one should extend to the dignified and
portly. They moved lazily, as if conscious of their own value. Cecil,
hurrying a red-and-white bullock across a little flat, was met by a
glare from Murty O'Toole, and a muttered injunction to "go aisy wid
'em," followed by a remark that "clo'es like thim was only fit to go
mustherin' turkeykins in!" Luckily the latter part of the outbreak was
unheard by Cecil, who was quite sufficiently injured at the first, and
favoured Murty with a lofty stare that had the effect of throwing the
Irishman and black Billy into secret convulsions of mirth.

Norah rode not far from her father as they brought the cattle out into
the open and to the cutting-out camp--a spot where the beaten ground
showed that very often before such scenes had been enacted. The
bullocks knew it, and huddled there contentedly enough in a compact
body, while slowly Mr. Linton and Murty rode about them, singling out
the primest. Once marked down, O'Toole would slip between the bullock
and his mates and edge him away, where Billy took charge of him,
preventing his returning to the mob. With the first two or three this
was not quite easy: but once a few were together they gave little
trouble, feeding about calmly: and generally a bullock cut out from the
main body would trot quite readily across to the others.

Privately, Cecil Linton thought it remarkably dull work. All that he
had read of station life was unlike this. He had had visions of far
more exciting doings--mad gallops and wild cattle, thoroughbred horses,
kangaroo hunts and a score of other delights. Instead, all he had to do
was to tail after a lot of sleepy bullocks and then watch them sorted
out by some men whose easy-going ways were unlike anything he had
imagined. He had no small opinion of his riding, and he yearned for
distinction. The very sight of Norah, leaning a little forward,
keenness on every line of her face, was an offence to him. He could see
nothing whatever to be keen about. Yawning, he lit a cigarette.

Just then a bullock was cut out and pointed in the way he should go. He
lumbered easily past black Billy, apparently quite contented with his
fate; and Billy, seeing another following, gave a crack of his whip to
speed him on his way, and turned to deal with the newcomer. The first
bullock became immediately seized with a spirit of mischief. He
flourished his heels in the air, turned at right angles and made off
towards the river at a gallop.

Cecil, busy with his cigarette, saw Norah sit up suddenly and tighten
her hand on the bridle. Simultaneously Bobs was off like a shot--tearing
over the paddock a little wide of the fugitive. The race was a short
one. Passing the bullock, the bay pony and his rider swung in sharply
and the lash of Norah's whip shot out. The bullock stopped short,
shaking his head; then, as the whip spoke again, he wheeled and trotted
back meekly to the smaller mob. Behind him Norah cantered slowly. The
work of cutting out had not paused and no one seemed to notice the
incident. But Cecil saw his uncle smile across at the little girl, and
caught the look in Norah's eyes as she smiled back. She and Bobs took
up their station again, silently watchful.

Cecil was fired with ambition. Norah's small service had seemed to him
ridiculously easy; still, insignificant though everyone appeared to
regard it, it was better than doing nothing. He had not the faintest
doubt of his own ability, and the idea that riding in a decorous suburb
might not fit him for all equine emergencies he would have scouted. He
gathered up his reins, and waited anxiously for another beast to break
away.

One obliged him presently; a big shorthorn that decided he had stayed
long enough in the mob, and suddenly made up his mind to seek another
scene. Norah had already started in pursuit when she saw her cousin
send his spurs home in Betty, and charge forward. So she pulled up the
indignant Bobs, who danced, and left the field to Cecil.

Betty took charge of affairs from the outset. There was no move in all
the cattle-game that she did not understand. Moreover, she was justly
indignant at the spur-thrust, which attention only came her way in
great emergencies; and the heavy hand on her mouth was gall and
wormwood to her. But ahead was a flying bullock, and she was a stock
horse, which was sufficient for Betty.

"That feller brown mare got it all her own way!" said Billy, in
delight.

She had. Cecil, bumping a little in the saddle, had no very clear idea
of how things were going. He had a moment of amazement that the quiet
mare he had despised could make such a pace. Once he tried to steady
her, but at that instant Betty was not to be steadied. She galloped on,
and Cecil, recovering some of his self-possession, began to think that
this was the thing whereof he had dreamed.

The bullock was fat and scant of breath. It did not take him very long
to conclude that he had had enough, especially when he heard the hoofs
behind him. It was sad, for close before him was the shade of the trees
and the murmur of the river; but discretion is ever the better part of
valour, particularly if one be not only valorous but fat. He pulled up
short. Betty propped without a second's hesitation, and swung round.

To Cecil it seemed that the world had dropped from under him--and then
risen to meet him. The brown mare turned, in the bush idiom, "on a
sixpence," but Cecil did not turn. He went on. The onlookers had a
vision of the mare chopping round, as duty bade her, to head off the
bullock, while at right-angles a graceful form in correct English
garments hurtled through the air in an elegant curve. When he came
down, which seemed to be not for some time, it was into a shady clump
of wild raspberries--and only those who know the Victorian wild
raspberry know how clinging and intrusive are its hooked thorns. Two
legs kicked wildly. There was no sound.

When the rescuing party extricated Cecil from his involuntary botanical
researches he was a sorry sight. His clothes were torn in many places,
and his face and hands badly scratched, while the red stains of the
raspberries had turned his light tweeds into something resembling an
impressionist sketch. It was perhaps excusable that he had altogether
lost his temper. He burst out in angry abuse of the mare, the bullock,
the raspberry clump, and the expedition in general--anger which the
scarcely concealed grins of the stockmen only served to intensify.
Norah, who had choked with laughter at first, but had become
sympathetic as soon as she saw the boy's face, extracted numerous
thorns from his person and clothing, and murmured words of regret,
which fell on unheeding ears. Finally his uncle lost patience.

"That'll do Cecil," he said. "Everyone comes to grief occasionally--take
your gruel like a man. Come on, Norah. Murty's waiting." Saying which,
he put Norah up, and they rode off, while Billy held the brown mare's
rein for Cecil, who mounted sulkily. Something in his uncle's face
forbade his replying. But in his heart came the beginning of a grudge
against the Bush, Billabong in general, and Norah in particular. Later
on, he promised himself, there might come a chance to work it off.

For the present, however, there was nothing to be done but nurse his
scratches and his grievance; so he sat sulkily on Betty, and took no
further active part in the morning's work, the consciousness of acting
like a spoilt child not tending to improve his temper. Nobody took any
notice of him. One by one the bullocks were cut out, until between
twenty and thirty were ready, and then the main mob was left to wander
slowly back to the river, while O'Toole and Billy started with the
others to the paddock at the end of the run, which was their first
stage in the seventeen-mile journey to the trucking yards at Cunjee.
They moved off peacefully through the blossoming clover.

"Luckily they don't be afther knowin' what's ahead av thim!" said
Murty. He lifted his battered felt hat to Norah, as he rode away.

"We'll go down and see how high the river is before we go home," said
Mr. Linton.

So they rode down to the river, commented on the unusual amount of
water for so late in the year, inspected the drinking places, paid a
visit to a beast in another paddock, which had been sick, but was now
apparently in rude health, and finally cantered home to lunch. Brownie
prudently refrained from comment on Cecil's scratched countenance,
further than to supply him with large quantities of hot water in his
room, together with a small pair of pliers, which she remarked were
'andy things for prickles. Under this varied treatment Cecil became
more like himself, and recovered his spirits, though a soreness yet
remained at the thought of the little girl who had done so easily what
he had failed so ignominiously in trying to do. He decided definitely
in his own mind that he did not like Norah.




CHAPTER V

TWO POINTS OF VIEW

    You found the Bush was dismal, and a land of no delight--
    Did you chance to hear a chorus in the shearers' hut at night?
    A. B. PATERSON.


"Dear Mater,--Arrived at Cunjee safely, and, thanks to the way you fixed
up things, found no one to meet me, as Uncle David thought I would not
arrive until next day. However, a friendly yokel gave me a lift out to
Billabong in a very dirty and springless buggy, so that the mistake was
not a fatal one, though it gave me a very uncomfortable drive.

"The place is certainly very nice, and the house comfortable, though,
of course, it is old-fashioned. I prefer more modern furniture; but
Uncle David seems to think his queer old chairs and table all that can
be desired, and did not appear interested when I told him where we got
our things. I have a large room, rather draughty, but otherwise
pleasant, with plenty of space for clothes, which is a comfort. I do
think it's intensely annoying to be expected to keep your clothes in
your trunk. The view is nice.

"Uncle David seemed quite prepared to treat me as a small boy, but I
fancy I have demonstrated to him that I know my way about--in fact, as
far as city life goes, I should say he knew exceedingly little. I can't
understand any man with money being content to live and die in a hole
like this out-of-the-way place: but I suppose, as you say, Aunt Helen's
death made a difference. Actually, they have not even one motor! and
when I spoke of it Uncle David seemed almost indignant, and said horses
were good enough for him. That is a specimen of the way they are
content to live. He seems quite idiotically devoted to the small child,
and she lives in his pocket. If she weren't so countrified in her ways
she wouldn't be bad looking; but, of course, she is quite the bush
youngster, and, I should think, would find her level pretty quickly
when she goes to school among a lot of smart Melbourne girls. I should
hope so, at any rate, for she is quite spoilt here. It is exactly as
you said--everyone treats her like a sort of tin god, and she evidently
thinks herself someone, and is inclined to regard those older than
herself quite as equals. When I first saw her she had just fallen into
some mud hole, and her appearance would have given you a fit. But what
can you expect?

"The fat old cook is still here, and asked after you. It's absolutely
ridiculous to see the way she is treated--quite considers herself the
mistress of the place, and when I told her one morning to let me have
my shaving water she was almost rude. I think if there's one thing
sillier than another it's the sort of superstition some people have
about old servants.

"So far I find it exceedingly dull, and don't feel very hopeful that
things will be much better when Jim comes home. Of course, he may be
improved, but he appeared to me a great overgrown animal when I last
saw him, without an idea in his head beyond cricket and football. I
don't feel that he will be any companion to me. He will probably suffer
badly from swelled head, too, as every one is making a fuss about his
return. So quaint, to see the sort of mutual admiration that goes on
here.

"I have had some riding, being given a horse much inferior to either
Uncle David's or Norah's--the latter rides like a jockey, and, of
course, astride, which I consider very ungraceful. She turns out well,
however, and all her get-up is good--her habits come from a Melbourne
tailor. I think I will get some clothes in Melbourne on my way back;
they may not have newer ideas, but it may be useful for purposes of
comparison with the Sydney cut. My riding clothes were evidently a
source of much wonderment and admiration to the yokels. Unfortunately
they have become badly stained with some confounded raspberry juice,
and though I left them out for Mrs. Brown to clean, she has not done so
yet.

"Well, there is no news to be got in a place like this; we never go
out, except on the run, and there seems absolutely no society. The
local doctor came out yesterday, in a prehistoric motor, but I found
him very uninteresting. Of course, one has no ideas in common with
these Bush people. Where the 'Charm of the Bush' comes in is more than
I can see--I much prefer Town on a Saturday morning to all Billabong and
its bullocks. They wanted me to go out one night and--fancy!--help burn
down dead trees; but, really, I jibbed on that. There is no billiard
room. Uncle David intends building one when Jim comes home for good,
but that certainly won't be in my time here. I fancy a very few weeks
will see me back in town.

"No bridge played here, of course! Have you had any luck that way?

"Your affectionate son,

"CECIL AUBREY LINTON."


Cecil blotted the final sheet of his letter home, and sat back with a
sigh of satisfaction, as one who feels his duty nobly done. He stamped
it, strolled across the hall to deposit it in the post box which stood
on the great oak table, and then looked round for something to do.

It was afternoon, and all was very quiet. Mr. Linton had ridden off
with a buyer to inspect cattle, Norah ruefully declining to accompany
him.

"I'm awfully sorry, Dad," she had said, "But I'm too busy."

"Busy, are you? What at?"

"Oh, cooking and things," Norah had answered. "Brownie's not very well,
and I said I'd help her--there's a lot to do just now, you know." She
stood on tiptoe to kiss her father. "Good-bye, Dad--don't be too long,
will you? And take care of yourself!"

Cecil also had declined to go out, giving "letters to write" as a
reason. The truth was that several rides had told on the town youth,
whose seat in the saddle was not easy enough to prevent his becoming
stiff and sore. Bush people are used to this peculiarity in city
visitors, and, while regarding the sufferers with sympathy, generally
prescribe a "hair of the dog that bit them"--more riding--as the quickest
cure; which Cecil would certainly have thought hard-hearted in the
extreme. However, nothing would have induced him to say that he had
felt the riding, since Cecil belonged to that class of boy that hates
to admit inferiority to others. So he suffered in silence, creaked
miserably at his uprising and down-sitting, and was happily unaware
that everyone in Billabong knew perfectly well what was the matter with
him.

Cecil and his mother were very good friends in the cool, polite way
that was distinctive of them. They "fitted" together admirably, and as
a general rule held the same views, the one on which they were most in
accord being the belief in Cecil's own superior talents and
characteristics. He wrote to her just as he would have talked, certain
of her absolute agreement. When his letter was finished he felt much
relieved at having, as Jim said, "got it off his chest." Not that Cecil
would ever have said anything so inelegant.

Sarah crossed the hall at the moment, carrying a tray of silver to be
cleaned, and he called to her--

"Where is Norah?"

"Miss Norah's in the kitchen," said the girl shortly. The Billabong
maids were no less independent than modern maids generally are, but
they had their views about the city gentleman's manner to the daughter
of the house. "On'y a bit of a kid himself," Mary had said to Sarah,
indignantly, "but any one'd think he owned the earth, an' Miss Norah
was a bit of it." So they despised Cecil exceedingly, and refrained
from shaking up his mattress when they made his bed.

"Er--you may tell her I want to speak to her."

"Can't, I'm afraid," Sarah said. "Miss Norah's very busy, 'elpin' Mrs.
Brown. She don't care to be disturbed."

"Can't she spare me a moment?"

"Wouldn't ask her to." Sarah lifted her tray--and her nose--and marched
out. Cecil looked black.

"Gad! I wish the mater had to deal with those girls!" he said
viciously--Mrs. Geoffrey Linton was of the employers who "change their
maids" with every new moon. "She'd make them sit up, I'll wager.
Abominable impertinence!" He strolled to the door, and looked out
across the garden discontentedly. "What on earth is there for a man to
do? Well, I'll hunt up the important cousin."

At the moment, Norah was quite of importance. Mrs. Brown had succumbed
to a headache earlier in the day. Norah had found her, white-faced and
miserable, bending over a preserving pan full of jam, waiting for the
mystical moment when it should "jell." Ordered to rest, poor Brownie
had stoutly refused--was there not more baking to be done, impossible to
put off, to say nothing of the jam? A brisk engagement had ensued, from
which Norah had emerged victorious, the reins of government in her
hands for the day. Brownie, still protesting, had been put on her bed
with a handkerchief steeped in eau-de-Cologne on her throbbing
forehead, and Norah had returned to the kitchen to varied occupations.

The jam had behaved beautifully; had "jelled" in the most satisfactory
manner, just the right colour; now it stood in a neat array of jars on
a side table, waiting to be sealed and labelled when cold. Then, after
lunch, Norah had plunged into the mysteries of pastry, and was
considerably relieved when her mince pies turned out very closely akin
to those of Brownie, which were famous. Puddings for dinner had
followed, and were now cooling in the dairy. Finally, the joint being
in the oven, and vegetables prepared, the cook had compounded Jim's
favourite cake, which was now baking; during which delicate operation,
with a large dab of flour on her nose, the cook sat at the table, and
wrote a letter.


"DEAR OLD JIM,--This must be in pencil, 'cause I'm watching a cake
that's in the oven, and I'm awfully scared of it burning, so I don't
dare to go for the ink. Dad said I was to write and tell you we would
meet you on Wednesday, unless we heard from you again. We are all
awfully glad and excited about you coming. I'm sure Tait and Puck
understand, 'cause I told them to-day, and they barked like anything.
Your room is all right, and we've put in another cupboard. We're all so
sorry about Wally not coming, but we hope he will come later on. Do
make him.

"Dad and I aren't talking about me going to school. It can't be helped,
and it only makes you jolly blue to talk about it.

"Cecil's come, and he's the queerest specimen of a boy I ever saw. He's
awfully grown up, but he's small and terribly swagger. His riding
clothes are gorgeous, and you mustn't laugh at them. Dad did, but it
was into Bobs' mane. He came with us cutting-out, and Betty was too
good for him, swinging round, so he came a lovely cropper into some
wild raspberries. It was so funny no one could have helped laughing,
and he wasn't really hurt, only prickled and very wild. I am afraid he
isn't enjoying himself very much, but of course he will be all right
when you come. It's jolly hard to entertain him, 'cause he isn't a bit
keen about anything. He has a tremendous array of shaving tackle. And
he has a hand glass. Do you think he will lend it to you to see your
back hair?

"Bobs is just lovelier than ever. I never knew him go so well as he is
now, and he perfectly loves a jump. Dad has a new horse he calls
Monarch, and he is a beauty, he is black with a star. OF COURSE, don't
say anything about Cecil's spill to anybody, he could not help it. And
he had a much bigger laugh at me, 'cause I fell into the lagoon the day
he came. I will tell you all about it when you come.

"The place is looking lovely, and hasn't dried up a bit--"


An unfamiliar step came along the passage, and Norah sat up abruptly
from the labours of composition, and then with promptness concealed her
letter under a cookery book.

"Why Cecil! How did you find your way here?"

"Oh--looked about me. I had finished my writing, and there was nothing
to do."

"I'm so sorry," Norah said contritely. "You see, Brownie's sick, and
I'm on duty here."

"You!" said Cecil, with a laugh. "And what can YOU do in a kitchen?"

Norah blushed at the laugh more than at the words.

"Oh, you'll get some sort of a dinner," she said. "Don't be too
critical, that's all."

"What, you really can cook? Or do you play at it?"

"Well, there are mighty few girls in the Bush who can't cook a bit,"
Norah said. "Of course we're lucky, having Brownie--but you really never
can tell as a rule when you may have to turn to in the kitchen. Dad
says it's one of the beauties of Australia!"

"Can't say I like the idea of a lady in the kitchen," quoth Cecil
loftily.

"Can't say I'd like to be one who was scared of it," Norah said. "And I
guess you'd get very bored if you had to go without your dinner!" She
seized a cloth and opened the oven door gingerly, and made highly
technical experiments with her cake, rising presently, somewhat
flushed. "Ten minutes more," she said, with an air of satisfaction.
"And, as Brownie would say, 'he's rose lovely.' Have some tea, Cecil?"

Cecil assented, and watched the small figure in the voluminous white
apron as she flitted about the kitchen.

"I like having tea here," Norah confided to him. "Then I use Brownie's
teapot, and don't you always think tea tastes miles better out of a
brown pot? You won't get the proper afternoon cups either--I hope you
don't mind?" She stopped short, with a sudden sense of talking a
language altogether foreign to this bored young man in correct attire;
and a rush of something like irritation to think how different Jim or
Wally would have been--she could almost see Wally sitting on the edge of
the table, with a huge cup of tea in one hand, a scone in the other,
and his thin, eager face alight with cheerfulness. Cecil was certainly
heavy in the hand. She sighed, but bent manfully to her task again.

"You take sugar, don't you? And cream? Yes, you ought to have cream,
'cause you've been ill." She dashed into the pantry, returning with a
small jug. "The cake's not mine, so I can recommend it; but if you're
not frightened you can have one of my mince pies."

"Thanks, I'd rather have cake," said Cecil., and again Norah flushed at
his tone, but she laughed.

"It's certainly safer," she agreed, "I'm sure Brownie thought it was a
hideous risk to leave the pies to me." She supplied her cousin with
cake, and retreated to the oven.

"Why don't you let one of the girls do this?" he asked.

"Sarah or Mary? Oh, they're as busy as ever they can be," explained
Norah. "We always do a lot of extra cleaning and rubbing up before
Christmas, and they haven't a moment. Of course they'd do it in a
minute, if I asked them, but I wouldn't--as it is, Sarah's going to dish
up for me. They're the nicest girls; I'm going to take them tea as soon
as I get my cake out!"

"You!" said Cecil. "You don't mean to say you're going to cart tea to
the servants?"

"I'd be a perfect pig if I didn't," Norah said, shortly. "I'm afraid
you don't understand the bush a bit, Cecil."

"Thank goodness I don't then," said Cecil, stiffly. "Who's that tray
for?"

"Brownie, of course." Norah was getting a little ruffled--criticism like
this had not come to her.

"Well, I think it's extraordinary--and so would my mother," Cecil said,
with an air of finality.

"I suppose a town is different," said Norah, striving after patience.
"We like to look after everyone here--and I think it's grand when
everyone's nice to everyone!" She paused; it was hard to be patient and
grammatical, too.

"School will teach you a number of things," said her cousin loftily. He
rose and put down his cup. "A lady shouldn't lower herself."

"Dad says a lady can't lower herself by work," retorted Norah. "Anyhow,
if taking tea to dear old Brownie's going to lower me, it'll have to,
that's all!"

"You don't understand," said Cecil. "A lady has her own place, and to
get on terms of familiarity with the lower classes is bad for both her
and them." He looked and felt instructive. "It isn't exactly the action
that counts--it's the spirit it fosters--er--the feeling--that is,
the--er, in short, it's a mistake to--"

"Oh, please be careful, Cecil, you're sitting in some dough!"

Norah sprang forward anxiously, and instructiveness fell from Cecil as
one sheds a garment. He had sat down on the edge of the table in the
flow of his eloquence; now he jumped up angrily, and, muttering
unpleasant things, endeavored to remove dough from his person. Norah
hovered round, deeply concerned. Pastry dough, however, is a clinging
and a greasy product, and finally the wrathful lecturer beat a retreat
towards the sanctuary of his own room, and the cook sat down and shook
with laughter.

"My cake!" she gasped, in the midst of her mirth. She flew to the oven
and rescued Jim's delicacy.

"Thank goodness, it's all right!" said she. Her mirth broke out afresh.

A shadow darkened the doorway.

"What--cooking and in hysterics?" said Mr. Linton. "May I have some tea?
And what's the matter?"

"Cecil's begun the reforming process," said his daughter, becoming
solemn with difficulty. "You've no idea how improved I am, Daddy! He
seems to be certain that I'm not a lady, and he's very doubtful if I'm
a cook, so could you tell me what I'm likely to be?"

"A better all-round man than Cecil, I should hope," said David Linton,
with a sound like a snort of wrath. "Give me some tea, mate, and don't
bother your head about the future. Your old Dad's not scared!"




CHAPTER VI

COMING HOME

    The top of my desire
    Is just to meet a mate o' mine.
    HENRY LAWSON.


It had suddenly become hot--"truly Christmas" weather, Norah called it,
as she stood waiting on the Cunjee platform for a train which, in
accordance with all railway traditions at Christmas, was already over
an hour late. Norah felt it hard that to-day, of all days in the year,
it should be so--when Jim was actually coming home for good! At the
thought of Jim's arrival she hopped cheerfully on one leg, completely
oblivious of onlookers, and looked up the shining line of rails for the
thousand-and-first time. Would the old train never come?

"Aren't you contriving to keep warm, with the mercury trying to break
the thermometer? Or do you dance merely because you feel like it?"
asked a friendly voice; and Norah turned with a little flush of
pleasure to greet the Cunjee doctor. She and Dr. Anderson respected
each other very highly.

"Because I feel like it, I expect," she said, laughing and shaking
hands.

"Which my wide professional experience leads me to diagnose as the fact
that you're probably waiting for Jim!" said the doctor, gravely.
"There's a certain hectic flush, an intermittent pulse, which convinces
me of your painful state, when coupled with the restlessness of the
eye."

"Which eye?" asked Norah anxiously.

"Both," said the doctor. "Don't be flippant with your medical man. So
he's really coming, Norah?"

"Yes," said Norah, "and I don't care if I am excited--so'd you be,
doctor. Billy's outside with the horses, and he's just as excited as I
am."

"Billy!" said the doctor. "But he'd never say more than 'Plenty!' no
matter how excited he was."

"No, of course not, but then he finds it such a useful word," Norah
said a little vaguely. She was peering up the rails. Suddenly she spun
round, her face glowing. "There's the smoke--she's coming!"

Whatever additional remarks Dr. Anderson may have made fell on deaf
ears, for Norah had no further ideas from that moment. The train came
into view over the brow of the hill, and slid down the long slope into
the station, pulling up with a mighty grinding of brakes. Almost as it
stopped a door was flung open violently, and a very tall boy with the
Grammar School colours on his hat jumped out, cast a hurried glance
around, and then seized the small person in blue linen in an unashamed
bear's hug.

"Oh, Jim!" said Norah. "Oh, Jimmy--boy!"

"Well, old kiddie," said Jim. "You all right? My word, I am glad to see
you!"

"Me, too," said Norah. "It's been just ages, Jim."

"Hasn't it?" Jim said. He started. "Oh, by Jove! There's someone else
here!"

Norah wheeled round, and uttered a little cry of joy. Another boy with
the dark-blue hat band was grinning at her in most friendly fashion--a
thin, brown-faced boy, with especially merry dark eyes. Norah's hands
went out.

"Wally! But, how lovely! I thought you couldn't come."

"So did I," said Wally Meadows, pumping her hands vigorously. "I was
going home, but my aunt obligingly got measles. I'm awfully sorry for
Aunt. But it's an ill-wind that blows nowhere--old Jim took pity on me,
and here I am!"

"I should think so," Norah said. "We haven't felt a bit complete
without you. Dad was saying only this morning how sorry he was you
couldn't come. He'll get such a shock! Oh, it's so lovely to have you
two--and isn't it getting like Christmas! I'm so happy!" She jigged on
one foot, regardless of interested faces watching her from the train.

"You've grown about a foot," said Jim, patting her on the shoulder.
"Pretty thin, too--sure you're all right?"

Norah reassured him, laughing.

"Well, you look awfully fit, if you are thin," was Jim's comment.
"Doesn't she, Wally?"

"Never saw her look fitter," said Wally. "I'm glad as five bob Aunt got
the measles! Oh, what a beast I am--but, you know what I mean! Jim, this
train'll go on, and we've fifty million things in the carriage!"

"So we have!" Jim said, hurriedly, taking his hand from Norah's
shoulder and diving after his chum into the compartment they had
quitted. They emerged laden with suitcases, parcels, rackets, fishing
rods, golf sticks and other miscellaneous impedimenta.

"Catch!" Jim said, tossing a big box into Norah's hands.

"Chocolates!" said Norah blissfully. "Jim, you're an angel!"

"Always knew that," her brother replied, dropping his load on the
platform with a cheerful disregard of what might break. "Come on,
Wally, we'll get the heavy things out of the van. You watch those, Nor.
Who's in, by the way? And where's Dad?"

"Dad's in Cunjee; but he had business, and he couldn't wait at the
station, the train was so late. Cecil's with him--they're both riding.
I've got the light buggy with the ponies for you, and Billy's driving
the express for your luggage and heaps of things that Brownie wants for
the house." Norah spoke in one breath and finished with a gasp.

"Guess people must have thought you were a circus procession!" was
Jim's comment. "All right, we'll cart the things out to Billy."

Out at the big express-wagon drawn by a pair of greys, Billy stood,
welcoming them with a smile on his dusky countenance that Wally likened
to a slit in a coconut. The luggage was piled in with special
injunctions to the black boy not to put the bags of flour on anything
that looked delicate--whereat Billy's smile widened to a grin, and he
murmured "Plenty!" delightedly.

"That's the lot," Jim said. "The buggy's at the hotel, I suppose,
Norah?"

"Yes--and we're to have lunch there with Dad. And you've got to be
awfully polite to Cecil!"

"Cecil!" said Jim, lifting his nose. "If Cecil's anything like what he
used to be--" He did not finish the sentence.

"Do we play with Cecil?" Wally asked, grinning.

"The question is, if Cecil will condescend to play with you," Norah
said. "He thinks ME too much of a kid to look at--"

"Oh, does he?" asked Jim resentfully.

"But you're both ever so much bigger than he is, so perhaps he'll let
you love him!" Norah finished.

"I'm relieved to my soul," said Wally, with gravity. "Visions of my
unrequited affection poured out on Cecil have been troubling my rest
for days. May I kiss him?"

"I'd wait a little while, I think," Norah answered. "He may be shy--not
that we've found it out yet. Indeed, he's the unshyest person I ever
met."

"Is he very awful, Nor?"

"Oh, he's a bit of a drawback," Norah said. "Dad says he's not bad at
heart, only so spoilt--and he's just terribly bumptious, Jim, and thinks
he can do everything; and his clothes are lovely! He isn't caring for
me a bit to-day, 'cause he gave me a broad hint that he wanted to ride
Bobs, and I didn't take it."

"Ride Bobs!" exclaimed Jim, in amazement. "Well, I should think you
didn't!"

"Well, I felt rather a pig, considering he's our guest," Norah said, a
little contritely. "If it were you or Wally, now--but he's really got an
awful seat, Jim, and Murty says he's a hand like a ham on a horse's
mouth! I didn't feel I could let him have Bobs."

"Bobs is your very special property--no one but an ass would ask for
him, and I told Cecil last year you were the only person who ever rode
him," said Jim indignantly. "Surely there are enough horses on the
place without him wanting to collar your pony!"

"Well, he didn't get him," said Norah, tranquilly, "so that's all right
and you needn't worry, Jimmy. I do think, if only one could get him off
his high horse, he wouldn't be at all bad--perhaps he'll thaw now you
boys are here. I hope he will, for his own sake, 'cause he'd have such
a much better time."

"Well, if he's going to be patronizing--" Jim began.

"Ah, perhaps he won't--I don't believe he could try to patronize you!"
Norah glanced lovingly at her tall brother. "You're nearly as big as
Dad, Jimmy, aren't you? and Wally's going to be too."

"Ill weeds grow apace," quoted the latter gentleman solemnly. "Jim's a
splendid example of that proverb."

"M'f!" said Norah. "How about yourself?"

"I'm coming up as a flower!" Wally replied modestly. "A Christmas lily,
I should think!"--whereat Jim murmured something that sounded "More like
an artichoke!" His exact remark, however, was lost, for at that moment
they arrived at the hotel, just as Mr. Linton emerged from it, and Jim
quickened his pace, his face alight.

"Dad!"

"Well, my boy!" They gripped hands, and David Linton's eye kindled as
it dwelt on the big fellow. "Glad to have you back, old son.
Why--Wally!"

"Turned up like a bad penny, sir," said Wally, having his hand pumped
in turn. "Hope you'll forgive me--it's pretty cool to arrive without an
invitation."

"As far as I know, you had invitations from all the family," said Mr.
Linton, laughing. "We regard you as one of the oldest inhabitants now,
you know. At any rate, I'm delighted to see you; the mistress of
Billabong must answer for herself, but she doesn't look cast down!"

"She's been fairly polite," Wally said. "On the whole I don't feel as
shy as I was afraid of feeling! I was horribly scared of having
Christmas with my aunt--but she's chosen measles instead, so I expect
she was just as scared as I was!"

"It's probable," said his host, laughing.

"You haven't grown up a bit, Wally, and it's such a comfort!" Norah
said.

"I'm getting old and reverend," said Wally severely, "and it's up to
you to treat me with respect, young Norah. Sixteen's an awful age to
support with any cheerfulness." His brown face at the moment gave the
impression of never having been serious during the sixteen years he
lamented. "As for this ancient mariner"--indicating Jim--"you can see the
signs of senile decay quite plainly!"

"Ass!" said Jim affectionately. He broke off. "How are you, Cecil?"

Cecil, coming out of the hotel, a dapper figure beside the two tall
schoolboys, gave languid greetings. He cast at Jim a glance of
something like envy. Height was the one thing he longed for, and it
seemed to him hard that this seventeen-year-old youngster should be
rapidly approaching six feet, while he, three years older, had stopped
short six inches under that measurement. However, generally speaking,
Cecil was uncommonly well satisfied with himself, and not even the
contemplation of Jim's superior inches could worry him for long. He
asked polite questions about the journey, and laughed at the freely
expressed opinion that the day was hot "You should go to Sydney if you
want to know what heat is," he said, with the superiority of the
travelled man; "Victoria really has no heat to talk about!"

"Well, I'm a Queenslander," said Wally bluntly, "and we're supposed to
know about heat there. And I do think to-day is beastly hot--look at my
collar, it's like a concertina! Sydney heat is hot, and Brisbane heat
is hotter, but Victorian heat has a hotness all of its own!" Whereat
everybody laughed, and the discussion was adjourned for lunch.

It was a merry meal; and if the fare was no better than that of most
township hotels, the spirits of the party were too high to trouble
about such trifles as tough meat, watery puddings, and weary butter
that bore out Wally's remarks about the heat by threatening to float
away on a sea of its own oil. Everything was rose colour in Norah's
estimation that day. She sat by Jim and beamed across the table at her
father and Wally. Even Cecil found himself at times included in the
beam, and took it meekly, for the happy face was infectious, while the
frank delight of the boys in having her with them again was to a
certain extent educational to the outsider. There was no lack of
manliness in Jim's strong, handsome face. If he found it worth his
while, Cecil reflected, to make such a fuss over a child, it might be
possible that she was not altogether a person to be snubbed. So he was
unusually affable to his small cousin, and lunch passed off very
successfully.

Afterwards there was shopping to be done. A long list of groceries had
been made out by Mrs. Brown, who professed herself far too busy with
Christmas preparations to come in person, and had laid the
responsibility on Norah, not without misgivings. It was, perhaps,
fortunate that the storekeepers were able to rise to the contents of
the list unaided, for Norah was scarcely in a condition to grapple with
problems relating to anything so ordinary as groceries, and found it
indeed difficult to read out her list coherently, with Jim standing
sentinel in the doorway and Wally wandering about the shop sampling all
he could find, from biscuits to brooms. On one occasion, when making a
special effort to preserve her dignity, she came to the item "flaked
oatmeal," and asked the shopman in rather frigid tones for "floked
atemeal," which had a paralysing effect on the unoffending storekeeper,
while Wally retired to the shelter of a pile of saucepans, and
shrieked. Thus the business of necessary purchases passed off
cheerfully; and then what Norah termed the more interesting
shops--saddlers' and stationers'--were visited, with a view to Christmas.
Finally Jim brought the buggy from the hotel, and they picked up their
lighter parcels.

"Surely that's all?" Jim inquired, as Norah and Wally came out of the
fruiterer's laden with bags of assorted sizes, which they dumped
thankfully into the buggy, with the immediate result that a bag of
peaches burst, and had to be rescued from all over the floor. "Nor.,
you'll not have a penny left, and we'll all be violently ill if we eat
half you've bought. Come on home."

"Brownie's laid in large stocks of medicine, she says," Norah answered,
tranquilly, climbing into the buggy. "So you needn't worry, need you?
But we've truly finished now, Jim, I think. Ready, Wally?"

"Quite," said Wally cheerfully. "I've put these peaches in with the
neatsfoot oil, and it seems a beautiful arrangement!" He hopped up
nimbly. "Right oh, Jimmy, and pray remember I am nervous!"

"I will," Jim grinned. He laid the whip on the ponies' backs, and they
shot forward with a bound, unused to such liberties. They went down the
main street of Cunjee in a whirl of dust, and turned over the bridge
spanning the river, where the ponies promptly rose on their hind legs
at the sight of Dr. Anderson's motor, and betrayed a rooted
disinclination to come down from that unusual altitude. Jim handled
them steadily, and presently they were induced to face the snorting
horror, wherein the doctor sat, waving his hand and calling cheery
Christmas greetings as they shot past, to which the three responded
enthusiastically. Cunjee sank into the distance behind them.

The miles flew past. On the metalled road the rubbered tyres spun
silently, and only the flying hoofs clattered and soon they had left
the made road and turned on to the hard-beaten track that led to
Billabong, where progress was even smoother. The tongues flew almost as
swiftly as the wheels. The hot sun sank gradually, and the evening
breeze sprang up. It was a time for quick questions and answers. Norah
wanted details of the term just over, the sports, the prize-giving, and
had to laugh over messages from those of Jim's boy friends whom she
knew; and Jim had a hundred things to ask about home--the cattle, the
fishing, his horses, his dogs, "Brownie," and the prospects of fun
ahead. They roared over her ducking and subsequent encounter with
Cecil, and chaffed her unmercifully.

"Such a mud-lark!" said Wally, with glee. "And that prim young man! Oh,
Norah, you are a dream! I'd have given something to see your face."

"I was altogether worth seeing," Norah remarked modestly. "When I
caught sight of myself in a glass I really didn't wonder at Cecil." But
Jim glowered and referred to the absent Cecil as a "silly ass."

They turned in at last at the homestead gate, and the ponies fairly
flew up the long paddock, something in the spirits of their drivers
communicating itself to them. The house was not visible until the track
had passed through a thick belt of trees, and as they came to this Jim
fell silent, looking keenly ahead. Then the red roof came into view and
the boy drew a long breath.

"There's the old place," he said. "My word, I am glad to be home!"

Under the dust-rug Norah slipped her hand on to his knee.

"It's just lovely to have you--both of you." she added. "You're glad,
too, aren't you, Wally?"

"I could sing!" said Wally.

"Once," said Jim, "you could. But for some years--"

"Beast!" said Wally. "If you weren't driving--"

"And you weren't nervous--!" grinned his chum.

"There'd be wigs on the green," finished Norah, cheerfully. "I'll
drive, if it would be any convenience to either of you."

"We'll postpone it," said Jim. "There's Brownie at the gate, bless her
old heart!"

They shot up the last furlong of the drive. At the big gate of the
yard--very few people, not even bishops, go to the front gate of a Bush
homestead--Brownie stood, her broad face beaming. As they pulled up,
Murty O'Toole came forward to take the horses--a marked compliment from
Murty, who, like most head stockmen, was a free and independent soul.

Jim went over the wheel with a bound, and seized Brownie's hand.

"How are you, Brownie, dear?"

"The size of him!" said she. "The shoulders. No wonder they 'ad you for
captin of the football eleven, then, my dear!" The boys grinned widely.
"If not eleven, then it's four," said Brownie placidly. "Strange, I
can't never remember which, an' it don't sinnerfy, any'ow. Welkim
'ome--an' you too, Master Wally."

"How are you, Murty?" Jim shook hands with the stockman, while Wally
bowed low over Brownie's hand.

"I've lived for this moment," he said, fervently. "Brownie, you grow
younger every time I go away!"

"Naturally!" said Norah from the buggy.

"Be silent, minx!" said Wally, over his shoulder. "Who are you to break
in on a heart-to-heart talk, anyhow? At this present moment, Mrs.
Brown, you look seventeen!"

"Get along with you, now, do!" said the delighted Brownie. "You're no
better than you was, I'm afraid, Master Wally--alwuz ready for your
joke!"

"Joke!" exclaimed he, indignantly. "Any one who'd make a joke of you,
Brownie, would rob a church. Jim might, but I--"

"Perish the idea!" said Jim, tipping the orator's hat over his eyes.
"Come and take things out of the buggy."

Across the yard came Mr. Linton, surrounded by a mixed assemblage of
dogs. Puck and the collie had already hurled themselves upon Jim in a
delirium of joy. Cecil strolled after his uncle, looking slightly
amused at the scene by the gate.

"We're quite a family," Mr. Linton said. "I begin to feel like Mr.
Pickwick at a Christmas gathering! Do you think Billabong will stand
the crowd, Mrs. Brown?"

"It looks to me, sir," said Mrs. Brown contentedly, "as if Billabong's
goin' to 'ave the time of its life!"




CHAPTER VII

JIM UNPACKS

    Holler-days
    Were made for boys to holler!


Jim's room was a rather vast place, with two long windows opening upon
the balcony, two exceedingly plain iron bedsteads in different corners,
and in the midst a wide, vacant space, where a punching-ball was fixed
whenever the owner was at home. There was a very shabby old leather
armchair by one window, and near the other an even shabbier leather
couch, very wide and solid. Jim used to declare that they were the most
comfortable in the house, and nothing would have induced him to have
them altered in any way.

One wall held a medley of various articles: Jim's rifle, the sporting
gun his father had given him when he was fifteen, a revolver that had
been through two wars, and a cavalry sword his grandfather had carried,
together with an assortment of native weapons from various
countries--assegais, spears, boomerangs, throwing sticks, sjamboks and
South Sea Island clubs and shields. A special nail held Jim's own
stockwhip, to which Norah always attended after he had gone away, lest
the supple thong should become harsh through disuse. Then there were
weapons of peace--hockey sticks, rackets, cricket-bats--the latter an
assortment of all Jim had used, from the tiny one he had begun with at
the age of eight to the full sized beauty that had split honourably in
an inter-State school match the preceding summer.

All over the other walls were plainly framed photographs. Mr. Linton
and Norah were there, in many positions, with and without horses; then
there were pictures of all the favourite horses and ponies and dogs on
the place, and a big enlargement of Billabong house itself. The others
were school photographs, mostly football and cricket teams, tennis
fours, the school crew, and some large groups at the yearly sports. In
nearly all you could find Jim himself--if you looked closely enough. Jim
loathed being photographed, and always retired as far out of sight in a
group as his inches would permit.

The room held many of Jim's own manufactured ideas--his "contraptions,"
Brownie used to call them. There was a telephone he had rigged up when
he was twelve, communicating with Norah's room by the balcony; and
outside was a sort of fire escape, by which he could--and generally
did--descend without using the stairs. There were various pieces of bush
carpentry--a table, a candlestick and a book-case of his own
construction, which in Norah's eyes were better than beautiful. There
was an arrangement by which he could open his door or his windows
without getting out of bed--which was ingenious, but quaint, since Jim
was never known to shut his windows, and very rarely his door.
Altogether it was an interesting room, and very typical of Jim.

At present it resembled a maelstrom, for Wally and Jim were unpacking.
Brownie, putting in her head, described it as "a perfick shambles," and
affected great horror at the havoc occasioned by having boys in the
house--beaming all the while in a manner calculated to destroy the
effect of any lecture. Norah, perched on the end of the sofa, which was
the only free spot in the room, looked on at the operations with deep
interest. Occasionally, when some special parcel was unearthed, one of
the boys diverted her attention laboriously, since it was near
Christmas-time, which is ever a season of mysteries. The parcel stowed
away hastily in a cupboard, Norah was permitted to gaze once more,
unrestricted.

"What's that, Jim?" she asked, catching a glimpse of silver in the
recesses of a suitcase.

"Oh, nothing."

"I believe it's your cup," said his sister excitedly. "Do make him show
me, Wally!"

"The mug it is!" said Wally, diving in under Jim's nose, and snatching
the article in question. "Don't be an ass, Jimmy--d'you expect to keep
it always in your boot-bag?"

"Very nice place for it," Jim was understood to mutter.

"Ripping--but you'll want it for your boots. Catch, Norah!"

The big silver cup flew across the room, and was deftly fielded by the
lady on the end of the sofa.

"Oh, isn't it a beauty!" she said delightedly. "Jimmy, I'm so proud to
know you!"

"You ought to have seen him going up to get it," Wally said. "Lovely
sight--he blushed so prettily!"

"Blush be hanged!" said the victim.

"Don't be ashamed, my child; it's a very nice thing to be able to
blush," Wally grinned. "No one would ever dream you could, either, so
it's a happy surprise as well!"

"There's not a blush about you, that's one thing," said Jim, from the
depths of his big box.

"Wore out all my powers that way blushing over you!" was Wally's prompt
reply. "Norah, will you use that thing for cocoa, or what?"

"Don't be disrespectful--I'm admiring it," Norah answered, turning the
cup round. "Dad will like it awfully."

"Has he shown you his prizes?"

"Prizes!" Norah exclaimed, falling off the arm of the sofa in
amazement. "Jim, you horrid boy, you never told us. Show me at once!"

"Never thought about 'em," said the unhappy Jim, un-earthing two
resplendent books. "Here you are, anyhow--and Wally needn't talk; he's
got three!"

"I'm faint in the presence of so much learning!" Norah said, sitting
down on a golf bag. "Who'd ever have suspected you? French and
Prefect's Prize--oh, I'm so glad you got that one, Jim, dear." Her quick
ear caught a step, and she called her father excitedly.

Mr. Linton entered, to be greeted by incoherent tidings of his son's
success, to the meaning of which the two books lent aid.

"That's especially good news, old chap," he said quietly, whereat Jim
grinned happily, blushed with fervour, and muttered something entirely
inaudible. "The cup, too! that's a beauty, and no mistake!" He looked
round the "perfick shambles," and laughed a little. "I don't think
they're very safe here," he said. "With your permission, I'll take
charge of them." He left the room, carrying the books and the cup with
him.

At the door he paused.

"Don't forget Cecil," he said quietly, and was gone.

The trio looked blank.

"Cecil!" said Wally.

"Hang Cecil!" from Jim disgustedly.

"Oh, he's such a bore!" Norah said. "And he'd simply hate to be in
here--he wouldn't see any fun in it. I--I really think I've had an
overdose of Cecil."

"Poor old kid!" said Jim. "Well, we'll hurry up unpacking and then find
him." They dismissed the "bit of a drawback" airily from their minds,
and proceeded with the business in hand, hampered slightly by much
energetic conversation. Jim's boxes were full of interesting things,
the result of his six years at school; his packing, he said, with
pained recollection, had been a "corker."

"Lucky I had that extra chest of drawers put in here," remarked Norah,
stowing away numerous small articles. "Jim, how many boys gave you
knives as farewell gifts?"

"Sorra a one of me knows," said her brother. "I lost count--and lost
some of the knives, too. I've an idea Bill Beresford picked up one I
dropped--the one Lance Western gave me; it's got a tortoise-shell
handle, and a nick out of the big blade--and gave it to me for himself."

"It sounds the sort of economical thing Bill would do," Wally remarked.

"Then there are five magnifying glasses, seven pencil cases, and six
pens," said Norah. "All tokens of affection, Jim? I'll put them in the
middle drawer."

"What on earth I'm going to do with 'em all," said their harassed
owner, "I'm sure I don't know. Does any one chap use five magnifiers in
his life? Never used one yet! I wish the fellows hadn't been so kind--it
was awfully brickish of them, though, wasn't it? And the Doctor gave me
this." He held up a large and solemn--looking book.

"What is it?"

"'Self Help,' by a chap named Smiles. Shouldn't have thought there were
many smiles about a book looking like that, but it shows you can't tell
everything by the cover. And Mrs. Doctor gave me this tie--knitted it
herself. It was jolly decent of her, wasn't it? She's always been
awfully kind to me," said the big fellow, who had no idea of what "Mrs.
Doctor" thought of his cheerful habit of picking up two or three of her
babies and treating them to a wild ride round the school grounds on his
back; and who had on one occasion sat up all night with a sick
three-year-old who had cried unreasonably for "Yinton" to come and
carry him. The boy had recovered, somewhat against expectations, and
Jim had thought no more of the matter, except to drop gently and firmly
into a gorse bush a fellow who had chaffed him for being a nursemaid.
He had been amazed, and greatly embarrassed, by the tears in little
"Mrs. Doctor's" eyes as she bade him good-bye. Nothing on earth would
have induced him to mention them.

"If the Doctor ever gives me anything barring the length of his tongue,
I'll have apoplexy!" remarked Wally. "We don't twin-soul a bit better
than we did. He caught me beautifully the other day. Three or four of
us were going to have a supper. I'd been into town to the dentist, and
was bringing home a lobster. Coming out, that idiot Bob Greenfield was
next me on the train, and he amused himself by rubbing the lobster
gently until the thin brown paper they wrap 'em in had worn through in
places. I was talking cricket for all I was worth, and never noticed
him. I'd bought an evening paper, and given him my lobster to hold
while I looked up some scores."

"Yes?" said Norah, happily.

"Well, we came to the school, and off I jumped, and just inside the
gate I ran into the Doctor. He was very affable, and we walked up
together, and he asked me quite affectionately how I'd got on with the
dentist, and altogether he might have been my long lost uncle!
Presently he glanced down at my parcel, and said, 'Been getting a boot
mended, Meadows?' I didn't know what to say for a moment. And while I
was floundering in my mind the string broke, and down went my parcel
with a clatter on the asphalt!"

"Why do I miss these things?" asked Jim, plaintively.

"I wish I'd missed it instead of you!" said his chum. "I picked it up
in a hurry, and the paper had burst pretty well all over-and-well, you
know, there's no disguising the colour of a lobster! I just held it,
and looked a fool, and the Doctor put up his eyeglass and looked it and
me all over. Then he said, 'Curious colour for a boot, Meadows'--and I
promptly turned the same shade as the lobster."

"Did you get into a row?" Norah asked.

"No; I will say for the old chap that he was a perfect brick," Wally
said. "He just grinned, and walked off, remarking that there was no
need to push investigations too far. And I fled, and the lobster was
tip-top, thank you."

"I don't see why you've any cause to grumble at the Doctor," was
Norah's comment.

"That's your feminine ignorance," returned Wally. "He made me feel
small."

"Well, if I get a head mistress as easy-going--" said Norah, dolefully.

"Don't you get the idea into your mind that our revered Head's
easy-going!" Wally retorted. "He thinks nothing of skinning a fellow on
occasion--only he didn't happen to think a lobster was occasion--that
night, anyhow. You see, it was near the end of term, and even Heads get
soft!"

"Lots of em," said Jim; "look at your own!" He dodged a hairbrush
neatly. "Have a little sense, young Wally; don't you see I'm busy?
Norah, old chap, did you see my blazer?"

"I hung it in your wardrobe," said Norah promptly "Also your overcoat,
also your straw hat, also your cadet uniform--what are you going to do
with that, by the way, Jim?"

"Get photographed in it," said Wally, wickedly.

"I'm likely to!" Jim said, with fine scorn. "Goodness only knows--I may
find some fellow it'll fit. It certainly wouldn't fit me much longer."

"It's been the anxiety of the whole battalion," said Wally. "It creaked
and began to split whenever he drilled in it, and for the last six
parades we've always taken out a blanket in case we should need to
drape his tattered form on the way home! It's an uncommonly good thing
he's left. Most demoralizing for a young corps to see its corpulent
lieutenant bursting out of his uniform!"

"He's not corpulent," said Norah indignantly, whereat Jim, who
personified leanness with breadth of shoulder, grinned even more widely
than Wally, and patted her on the head as he passed with an armful of
clothes, which he stowed into his wardrobe much as he might have dumped
sacks of potatoes into a barn. Even Norah's wide and free views on the
subject of garments were not proof against the sight.

"Are those your good suits, Jim?"

"Yes," said her brother, cheerfully. "They're used to it. Chuck me that
coat, Wally."

Wally complied, and the coat--which happened to be the one belonging to
its owner's evening suit--was added to the heap in the wardrobe.

"I'll sort 'em out some time or other," said Jim. "I'm so jolly sick of
unpacking. Wally, you animal, you're not finished, are you?"

"Ages ago," said his chum. "Hadn't anything like your quantity, you
see. My clothes are neat and trim, and my pyjamas have blue ribbon in
them and I have put out my lace pin cushion and my tulle slippers, and
all is well! Now I feel I can go and play with Cecil with a quiet
mind!"

"I really don't know why I brought a lunatic home with me," Jim said,
patiently. "Sorry, Nor.; but we'll take him out in the scrub and lose
him. Meanwhile--" He closed the last drawer with a bang, and advanced
with slow deliberation upon the hapless Mr. Meadows.

For the next few minutes the air in the room was murky with pillows,
other missiles and ejaculations. Out of the turmoil came yelps, much
energetic abuse, and shrieks to Norah for aid to which that maiden, who
was enjoying herself hugely, lent a deaf ear. Finally, the combat
restricted itself principally to Wally's bed, from which the bedclothes
gradually disappeared, until they formed a tight bundle on the floor,
with Wally in the centre. Jim piled the mattress on top, and retreated
to the door.

"Beast!" said Wally, disentangling himself with difficulty, until he
sat on the pile, considerably dishevelled, and wearing a broad grin.
"It's only your vile brute force--some day I'll get even with you!" He
rose, hurled the mattress upon the bed, and looked inquiringly at his
blankets. "How do you imagine I'm going to sleep there to-night?"

"Oh, we'll fix it up when we come to bed," laughed Jim. "Come on--we
ought to go down to Cecil."

"Hold on till I brush my hair," said Wally, attacking his disturbed
locks, and settling his tie. "All right; lead on, Macduff!"

"Ready, Nor.?"

Norah hesitated.

"I'm going to my room for something," she said. "I'll be after you in a
few minutes, boys."

She disappeared within her room, and the boys clattered downstairs.
When they had gone, Norah slipped back noiselessly to Jim's apartment,
which gave the impression of having recently been the scene of a
cyclone. She laughed a little, looking at it from the doorway.

"It certainly is a 'perfick shambles'," she said. "Poor old chaps--and
they'll be so tired when they come up to bed!"

Moving quietly, she sorted out the tangled bedclothes and made up the
bed, and reduced to order some of the chaos in the room. Then she
opened the wardrobe and took out the mass of clothes, sorting out the
suits and putting them away carefully, with a shake to the coats to
remove creases. The dress suit she laid in a drawer, running to her own
room for a tiny lavender bag to keep away the moths. She was closing
the drawer when she started at a step, and Jim came in.

"What on earth are you up to?" was his question. His eye travelled
round the room, taking in the open door of the wardrobe, and the dress
coat in the drawer, where stood his small sister, rather flushed.

"Well!" he said, and paused. "Weren't we beasts?"

"No, you weren't," said Norah indignantly.

"H'm," said Jim. "It's a jolly good thing when a fellow has a sister,
anyhow." He came over to her and put his arm round her shoulders. "Dear
old chap!" he said. They went down the stairs together.




CHAPTER VIII

A THUNDERSTORM

    The Bush hath moods and changes, as the seasons rise and fall,
    And the men who love the Bushland--they are loyal thro' it all.
    A. B. PATERSON.


"The day after to-morrow is the date of the men's dance," Mr. Linton
said. "Norah mustn't go in for any wild exertion on that day, as she'll
probably want to dance several hundred miles at night. So if you boys
want to plan anything, you had better make your arrangements for
to-morrow."

"I don't know that I've energy enough to plan anything," said Jim,
lazily. He was lying full length on the lawn, his head on Norah. Wally
was close by, and Cecil and Mr. Linton occupied basket chairs. Peace
would have reigned supreme had not the mosquitoes kept every one busy.

"Any wishes, Cecil?"

"None whatever," said Cecil. "There are no people to go and see, I
think you said, Uncle David?"

"No one that would interest you," Mr. Linton said; and Wally and Jim,
who had groaned internally with fear of being taken "calling," felt
their spirits return.

"My brain's not equal to planning, as I remarked," Jim said. "But if I
go anywhere, I'd like to do so on a horse. I want to feel a horse under
me again."

"Hear, hear," from Wally, softly.

"Well, I can't go out to-morrow," said the squatter. "I've letters to
see to, and Anderson may be out; so you must look after
yourselves--which I believe you to be entirely capable of doing. Norah,
haven't you any ideas?"

"Loads," said Norah, promptly, "but they're all connected with
mosquitoes!" She aimed a vicious blow into space as she spoke, and
sighed, before rubbing the bite. "Well, suppose we ride out and boil
the billy somewhere along the river? Cecil, would you care for that?"

"Very much," said Cecil, in the tones that always gave the impression
that he despised the particular subject under discussion. Norah had
quite withdrawn the opinion formed in the first five minutes of their
acquaintance, that he was ill mannered--now she bewailed the fact that
he was so uniformly and painfully polite.

"Well, if you would--" she said, hesitatingly. "What do you boys think?"

"Grand idea," responded Wally. Norah loved Wally's way; he was always
so pleased and interested over any plan that might be formed. Jim was
wont to remark that if you arranged to clean out a pigsty, Wally would
probably regard it as a gigantic picnic, and enjoy his day hugely. She
smiled at him gratefully in the darkness.

"You too, Jim?"

"Rather--anything you like," said her brother. "What horse can I have,
Dad?"

Jim had no special horse of his own. His two ponies, Sirdar and Mick,
he had outgrown, although they were still up to anything of a lighter
weight--the former only inferior to Norah's beloved Bobs. His absences
from home were so long that it had not seemed worth while to procure
him a special horse, and for several holidays he had been accustomed to
ride any of the station mounts. Privately, Jim was not altogether
satisfied with the arrangement, although quite admitting its common
sense. Now that he had left school he intended to ask his father if he
could buy a horse.

"You can try my new purchase, Monarch, if you like," Mr. Linton
answered. "He's quite a decent mover--I think you'll like him."

Cecil bit his lip, under cover of the darkness. He coveted a ride on
both Bobs and Monarch, and had given hints on the subject, but neither
had been taken. Now Jim, nearly three years his junior, was lent
Monarch without even having asked for him; while he was still, he
presumed, to ride the steady-going Brown Betty, whom he thoroughly
despised, in spite of the fact that she had once got rid of him. He
registered another notch in his general grudge against Billabong.

Mr. Linton was absolutely ignorant of what passed in his nephew's mind.
To give the city boy, with his uncertain seat and heavy hands, anything
but a steady horse, never occurred to him; he would have regarded it as
little short of inviting disaster to put him on Monarch, thoroughbred
and newly broken in as he was; and, of course, no one but Norah ever
rode Bobs.

"That's all right," he said, as Jim expressed his pleasure. "And what
about you, Wally? You're too long now for Mick, I think."

"Oh, anything you like, sir," said Wally, easily. "I haven't met any
bad 'uns on Billabong. Warder, or Brown Betty, or Nan--have you got them
all still?"

"They're all here," the squatter said. "Cecil generally rides Betty,
and I believe Burton's using old Warder just now. But you can have Nan,
if you like."

"Thanks very much," said Wally. "I'll take the shine out of you, young
Norah!"

"I'd like to see you," returned Norah. Monarch might beat Bobs or yes,
perhaps one other horse she knew of, in a small tree-grown paddock; at
the thought of which she smiled happily to herself. But no other horse
on Billabong could see the way Bobs went when he was in earnest.

"Well, that's all settled," Mr. Linton said. "I hope you'll have a good
day--you're bound to have it hot, so I should advise you to get an early
start. If you go as far as the Swamp Paddock, Norah, you might ride
round the cattle there, and see if they're settling down--I put the new
bullocks there, you know."

"All right, Dad, we'll do it. I like having an object for a ride."

"Same here," said Jim sleepily. "Picnics are asinine things!"

"I don't believe you know much about anything--you're three parts
asleep!" said Wally, flinging a cushion at his chum, which Jim caught
thankfully, and, remarking that Norah was uncommonly scraggy, adjusted
under his head. The result was a vigorous upheaval by the indignant
Norah, who declined to be a head-rest for such ingratitude any longer.
At this point Mr. Linton discovered that it was time for supper; and
the boys, tired after their long journey, were not long in saying
goodnight.

Jim came up with Norah, and switched on her light. His eye travelled
round the pretty room.

"I don't know what part of home's HOMIEST," he said--"but I always
reckon your room runs pretty near it! Blest if I know what it will be
like when you're not here, little chap."

Norah rubbed her face against his coat sleeve.

"We don't talk of it," she said. "If we did, I'd--I'd be a horrid
coward, Jimmy--boy, and you wouldn't like me a bit!"

"Wouldn't I?" Jim said. "Well, I can't imagine you a coward, anyhow."
He bent and kissed her. "Good-night, old kiddie."

They set out in good time next morning, for the sun gave promise of a
scorching day.

Billy had the horses ready under the shade of a huge pepper-tree; even
there the flies were bad enough to set Monarch and Bobs fretting with
irritation, while the two stock horses lashed unceasingly with their
tails and stamped in the dust. Nan was a long, handsome brown mare,
with two white feet--an old friend of Wally's, who came and patted her
and let her rub her worried head against his coat. Cecil mounted Betty
and looked on sourly, while Jim walked round Monarch and admired the
big black.

"He ought to carry you like a bird, Dad."

"He does; a bit green yet, but he'll mend of that," his father
answered. "Now, get away, all of you." He put Norah up and watched,
with a silent look of approval, the way Jim handled his impatient
steed, taking him quietly, as one treats a fractious baby, and mounting
gently. Then he stood under the tree to see them ride down the paddock,
valises containing necessaries for the "asinine picnic" strapped on Nan
and Betty's saddles. Norah, as the lady of the party, was exempt from
carrying burdens, and Monarch brooked no load but his rider.

They made good time across the shadeless paddocks, anxious for the
pleasanter conditions along the river bank, where a cattle track wound
in and out under the gum trees. It was one of Norah and Jim's favourite
rides; they never failed to take it when holidays brought the boy back
to Billabong. They pushed along it for some time, eventually finding
the slip rails, through which they got into the Swamp Paddock--so called
because of a wide marsh in one corner, where black duck and snipe used
to come freely. The new cattle had taken to the paddock like old hands.
Satisfied with their inspection, Norah and Jim led the way back to the
river, where presently they came to an ideal place to camp; a bend
thickly shaded, with the river bank shelving down to a sandy beach,
where it was easy to get good water.

Wally volunteered to boil the billy, which he accomplished after much
vigorous fanning with his hat at the fire. The job took some little
time, and if the tea was eventually brewed with water that had not
quite reached boiling point, that was a matter between Wally and his
conscience--certainly the other members of the party were far too
thirsty to be critical! Lunch was lazily discussed close to the water,
after which they lay about on the bank and talked of many things.
Nobody was inclined to move, for the heat, even at the river, was very
great; a still, thunderous day, on which no shade could keep out the
moist heat, that seemed, as Wally put it, "to get into your very bones
and make them lazy."

At length Jim rolled over.

"Well, I'm off for a bathe," he said. "Coming, Cecil?"

"Oh, yes," Cecil answered, a little doubtfully; while Wally jumped up
as a matter of course.

"Ugh!" groaned Norah. "Pigs! Why was I born a girl?"

"So's we could lay ourselves at your feet!" said Wally solemnly,
suiting the action to the word, and placing his forehead forcefully in
the dust before her.

"M'f!" Norah wrinkled her nose. "It's very nice of you, but I don't
quite see what use it would be. Anyhow, I'd far rather go bathing." She
huddled on the ground, and looked tragic. "Go--leave me!"

"Sorry, old girl," grinned Jim. "We won't be long."

"Be as long as you like," said the victim of circumstances, cheerfully.
"I'm going to sleep."

The three boys disappeared along the bank, finding, apparently, some
difficulty in discovering a suitable bathing place, for it was some
time before shouts and laughter from a good way off told Norah that
they were in the water. She sighed, looking ruefully at the river
flowing beneath her, and half decided to go in herself; but her father
did not care for her bathing in the open alone, and she gave up the
idea and shut her eyes so that she would not see temptation rippling
down below. Presently she fell asleep.

She did not know how long it was before she woke. Then she jumped up
with a start, thinking, for a moment, that it was dark. The sun had
disappeared behind a huge bank of deep-purple cloud that had crept up,
blotting out everything. It was breathlessly hot and quite still--not a
leaf stirred on a tree, and the birds were quiet.

"Whew!" said Norah. "We're going to have a storm--and a big one!"

She listened. From far up faint calls and laughter still met her ears.
It was evident that the boys were finding the water very much to their
taste.

"Duffers!" Norah ejaculated. "We'll have the loveliest soaking--and
Dad'll be anxious."

She coo-ee'd several times, but no response came. Finally she rose,
with a little wrinkle in her brow.

"I guess I'd better saddle up," she said.

The horses were tied up in a clump of trees not far off, the saddles
out of reach of their restless feet. Norah saddled Bobs first, and then
the two stock horses--which was easy. To get Monarch ready, however, was
not such a simple matter: the youngster was uneasy and sweating, and
would not keep still for a moment; to get the saddle on and adjust
breastplate and rings was a fairly stiff task with a sixteen-hands
horse and a groom of fourteen years, hampered by a divided riding
skirt. At length the last buckle went home, and Norah gave a relieved
sigh.

"Bother you, Monarch!" she said. "You've taken me an awful time. Come
on, Bobs."

Leaving the other horses tied up, she mounted and cantered down the
bank, calling again and again. An answer came sooner than she had
expected, and the three boys, somewhat hastily arrayed, came running
through the trees.

"Jimmy, have you seen the weather?" asked his sister, indicating the
blackened sky.

"Only a few minutes ago," Jim said, visibly annoyed with himself. "We
were diving in a hole with the trees meeting overhead, and the scrub
thick all around us--hadn't an idea it was working up for this. Why
didn't you call us, you old duffer?"

"I did--but I couldn't make you hear," said Norah, somewhat injured.
"Hurry--I've saddled up."

"You have? You didn't saddle Monarch?" asked Jim quickly.

"Yes, he's all ready, and the valises are on. We're in for a ducking,
anyway, don't you think, Jim?"

"I think you hadn't any business to saddle Monarch," Jim said, soberly.
"I wish you wouldn't do those things, Norah."

"Oh, it was all right." She smiled down at him. "He was only a bit
fidgety; I believe he's frightened of the weather, Jim." She looked
across at Cecil, seeing that young gentleman, wonderful to relate, with
his stock folded awry, and his hair in wild confusion. "Do you mind
thunderstorms, Cecil?"

"I--don't care for them much," Cecil panted. Running evidently did not
agree with him, and he was finding his tweed riding suit very unfitted
for the heat of the day. Jim, jogging easily, clad in white silk shirt,
cord breeches and leggings, looked at him pityingly.

"Carry your coat, Cecil?" he sang out.

"No, thank you. I'd rather wear it," said Cecil, who disapproved of
being coatless at any time, and had looked with marked disfavour at Jim
and Wally as they set off in the morning.

"Stupid donkey!" Jim muttered, under his breath. "Ah, there are the
horses!"

He made for Betty at once, and tossed the breathless Cecil into her
saddle, advising him to ride on quickly.

Wally was up in a twinkling; but to mount Monarch was no such easy
matter, for the black horse was dancing with restlessness, and a low
growl of thunder far to the west evidently terrified him. Finally, with
a quick movement, Jim was in the saddle, whereat Monarch promptly
reared. He came down, and tried to get his head between his legs, but
the boy was too quick for him, and presently steadied him sufficiently
to move away in the wake of the others.

"Go on!" Jim shouted. "Don't lose a minute!"

They went down the river bank at a hand gallop, chafing now and then at
the necessity of striking away from the track to find gates or
slip-rails, as one paddock followed another. At first Monarch gave Jim
all he knew to hold him, and at the gates Wally and Norah had to do all
the work, for the black thoroughbred was too impatient to stand an
instant, and threatened to buck a score of times. Jim watched the sky
anxiously, very disgusted with himself. He knew they had no chance of
getting home dry, but at least they must be out of the timber before
the storm broke. It was coming very near now--the thunder was more
frequent, and jagged lightning tore rents in the inky curtain that
covered the sky. He took Monarch by the head, and sent him tearing
along the track, passing the boys--Wally riding hard on Nan, and Cecil
sitting back on Betty with a pale face. Before him Bobs was galloping
freely, Norah riding with her hands well down, and on her face a smile
that was like a child's laugh of sheer happiness. Norah loved
thunderstorms; they seemed to call to something in her nature that
never failed to respond. She glanced up at Jim merrily as he passed
her.

"Grand, isn't it?" she said. Then her face changed. "He isn't getting
away with you, Jim?"

"Not he!" said her brother, grinning. "But we've got to get out of this
jolly soon--hurry your old crock, Norah!" Norah's indignant heel smote
Bobs, and they raced neck and neck for a moment.

They swung out of the trees just in time, the plain clear for home
before them. Almost simultaneously, the storm broke. There was a mad
flash of lightning across the gloom, and then a rattling peal of
thunder that rang round the sky and finished with a tremendous crack
overhead. The black horse stopped suddenly, wild with terror. Then his
head went down, and he bucked.

Norah and Wally pulled up, regardless of the rain beginning to fall in
torrents. Monarch was swaying to and fro in mad paroxysms, trying to
get his head between his knees, his back humped in an arch, all his
being centred in the effort to get rid of the weight on his back, and
the iron in his mouth, and the control that kept him near that terrible
convulsion of nature going on overhead. Jim was motionless, each hand
like iron on the rein--yet with gentleness, for he knew the great black
brute was only a baby after all, and a badly frightened baby at that.
Cecil, coming by on Betty, his face white, looked aghast at the
struggle between horse and rider, and fled on homewards. The thunder
pealed, and the lightning lit the sky in forked darts.

Possibly the rain steadied Monarch, or sense came back to him through
Jim's voice. He stopped suddenly, planting all four feet wide apart on
the ground. Jim patted his neck, and spoke to him, and the tension went
out of the big horse. He stood trembling a little.

"Slip along," nodded Jim to Norah.

Bobs and Nan went off together. Behind them, Monarch broke into a
canter, obedient once more.

Five minutes later they were at the stables, Billy out in the wet to
take the horses. The storm was raging still, but there were coolness
and refreshment in the air. Billy grinned at the three soaked riders as
they slipped to the ground, and then at Brown Betty, trotting down the
hill in the rain. There was no sign of Cecil, who had fled indoors.

"Him plenty 'fraid," said the black retainer, his grin widening. "Him
run like emu!" His eagle gaze dwelt on Monarch, who was still trembling
and excited.

"Been buck?" he asked, his eyes round.

"Plenty!" Jim laughed. "All right, Billy, I'll let him go myself."




CHAPTER IX

THE BILLABONG DANCE

    The slope beyond is green and still,
    And in my dreams I dream,
    The hill is like an Irish hill
    Beside an Irish stream.
    KENDALL.


"Don't dress to-night, if you don't mind, Cecil," said Jim, putting his
head into his cousin's room.

"Not dress?" Evening clothes were part of Cecil's training, and he kept
to them rigidly, putting on each night for dinner what Murty O'Toole,
having seen in wonder, referred to as "a quare little
cobbed-shwaller-tail jacket." He regarded with fine scorn the cheerful
carelessness of the boys where clothes were concerned. To Jim and Wally
who were generally immensely occupied until dinner-time, and more often
than not had further plans for the time following, putting on
regulation evening dress seemed a proceeding little short of lunatic;
but since Cecil "liked that sort of thing," they let him alone.
To-night, however, was different, and when Cecil repeated his query
half impatiently, Jim nodded.

"No. Didn't we tell you? It's the dance in the loft."

"Oh--don't you people ever dress for dances then?"

"Not for these dances," Jim answered. "It's the men's spree--all the
hands and their friends; and you can be jolly well certain they won't
run to dress clothes. So we make a point of not putting 'em on. Father
did one year, and felt very sorry he had."

"I don't know that I'm keen on going, anyway," said Cecil.

"Oh, I think you'd better. Dad likes us to go, and it's really rather
fun," Jim responded, patiently. "Norah's quite excited about it."

"Norah's young and enthusiastic," said Cecil.

"Oh, well, you're hardly hoary-headed yourself yet!" Jim grinned.
"Might as well be cheerful while you're alive, Cecil, 'cause you'll be
a long time dead!" He withdrew his head, shut the door with an
unconcerned bang, and his whistle died away up the corridor.

"Hang it!" said Cecil, disgustedly, looking at his forbidden garments.
"Who wants to go to a beastly servants' ball, anyhow?" He donned a dark
suit reluctantly, a little consoled in that its very recent cut would
certainly be an eye-opener to Billabong, and went down to dinner,
meeting on the way Norah, in a muslin frock, with her hair flying and
her eyes sparkling.

"Oh! I'm so glad you haven't dressed up!" said she. "It's such fun,
Cecil!--we've been helping to decorate the loft, and really you'd hardly
know it was a loft, it looks so decent. And it's so funny to see the
men; they pretend they don't care a bit, but I do believe they're quite
excited. Murty came in with a trememdous lot of ferns, and he's been
nailing them all on the wall in streaks, and he and Mick Shanahan
nearly had a fight 'cause Mick leaned against one of them and the
erection came down, and the nail tore Mick's coat. Still, it was Murty
who seemed most aggrieved! And the musicians have come out from Cunjee,
and they've been practising--they can play, too!" She paused for lack of
breath.

"What sort of music does Cunjee supply?"

"Violin and flute and a funny little piano," said Norah. "They had
quite an exciting time getting the piano up into the loft with the
block and pulley. But the music sounds very well up there. The only
trouble is old Andy Ferguson, the fencer--he's always been accustomed to
fiddle for them, and he's very crushed because we've got out these men.
Dad says he'd never have got them if he'd dreamed how disappointed old
Andy would be."

Cecil had seen Andy, who struck him as a peculiarly uninteresting old
man. That such consideration should be shown to his wishes and feelings
was a thing beyond him, and he merely stared.

"However, he's going to play the supper dances and some others," said
Norah, not noticing his silence, "so he's a bit consoled." They entered
the drawing-room at the moment, finding Jim and Wally in armchairs,
tweed clad and unusually tidy, and chafing miserably against the
tyranny of white shirts after days of soft variety. "And a big buggy
load of girls has come out from Cunjee already; and Brownie says
there's a tremendous demand for hot water for shaving from the men's
quarters, and Dave Boone came in for some mutton fat for his hair, but
she wouldn't give it to him. Now she's half sorry she didn't, 'cause
she believes he'll use the black fat they keep in the harness room;
he's so dark no one would be able to tell--from the look! Who are you
going to dance with, Cecil?"

"You, if I may," drawled Cecil.

"Why, of course, if you want to," Norah said, laughing. "But we always
dance with every one on these occasions. It's one of the sights of
one's life to see Wally leading Brownie out!"

Cecil gasped.

"And am I expected to dance with Mrs. Brown?"

"Very possibly she won't have a dance to spare you," said Wally
serenely. "Brownie's no end popular, you see. Thank goodness. I've
booked mine with her already!"

Cecil's stare spoke volumes.

"And who are your partners, Norah?"

"Any one who asks me," said that maiden promptly.

"And your father allows it?"

"Certainly he does," said Jim. "Don't get tragic, Cecil. The men on the
place are an awfully decent lot, and most of them have been here ever
so long--besides, it's their one night in the year, and they never
overstep their limits. Dad always plans this spree himself specially.
Of course, if you don't like--"

Jim stopped short, and bit his tongue. It had suddenly occurred to him
that he was host--and he had nearly said something rude. So he whistled
vaguely, and asked Wally if he were going to dance with Lee Wing, who
was the Chinese gardener.

"Wish I could get the chance," said Wally, his eyes twinkling. "Think
of piloting fat old Lee Wing through a polka--he'd get so beautifully
puffed, and his pigtail would wave in the breeze, and he'd be such an
armful!"

"Do you mean to say that Chow comes, too?" queried Cecil.

"No; he's shy," Wally answered. "We've tried to get him, but in vain;
he prefers to go to bed and dream of China. And Billy hangs about like
a black ghost, but he won't come in. So we lose a lot of international
enjoyment; but, even so, what's left is pretty good, itsn't it, Norah?"

"I love it," said Norah.

"And you don't get any of your own friends to come? It seems to me the
queerest arrangement," said Cecil.

"It's the men's dance, don't you see? There wouldn't be much fun for
them if the place were filled up with our friends."

"Well, I should think a few of your own sort would be better. Aren't
there any girls or boys within reach that you know? I suppose you've a
juvenile sweetheart or two in the district?"

Norah looked at him blankly. Wally gave an expressive wriggle in his
chair, and Jim sat up suddenly, with a flush on his brown face.

"We never talk that sort of rot here," he said angrily. "Norah's not a
town girl, and her head isn't full of idiotic, silly bosh. I'll thank
you--"

Mr. Linton came in at the moment, and the point on which Jim intended
to express his gratitude remained unuttered. Cecil had reddened
wrathfully, and the general atmosphere was electric. Mr. Linton took,
apparently, no notice. He pulled Norah's hair gently as he passed her.

"You're all remarkably spruce," he commented. "Can any one tell me why
almost every maid I have met in my house this day turns and flees as
though I were the plague? Sarah is the only one who doesn't shun me,
and her mind appears to be taken up with affairs of State, for I asked
her twice if she had seen my tobacco pouch, and she brought me in
response a jug of shaving water, for which I have had no use for some
time!" He laughed, stroking his iron-grey beard. "Can you explain the
mystery, Norah?"

"It's easy," said his daughter. "Sarah's hair has a natural friz, so
she's the only girl in the house without curling pins concealed--more or
less--in her front hair. Brownie gave permission for the pins to-day; I
guess she thinks it would give Sarah an unfair start if she didn't!"

"But the shaving water?"

"Ah, well, I expect Fred Anderson wanted that. She's engaged to him,
you know," said Norah, simply.

"Well, I hardly see why she should give me his shaving water, either
from Anderson's point of view or mine; but I suppose it's all right,"
said Mr. Linton. "The whole place is upset. I really wanted some work
done, but the men who should have been sinking a well were tacking up
ferns, and those whose mission in life is--or ought to be--hoeing out
ragwort were putting French chalk on the floor of my loft! Judging from
my brief inspection, it seemed to me that the latter occupation was far
more strenuous than the ragwort job; but they seemed much happier than
usual, and were working overtime without a struggle!"

"To hear you talk so patiently," quoth Norah, "no one would imagine
that you'd bought the French chalk yourself!" She perched on the arm of
his chair, and looked at him severely, while the boys laughed.

"The men are like a lot of kids to-day," Jim said. "Did you hear about
old Lee Wing, Dad? He was standing under the block and pulley after
they'd hoisted up the piano, and I expect the sight of the hook on the
end of the dangling rope was too much for the men, for they slipped it
through Wing's leather belt and hauled him up too! You should have seen
him, with his pigtail dangling, kicking at the end of the rope like the
spider in 'Little Miss Muffet!' They landed him in the loft, and Fred
Anderson insisted on waltzing with him, while one of the musicians
hammered out The Merry Widow on the piano. Poor old Wing was very wild
at first, but they got him laughing finally."

"Why that long-suffering Chinaman stays here is always a mystery to
me," said his father, laughing. "He's the butt of the whole place; but
he fattens on it."

"There's the dinner gong!" said Norah, jumping up. "Come on, gentlemen,
we've to hurry to-night, so that the girls can get free early."

The loft over the stables, which had been built with a view to such
occasions, was quite transformed when the house party entered it a
couple of hours later. The electric light--Billabong had its own plant
for lighting--had been extended to the loft, and gleamed down on a
perfect bower of green--bracken and coral ferns, the tender foliage of
young sapling tops, Christmas bush, clematis and tall reeds from the
lagoon--the latter gathered by Jim and Wally during their morning bathe.
Rough steps had been improvised to lead from outside up to the main
door of the loft, over which still dangled from the block and pulley
the rope that had suspended the irate Lee Wing earlier in the day. It
was also possible to enter by the usual method--a trapdoor in the floor
over a ladder leading from the floor below; but this was considered by
the men scarcely suitable for their partners. All traces of its usual
contents had, of course, been removed from the big room, and the floor
gleamed in the light, mute evidence of the ardour with which Mr.
Linton's French chalk had been applied. At one end, near the railing
guarding the trapdoor, the Cunjee musicians were stationed, and close
to them a queer old figure hovered--old Andy Ferguson, gnarled and
knotted and withered; Irish, for all his Scotch name, and with his old
blue eyes full of Irish fire at the thought of "a spree." He held his
old fiddle tenderly as he might hold a child; it, too, was the worse
for wear, and showed in more than one place traces of repair; but when
Andy wielded the bow its tones were just as mellow to him as the finest
instrument on earth. He kept a jealous eye on the Cunjee men; they
might oust him for most of the night, but at least his was to be the
old privilege of opening the ball. "The Boss" had said so.

The homestead men had lined up near the door to receive their
guests--to-night they were hosts to Mr. Linton and his children, as to
every one else. They were a fine lot of fellows--Murty O'Toole, and Mick
Shanahan, the horse breaker, and Willis and Blake and Burton--all long
and lean and hard, with deep-set, keen eyes and brown, thin faces;
Evans, who was supposed to be over-seer, and important enough to arrive
late; younger fellows, like Fred Anderson and David Boone (the latter's
hair suspiciously smooth and shiny); Hogg, the dour old man who ruled
the flower garden and every one but Norah; and a sprinkling of odd
rouseabouts and boys, very sleek and well brushed, in garments of
varying make, low collars, and the tie the bushman loves "for
best"--pale blue satin, with what Wally termed "jiggly patterns" on it.
Of the same type were the guests--men from other stations, cocky farmers
and a very small sprinkling of township men.

The ladies kept rigidly on arrival to the other side of the loft. There
was Mrs. Brown, resplendent in a puce silk dress that Norah remembered
from her earliest childhood, with a lace cap of monumental structure
topped by a coquettish bow of pale pink ribbon. Her kind old face
beamed on every one. Close to her, very meek under her sheltering wing,
were Sarah and Mary, the housemaids--very gay in papery silks, pink and
green, with much adornment of wide yellow lace. Norah had helped to
dress them both, and she smiled delightedly at them as she came in.
There was Mrs. Willis, who ruled over the men's hut, and was reckoned,
as a cook, only inferior to Mrs. Brown; and Joe Burton's pretty wife,
in a simple white muslin--with no doubt in big Joe's heart, as he looked
at her, as to who was the belle of the ball. Then, girls and women from
that vague region the bush calls "about," in mixed attire--from flannel
blouses and serge skirts, to a lady who hurt the eye it looked at, and
made the lights seem pale, in her gorgeous gown of mustard-coloured
velveteen, trimmed with knots of cherry-coloured ribbon. They came
early, with every intention of staying late, and cheerfully certain of
a good time. The Billabong ball was an event for which an invitation
was much coveted.

Norah kept close to her father's wing, as they entered, shaking hands
gravely with the men by the door, and with Mrs. Brown--which latter
proceeding she privately considered a joke. The boys followed; Jim
quiet and pleasant; Wally favouring Murty O'Toole with a solemn wink,
and Cecil plainly bored by the little ceremony. He let his fingers lie
in each man's hand languidly--and would probably have been injured had
he seen Murty wipe his hand carefully on the side of his trousers after
he had passed on. The men had no love for the city boy.

"S'lect y'r partners!" It was Dave Boone, most noted "M.C."--in demand
at every ball in the district. Dave knew what he was about, and saw
that other people understood the fact; no shirking when he was in
command, no infringement of rules, no slip-shod dancing. Even as he
kept his eagle eye on the throng, he "selected" one of the prettiest
girls himself, and bore her to the head of the room. There was never
any doubt of Dave's generalship.

Cecil turned to Norah.

"May I have this?"

"Sorry," Norah said, "I always dance with Jim first."

"P'f!" said Cecil, lightly. "That old brother-and-sister idea is
exploded."

"Not with Jimmy and me," Norah answered. "Why don't you ask Mary? She
can dance awfully well."

"No, thank you," said Cecil, with elevated nose. "I'll watch."

Wally had approached Mrs. Brown, and bowed low.

"Ours, I think?"

"Now, Master Wally, me dancin' days are over," said Brownie. "Go an'
get one of the girls, now, dearie, do!"

"A girl!--when I can get you?" Wally ejaculated. "Not much!" He tucked
her hand into his arm and led her off in triumph.

"Promen-ayde y'r partners!"

Dave turned and nodded to Andy Ferguson, who, with fiddle tucked
lovingly under his chin, was waiting for his signal. He broke into a
march--the time a little shaky, the tune a little old, for the hand that
held the bow was old and shaky, too; but still a march, with a swing to
it that set the feet going at once. The dancers promenaded round the
room in a long procession, led proudly by Wally and Mrs. Brown. At one
end a few men, disappointed in obtaining partners, clustered by the
wall; near them stood Mr. Linton, watching in his grave, pleasant way
that was so like Jim's, with Cecil at his elbow, his delicate face dull
and expressionless. Round and round marched the couples.

"Circular waltz, please!"

The music swung into a waltz without a break, and simultaneously the
march broke into the dance as every man seized his partner by the waist
and began to revolve solemnly and silently. Cecil gaped.

"What on earth is a circular waltz?"

"Blest if I know for certain," replied his uncle, laughing. "Much like
any other waltz--but you mustn't use the middle of the floor. Watch
young Boone."

Dave was keeping an eagle eye on the dancers. For the most part they
were content to gyrate near the wall; but should any more daring couple
approach the unoccupied space in the middle of the room, they were
instantly detected and commanded to return. As Cecil looked, Wally, who
was dancing with a broad grin of sheer happiness on his face, swung his
ponderous partner right across the centre--and was greeted by the
vigilant M.C. with the stern injunction--"Keep circle!" Quite oblivious
that this outbreak had anything to do with him, while Mrs. Brown,
feeling the most miserable of sinners, was far too breathless to
explain, Wally presently repeated his offence, whereupon Boone pulled
him up gravely, and pointed out his enormity to him. The culprit
grinned the more widely, promised amendment, nodded vigorously, and
danced off, Mrs. Brown remaining speechless throughout. Mr. Linton
smothered a laugh in his beard.

Presently the music came to an end. Old Andy put his fiddle down and
looked along the loft with a happy little smile. The dancers stopped,
and Mr. Boone's voice rose sonorously.

"Seats, please!"

At this, each man rushed with his partner to the side of the loft
previously tenanted by the ladies, and deposited her on the long forms
ranged there. Then the men retreated hastily to the other side.

There was no conversation, nor had there been any through the dance. It
seemed that the poetry of motion must suffice for enjoyment.

Norah and Jim, who had been dancing vigorously, pulled up near the
others.

"Did you see me get hauled over the coals?" asked Wally gleefully. He
had placed Mrs. Brown on a seat, and followed the example of his sex in
retreating.

"Rather--we were in fits, behind you!" said Jim. "Was Dave cross?"

"Oh, quite mild; took my assurance that I didn't know I was sinning,
and forgave me like a man and a brother. And why shouldn't a fellow
cross that floor?"

"Goodness knows; but it's a rule. They dance very strictly, and in many
ways more correctly than we do."

"There are two lovely couples," said Wally, gleefully. "They hold each
other firmly round the neck, and they revolve on the space of a
threepenny bit. It's beautiful. May I try that way with you, Norah?"

"No, you mayn't," laughed Norah; "at least, not here. They might think
we were imitating them."

"Curious penetration on their parts!" rejoined Wally. "Well, can you
tell me why lots of the men hold one arm behind their backs?"

"In my young days that was quite ordinary," Mr. Linton put in. "I
always danced that way--and I was remarkably run after," he added,
modestly. Whereat Wally meekly assured him that he thought the practice
a highly desirable one, and had serious thoughts of adopting it
himself.

"I've been looking at the programme nailed up for the musicians," said
Cecil. "There are some dances I never saw--Varsoviana, Circassian
Circle, and Caledonians."

"In the Varsoviana," said Mr. Linton, retrospectively, "I used to
shine."

"Well, they beat US," said his son. "We can't dance 'em; but we look
on. The first two are round dances, and the Caledonians is a square. I
suppose they'd be all right, only they're not taught now."

"And there are no two-steps," said Cecil, in a tone of personal injury.

Jim laughed outright.

"It'd be so much simpler for you if you'd remember you're at what's
commonly known as 'a bush hop'," he said. "You can't expect the last
adornments of a city spree. Anyway, they get more honest fun out of
this than most people do at a Melbourne or Sydney ball."

Cecil looked patient.

"May I have the next dance, Norah?"

"I'm sorry, truly, Cecil, but I've promised it to Murty."

"Oh!" said Cecil. "The next?"

"That's Mick Shanahan's," said Norah, laughing. "But you may have the
one after that if you like."

"I must be thankful for small mercies, I suppose," said he,
unthankfully.

"Won't you dance with any one else?"

"No, thanks, I don't care to." The tone was final.

"Well, I'm going to collar Sarah or die!" said Wally, manfully. "I'll
probably die, anyway, 'cause Fred has his eye on her. Still, here
goes!"

The musicians gave a preliminary blast, on which followed a shout from
the M.C.

"Select y'r partners for the lancers!"

At the word there was a general stampede. Youths who had been timid
before, grown bolder now, dashed towards the long row of girls. Where
more than one arrived simultaneously, there was no argument; the man
who failed to speak first shot off to find another damsel. In a moment
every available fair one had been secured firmly, and the dancers
awaited further commands.

Wally had not waited for permission from Mr. Boone. At the first sound
of the music he had darted towards Sarah, arriving beside the lady with
"the natural friz" a yard in front of Fred Anderson.

It was not etiquette to refuse to dance, and the fact that he was "the
Boss's" guest, if only a boy, carried weight. Sarah rose, with a rueful
glance at her disappointed swain. The two disconsolate faces moved
Wally to compassion.

"I say--I'm awfully sorry," he said. "'Fraid I got ahead of you
unfairly, Fred--perhaps you'll excuse me this time, Sarah? You don't
mind? Well, you'll give me the next, won't you? Thanks, awfully." He
relinquished her to the beaming Fred, and returned, partnerless, to Mr.
Linton and Cecil.

Then it was a marvellous sight to behold young Dave Boone! With Mrs.
Brown on his arm, he "took the floor" at the head of the room, seeing
that the dancers were correctly sorted out in sets; and thence
proceeded to dance and instruct the room simultaneously, in a manner
truly amazing. With what agility did he "set to partner" and "swing
corner," with his eagle eye all the time scanning the sets to make sure
no one mixed up the commands!--how ably bear his part in "First lady and
second gent.," not even put out of step by the necessity of telling the
further end of the room that it was going wrong!--how splendidly issue
the edict to "chassee-crossee" and "gent. solo," finding time, even in
the press of his double occupation, to propel his panting partner in
the way she should go! His voice rang out over the room, indicating
each figure as it came--there was no excuse for making any mistake in a
square dance when Mr. Boone was in command. And all the while he danced
with a wholehearted energy and a face of absolute gravity. No one,
watching him, could have possibly imagined that this was a pastime.

"I've seen Boone looking infinitely more cheerful when fighting a bush
fire!" said Mr. Linton.

"Talk about a conjurer!" was Cecil's astonished comment. "I never saw
one man do so many things at once!"

The music ceased at last, and the "Seats, please!" marked the temporary
termination of the labours of the M.C. Murty brought Norah back to her
father, thanked her gravely, and made off.

"What happened to you, Wally?" queried Jim, restoring a blushing damsel
in blue to her form and rejoining his relations. "Did Sarah turn you
down?"

"I resigned gracefully in favour of Fred," Wally said. "He looked
murderous, and Sarah looked woe-begone, so it seemed the best plan. But
she's mine for the next--and ill befall the caitiff that disputes my
claim!"

"No one'd dare!" said Jim, hastily. "I'm after Brownie, myself."

"Ah, Jim, be steady with her," said Norah. "It's a polka!"

"I'll be steady as old Time," Jim told her, smiling. True to his
promise, when the music began he danced mildly and moderately, and
Brownie emerged from the ordeal in far better order than might have
been expected.

After that the evening flew. Dance after dance went by in rapid
succession--for the guests were out to dance, and where no time is
wasted in talking much may be done with a few hours. Cecil steadfastly
declined any partner but Norah, and as that maiden had no mind to spare
him more than two, his evening was dull, since his sense of humour was
not equal to finding any fun in the entertainment. He was the object of
considerable curiosity among the visitors, and was generally voted
"stuck-up," and "too big for his boots." As for Jim and Wally, they
flung themselves cheerfully into the business of the night, and even
succeeded in making most of their partners talk, albeit this was a
daring proceeding, and not looked upon with favour by the M.C. They
were too popular, however, to come in for any real criticism, and being
regarded by the majority of the men as "just kids," were allowed to do
very much as they liked.

Supper was a majestic meal, spread on long tables in a big tent. Mr.
Linton led the way to it with Mrs. Brown, followed by Mick Shanahan,
who conveyed Norah much in the way he danced with her--as if she were a
piece of eggshell china, and apt to crack with careless handling. There
was no "head of the table"; every one sat in the place that seemed
good, and tongues flew as fast as the knives and forks. At the end Mr.
Linton made a little speech.

"My friends," he said, "it's a great pleasure to Billabong to see you
all here. I hope you'll keep it up till morning, and come again next
year; you're always welcome. However, it is time my daughter went to
bed." (Dissent, and cries of "Not her!") "Before she goes, though, I
would like to see one more dance. I move that our old friend Andy
Ferguson play the 'Royal Irish.'"

There was frantic applause, and supper adjourned hastily, while every
one hurried back to the loft; in the midst old Andy, his quavering
voice a little raised in excitement, his fiddle held firmly in one
hand. "Too old to work," some called him, wondering why David Linton
kept the old fencer, when younger men were always wanting work on
Billabong; and now, as he faced the long room with his faded blue eyes
a little misty, Andy looked an old man indeed. But the pride of work
was in him, and his master knew it--knew how the gnarled hands ceased to
tremble when they grasped the adze and mattock, just as there was now
no quiver in them as he raised the brown fiddle and cuddled it under
his chin. Age would seize on Andy only when he could work and play no
more. The light came back into his eyes as he saw the boys and girls
waiting for the music--his music.

He drew the bow lovingly across the strings, and swung into the Irish
dance the old, common tune with the little gay lilt to it that grips
the heart and makes the feet beat time, and has the power to wake old
memories across the years. There were no memories to wake in the happy
young hearts in the loft at Billabong that night. But Andy looked over
the heads of the dancers at his master, meeting his eyes as man to man,
and each knew that the mind of the other had gone back to days long
dead.

The long floor echoed under the dancers' feet--up and down, swing in the
centre, hands across; the pace was always a good one when Andy Ferguson
played the "Royal Irish." One foot tapped out the time, and his grey
head nodded in sympathy with it. They called to him now and again,
"Bravo, Andy! Good man, Andy! Keep it going!" and he smiled at the
friendly voices, watching them with the keenness of the Irishman for a
light foot in a dance.

Just before him, Mrs. Brown, dancing with Jim, was footing it in and
out of the figures like a girl, holding her skirts quaintly on either
side as she advanced and retired, and came back to sweep a curtsey that
shamed the quick bow of the younger generation, while the tall lad she
had nursed waited for her with a grave gentleness that sat prettily on
his broad shoulders. Near, too, the old man's eyes dwelt lovingly on
Norah, whose eyes were dancing in time with her feet as Wally pranced
her madly up and down, his own brown face glowing.... just for a moment
Andy saw "the little mistress" who had known her baby for so brief a
time fourteen years before; her face looked at him through her child's
grey eyes. He looked across at his master again, a little wistfully.

The tune broke into "St. Patrick's Day," and Murty O'Toole gave a
sudden involuntary shout, his hand above his head, Mick Shanahan echoed
it; the Irish music was in their blood, and the old man with the brown
fiddle had power to make them boys again. He, too, had gone back on the
lilt of the tune; back to his own green country, where the man with the
fiddle has his kingdom always, and the lads and lasses are his
subjects. There was a girl with blue Irish eyes, coming to meet him on
St. Patrick's morning... the tune wavered ever so little then, as his
heart cried out to her. Then the dream passed, and he knew that he was
a boy no more, but old Andy Ferguson, playing for the boys and girls in
the loft at Billabong. The bow moved faster and faster yet--only a good
pair could see him right through the "Royal Irish." They were panting
when he dropped his hand at last and stood looking at them a little
vaguely. Then they crowded round him, thanking him. Even the Cunjee
musicians were saying that he could beat them all, and Miss Norah had
put her hand into his, and was patting his arm. There was a mist before
him--he could not see them all, though he knew his triumph.

"'Tis wid the kindness of all of y'," he murmured. "So good to me y'
all are!"

David Linton's hand was on his shoulder.

"Come on, old friend," he said, gently; "we're getting old and we're
tired, you and I." He led him away, Norah still holding his hand.
Behind them the music broke out again, cheerily, and the flying feet
made the loft echo until the dawn.




CHAPTER X

CHRISTMAS

    O mellow air! O sunny light!
    O Hope and Youth that pass away,
    Print thou in letters of delight
    Upon each heart one glorious day!
    G. ESSEX EVANS.


Norah woke up early.

Close outside her open windows a magpie in the magnolia tree was
carolling as though he knew it was a special morning, and that he had a
special message to deliver. The linen blinds were rolled tight up, and
she could see him near one of the great creamy blossoms, each big
enough for his bath; his black and white coat very spruce and smart,
his head thrown back in utter enjoyment of his own song. Norah smiled
at him sleepily from her pillow.

"Nice old chap!" she said; and then she remembered.

"Oh!--Christmas." She gave a little happy laugh, for to-day was going to
be such a very good day. There was something that had taxed all her
patience; it was so hard to keep the secret until Christmas. Norah was
not a very patient person by nature, and she was glad that the need for
it was almost over.

She turned over lazily, and then burst out laughing as something caught
her eye at the foot of the bed--a huge football stocking, assuming
extraordinary shapes by reason of strange packages within it, while
from the top a monkey on a stick grinned at her. Norah jumped up and
brought the stocking back to bed for examination, weak with laughter
when she had finished. A big box of chocolates; a scarlet Christmas
cracker; a very flowery mug of thickest china, with "Love the Giver" on
it, and tied to the handle a label with "For a Good Little Girl" in the
best handwriting of Wally, who evidently considered it not sufficiently
adorned by nature; a live frog in a glass-covered box; a huge bundle,
which took her many minutes to unwrap, and was finally found to contain
a tiny pig of Connemara marble; a Christmas pudding the size of a golf
ball; and finally, in the very toe, a minute bottle labelled "Castor
Oil; Seasonable at Any Time."

"Oh, you NICE donkeys!" said the recipient of these varied gifts, lying
back and investigating the chocolates. A sound at the window made her
look up, and Jim's laughing face peeped round the curtain.

"Like 'em?"

"They're lovely," said Norah, fervently. "Come in, Jimmy, you old
duffer. Merry Christmas!"

Jim came in, immensely tall and lean in his pyjamas, and sat down on
the bed.

"Merry Christmas, old kid!" he said, and kissed her. "Taken your oil?"

"Pudding first--and chocolates," said Norah, solemnly, indicating the
box. "Take lots, Jim, they're beauties. How did you get that thing into
my room?"

"Waited until I could hear your cheerful snores, and then sneaked in by
the window," said her brother, dodging a chocolate. "My best stocking;
I think I was jolly good to lend it to you--you'll kindly notice that
the frog's box tore a hole in it, and take steps accordingly! It's a
ripping morning--but it's going to be hot. Do you know what time it is?"

"I don't," said Norah.

"Five o'clock," said Jim; "isn't it ridiculous!--and you wide awake and
playing with pigs and frogs! I'm off to bed again for a bit--besides,
young Wally's bursting to know how you liked your sock. Go to sleep
again, old chap."

"I'll try," said Norah, obediently, snuggling down, "Take some
chocolates to Wally--and the castor oil!"

At the moment Norah was quite convinced that sleep was the last thing
possible for her, and merely laid down to please Jim, just as she would
cheerfully have endeavoured to jump over the moon had he expressed any
wish in that direction. Thus she was considerably surprised on waking
up two hours later to hear the dressing gong pealing through the house.
Further off came the cheerful voices of Jim and Wally on their way to
the lagoon. Cecil preferred the bath in the house, saying that he
considered it cleaner, which remark had incensed Norah at the time. But
they were learning not to worry about Cecil's remarks, but to regard
him with a kind of mild toleration, as one who "could not help it."

Norah tore in haste to the bath, and returning made a speedy toilet;
breakfast was to be half an hour later than usual, but still there was
much to do. Her gifts to the men's quarters had gone over the night
before, in charge of Mrs. Willis; still there were parcels for the
girls in the house, together with the envelopes containing cheques for
them, which Mr. Linton always gave into Norah's care, and of course
Brownie's gifts, besides the nearer and dearer excitement of the
breakfast table. To the latter she attended first, scattering parcels
at each plate before any one else arrived on the scene. Then she raced
off, just escaping in the hall Jim, who immediately put his hands
behind him and began to whistle with great carelessness. Jim was a man
of tact.

Mrs. Brown, narrowly watching some fried potatoes, heard flying
footsteps, and turned to receive Norah bodily.

"Merry Christmas, Brownie, dear!" said the breathless one. She hung
over the stout shoulders a tiny shawl of softest white wool.

"It's only a shawl-let," Norah explained, "just for when you feel the
summer evenings get cool, you know."

"An' you made it, my precious!"

"Why, of course," said Norah, lifting her brows; "do you think I'd buy
it, when you taught me to knit? Ah, Brownie, I'm having such a good
time!"

"Look at me!" said Mrs. Brown, sitting down in rapture, and forgetting
her frying pan entirely. "This lovely shawl--an' your Pa's cheque--and
here's even Master Wally brung me down a cap, an' Master Jim--don't 'e
always think!--a frame with the photer 'e took of you an' your Pa, an'
it's sollud silver, no less, if you'll believe me, an' then it's none
too good for the photer, but the dear lamb knew wot I'd like more than
anything on earth! Of all the loving--kindest children--" At this point
Brownie's feelings overcame her, and she sniffed and, inhaling a threat
of burnt potato, rushed to conceal her emotions over the stove.

Sarah and Mary felt delighted with the pretty collars Mrs. Stephenson
had chosen for Norah in Melbourne; the daughter of the house
encountered Jim returning from the back regions, with a broad smile on
his brown face. Jim's invariable gift to Lee Wing was a felt hat, and
as the Celestial still wore the one first given, eight Christmases
before, it was popularly supposed that the intermediate half-dozen went
to support his starving relatives in China! Lee Wing had never
mentioned the existence of any starving relatives, but Wally said it
was well known that all Chinese gardeners had them--speaking, as Norah
remarked, as though it was a new complaint, like measles or mumps!

"You didn't give Wing another hat, Jim?" queried his sister.

"I did, though," returned Jim, firmly. "Asked him at midwinter what
he'd have, and he grinned and said, 'Allee same hat!' So he got it--a
lovely green one!"

"Jim!--not green! For Lee Wing!"

"There weren't any other colours left," said Jim; "next year it would
have had to be pale blue! He took it with a heavenly smile, and looked
at it all over inside and out; then he looked down at his feet, and I
beheld his toe sticking out of his boot. He didn't say 'Thank you' at
all. What he did say was 'Nex'-Clis'mas-socks,' all in one word, and
you couldn't have widened his smile without shifting his ears further
back!"

"Merry Christmas, Norah, asthore!" said a cheerful voice, and Norah
turned to greet Wally. So Wally had to hear the story of Lee Wing all
over again, and they were laughing over it when Mr. Linton came out on
the verandah, pausing in the doorway a moment to look at the slender
figure in the blue frock, with white collar and tie, and the tall lads
in white flannels beside her.

Three greetings flashed at him simultaneously as he came into view.

"Merry Christmas, every one!" he said, one hand on his small daughter's
shoulder. "Going to be a hot Christmas, too, I believe. Where's Cecil?"

"Coming," said that gentleman, exchanging good wishes with a languid
air. "Sorry to be late, but I couldn't open the bathroom door."

Wally started.

"Good gracious, was it you in there?" he asked anxiously. "I thought it
was Norah--and we wanted her out of the way at the moment, so I
barricaded the door! Then I saw her afterwards, so I reckoned she'd got
out all right, and I never bothered to take down the barricade. I'm
awfully sorry!"

Every one laughed but Cecil, who saw nothing humorous in having been
obliged to climb through the bathroom window, and said so with point.

"I'm a fearful ass, truly," said Wally, with contrition. "Norah, you've
no need to laugh like a hyena--you ought to have been there, if you
weren't!"

"That's why I laugh," Norah explained kindly. "Never mind, it's
Christmas--and there's breakfast!"

It was the gong, but not breakfast. Mrs. Brown knew better than to send
in the porridge with the gong on Christmas morning. Instead, the table
was heaped with parcels, a goodly pile by every plate.

"What an abominable litter!" said Mr. Linton, affecting displeasure.
"Norah, kindly oblige me by getting those things out of your way. How
are you going to eat breakfast?"

"You're as bad as I am, Daddy!"

"Dear me!" said her father. "I seem to be. Well, yours is decidedly the
most untidy, so you had better begin."

They watched the eager face as Norah turned to her bundles. Books from
Cecil and his mother; warm slippers made by Brownie; a halter
exquisitely plaited from finest strips of hide by Murty O'Toole, the
sight of which brought the whole gathering to Norah's side; from Wally
a quaint little bronze inkstand, and from Jim the daintiest horse rug
that Melbourne could produce, made to fit Bobs, with a big scarlet B in
one corner, and Norah's monogram in the other. "Not that he needs it
just now," Jim explained, as Norah hugged him--"but a store's no sore,
as Brownie'd say!" Last, a tiny velvet case, which concealed a brooch--a
thin bar of gold with one beautiful pearl. Norah did not need the slip
of paper under it to know it came from Dad.

Then things became merry, and even Cecil warmed at the gifts on his
plate, while the boys were exclaiming in delight over Norah's knitting,
and Wally was shaking hands with Mr. Linton and looking
half-shamefacedly at the plain gold sleeve links from him and the
silver watch chain from Jim; and Mr. Linton's face was alight with
pleasure at the waistcoat Norah had made for him, and the little oak
bookshelf for his bedside that was the work of Jim's spare hours.
Finally all the bundles were unwrapped, and there was a lull, though
Norah's eyes were still dancing, and she exchanged glances with her
father.

Jim spoke.

"There's a string under my plate," said he, faintly puzzled. "At least,
there's one end."

"Strings always have two ends," said Wally, wisely. "Where's the
other?"

"I'm blessed if I know," said Jim. "It goes down to the floor."

Wally came round, investigating.

"Seems to me it goes out of the window," he said. "Guess you'd better
follow it, Jimmy."

Jim looked round, a little doubtful. Then he saw Norah's face, and knew
that there was something he did not understand. He laughed a little.

"Some one pulling my leg?" he asked, good-humouredly. "Oh, well, I'll
chase it."

The string went somewhere--that was evident. Outside it was at the
height of Jim's hand, and ran along the wall, so that it was easy to
follow. They trooped after him as he went along, Norah completely
unable to walk steadily, but progressing principally on one foot, while
David Linton's eyes were twinkling. The chase was not a long one; the
string suddenly cut across to the door in the high fence dividing the
front and back gardens, and there disappeared.

"What next?" said Jim.

"If it was me," said Wally, with a fine disregard of grammar, "I should
open the door."

"Good for you, Wally," grinned Jim. "Here goes!" He flung the door
open, and then stood as if rooted to the spot.

The string went on. It ended, however, just through the door, where its
end was spliced to a halter, held by black Billy, whose smile disclosed
every tooth in his head. Fidgeting in the halter was a big bay horse,
showing all Monarch's quality, and all his good looks; a show ring
horse, picked by a keen judge, and built for speed as well as strength.
He looked at Jim with a kind eye, set well in his beautiful head. There
was no flaw in him; from his heels to his fine, straight forelock he
was perfection.

Jim had no words. He did not need to be told anything--Norah's face had
been enough; but he could not speak. He took refuge with the big bay,
moving forward and putting out a hand, to which the horse responded
instantly, rubbing his head against him in friendly fashion. Then,
across the arched neck, Jim's eyes met his father's, and the colour
flooded into his brown face.

"Well, old son--will he do?"

"Do!" said Jim, weakly. "Dad!--by Jove, I--I--" He stopped helplessly;
then his hand went out and took his father's in a grip that made David
Linton realize that this big son of his was nearly a man.

"Oh, Jimmy, I'm so glad--and isn't he lovely?"

"Why, he's perfect," Jim said, stepping back and running his eye over
his Christmas box. "My word, Dad, he'll jump!"

"Yes, he'll jump all right," said David Linton. "Gallop, too, I should
say."

"Plenty!" said Billy, with unexpected emphasis, whereat every one
laughed.

"Billy and Norah have had this little joke plotted for some time," Mr.
Linton said--"and the experiences they have undergone in keeping strings
and steed out of your way this morning have, I believe, whitened the
hair of both!"

Jim looked gratefully round.

"You're all bricks," he said. "Has he got a name, Dad?"

"'A tearin' foine wan,' Murty says," responded his father; "since it's
Irish: Garryowen, unless you'd like to change it."

"Not me!" said Jim. "I like it." He looked round as the sound of the
gong came across the garden. "I say, don't mind me," he said--"go into
breakfast. I don't want any this morning." His eye went back to the
bay.

"Rubbish!" said his father--"he'll be alive after breakfast! Come
along," and reluctantly Jim saw Billy lead his horse away to the
stable. He discovered, however, on reaching the breakfast room, that he
was remarkably hungry, and distinguished himself greatly with his knife
and fork.

Afterwards it was necessary to try the bay's paces without delay, and
they all watched Jim take him round the home paddock. Garryowen moved
beautifully; and when Jim finally put him at the highest part of the
old log fence, and brought him back again, he flew it with a foot to
spare. The boy's face was aglow as he rode up.

"Well, he's perfect!" he said. "I never was on such a horse." He came
close to his father. "Dad," he said in a low tone--"are you sure you
wouldn't like him instead of Monarch? He's far more finished."

"Not for anything, thanks, old chap--I prefer my pupil," said his
father, his look answering more than his words. "You see he never bucks
with me, Jim!"

Jim laughed, dismounting. "Like to try him, Cecil?"

"Thanks," said Cecil, scrambling up and setting off down the paddock,
while Jim watched him and writhed to think of possible damage to his
horse's back and mouth. Billy, who was near, said reflectively, "Plenty
bump!" and Murty O'Toole roundly rebuked Jim for "puttin' up an insult
like that on a good horse!" They breathed more freely when Cecil came
back, albeit the way in which he sawed at the bay's mouth was
calculated to strike woe to the heart of any owner. Then Wally tried
Garryowen, and finally Norah, having flown to the house for a riding
skirt, had a ride also, and sailed over the log fence in a manner fully
equal to Jim's. She came back charged with high compliment.

"He's nearly as good as Bobs, Jim!"

"Bobs!" said Jim, loftily. "We don't compare ponies with horses, my
child!"

"Then he's not to be compared with Bobs!" Norah retorted sturdily, and,
the laugh being on her side, retired quickly to dress for dinner.

Dinner was typical of Billabong, and an Australian Christmas--one with
the thermometer striving to reach the hundred mark. Everything was
cold, from the mammoth turkey, with which Mr. Linton wrestled, to the
iced peaches that topped off what the boys declared "a corking feed."
There was plum pudding, certainly, but it was cold, too. Wally found in
his piece no fewer than four buttons; and, deeply aggrieved, went
afterwards to remonstrate with Mrs. Brown, who was amazed, declaring
she had put in but one, which to her certain knowledge had fallen to
the unhappy lot of Sarah. Further inquiries revealed the fact that Jim
had come to the table well supplied with buttons, with which he had
contrived to enrich Wally's portion as it travelled past him--which led
to a battle on the lawn, until both combatants, too well fed and weak
with mirth to fight, collapsed, and slept peacefully under a pine tree.

Later on the horses were saddled, and every one rode out to the river,
where Brownie and the maids had already been driven by Fred Anderson,
and where they picnicked for tea. Afterwards they lay on the soft
grass, with the water murmuring past them, and Mr. Linton told them
stories--for Christmas was ever, and will ever be, the time for stories.
Simple, straightforward tales, like the man himself: old Christmases
overseas, and others in many parts of Australia--some that brought a
sadder note into the speaker's voice, and made Norah draw herself along
the grass until she came within touch of his hand. Words were never
really needed between them--being mates.

So they stayed until the golden western sky had grown rose colour, and
the rose glow faded into night, that brought with it a little cool
breeze. Then the horses were saddled, and they rode home by the longest
possible way, singing every imaginable chorus, from Good Old Jeff to
the latest medley of pantomime ditties, and ending with a wild scurry
across the paddock home. They all trooped into the house, waking its
quietness to youth and laughter.

But David Linton called to Norah.

"Come on," he said, "we'll finish up with the real Christmas songs."

So they all gathered round the piano while Norah played, and joined in
the old Christmas hymns and carols--none the less hearty in that they
sang of frost and snow with all around them the yellowing plain, dried
up by the scorching sun, and, beyond that, the unbroken line of the
little trodden Bush. The young voices rang out cheerily, David Linton
listening in his armchair, his hand over his eyes.

Norah was in bed when her father looked in, in passing, to say
good-night. She put up her face to him sleepily.

"It's been a beautiful Christmas, Daddy dear!" she said.




CHAPTER XI

"LO, THE POOR INDIAN!"

    I mind the time when first I came
    A stranger to the land.
    HENRY LAWSON.


The house was unusually quiet. It was New Year's Day, and every man on
the place, and most of the maids, had gone off to a bush race meeting,
ten miles away. Even Mrs. Brown had allowed herself to be persuaded to
go and, arrayed in her best silk gown, had climbed laboriously into the
high double buggy, driven by Dave Boone, and departed, waving to Norah
a stout reticule that looked, Wally said, as though it contained
sausages! Only Mary, the housemaid, remained. Mary was a prim soul, and
did not care for race meetings. She had remarked that she would stay at
home and "crocher"!

Mr. Linton and the boys had ridden away after lunch. A valuable bull
had slipped down the side of a steep gully and injured himself, and
bush surgery was required. David Linton was rather notable in this
direction, and he had seen to it that Jim had had a thorough course of
veterinary training in Melbourne. Together they made, the squatter
remarked, a very respectable firm of practitioners! Cecil and Wally
were ready to perform unskilled labour as required, and it was quite
possible that their help might be needed, since no men were available.
So the picnic planned for the afternoon had had to be abandoned, and
Norah was left somewhat desolate, since she could not take part in the
"relief expedition."

"Hard on you, old girl," Jim had said; "but it can't be helped."

"No, of course it can't," Norah replied. She was well trained in the
emergencies of the country, and would probably have been perfectly
cheerful had this particular one only been something that would not
have excluded her. As it was, however, it was certainly disappointing,
and she felt somewhat "at a loose end" as she watched the four ride
off. There seemed nothing for her to do. It was beyond doubt that being
a girl had its drawbacks.

Within, the silence of the house was depressing, and the rooms seemed
much too large. Norah saw to one or two odd jobs, fed some chickens,
talked for a while to Fudge, the parrot, who was a companionable bird,
with a great flow of eloquence on occasions, wrote a couple of
letters--always a laborious proceeding for the maid of the bush--and
finally arrived at the decision that there was nothing to do. In the
kitchen Mary sat and "crochered" placidly at a fearful and wonderful
set of table mats. Norah watched her for a while, with a great scorn
for the gentle art that could produce such monstrosities. Then she
practised for half an hour, and at length, taking a book, sauntered off
to read by the creek.

Meanwhile Mary worked on contentedly, unconscious of outer things,
dreaming, perhaps, such dreams as may come to any one who makes
crocheted table mats of green and yellow. Now and then she rose to
replenish the fire, returning to her needle in the far-away corner of
the great kitchen, where Mrs. Brown's cane armchair always stood. She
glanced up in surprise after a while, when a shadow fell across the
doorway. Then, for Mary was a girl with "nerves," she jumped up with a
little scream.

An Indian hawker stood there--a big, black-bearded fellow, in dusty
clothes that had once been white, and on his head a turban of faded
pink. His heavy pack hung from his shoulder, but as the girl looked, he
slipped it to the ground, and stood erect, with a grunt of relief. Then
he grinned faintly at Mary, who had promptly put the table between
them, and asked the hawker's universal question:

"Anything to-day, Meesis?"

The Hindu hawker is still a figure to be met frequently in the
Bush--where he is, indeed, something of an institution. "Remote from
towns he runs" a race that no poetical licence can stretch to complete
the quotation by calling "godly." He carries a queer mixture of goods--a
kind of condensed bazaar-stall from his native land, with silks and
cottons, soaps, scents, boot laces and cheap jewellery, all packed into
a marvellously small space; and so he tramps his way through Australia.
No life can be lonelier. His stock of English is generally barely
enough to enable him to complete his deals; the free and independent
Australian regards him as "a nigger," and despises him accordingly;
while the Hindu, in his turn, has in his inmost soul a scorn far deeper
for his scorners--the pride of tradition and of caste. It is the caste
that keeps him rigidly to himself, since, as a rule, he can touch no
food that others have handled. He sits apart, over his own tiny fire,
baking his unappetising little cakes; and in many cases even the shadow
of a passer-by falling across his cookery is held to defile it beyond
possibility of his eating it. As a rule he has but one idea in life--to
make enough money to carry him back to end his days in comfort by the
waters of the Ganges.

There are certain well recognized hawkers in many districts--men who
have kept for a long time to a particular beat, and may be regarded as
fairly regular, and likely to turn up at each place at their route
three or four times a year. Such men have generally arrived at the
dignity of a pack-horse--no unmixed benefit in the eyes of people
driving, since most of the country horses are reduced to frenzy by the
sight of the lean screw with his immense white pack--the hawker is
merciless to his horse--led by the "black" man in flapping clothes and
gay turban. Still the regular hawkers are a more respectable class of
men, and their visits are often eagerly welcomed by the housewife in
the lonely country, many miles from a township, who finds herself
confronted with such problems as the necessity for lacing Johnny's
Sunday boots with strips of green hide, or the more serious one of a
dearth of trouser-buttons for his garments.

It is the casual hawker who is looked on with disfavour, and strikes
terror to the heart of many women. He has very frequently no money and
less principle; and being without reputation to sustain in the
district, is careless of his doings along a route that he probably does
not intend to visit again. He knows perfectly well that women and
children are afraid of him, and as a rule is very willing to work upon
that fear--though the sight of a man, or of a dog with character, is
sufficient to make him the most servile of his race. But where he meets
a lonely woman he is a very apparition of terror.

There was one hawker who came regularly to Billabong; a cheery old
fellow, well known and respected, whose caste was not strict enough to
prevent his refusing the station hospitality, and whose appearance was
always welcome. He had been coming so long that he knew them all well,
and took an almost affectionate interest in Jim and Norah, always
bringing some little gift for the latter. The men liked him, for he had
been known to "turn to" and work at a bush fire "as hearty as if he
weren't a fat little image av a haythen," said Murty O'Toole; Norah was
always delighted when old Ram Das came up the track, his unwieldy body
on two amazingly lean legs. Even Mary would not have been scared at his
appearance.

But this was not Ram Das--this Indian who stood looking at her with that
queer little half-smile, so different from the old man's wide and
cheerful grin. It was a strange man, and a terrible one in Mary's
sight. She gaped at him feebly across the table, and he watched her
with keen, calculating eyes. Presently he spoke again, this time a
little impatiently.

"You ask-a meesis annything to-day?"

"Nothin' to-day," said Mary, quickly and nervously.

"You ask-a meesis."

"She don't want anything," the girl quavered.

"You ask-a."

"I tell you she don't want anything--there ain't any missis," Mary said.
He looked at her unbelievingly, and broke into a speech of broken
English that was quite unintelligible to the frightened girl behind the
table. Then, as she did not answer him, he came a few steps nearer.

It was more than enough for Mary. She gave a terrified shriek and ran
for the nearest cover--the half-open door of the back kitchen behind
her. She banged it violently as she dashed through. There was no lock
on the door, so she could not stay there--but the window stood open, and
Mary went through it with all the nimbleness of fear. She came out into
the yard where the way lay clear to the house; and across the space
went Mary, cometwise, a vision of terror and flying cap strings, each
moment expecting to hear pursuing feet. Puck, the Irish terrier,
sleeping peacefully on the front verandah, leapt to his feet at the
sudden bang of the back door, and came dashing through the house in
search of the cause. Mary, half sobbing, welcomed him with fervour.

"Good dog, Puck!" she said. She reconnoitred through the nearest
window.

The Indian had come out of the kitchen, and now stood on the back
verandah, his dark face working. He looked uncertainly about him. Then
the back door opened a few inches--just so far that an enthusiastic
Irish terrier could squeeze through--and Mary's voice came.

"Good dog, Puck!--sool 'im!"

The door banged again, and the heavy lock shot home. Mary flew back to
the window, shutting and locking it frantically. She watched.

Puck wasted no time. He dashed at the hawker, with every fighting
instinct aroused, and the Hindu leaped back quickly, seizing with one
hand a broom that leaned against the wall. He met the terrier's
onslaught with a savage blow that sent the little dog head over heels
yards away. Puck picked himself up and came again like a whirlwind.
Then Mary screamed again, for the Hindu dropped the broom, and
something flashed in the sunlight--a long knife that came swiftly from
some hiding place in his voluminous draperies. He crouched to meet the
dog, his eyes gleaming, his lips drawn back from his teeth.

Puck was no fool. He arrested himself almost in midair, and planted
himself just out of the hawker's reach, his whole enraged little body a
vision of defiance, and barked madly. The Indian moved backwards,
uttering a flood of furious speech, while for each step that he moved
the terrier advanced another. Then Mary's heart gave a sudden leap; for
the hand that held the knife suddenly went behind him as he reached for
his pack and swung it to his shoulder. Puck was nearly upon him in the
moment that the knife no longer menaced, but the Hindu was quick; and
again the little dog drew back, rending the air with his barking.
Slowly the man backed off the verandah and along the path to the yard
gate, Puck following every step, loathing with all his fury that unfair
advantage of gleaming steel that kept him from his enemy. The Hindu
backed through the gate, and slammed it in the terrier's face, spitting
a volley of angry words as he went. Mary flung the window open and
called her protector anxiously, lest he should find some means of exit
and leave her alone; and Puck came back a few steps, turning again to
bark at his retreating foe. The tall form in the dusty clothes went
slowly down the track. Mary watched him out of sight. Then she fled to
her own room, locked herself in securely, and went, very properly, into
hysterics.

Meanwhile, at the creek, Norah was nodding sleepily over her book. It
was hot, and naturally a lazy day; everything seemed sleepy, from the
cows lying about under the willows on the banks to the bees droning
overhead. Tait, near her, was snoring gently. Even the water below
seemed to be rippling more lazily than usual; the splash of a leaping
fish made an unusual stir in the stillness. Moreover, her book was not
calculated to keep her awake. It was poetry, and Norah's soul did not
incline naturally to poetry, unless it were one of Gordon's stirring
rhymes, or something equally Australian in character. This was quite
different, but it had been Cecil's Christmas gift, and it had seemed to
Norah that politeness required her to study it.

"It's the rummiest stuff!" said the Bush damsel, hopelessly. She turned
to the cover, a dainty thing of pale blue and gold. "William Morris?
Didn't we have a stockman once called Bill Morris? But I'm pretty
certain he never wrote this. The name's the same, though!" thought
Norah, uncertainly. She turned back, and read anew, painstakingly:

  No meat did ever pass my lips
  Those days. (Alas! the sunlight slips
  From off the gilded parclose dips,
  And night comes on apace.)

"Then I'm positive it wasn't our Bill Morris, 'cause I never saw a
stockman who was a vegetarian. But what's a parclose? I'll have to ask
Cecil; but then he'll think me such a duffer not to know, and he'll be
so awfully patronizing. But what on earth does it all mean?"

She closed the book in despair, let her eyelids droop, and nodded a
little, while the book in its blue and gold cover slipped from her knee
to the grass. It was much easier to go to sleep than to read William
Morris. What a long time Dad and the boys were, doctoring Derrimut! It
was certainly dull.

A quick bark from Tait startled her. The collie had jumped up, and was
bristling with wrath at an unusual spectacle coming through the trees
towards her--a tall man, with a face of dusky bronze, surmounted by a
pink turban. His face was working angrily, and he muttered as he
walked, slowly, as if the pack on his shoulder were heavy. When Tait
barked he started for a moment, but then came on steadily--a collie is
rarely as formidable as an Irish terrier.

Norah paled a little. She was not timid, but no Australian girl takes
naturally to an encounter with a Hindu and there was no doubt that this
man was in a very bad temper. The place was lonely, too, and out of
sight of the house, even if she had not been painfully conscious that
there was not a man on the place should she need help. Still, there was
nothing to be gained by running. She backed against the tree, keeping
one hand on Tait's collar as the man came up.

"What do you want?"

He stopped, and the pack slipped to the grass. Then he broke into a
flood of rapid speech in his own tongue, gesticulating violently;
occasionally indicating the house with a sweep of his hand in that
dire

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