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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56714 ***
+
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+[Frontispiece: "The rescue of Dick and Bobby." (Page 74.)]
+
+
+
+
+  DICK LESTER
+  OF
+  KURRAJONG
+
+
+  BY
+
+  MARY GRANT BRUCE
+
+
+
+  WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
+  LONDON AND MELBOURNE
+
+
+
+
+Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER
+
+  I.--HOW HOLIDAYS CAME SUDDENLY
+  II.--DICK GOES WEST
+  III.--DICK GOES TO SEA
+  IV.--ABOARD THE "MOONDARRA"
+  V.--HOW DICK PRACTISED HIGH DIVING
+  VI.--WESTRALIA
+  VII.--THE "OHIO" COMES IN
+  VIII.--THE JOURNEY NORTH
+  IX.--NARRUNG HOMESTEAD
+  X.--THE NARRUNG TRIBE
+  XI.--SOMETHING OLD AND QUIET
+  XII.--THE TEN-MILE HUT
+  XIII.--HOW CONQUEROR BOLTED
+  XIV.--"BUCK UP, SCHOOL!"
+  XV.--UNDER SENTENCE
+  XVI.--THE LONG TRAIL
+  XVII.--HOW MERLE JUMPED FROM A TRAM
+  XVIII.--HOW DICK LESTER TOOK HIS CHANCE
+  XIX.--WHEN THE WORLD CAME RIGHT AGAIN
+
+
+
+
+DICK LESTER OF KURRAJONG
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+HOW HOLIDAYS CAME SUDDENLY.
+
+"Lester!"
+
+A small boy, red-faced and puffing after a hard run with his message,
+paused at the wicket gate of the playground of a great school.  He wore
+an anxious look, for he had been bidden to hurry; and to pick out one
+boy from two or three hundred seems a rather overwhelming task,
+especially with most of the number vigorously kicking practice
+footballs.  He gave up the idea of plunging into the throng, sighed,
+drew a long breath, opened his mouth to its fullest extent, and
+shrilled again:
+
+"Lester!  Hi, Lester!"
+
+There was no response, except from two youngsters near, who kindly
+advised him to call loudly, adding that there was no sense in
+whispering.  The injured messenger turned a shade redder, glared, and
+renewed his shriek.
+
+"Lester!  You're wanted!"
+
+"Why not telephone?" asked one of his tormentors, lazily.  "It's much
+easier."
+
+"Besides you'll hurt yourself if you make awful noises like that,"
+commented the other.  "The last chap who did it busted.  And nobody
+wants to gather up your pieces."
+
+"Beasts!" said the small boy; and again, desperately: "Lester!"
+
+"He's somewhere over in that corner," said a senior boy, who was
+standing against a tree, sheltering from the nipping wind while he
+knitted his brows over a Virgil--unpleasantly conscious that the Doctor
+would demand heart-to-heart intercourse concerning it within half an
+hour.  "Clear out, for goodness' sake, and stop behaving like a motor
+siren."
+
+The small boy trotted away in the direction indicated, dodging the
+footballing groups as best he could, and keeping a sharp look out for
+the object of his search.  Presently his anxious face lightened, and he
+hurled himself against a boy who, being just about to kick at a
+spinning ball, turned upon him, justly indignant.
+
+"Can't you look out where you're going, you silly young ass!"
+
+"Lester, you're wanted!" said the messenger breathlessly.
+
+"Who by?" demanded Dick Lester, ungrammatically.
+
+"The doctor.  And he said you were to hurry."
+
+"Now, I wonder what I've been doing."  Lester knitted his brows.  "Was
+he in a wax?"
+
+"Oh, much the same as usual," returned the messenger--to whom the
+doctor, even in his most benevolent moments, was a being of terror and
+thunderbolts.  "You'd better hurry up, or you'll know all about it."
+
+Dick trotted off across the playground, meeting friendly salutations on
+the way from some who desired to know what had been his latest
+iniquity, and from others who counselled a pillow beneath the jacket as
+an aid to the coming interview.  He hoped--rather faintly--that his
+face was clean, knowing for certain that his hands were not.  It seemed
+prudent not to waste time in going to clean up, so he ran on, and
+presently tapped at the door of the doctor's study, having as yet been
+unable to guess why he should be sent for.  There was a little matter
+of a highly-unauthorised ride on a pony belonging to a milkman near the
+school; another item of a sketch on the blackboard, which had proved
+very diverting to his form, but had not been effaced quite quickly
+enough to escape the eagle eye of the science master.  It had
+represented the doctor, full-fledged in cap and gown, careering along
+St. Kilda beach on a donkey.  Without any doubt, one might prophesy
+that the doctor would not find in it the undiluted delight it had given
+to the form.
+
+"All the same, old Stinks potted me himself for it," Dick pondered,
+referring to the science master aforesaid.  "I don't believe he's beast
+enough to have me carpeted as well.  And nobody knew about the pony
+except Bottles.  At least I hope not!"  He shrugged his shoulders, and
+renewed his delicate tap at the study door.
+
+"Come in!" said a deep voice, and Dick entered.  Dr. Gurdon glanced
+round from his writing table.
+
+"Oh, you, Lester.  Go into the room across the hall."
+
+Wondering greatly, Dick withdrew, closing the door behind him.  The
+opposite door belonged to Mrs. Gurdon's drawing-room; presumably he was
+merely to wait there until the doctor had time to attend to his case.
+He went in, still lost in conjecture.
+
+"Dickie!"
+
+Someone little and slight and dainty sprang to meet him, and with an
+inarticulate cry Dick fled to her.
+
+"Mother!  Oh, you blessed old darling!"
+
+"I couldn't resist taking you by surprise," Mrs. Lester said, still
+holding him closely.  "It was only yesterday that I knew that I was
+coming.  Oh, Dick, you've grown ever so!"
+
+"Have I?" he said, laughing.  "Yes, I believe I have--my trousers are a
+mile shorter.  Oh, and I thought it meant a licking when the old doc.
+sent for me; and it was--you!"
+
+"What have you been doing to deserve a licking, you bad boy?" said his
+mother, smiling.
+
+"Oh, lots.  Tell you all about it afterwards." Dick said cheerfully.
+"Nothing very awful, though, Mother-est, how long are you going to be
+down?"
+
+"Two days.  And you're coming away with me until to-night, because
+we've got lots to talk about.  Run and change your clothes--yes, and
+you might wash your face, too, my son."
+
+"Right-oh!  Back in two jiffs."
+
+He went upstairs three steps at a time, unbuttoning as he went.  In the
+room which he shared with three other boys a very fat youth was
+laboriously endeavouring to remove sundry stains from an Eton collar.
+
+"My last collar," grumbled he.  "I guess the laundry eats 'em.  And
+I've got to go to the dentist, and matron'll eat me if she sees me in
+this.  Wish you had a decent neck, Skinny, and I'd borrow one from you."
+
+"Seventeens, isn't it, that you take?" queried Dick, grinning.  "Never
+mind, Bottles, you're the pride of the school."
+
+"Oh, am I?" rejoined his plump friend sourly.  "I don't know about the
+pride of the school, but I'm a fortune to the man who makes my
+clothes--I bust out of 'em once a fortnight.  Why on earth anyone
+wanted to be fat beats me."
+
+"Did anyone?"  Dick grinned--and dodged a hair-brush, hurled by Bottles
+with an agility that was surprising, considering his bulk.  "Steady,
+you playful old elephant--I'm busy."
+
+"You seem a bit rushed," remarked Bottles, observing his friend's
+movements with some amazement, as Dick flung off his school suit
+hurriedly, dived at the wash-stand, emerged from the basin, dripping,
+and after a brief towelling plunged at his locker for his Sunday
+clothes.  "Going to have lunch at Government House, by any chance?"
+
+"No--something better," Dick knotted a blue tie carefully.  "Mother's
+turned up suddenly, and I'm off for the day."
+
+"Some people have all the luck," Bottles said, enviously.  "Things
+don't get sorted out equally at all--some get mothers and some get
+dentists.  Jolly glad, all the same, Lester.  You didn't expect her
+down, did you?"
+
+"No, and when the old doc. sent for me I made sure it was the milkman's
+pony," Dick said, grinning.
+
+"That's what it is to have a guilty conscience," laughed Bottles, whose
+name, by the way, happened to be Glass.  "Great Scott, you're dressed;
+and I'm still pounding at this beastly collar, and it only gets worse.
+What on earth am I going to do?"
+
+"Dodge matron, and buy some new ones at the stores when you get in,"
+counselled Dick, giving his hair a furious brushing.  He dived into his
+locker for a new cap.  "So long, old man; hope the dentist won't be
+very beastly.  See you to-night."  He clattered down the corridor,
+leaving Mr. Glass gazing ruefully at his murky collar.
+
+Mrs. Lester was standing at the window of the drawing-room, looking out
+upon the rather dismal shrubs of the school garden.  She turned to meet
+Dick, with the delightful smile that made her look only old enough to
+be his sister.
+
+"Ready? and so spruce!" she said.  "Did you bring your overcoat, Dick?"
+
+"It's outside," Dick answered.  His eyes dwelt upon her lovingly.  "I
+say, mother, you do look stunning!"
+
+Other people had had the same thought that morning, looking at the
+dainty figure in the plain suit of dark brown.  Her little face, with
+its wild-rose colouring, looked out from a great collar of brown furs,
+under a big hat; and pinned in her muff was a knot of violets and
+boronia that lent their fragrance to her sweetness.  Dick could not
+have told you what she wore, only he knew that everything about her,
+from the curly hair under her brown hat to the dainty feet in the brown
+suede shoes, was perfection.
+
+"Not one of the chaps has a mother like you," he told her, stumbling
+over the eager words.  "Some of 'em have awful old squaws of
+mothers----"
+
+She put a hand over his mouth, smiling into his eyes.
+
+"And if I were the most awful old squaw alive you wouldn't think it,
+and neither do they," she said.  "You'd be just as glad to see me if I
+were ugly and dowdy, Dickie-boy."
+
+"I would, but I'm jolly glad you're not," returned her son.  "I'm just
+frightfully proud when you come to school, and you should hear what the
+fellows say about you.  So there!"  He tucked her hand into his
+arm--she had blushed like a girl at his words--and half pulled her out
+of the room.  "Come along, or someone'll come and talk to you, and that
+would waste an awful lot of precious time."
+
+There were a thousand questions to ask as the train whisked them
+towards Melbourne.  Dick's father had been for a year in England; there
+was a letter from him, Mrs. Lester said, rather vaguely.  Dick could
+read it presently.  Apart from father there was home--the big station
+up north, with its myriad interests; dogs and horses--all old
+friends--cattle, and the prospects of the season ahead; Dick's pet
+wallaby and rabbits and pigeons, and all the station people who made up
+the little circle in which his life had been spent until school claimed
+him; overseer, stockman, boundary riders; cook, with her big heart and
+her amazing capacity for sending wonderful hampers; old nurse, who had
+a somewhat disconcerting way of still regarding him as her baby, but
+who came very close in his affections for all that.  Dick had not found
+out half that he wanted to know when the short journey came to an end,
+and they found themselves at the familiar hotel.
+
+"We'll have lunch," said Mrs. Lester.  "It must be nearly one o'clock.
+Then we'll go up to my room and talk before we go out."
+
+Dick shot a quick glance at her.  They were very close friends, these
+two; during all his thirteen years they had never been apart for more
+than a few days until he went to school, and he knew every intonation
+of her voice, every changing shade of expression on her face.  Now he
+suddenly understood that something new was to be manifested in that
+talk; and therefore he ate his lunch with some impatience, though
+without anxiety, seeing that his mother was far too cheerful for any
+trouble to be hovering near.  This was as well, since the lunch was
+something of an event to a small boy at the end of a long term of the
+"plain and wholesome" food of boarding school; and as his mother was
+very merry, and the rooms crowded with people all more or less
+interesting, and a good string band was playing lively music in a
+palm-fringed gallery at the end of the room, the moment was
+sufficiently enthralling to keep Dick from much speculation as to the
+mystery.
+
+"Nothing more, sonnie?"
+
+"No thanks."  Dick regarded with affection a dish that had held trifle.
+"That was a topping lunch, mother.  Have you finished?"
+
+His mother nodded, gathering up her furs.
+
+"Come upstairs--I want to consult you about something."
+
+The lift flashed them up several storeys, and presently they found
+themselves in Mrs. Lester's room, overlooking the calm stateliness of
+the eastern end of Collins Street.  Mrs. Lester took off her hat and
+tossed it upon the bed.
+
+"Sit down, Dickie.  I want to read you father's letter."
+
+Dick gave a sudden little shiver.
+
+"Do you remember last time you said that?" he asked.
+
+She met his eyes.  "Before you went to school?"
+
+"Yes.  You read me father's letter, saying I ought to go.  And it was
+awful, 'cause he left it to us, and I felt such a sweep, 'cause I
+couldn't make myself say I would."
+
+"But you did say it, Dick."
+
+"Yes--but it took me a bit to make up my mind."
+
+"Well, it isn't always easy to swallow a nasty dose off-hand," said the
+little mother philosophically.
+
+"And now you've got another dose.  Is it as bad, mother?"
+
+"Ah, you must judge that for yourself," she said.  "Listen--and, first
+of all, remember that we have evidently missed a letter.  There is
+quite a gap between this and the last one we had from him, and he
+speaks of a letter he posted us from Edinburgh--but it hasn't come.
+However, I don't know that it matters much."
+
+"Not matter?  Why, we may never get it!" cried Dick, wide-eyed.
+English mail day was the chief day of all to them.  To miss one of
+father's letters was a calamity not lightly to be borne.  Yet here was
+this mother smiling over it.
+
+"No--nothing matters much," she said, and rumpled his hair suddenly.
+"Listen, old son."
+
+
+    "... So it's nearly over, the long, hard separation from you two
+    dear ones, and I needn't worry that this time I've only a moment to
+    send a note.  I've booked my berth in the _Ohio_, and have none too
+    much time now to attend to all sorts of odds and ends before I
+    sail----"
+
+
+"Mother!" exploded Dick.  "When?"
+
+"Be quiet!" said his mother, laughing.  "There's more yet."
+
+
+    "----and fix up business finally.  I can't realise that I'll see
+    you and the boy so soon; it's too good to be true.  And I don't
+    mean to wait for it one day longer than I have to.  We're due at
+    Fremantle on 27th August.  I think you said Dick's term ended about
+    the end of August, and then he'll have three weeks' holiday for me
+    to make his acquaintance.  (Snort from Dick.)  Well, it would mean
+    cutting into school a bit, but the boy is only a youngster after
+    all, and I don't think it would matter"--here the little mother
+    suddenly began to read very fast, and the words tumbled out of her
+    mouth so quickly that Dick could hardly have caught them if he had
+    not been listening with all his ears and his eyes as well,
+    listening, kneeling at her feet, with his gaze fixed on her face,
+    with its rose-flush, and its dancing eyes and lips that trembled
+    ever so little--"if he missed a few classes; what do you say to
+    hurrying off to town, kidnapping him from Dr. Gurdon, and bringing
+    both my belongings across to Fremantle to meet me?"
+
+
+"Ow!" said Dick faintly, his mouth and eyes round circles of amazement
+and delight.  "Fremantle!  Oh, mother-est, are we going?"
+
+His mother rumpled his hair all over again.
+
+"Going!" said she.  "Do you think we could refuse an invitation like
+that, Dickie?"
+
+She found herself suddenly hugged with a vehemence that left her
+breathless.
+
+"Oh, isn't he just the very best person ever!" gasped Dick.
+"Mother--when?"
+
+"To-morrow," said his mother calmly.  "And even so, we'll have to go
+overland to Adelaide.  The boat that will get us to Western Australia
+in time to meet the _Ohio_ leaves Melbourne to-day.  I knew I couldn't
+catch it in Melbourne; but it doesn't matter."
+
+Dick sat down on the floor, looking at her with a kind of solemn
+bewilderment.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," he asked, "that to-morrow you and I go to
+Adelaide and catch a steamer to meet father at Fremantle?"
+
+"To-morrow as ever is," said his mother as solemnly.
+
+"And that in less than a week we'll see father?"
+
+She nodded.  Her sweet mouth quivered suddenly and her eyes dimmed.
+Dick, suddenly flinging his arms round her, felt her trembling.
+
+"Oh, Dickie, it's been so long," she whispered brokenly.  "And I've
+been so lonely."  She put her face against his smooth, sunburnt cheek,
+and he patted her very hard.  Presently she sat up and smiled at him
+again.
+
+[Illustration: "It was almost a relief when they met a 'sundowner'
+slouching along."]
+
+"Now, isn't that ridiculous, when we're going to get him back so soon!
+And there's more letter yet, Dick."
+
+
+    "It would be a little change for you--you've been alone on the
+    place so many months now.  Dick won't refuse, I know; and as for
+    me--well, the voyage will be long enough, even if I do shorten it
+    by a week.  I'll leave the _Ohio_ at Fremantle and we'll come back
+    together on an inter-State boat.  The _Ohio_ is packed, and there
+    might be a difficulty about getting berths for us all.  Besides, we
+    shan't be hurried then, and we can show Dick a glimpse of the West.
+    I want to get home badly enough; but, after all, that can wait.  I
+    just feel that when I once get you two back I shall never want to
+    hurry again."
+
+
+The low voice paused and they looked at each other.
+
+"Mother, is it all fixed?" Dick demanded.  "Did you square the doc.?"
+
+"I represented the case to Dr. Gurdon," said his mother, with a dignity
+that was belied by the twinkle in her eyes.  "And he kindly agreed to
+excuse you, in the special circumstances.  Anticipating this courtesy
+on his part, I----"
+
+"Oh, mother," said Dick reproachfully.
+
+"----went to the shipping office and bought tickets before going out to
+the school," finished his mother, laughing.  "If you think, Master
+Richard Lester, that I'm going to let any head master, or any other old
+thing, stand in our way when we're going to meet father after he has
+been away a year, you are sadly mistaken."
+
+She sprang up suddenly and began to dance--a quaint, elfish dance of
+quick, swaying movements like a brown leaf fluttering before the
+breeze.  Dick watched her, laughing, until presently her steps changed
+to something more definite, and she swooped and caught him by the hands
+and pulled him up, and together they pranced up and down the big room
+like a pair of young horses, too full of joy of living to keep still.
+Dick's mother had taught him to dance when he was little more than a
+baby, so that he was not quite as stiff-legged as you might expect from
+a muscular schoolboy of thirteen.  It was not the first time he had
+suddenly been called upon to take part in what he called "one of his
+mother's war dances."  So they pranced together until a crusty old
+gentleman in the room below found his chandelier rattling, and was on
+the point of ringing for the waiter to demand angrily the reason, when
+Mrs. Lester ceased for lack of breath and fell into an arm-chair.
+
+"Dear me, and I an old married woman," she gasped, fanning herself and
+looking far more like a flushed child.  "Whatever would father say?  I
+must think more of my dignity."
+
+"He'd say you were just a kid, like he always does," said Dick, who had
+collapsed upon the hearth-rug.  "It would be an awful shock to father
+if he found that you'd got prim and grown up."
+
+"I misdoubt he'll never find that, the poor man," said his mother
+tragically.  "Dickie, I'll never forget how terrible it was when I
+first found myself married and settled down at Kurrajong, with a house
+and several servants.  You see, I was only seventeen when I married,
+and though seventeen may seem a lot to you, it isn't so much of an age
+when you come to it.  And I had always been at boarding school and I
+didn't know a thing about keeping house.  I used to like stock very
+much as a child, but I remember that for a while after I was married I
+used to look at a bullock or a sheep with horror, as unpleasant beasts
+that got cut up into a number of joints, of which I never could
+remember the names."
+
+"Poor old mummie!" said Dick, laughing.  "How did you manage to learn
+things?"
+
+"Cook pulled me through; I found her six months after my marriage.
+Before that there was a terrible cook who scorned me and my ignorance,
+and gave me a very bad time, and father very bad meals.  Of course, he
+never grumbled."
+
+"No, he never would," said Dick.
+
+"It was only one day when he found me crying in my room that he
+discovered that I was really unhappy--and you should have seen how
+angry he was.  He sent away the terrible cook, and we went to Melbourne
+and hunted for a really nice one--and got her.  And dear old cookie
+taught me all the things I ought to have learned before I got married.
+But I made up my mind that if ever any daughters came to me I would
+have them taught very thoroughly at school how to run their houses.
+But they never did come--only one little ragamuffin of a son!"
+
+She rumpled his hair, and leaning forward, dropped a butterfly kiss on
+his nose.
+
+"Now you look like a golliwog," she said, "and we have no time to
+spare, because we must go and buy deck shoes, and cures for sea
+sickness, and other interesting things.  We have got to look our very
+smartest when we board that big mail-boat to get father.  Tidy
+yourself, beloved, and we'll go out."
+
+Dick brushed his hair with her long-tailed hairbrush, which he despised
+very much; and after his mother had pulled his coat here and there and
+settled his tie with deft fingers, she pronounced him fit to accompany
+her, and they fared forth into the busy streets.  Shopping with his
+mother generally resolved itself, for Dick, into waiting at the doors
+of big drapery houses, where she was swallowed up into mysterious
+regions that had no charms for her son.  He preferred to stand in the
+doorway, tucked into a corner out of the way of the hurrying throng of
+eager women passing in and out--there was fun in watching the crowd,
+the clanging tram-cars, the beautiful horses--it was before the days of
+many motors, and good carriage horses were still to be seen in the city
+streets.  Like most bush-bred boys--and girls, for that matter--Dick
+thought there was no sight to equal that of a good horse.  He was
+staring at a big, taking chestnut, driven by a man in a light buggy,
+when a voice said, "Hullo, young Lester!" and he turned to greet Master
+Glass, resplendent in a new collar, and no longer melancholy in
+appearance.
+
+"Hullo, Bottles!" Dick rejoined.  "How did the dentist treat you?"
+
+"Oh, not too badly," Bottles answered.  "Finished me up in pretty quick
+time, too, so I've got the rest of the afternoon to play in.  What are
+you up to?"
+
+"Mother's shopping," said Dick.  "Oh, I say, Bottles, such a lark!  I'm
+off to Western Australia to-morrow!"
+
+"Whew-w!" whistled Bottles.  "What for?"
+
+Dick unfolded his news.
+
+"Well, of all the lucky young kids," was Bottles' comment.  "So you'll
+be gone until after the holidays?  Anyhow, you'll have your father at
+home to keep you in order, so it's to be hoped that you'll come back
+well licked."
+
+"I hope you don't think I have failed in my duty in that respect,
+Bottles," said a laughing voice; and the abashed Master Glass turned
+quickly to greet Mrs. Lester, blushing to the roots of his
+close-cropped hair.
+
+"You don't give him half enough, Mrs. Lester," he mumbled.  "I have to
+attend to him myself, or he'd get too bumptious."
+
+"You!" said Dick, with huge scorn.  "I'd like to see you, old fatty!"
+Which loathed insult caused the irate Bottles to vow to take deep
+vengeance no later than that very night.
+
+Mrs. Lester restored tranquillity.
+
+"Leave him to me, Bottles; I'll keep him severely in order," she
+laughed.  "Meanwhile, come and have some tea with us; I'm sure you need
+some."
+
+The boys followed her into a big restaurant, so crowded that they found
+some difficulty in finding a table.  A band was playing softly, and
+somewhere near them a little fountain plashed gently under a clump of
+tree-ferns, catching rays of rosy light from some concealed source
+overhead.  A waitress brought them tea and muffins, with a dish of
+cakes so attractive that the only problem was which to choose; and
+their satisfaction was heightened presently by the spectacle of three
+senior boys from their own school wandering helplessly about in a vain
+attempt to find a resting place.  Bottles and Dick nodded kindly to
+them, and felt intensely superior, selecting cakes with a calm
+enjoyment that brought murderous feelings to the three prefects, who
+propped themselves against a pillar and waited dismally for someone to
+vacate a table, which no one seemed inclined to do.  Indeed, they were
+still standing when Mrs. Lester called for her bill.
+
+"We might as well give those three boys this table," she said.  "I
+suppose you know them, Dick?"
+
+Dick knew them as the cabin boy may be expected to know the captain and
+chief officer of his ship, as superior and mighty beings, too far above
+him to dream of more than the curtest recognition.  One of them had
+cuffed him for getting in his way in the playground no later than
+yesterday.  It was therefore somewhat soothing to have the opportunity
+of sauntering across to these lords of creation and remarking; "Care to
+have our table, Landon?"  And soothing, too, to see how meekly the
+famished ones accepted the invitation, and how the lordliness of
+demeanour that seemed part of them at school fell from them when Mrs.
+Lester spoke to them.  Landon, indeed, blushed like any junior, and
+stammered in his answer, which gave unmitigated joy to Bottles and
+Dick, and formed the subject of much merry jest in the dormitory that
+night.
+
+Bottles said good-bye after tea, and took himself back to school, while
+Dick and his mother, their shopping finished, boarded a tram that
+landed them near the Fitzroy Gardens, where the flowers were beginning
+to show promise of their spring blaze of glory, and the splendid
+stretches of turf under the great trees made a haven of refuge to tired
+city dwellers.  They found a quiet seat in a sheltered corner--there
+was still something of winter in the breeze--and talked, filling in all
+the gaps that even the longest letters must leave when the smallest
+detail is eagerly treasured.  Dick heaved a great sigh when at length
+they rose and strolled slowly across the lawns towards the street.
+
+"I feel almost as if I'd been home again," he said.  "My word, mother,
+won't it be gorgeous to go back to Kurrajong--and to take father!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+DICK GOES WEST.
+
+Spencer Street Station, and the long line of the Adelaide express
+glittering beside the long grey platform, the great carriages brave
+with polished and shining glass and nickel.  People were hurrying to
+and fro, looking for seats, hurrying porters with trucks of luggage,
+raiding the bookstall for bundles of magazines and papers, and the
+fruit stall for oranges and bananas and baskets of early Queensland
+strawberries.  The express conductors, who are chosen for their good
+manners, among other qualifications, stood near the entrance to the
+saloon carriages, good to look on in their blue and silver uniforms;
+quick to render aid to real passengers, or gently to head off idle folk
+who merely wished to stroll through the train and look curiously at the
+travellers.  Boys, laden with bundles of evening papers, rent the air
+with shouts of "_'Erald_--Penny _'Erald_!" snatched at coppers held
+towards them through the windows, or impatiently sought for change for
+anxious ladies who insisted on tendering half a crown for a paper, and
+craned their necks anxiously after the boys as they rushed to the
+bookstall for the money.  People hurried along outside the carriages,
+peering in through the wide, nickel-barred windows for friends whom
+they wished to farewell.  A theatrical company occupied several
+compartments, and occasioned a solid block of people outside their
+windows, through which their admirers thrust offerings of sweets and
+flowers.  There were snatches of song from this section of the train,
+shouts of "Good-bye!"  "Good luck!" and "Come back again!"--and many of
+the newly-arrived bouquets were pulled to pieces by their owners in
+response to the clamorous demand for souvenirs.
+
+Dick Lester and his mother arrived in the wake of a porter laden with
+hand-baggage, and fought their way through the throng until they
+reached one of the blue and silver conductors.  He glanced at the
+number of Mrs. Lester's ticket, and then, ushering them into the
+carriage, led them along a wide corridor until he came to an empty
+compartment.
+
+"This is yours, madam."  He offered any other assistance, while the
+porter placed their possessions in the rack and departed to see to
+their heavy baggage.
+
+"All this ours!" Dick queried, looking round the compartment.  It was
+fitted with a seat on one side only--a wide, comfortable seat,
+upholstered in grey.  A folding nickel wash-basin was near the window,
+with towels overhead.  Everything was solid and comfortable and compact.
+
+"Yes, it's ours," smiled his mother.
+
+"But you said it was a sleeper?"
+
+"Yes; the conductor will wave his magic wand and produce your bed out
+of that wall later on."
+
+"Oh!" said Dick, and fell to examining the wall, to find out its
+mechanism.  Meanwhile the clamour about them redoubled; people hurried
+along the corridor, peeping in, and withdrawing again impatiently at
+sight of the occupied compartment.  Others peered from the platform
+through their windows, and a heated lady asked anxiously, "Is that you,
+Willie dear?" and then fled without waiting for an answer.  Bells rang,
+somewhere afar the engine gave a furious whistle, and slowly the great
+train slid out of the station, while the theatrical people and their
+friends sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" with immense enthusiasm.
+Gathering speed, they whisked through the packed streets of North
+Melbourne and Newmarket, and out beyond to the wide Keilor Plains.
+
+"Off at last, Dickie!" said his mother.
+
+"Yes."  They looked at each other, very content.
+
+Daylight held until they had flashed past Bacchus Marsh, with its deep
+green of fertile farms, where the willows were beginning to wave their
+long feathery arms; and soon after came dinner, which in itself was an
+event to Dick.  A white-jacketed waiter summoned them, and they
+followed the long corridor, which seemed to swing under their feet,
+until they came to a carriage fitted as a dining-room, with little
+tables for two or four people, sparkling with polished glass and
+silver-plated fittings on snow-white linen.  The theatrical people
+filled many of the tables; they were very merry, and rather
+loud-voiced, calling to each other across the car.  Dick privately
+thought them rather entertaining, but he saw his mother wrinkle her
+pretty nose two or three times in a way he knew meant disapproval.
+
+One of the actresses came in a few minutes later, and, disregarding
+shouted invitations to "come and sit here," finally paused by Mrs.
+Lester's table, where there were two vacant seats.  She hesitated.
+"May I?"
+
+"Of course," Mrs. Lester answered, making room.  The woman sat down in
+a tired way.  She was tall and rather pretty, but her face, seen
+closely, was lined and worn.  She gave her order to the waiter
+listlessly, and when her dinner came she only toyed with it.  But she
+stared at Dick in a way that would have embarrassed that young man had
+he not been too hungry to pay attention to anything until the meal was
+half over.  Then he met her eyes so many times when he glanced up that
+he became quite uncomfortable, and wished heartily that she had chosen
+to sit at any other table.
+
+"I sure do beg your pardon for looking at you," said the actress
+suddenly.  "It's vurry rude of me, I know.  But the fact is, I sat at
+this table just so's I could look at you!"  She turned to Mrs. Lester.
+"I've a boy in the States just about his size, ma'am; I've not seen him
+for two years."
+
+"Oh, you poor soul," said Mrs. Lester.
+
+"Fact.  He's at boarding school, and he writes every mail--never
+misses.  But that don't make up for wanting him.  There's times when
+I've just to get close to a boy and make believe he's my Jimmy."
+
+"Are you going back to him soon?"
+
+"Not for a good piece yet," said Jimmy's mother with a sigh.  "We're
+tourin' round a lot; business is good, and we keep extending our dates.
+It's a long time--Jimmy's fourteen, and he'll be 'most grown up when I
+get him again.  Boys in Amurrica grow up terrible quick."
+
+"We haven't seen my father for a year, and I thought that was pretty
+bad," Dick said.  "We're going to meet him now."
+
+"That's real nice, isn't it?"  The actress's big dark eyes lit with
+quick interest.  "I guess your father's wonderin' what sort of a boy
+his son's grown into, same's I am."
+
+"And I guess your Jimmy will be as glad to see you as we shall be to
+see father," said Mrs. Lester, smiling.  "What is he going to be?"
+
+"Wa-al, of course he thinks he's going to be a sailor--all boys do,
+don't they?" said the actress.  "But he's got bitten with motors now,
+so I shouldn't wonder if it's something engineering, after all.
+Jimmy's got plenty of brains.  That's one thing.  Not that you care
+much, when he's your only boy, whether he's got brains or not, do you,
+ma'am?"
+
+"I hope she doesn't, 'cause I'm her only boy, and goodness knows I've
+got none!" said Dick, grinning.
+
+Mrs. Lester laughed, rising.
+
+"Brains aren't everything, certainly," she said.  "We're slowing down.
+I think this must be Ballarat.  Come on, Dick, and stretch your legs on
+the platform--we wait here for awhile."  She nodded kindly to the
+American, and Dick followed her out of the car.
+
+It was Ballarat.  They ran into a big, crowded platform, with a domed,
+lofty roof, that glimmered mysteriously far above them.  They went
+outside and strolled up a quiet street, but were too nervous about
+their tram to go far, since an Adelaide express waits for no man.
+
+"Some day," Mrs. Lester said, "we'll come here and hear the bands play."
+
+"Have they got many?" asked Dick.
+
+"They collect them from all over Australia once a year, and they play
+all the time for big prizes.  That is, when they are not playing for
+prizes, they are practising.  So it goes on all day; you wake in the
+morning to band music and you go to sleep at night to the tune of a
+quickstep; and when you go out during the day you generally find
+yourself keeping in step with a band marching beside you, playing for
+dear life.  Then each instrument has its own tune.  I was once
+inveigled into a hall where I heard forty-nine euphoniums play 'There's
+a Flower that Bloometh.'"
+
+"Forty-nine!" said Dick, laughing.  "It sounds a bit tall.  Did you
+like it, mother?"
+
+"I think it is necessary to be a specialist to enjoy that sort of thing
+thoroughly," his mother said.  "I fled at the nineteenth, and that
+weary old tune beat in my brain for a week.  But the other music is
+lovely.  We'll go some day, Dickie."
+
+They came back to the station, and, finding the crowd too dense for
+comfort, sought their own compartment, where a transformation awaited
+them.  The bare wall opposite the seat had been let down and now a
+comfortable bed with snowy sheets was ready on each side of the aisle.
+The conductor hovered near.
+
+"Will you require anything further, madam?"
+
+"No, thank you," Mrs. Lester said.  "But we shall want morning tea,
+conductor."
+
+"The coffee and rolls at Murray Bridge are excellent, madam," murmured
+the conductor.
+
+"I remember them of old," said Mrs. Lester laughing.  "Very well.  Good
+night, conductor."
+
+"Now I'm going to bed, Dick," Mrs. Lester remarked, as the tall,
+uniformed figure disappeared.  "So you can run and get a wash and brush
+up, and come back in twenty minutes, when I should recommend you to go
+to bed too."
+
+Dick thought the idea a good one, especially when he returned, to find
+his mother comfortably tucked up, reading by a shaded electric light.
+He slipped into bed quickly, and enjoyed a magazine, while the train
+roared on its way, stopping occasionally with a great grinding of
+brakes, and then gathering way again slowly as it left a wayside
+station behind, and went swinging on through the night.  The swinging
+motion made him sleepy; he put down the magazine and lay drowsily
+listening to the roar of the train.  Once his mother glanced across and
+smiled at him; later, he had a drowsy fancy, half a dream, that she was
+bending over him, tucking him in.  But he did not see the tired face of
+the American actress later on.  She tapped gently at the door, looking
+apologetic when Mrs. Lester, in a hastily-donned dressing gown, opened
+it.
+
+"Were you in bed?" she asked contritely.  "Well, now, I'm real
+sorry--it's early, and I thought you'd be up still."  She hesitated,
+and a dull flush came into her cheeks.  "Is the boy asleep?"
+
+"Yes."  Something in Mrs. Lester responded to the hunger in the other
+mother's eyes.  "Would you care to look at him?"
+
+"I came to ask if I could.  You see--it's two years since I had the
+chance of tucking up Jimmy."
+
+She came in noiselessly, and looked down at the sleeping Dick.  He lay
+with one arm flung up above his head; a very ordinary, healthy boy,
+sunburnt and clear skinned, with just a hint in his close cropped hair
+of the curls of his boyhood, and only a baby still to the two women who
+watched him.  The American stooped suddenly, and brushed his forehead
+with her lips.  Dick stirred, and said, sleepily, "Mother."
+
+"I sort of had to," said the actress, turning in the corridor to say
+good night.  "You--you get kinder desperate for them after two years.
+Thanks, ma'am, ever so."  She glided away, leaving Mrs. Lester with
+tears in her eyes.
+
+All night long the train, with its sleeping freight, rushed and roared
+through the desert country, passing over dreary leagues of sand and
+sparse scrub.  Sometimes the unfamiliarity of his surroundings woke
+Dick, to lie drowsily for a moment in the dim light that filtered
+through the fanlight from the corridor; then to float back lazily
+through the gates of sleep.  He woke in earnest about six o'clock and,
+slipping out of bed, peeped through the window.  The train was standing
+in a wayside station.
+
+"Tailem Bend," read Dick.  "What a rummy name.  I say, we must be in
+South Australia.  Great Scot! there's a camel!"
+
+[Illustration: "'Great Scot!  There's a camel!'"]
+
+There was a string of camels tied to the station fence, all
+scientifically packed with bales and bundles, their heads drooping
+sleepily.  The unfamiliar sight made the morning more than ever like a
+dream.  A tall, weather-beaten man in moleskins and a red shirt was
+knotting the halter of the leading camel; his mate was wrangling with
+the station-master about some parcel that should have been awaiting
+him, but had failed to turn up.  Dick heard the official say angrily,
+"Well, you'll have to wait till the express goes out, anyhow.  I'm
+busy."
+
+"And ain't I busy?" demanded the man.  "Ain't I got the camels waiting,
+an' high time we was on the track?  Blow yer old express."
+
+But the railway man had fled, and the man of camels could only glare
+after his retreating back and mutter what he felt.
+
+The conductor came past as the train gathered way, and nodded a civil
+"Good morning" to Dick, who had ventured into the corridor in his
+pyjamas to see if any other queer sights awaited him on that side of
+the line.
+
+"Sleep well?"
+
+"Yes, thanks," Dick answered.  "Why do they call it Tailem Bend?"
+
+"Lots of people ask me that," remarked the conductor.  "Some folks say
+it's a shot at an old native name, but more believe it's because cattle
+used to be tailed at the bend in the river here in the overlanding
+days."
+
+"Pity they don't stick to native names when they go christening places
+in Australia," remarked a man close by.  "Murray Bridge used to be
+Mobilong, and it would have been more sense if they had left it at
+that.  Murray Bridge, indeed.  What's the good of a name like that?
+Here's the Murray, of course, and there's a bridge; so they stick them
+together and cut out the pretty native name."
+
+"There's some people," said the conductor, nodding assent, "who'd
+sooner see their own silly names on a signboard than the best native
+name you could get.  That's why you get names like Harrisville and
+Smithtown, and Wilkins's View all over the map of Australia.  Take
+Belalie now--that's a pretty-sounding native name for you, and it was
+the name of a town all right.  Then comes along some jolly old Governor
+or something with swelled head and calls it after himself."
+
+"What's that?" queried the other man.
+
+"Jamestown," said the conductor with deep disgust; "Jamestown.  And it
+might have been Belalie.  Right, sir, I'm coming."  He fled in answer
+to a fierce call from a sleeping bunk.
+
+Dick realised that he was a little chilly, and peeped into the
+compartment.  His mother was still asleep, and he slipped into his
+clothes as noiselessly as possible and then went in search of soap and
+water.  Returning presently, he found her sitting up, with a
+dressing-jacket round her pretty shoulders.
+
+"What, dressed, old man?" she said.
+
+"Rather."  Dick seized his brush and made an onslaught upon his wet
+hair.  "We're getting near Murray Bridge, mother--aren't you going to
+have a look at the Murray?"
+
+"I've seen the Murray before," said Mrs. Lester severely.  "It's a
+nice, wide river, but I'm very comfy, Dick."
+
+"Lazy old thing!" said her son.  "Well, I haven't, so I'm going out to
+look at it."  He dived for a clean collar, and presently hurried back
+to the corridor.
+
+The train was skirting a wide flat, across which he could see the line
+of a river.  They swung round soon to run over a very long bridge,
+beneath which the big river ran sluggishly--wide and yellow, with low
+banks.  Below the bridge was moored one of the Murray steamers, a white
+paddle boat with two decks; he could see no one on her, but a faint
+curl of blue smoke was lazily rising from the funnel that marked the
+cook's galley.  There were fishing boats against the banks, and a
+bare-legged boy of his own size was pulling a heavy rowing boat slowly
+down stream.  Then the train swung round from the bridge, and in a few
+moments slowed into a station.
+
+Dick hopped out on the platform.  Very few people were in sight; a few
+passengers left the train and hurried towards the refreshment room.
+The conductor appeared presently, bearing, in a mysterious manner, many
+trays.
+
+"Coffee and rolls?" he said.  "Is your mother awake?"
+
+"Yes.  I'll take her tray," Dick said.
+
+"I'll see you to the door," said the conductor grimly.  "You don't
+realise how people dart out and cannon with you in the corridor until
+you've carried trays round.  Nearly turns your hair grey."
+
+This Dick found to be true, for a very stout gentleman dashed from his
+sleeper without warning, and would certainly have demolished all the
+trays had not the conductor avoided him with a dexterity born of long
+practice.  Dick left his mother to her coffee, and went off to explore
+the platform, nibbling his roll as he trotted along.
+
+It was early, and a chill wind blew from the river.  There was not much
+to look at, so Dick found his way along the train to the huge engine,
+and stood looking at her and admiring her.  The engine driver was also
+eating his breakfast, which consisted of chops, fried scientifically on
+a red-hot coal shovel.  He nodded in a friendly way to the small boy,
+and they chatted until Dick's roll was finished, and a craving for
+coffee took him back to the sleeper.
+
+"I was beginning to wonder where you were," said his mother, who was up
+and brushing her hair energetically.  "Take the tray out, Dickie.  I
+want to get as much dressing done as possible before we start again."
+
+She joined him presently in the corridor, fresh and dainty.  They were
+rushing along again between miles of grey fencing.  Ploughs were
+already busy in the paddocks, where flocks of white cockatoos settled
+on the newly-turned brown earth in search of grubs.  Past trim dairy
+farms, with the herds slowly stringing away from the sheds after
+milking; by little townships, where the air was blue with the smoke of
+a hundred breakfast fires; by creek and gully, towering hill and
+stretching plain, the express roared.  People in the carriages were
+beginning to wake up; heads, more or less in undress appearance, peeped
+from the doors of the sleepers, and voices were heard demanding the
+conductor and hot water.  The summons to breakfast came presently, to
+Dick's great joy, for the keen air had made him hungry, and when they
+came back from the meal they found that their beds had disappeared, and
+the sleepers once more bore the air of an ordinary compartment.
+
+"We're in the hills now," Mrs. Lester said, glancing out.  "Come to the
+doorway, Dickie; this is the loveliest bit of any railway journey I
+know."
+
+They went along the corridor to the big doorway.  The door was open,
+and through it they could see that the train was rushing through hills,
+steadily mounting all the time.  The gum trees that clothed everything
+with green waved feathery heads quite close to them, and, far as the
+eye could see, golden wattle blazed through the scrub.  Up and up they
+went.  White roads led away through the hill slopes; now and then could
+be seen an early motorist spinning along in the joy of their perfect
+surface.  Then came the very summit of the climb, and the train ran
+into a trim little station, gay with flowers, perched on top of the
+highest hill.
+
+"Mount Lofty," said Mrs. Lester.
+
+"My word, what jolly houses!" was Dick's comment.
+
+They looked from the doorway down into the green heart of the scrub.
+Here and there, half buried in the trees, were the homes to which happy
+people of Adelaide fly when the summer heat lies scorching on the
+plains; red houses, with terraced lawns and gardens ablaze with
+blossoms; grey houses, with roses climbing over high trellises.  They
+perched on terraces cut out of the sides of the hills, or nestled in
+nooks in the gullies, their gardens gleaming like jewels in the dull
+green of the eucalyptus.  The curve of a road showed here and there,
+white level, diving down into some unseen hollow.  Dew yet hung on the
+gum trees, and little wreaths of mist floated upwards from the gullies;
+the bush scents filled the air.  Everywhere birds sang and twittered in
+the branches; everywhere the gold of the wattle gleamed through the
+dull green of the scrub.  Then the train moved on, slipping quietly
+down, each moment revealing some new turn of beauty; until at last the
+plains opened out below, and they could see Adelaide lying just where
+the land seemed to end, and the blue rim of the sea widened, with the
+smoke of the steamer making a long trail across the water.
+
+"Wonder if that's our boat?" Dick said.  "No, it can't be, because it's
+coming the wrong way--amn't I stupid!  Oh, mother, isn't it all jolly!"
+He pranced gaily back to the sleeper, to lend a hand in collecting
+their hand baggage.  They were running now through trim, flat suburbs,
+and presently, with a grinding of the brakes, they stopped in a big
+station--Adelaide at last.
+
+A helpful porter--brought them, as a kind of offering, by their friend
+the conductor--collected their luggage and put them on a train bound
+for Port Adelaide; a place of grimy wharfs and dusty streets, where,
+after some search, they discovered their boat, the _Moondarra_, spic
+and span in her dingy surroundings.  Dick's heart bounded as he
+followed his mother up the gangway.  He had never before been on
+anything but a Bay paddle steamer; to him, even the seven-thousand ton
+inter-State boat seemed a mighty ship, and he longed to explore her
+from stem to stern.  It was with a feeling of disappointment that he
+learned they were not to sail until the evening.
+
+"It's really hardly worth your while to remain on board," an officer
+told Mrs. Lester.  "We've a rush lot of cargo coming at the last
+moment, and the ship won't be comfortable before six o'clock--nothing
+but noise and dust.  I should advise you to go up to Adelaide for the
+day.  Why not have a run in the hills?  Is your luggage on board?"
+
+"It is on the wharf," Mrs. Lester said, glancing towards a laden truck
+in charge of a porter.
+
+"Give me the number of your cabin and I'll see that your steward takes
+charge of it."  He took them down the gangway, probably relieved, in
+his heart, that they were going, since passengers are not beloved of
+sailor folk when loading cargo is in progress.  "Glorious day--too good
+to spend down in this place," he said, wistfully, looking at the dark
+masses of the hills.
+
+They found a train about to start, and were soon back in Adelaide
+itself; little city of wide streets, girdled with a four-square belt of
+park lands.  Wandering, somewhat aimlessly, up King William Street, a
+tall man suddenly detached himself from a group at a corner and came
+quickly to meet them.
+
+"Why, Mrs. Lester--what luck?"  He shook hands vigorously.  "And the
+kid--he's grown up!"
+
+"Oh, Billy, how nice to see you!" said Mrs. Lester.  Billy Cathcart had
+gained "colonial experience" on the Lesters' station for two years
+before his father, a rich Englishman, had bought him a property of his
+own in South Australia.  They were very fond of him; he had made
+himself a kind of big son of the house, and when he went away they
+missed him sorely.
+
+"But what are you doing here?  And is the Boss back?"
+
+Mrs. Lester explained.
+
+"And you never told me you were going through!" said Billy
+reproachfully.
+
+"My dear boy, I knew you were nearly two hundred miles from
+Adelaide--and I had about two minutes' warning that I was coming.  I
+never dreamed of any possibility of seeing you.  Why aren't you in the
+wilds, earning your living?"
+
+Billy Cathcart laughed.
+
+"I've been earning it at a great rate lately," he said.  "Made a lucky
+deal in cattle, and cleared quite a lot--so I came down to buy a car.
+I've been driving one a good bit, and it made me keen to have one of my
+own.  I say---if you've got the day to do nothing in, do let me take
+you out.  She's a beauty, really."
+
+"Why, it would be lovely!" Mrs. Lester said.  "But are you doing
+nothing yourself?"
+
+"Only killing time.  It would be ripping to take you; and there are
+first-rate runs about Adelaide.  As for roads--well, they can teach
+road-making to any other State I've been in.  Like to come, Dick?"
+
+"Rather!"  Dick was hopping on one foot.  "I say, Mr. Cathcart, how's
+old Danny?"
+
+"Oh, fitter than ever!" Danny, as a pup, son of a noted cattle dog, had
+been a farewell present to the departing jackeroo on leaving the
+Lesters' station.  "He's an absolute wonder with cattle.  I believe if
+I sat in a buggy and cracked my whip and told old Danny to go ahead,
+he'd muster my roughest paddock and not leave a beast behind."
+
+"Father will be jolly glad to hear that," said Dick, solemnly.  "He
+always said Danny would turn out a clinker."
+
+"So you're going to school?" Mr. Cathcart said, glancing at his
+hat-band and badge.  "You'll have to tell me about it presently.  Well,
+Mrs. Lester, may I get the car now?--or, wait a minute, you look a bit
+tired; how about a cup of tea first?  Yes, come along."  He led them to
+a café across the street, and plied them energetically with food.
+
+"Not like the cakes you used to make us at Kurrajong--still, they're
+better than nothing," he remarked.  "Finished already, Dick?  Well,
+shall we go and get the car, and come back here for your mother?"
+
+That seemed a good plan to Dick.  He followed the tall figure out into
+the street, where they dodged precariously round two of Adelaide's
+flying electric trams, which hurtle down King William Street in fevered
+haste, and presently found themselves in Rundle Street, a thread-like
+thoroughfare where the footpath is so narrow that people are forced to
+walk in large numbers in the roadway.
+
+"Looks as if they'd used all the land for that big street we were in,
+and found they hadn't left themselves enough over for this," commented
+Dick.
+
+"It does; and they put all their biggest shops in this tiny lane, so
+that it's always packed with people.  Quaint system," Billy Cathcart
+said.  "Rundle Street generally looks like a sheep race to me--and you
+fight your way out of it into a street like a hundred-acre paddock."
+
+"Rummy," remarked Dick.  "I say--what jolly fruit carts!"
+
+"Oh, they're the pride of Adelaide--amongst other things," laughed his
+companion.  "They take some beating, don't they?"
+
+They were drawn up in line along the kerbstone, in the shade of the
+buildings; carts as spic and span as shining paint and gleaming brass
+and spotless cleanliness could make them, each in charge of a boy in a
+white jacket.  Their gay little awnings fluttered in the breeze over
+piles of many-coloured fruit--oranges, red and yellow apples, dark
+masses of passion fruit, bunches of bananas, strawberries gleaming
+redly in little baskets lined with leaves.  A boy near them was
+polishing his apples, and the cloth he used was as clean as the apples
+themselves.
+
+"Well, I'm blessed!" Dick ejaculated.  "They don't have carts like that
+in Melbourne."
+
+"No, you have awful men with barrows that look only fit for pig food,
+and they tip about fifteen cases of fruit out in a heap, and wheel it
+about in the sun with the flies sitting on it.  Seems a pity," said the
+Englishman, reflectively.  He stopped at a barrow and bought fruit
+largely, piling up bags in Dick's arms.  "Can you manage all those?
+Come along."
+
+The garage was not far off; a great shed-like building full of odours
+of petrol and lubricating oil, which are heartsome smells to any boy.
+Dick poked about among motors big and little while his friend's car was
+being prepared; and soon they were in it, and worming their way through
+the crowd in Rundle Street.
+
+"Can you really take a car along here?"
+
+"Oh, it's possible," said Billy.  "I'll admit it doesn't look probable.
+You push people out of the way gently and politely with the bonnet.
+But it pays to dodge up a side street, if you can, and get into
+something wider."  He slewed round as he spoke, and presently they were
+running along the broad pavement of North Terrace, and so into King
+William Street again and to where Mrs. Lester stood awaiting them under
+a verandah near the café.  They slipped away from the city, along
+well-kept streets, lined with blossoming gardens, until, after a few
+miles of a dusty road, the hills drew suddenly near, and they turned
+into a gully where the road ran by the bed of a little creek, following
+all its windings.  The hills towered above them, and they climbed up
+and up.  Here and there came an open stretch, where orchards laden with
+blossom fell away below them.  Now and then the creek made a sudden,
+sharp bend, enclosing a little flat, gay with tall bulbs.  Indeed, all
+the banks of that little creek were bright with flowers, because when
+it ran rapidly in the winter it washed down a freight of seeds and
+roots from the gardens of the houses on the summit.  Sometimes tall
+poplars stood, with their feet in the gurgling water; sometimes a
+little cottage by the wayside displayed a sign asking wayfarers in for
+tea, and you could cross the creek by a rustic bridge and sit in a cool
+summer-house hung with creepers, and eat strawberries and cream in the
+midst of a delightful garden.  The road was steep, and yet so well
+graded that the car took it without an effort.  Even stray cyclists
+whom they overtook seemed to be climbing its twists and turns without
+undue exertions.  So they came to the top of a long rise called
+Montacute, where a lonely little tin church perches among the gum
+trees; and there they sat in its shade, with a myriad birds twittering
+about them, looking down over the tree-clad slopes to the plains
+beyond, where Adelaide lay like a chess-board, a network of regular
+lines and squares.  They ate fruit and talked.  Billy Cathcart had to
+learn of a hundred happenings at Kurrajong, and to tell of more than a
+thousand that had befallen him in his first attempts at running a
+station unaided.  He was a light-hearted person; it afforded him huge
+amusement to tell of his own mistakes.  "Goodness knows, there would
+have been plenty more of them," he added, "if it hadn't been for the
+gruelling Mr. Lester gave me on Kurrajong."
+
+"Was it very bad, Billy?" Mrs. Lester laughed.
+
+"Oh, he never meant it to be bad.  But the first six months were pretty
+awful, because I felt such a perfect fool all the time.  The trouble
+was," he grinned, "that I came out from home with an idea that I knew
+quite a good bit.  After I realised that I was mistaken I got on
+better.  But I never thought I would arrive at being a full-blown
+squatter myself.  It seemed to me I'd never get any higher than keeping
+goats."
+
+"That also has its difficulties, I believe," said Mrs. Lester smiling.
+
+"I believe it has--a chap near me has a flock of Angoras, and they seem
+to worry him more than his babies."  He got up lazily.  "Shall we go
+on?  There are so many places in these hills I want to show you that I
+mustn't let you stay too long anywhere."
+
+They came down from the hills at the end of a run that had been a long
+succession of beauties, on such smooth roads, winding among the
+tree-clad crests, plunging into deep gullies, finding little townships
+hidden here and there, and coming out upon summits where, below the
+ridges, the plains swept for miles before them, pink and pearly-white
+with great stretches of almond orchards.  Evening was drawing near as
+the big car purred smoothly alongside the wharf.  Billy Cathcart had
+insisted on bringing them back to the boat at Port Adelaide.
+
+"Well," he said, "it's been glorious to have you.  And you'll let me
+know when you're coming through?"
+
+"Indeed, yes," said Mrs. Lester.  "But you'll be two hundred miles away
+then, earning your living."
+
+"I'll let the station run itself and come down again," he said.  "Do
+you think I'd miss a chance of seeing you and the Boss again--to say
+nothing of the nipper?"  He gave Dick's ear a friendly tweak.  "Just
+you make your father stay here for a while, and I'll teach you to drive
+the car, old son"--a promise that left Dick no words but a gasp of
+delight.  They stood watching as the car swung round, threading its way
+between lorries, laden with beer barrels, and cabs, hurrying down with
+passengers.  Billy turned once to wave his cap to them, and narrowly
+escaped collision with a huge coal waggon, the driver of which loudly
+expressed the lowest possible estimate of his powers as a chauffeur.
+Then he passed out of sight, and Dick and his mother turned towards
+their ship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+DICK GOES TO SEA.
+
+All was bustle and hurry aboard the steamer.  Cargo was still being
+loaded; the creak and rattle of the great crane, as it swung back and
+forth, the crash of cases, dumped into the yawning mouth of the hold,
+mingled with the confusion of arriving passengers and the shouts of
+sailors and dock hands.  On the decks people were hurrying about,
+seeking stewards and cabins, and the doorways were blocked with little
+groups saying good-bye.  Overhead a harsh whistle shrilled out--so
+suddenly that everyone jumped, and horses on the wharf danced
+nervously.  Someone in uniform shouted:
+
+"Everyone for the shore!"
+
+Good-byes filled the air.  Women hurried towards the gangway, as if
+fearful of being carried off to the "wild and woolly West," followed
+more slowly by those more experienced.  Passengers hastened up from the
+wharf; cab drivers, trotting in leisurely, whipped up their horses in
+response to nervous appeals from their anxious fares.  The big crane
+went on, creaking and swinging, dumping in its cases as though there
+were no such item on the ship's programme as starting.
+
+Dick watched the late arrivals curiously.  Men formed the greater
+number; there were smart and brisk commercial travellers, and others,
+less prosperous, evidently off to seek their fortune in that West
+which, to much of the rest of Australia, is still an unknown land.
+Tearful wives and children hung about the necks of some of these,
+saying the last hard good-byes; but in some cases the wives and
+children were coming too, and they trooped on board, shabby little
+flocks, with the tired mothers trying to keep the stragglers together.
+
+The whistle sounded again, and there was a second summons, a peremptory
+one this time, for strangers to leave the ship.  They hurried down the
+gangway, and then the great ladder was hauled up the ship's side, the
+deck-railing swung in across the gap, and in a few moments the
+_Moondarra_ began to back slowly from the wharf.  The people below grew
+smaller, their upturned faces white dots in the evening gloom.  From
+everywhere came shouts of "Good-bye."  A young bride, off to the West
+with a huge, bronzed bushman, leaned over the side, holding the ends of
+long streamers of ribbon, of which the other ends were held by her
+friends on shore.  Her face was happy and yet tearful; she looked
+wistfully towards Adelaide.  The ribbons lengthened out, gradually
+tightened as the ship drew further away, and finally, released by the
+people on the wharf, sprang in the air.  The girl gathered them up to
+her quickly, a gay, fluttering bundle, and Dick heard her give a little
+sob.
+
+Just as the ship gathered way, they saw a motor suddenly turn in to the
+wharf from the street, hooting as it came.  Mrs. Lester peered at it
+through the gloom.
+
+"Isn't that Billy's car?" she said.
+
+"My word, yes!" Dick cried.  "He's standing up and trying to see us.  I
+wonder what he wants."
+
+"Oh--he has remembered something he didn't tell us; and of course, it's
+just like Billy to come racing back," Mrs. Lester said, laughing.  "At
+all events, he is too late."  She waved her handkerchief towards the
+car, though she knew that it would be impossible to distinguish anyone
+in the long row of passengers crowding to look over the ship's rail.
+"There--he has given it up as a bad job."
+
+They saw Billy sit down again, after waving his hat in a kind of
+general salutation towards the ship.  Then the car turned slowly, and
+slipped away.  The dusk swallowed it up.
+
+Somewhere near them a bugle blared, so suddenly, that everyone jumped.
+The bugler, a very fat steward, finished a long trill carefully, and
+then moved off to repeat the performance elsewhere.  Someone hailed him.
+
+"What's that for, steward?"
+
+"Dressing bugle, sir," responded the fat player, stolidly.  "Dinner in
+half an hour, sir."
+
+There was a general move from the deck.  Dick and his mother found
+themselves in a crowd going down the first staircase.  Dick was too
+much of a landsman yet to call it a companion.  At the foot they
+encountered another steward, who directed them to their cabins, along
+an alley-way; Dick's was opposite his mother's.  It was a two-berth
+cabin, and he found that he was not the only occupant---indeed, so big
+was his fellow passenger that it seemed unlikely that there would be
+any room for Dick at all.  He paused uncertainly, just inside the
+doorway.
+
+An enormous man, who was unstrapping a leather suit-case, swung round
+suddenly.
+
+"Hullo, youngster," he said.  "Do you belong in here?"
+
+"Well--the steward said so," Dick answered with some uncertainty.
+
+"Then you probably do," said the big man.  "What's your number, sonny?
+Thirty-seven?  Yes, that's your bunk.  Got anyone with you?"
+
+"My mother," Dick nodded.  "She's in the opposite cabin."
+
+"I see.  And I've a wife and small son and daughter somewhere about.
+Well, there's not a whole heap of room in these cabins, so it's luck
+for me that I haven't struck a mate of my own size.  But I expect you
+don't look at it in that way."
+
+Dick grinned.  He rather liked this big, friendly person, but was much
+too shy to talk.  Indeed, it was rather dreadful to think of sharing a
+cabin with him--with any stranger, for that matter.
+
+"We won't worry each other very much," said his companion, as if
+guessing his thoughts.  "You'll be asleep long before I come to bed,
+and I'm not as early as I might be in the mornings."  He was unpacking
+swiftly, distributing his belongings in shelves and on hooks.  "I'll
+leave space for you--those drawers are handy for your height, so I'll
+take the upper ones.  I see you've got the berth with the
+porthole--lucky kid."
+
+"I'll change, if you like," Dick said.  It seemed the only thing to
+say, but he didn't feel a cheerful giver.  The little round window just
+over his bed looked very inviting.
+
+The big man laughed.
+
+"Oh, not much!" he said.  "Thanks, all the same, sonny, but I wouldn't
+take it from you.  Now, I'm pretty straight, so I'll clear out, for
+it's quite evident that we can't move about together.  So long."  Dick
+squeezed himself against his bunk to leave room for the great form as
+he moved to the door.
+
+His mother was a little inclined to be sympathetic on the subject a
+little later.
+
+"Oh, he might be worse," Dick said.  "He's really quite a good sort.
+And we shan't see so much of each other in the cabin, 'cause I'm going
+to get up awfully early.  You see, I don't want to waste a single
+minute of my time on board ship."
+
+"Well, you could nearly always take refuge in here if you were very
+crowded," Mrs. Lester said.
+
+"Thanks very much, mummie."  Dick glanced round her cabin; it was the
+same size as his own, but looked, somehow, immeasurably larger.  The
+second bunk was not made up, and looked inviting as a sofa.  Already
+his mother had unpacked, and her dainty belongings made the tiny place
+homelike.  "It is jolly, isn't it?" the small boy said.
+
+"Yes, it's quite comfy.  We'll use it together as a sitting-room,
+Dickie.  There's the bugle for dinner--come along."
+
+There were many people in the long alley-way, hurrying towards the
+dining saloon.  Smooth water was certain for the first few hours of the
+journey while they steamed down the Gulf.  What sort of weather might
+await them when they turned into the Bight--that place of many
+storms--no one could say.  Therefore, there was a general determination
+to have at least one meal in comfort.  People trooped up from their
+cabins and down from the deck, crowding into the big saloon.  The
+stewards were busy directing all to their places, and delicately
+shepherding new-comers from seats already reserved.
+
+Mrs. Lester and Dick found themselves at a table presided over by the
+ship's doctor, who promptly made himself known to all the passengers,
+found out their names and saw to it that all under his wing felt at
+home.  He was a plump, cheery man, full of anecdotes and chatter.  Dick
+felt that it would be jolly to sit at his table.  Opposite the Lesters
+were four vacant places.  Already at the table were a thin and angular
+lady, whose name they found out was Miss Simpson; a very pretty girl of
+eighteen, with her mother, a Mrs. Merritt, and a tall, silent man, Mr.
+Dunstan, who looked as though he hailed from the bush, and made but the
+briefest of responses to the doctor's jokes.
+
+Close at hand was the captain's table, where, as the doctor remarked,
+"Emperors and pontiffs" might be found.  There were no emperors aboard
+this time; the nearest approach to a pontiff was an English bishop,
+who, with his wife, was touring Australia.  He was a pink and pleasant
+person, who rather gave the impression that he was curate to his
+wife--a very tall woman, stout, dignified and extremely English.  Dick
+rejoiced inwardly that he did not sit near this dignitary.  He went as
+far as to feel sympathy for the captain himself, who made heavy weather
+in his efforts to entertain her, and used to look slightly exhausted
+towards the close of a meal.  A famous singer--a tall, handsome
+woman--was also at his table; and a noted actor, whom the bishop's wife
+snubbed whenever possible.  There was a chief justice from an eastern
+state, he had a keen, clever face, at which Dick liked to look when he
+spoke.  The other people included a ship's captain going to take
+command of a vessel at Fremantle; a member of Parliament and his wife,
+a Riverina squatter, a German wool buyer and one or two others less
+distinguished.  Dick eyed them with awe, and was glad that he sat at
+another table.
+
+Just as the soup appeared, a quiet-looking young man slipped into one
+of the vacant seats at the doctor's left; and presently a party of
+three arrived to complete the table--Dick's enormous cabin mate, with
+his wife and little girl.  They sat down opposite, and immediately the
+little girl made a face at Dick.
+
+Now, Dick did not know much of the ways of girls, little or big.  He
+was thirteen, and at thirteen girls are the last things a boy worries
+about.  Therefore, this pleasantry on the part of the new-comer merely
+puzzled him slightly.  He wrinkled his nose a little and went on with
+his soup.
+
+The doctor was greeting them boisterously.
+
+"Good evening, Mrs. Warner.  Had a good run round Adelaide?"
+
+"Oh, delightful," said the lady vaguely.  Her husband laughed.
+
+"Much she knows of Adelaide," he said.  "She's been to a tea-party at
+the club, and Merle and I have been running round like good tourists.
+Haven't we, Merle?"
+
+The little girl muttered something that sounded like "Horrid place!"
+and again Mr. Warner laughed.
+
+"Merle is in the stage of disliking everything outside her own boundary
+fence," he said, attacking his dinner.  "I've shown her all the
+beauties of Eastern Australia, and she still says there's no place like
+the sandy west, so we'll go back for another ten years or so before
+coming this side again."  His eye fell on Dick, and he nodded in a
+friendly way.  "Why, there's my cabin mate," he said.  "I say, doctor,
+don't you think it's a trifle hard on a boy of that size to find he has
+drawn me in the lucky bag?"
+
+"Distinctly," agreed the doctor, "but great luck for you."  He made the
+Warners and Lesters known to each other, and the elders chatted through
+dinner.  Merle, after another grimace at Dick, did not look his way
+again, for which he was mildly thankful.  He decided that she was a
+cheeky kid, and thought no more about her--save that whenever he
+chanced to look across he saw the square little face, surrounded by a
+shock of dark hair and crowned with an enormous butterfly bow of black
+ribbon.
+
+The Warners, it seemed, were station owners north of Coolgardie, and
+they were returning from a trip east.
+
+"Our first for over twelve years," Mrs. Warner said.  "We had a run
+over just after we were married."
+
+"And we've never had any time since," ejaculated Mr. Warner.
+
+"No, what with babies and hard work," Mrs. Warner's face saddened.
+Later, Mrs. Lester learned that two of the babies had failed to pull
+through a very bad summer.  They had begun with a very little place,
+but gradually luck had come their way, and now they owned a big run.
+
+"Thanks to our being willing to go out-back," said Mr. Warner.  "People
+nowadays forget what the first settlers did--our grandparents, who went
+cheerfully out into the wilds and thought themselves lucky if they got
+a mail and stores twice a year.  There's any amount of room yet for men
+and women with pluck enough to go into the back-country.  But most of
+them nowadays want a place two minutes from a township, with a post
+office and a picture theatre round the corner.  It makes me tired."
+
+"Are you far out?" Mrs. Lester asked.
+
+"Oh, not so far.  Now that we have a car we get a mail once a
+fortnight, and that has made us feel very civilised.  We used to have
+trouble with the blacks, but they're tame enough now."
+
+"It was lonely enough at times," Mrs. Warner said.  "One used to long
+to see another white woman.  But now that the children are bigger
+things are better."
+
+"Your little girl is old enough to be a companion to you now," Mrs.
+Lester said, smiling at Merle, who merely scowled.
+
+"More of a companion to me, I'm afraid," said Mr. Warner, laughing.
+"Merle isn't a domesticated person; she thinks horses and dogs are the
+only real things that matter."
+
+"So they are," said Merle, suddenly, in a kind of small explosion.
+Everyone laughed and she flushed to the roots of her black hair.
+
+"Oh, Merle will become domesticated soon enough--she isn't twelve yet,"
+her mother said, comfortably.  "She is to have a governess when we get
+back."
+
+"I pity the poor governess who is to teach Merle all the useful
+domestic arts," said Mr. Warner.  "She will have an uphill game."
+
+The angular lady, Miss Simpson, spoke suddenly.
+
+"Do you not think," she asked, "that the tuition of the useful arts
+should begin at a very much earlier age?"  Her voice, like herself, was
+angular; she glared at Merle, who returned the glare with interest.
+"Much more was expected of little girls when I was young."
+
+Mr. Warner gave one of his great laughs.
+
+"Oh, much more, I'm sure," he said.  "But surroundings count for
+something; perhaps you weren't brought up on a lonely run, where your
+only playmates were horses and dogs."
+
+"Certainly not," said Miss Simpson.  "I was brought up in London.  And
+in my day young ladies learned decorum."
+
+"What's decorum?" asked Merle bluntly.
+
+"Something you haven't got, my little savage," said her father.
+
+"Well, what is it, anyhow?"
+
+"Decorum is refined and ladylike behaviour," said Miss Simpson severely.
+
+"Must be beastly," said Merle and went on with her dinner.
+
+"That's enough, Merle," said her father, looking annoyed.  He turned
+back to the thin lady.
+
+"Life in London has not many of the problems that beset small
+Australians," he said.  "Merle found a cow bogged in a swamp once.  I
+was away, so she had to gallop in to the homestead, collect a few
+rubbishy blacks, the only men about, and get them on to the job of
+rescue.  I believe she had to wade in herself and hold up the poor
+brute's head while they tugged her out.  Of course, it was only a very
+ordinary thing for a bush-bred child; no particular credit to Merle.
+But it wouldn't have fitted in with your ideal of decorum, would it?"
+
+"Most certainly not," said the angular lady.  "It seems a fearful thing
+for a little girl to do."
+
+"But it saved the cow."
+
+"Then you place a cow before your daughter's welfare?"
+
+"It never did me any harm," said Merle, fiercely.  "And a cow's a cow!"
+
+Mr. Warner's crack of laughter made heads turn in his direction.
+
+"Beyond doubt a cow is a cow," he said.  "We rank 'em high out back.
+Seriously, Miss Simpson, you wouldn't see an animal choke to death
+rather than upset decorum, would you?
+
+"I am glad that such incidents have not come my way," said the
+spinster, vinegarishly.  "I cannot but think a little girl would be
+better at a good boarding school than exposed to influences of the kind
+you describe.  What, may I ask, will be your daughter's future?"
+
+"Oh, she'll be pretty useful, I hope," said the squatter, cheerfully.
+"There, Merle, go on with your pudding," for the subject of the
+discussion showed imminent signs of bursting with wrath.  "We'll take
+you in hand yet and make a young lady of you.  All the same, I'll be
+disgusted if you ever turn your back on a cow in a bog!"
+
+The silent young man spoke.
+
+"I reckon," he said in a slow drawl, "that some of our old hands would
+have been in a bit of a hole if their womenfolk hadn't been willin' to
+lend a hand outside.  My old grandmother talked half a dozen languages,
+and played three or four instruments, and sang in Italian and painted
+on satin, and all that sort of thing, and before she came out from
+England she'd never so much as made a bed.  Then she came to Sydney
+with her father's regiment, and married and went up into the
+Never-Never country.  After that there wasn't anything she didn't do,
+from fightin' blacks and bush fires and floods to helpin' clear the
+land and build the house.  Did it all well too.  Didn't hurt her,
+either, she said; she liked it.  Great old sort.  Lots like her, of
+course.  Reckon they made Australia."
+
+"Yes, and we're proud of 'em," said Mr. Warner.  He grinned.  "But what
+about their decorum, Miss Simpson?"
+
+"I think the dear bishop is rising," said the spinster, acidly.  "If
+you will excuse me----"  She left the table in the wake of the
+"pontiffs."
+
+"All the same," said Mr. Warner, when the laugh had subsided, "it isn't
+quite the same thing.  Those old grandmothers of ours had
+decorum--stacks of it.  They never lost it, even when they did a man's
+work.  I suppose it was because they had so much of it ground into them
+when they were young.  And it never did them any harm.  But somehow
+nowadays it doesn't seem an easy matter to put on the decorum layer
+first.  I don't know how it is."  He looked across the table.  "Got any
+little girls, Mrs. Lester?"
+
+"No, only one bad boy," replied Dick's mother.
+
+"Just as well for your peace of mind.  Girls are a great
+responsibility, especially when they persist in thinking they're boys."
+He tweaked his small daughter's hair.  "Finished?  Then suppose we go
+up on deck, and you can make friends with my cabin mate."
+
+But Merle looked across at Dick scornfully.
+
+"I'm going to see the engines," she said, with her nose tilted.  "The
+chief engineer said he'd take me, an' mother said I could."
+
+"Oh, all right," said her father, easily.  "You can make friends with
+Dick to-morrow."  To which Dick, smarting under the double injury of
+her scorn and the fact that she--a scrap of a girl--was about to revel
+in the engine room, for which his whole soul hankered, registered a vow
+that he'd see her farther first.  His nose was as tilted as Merle's own
+as he passed her on his way to the deck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ABOARD THE "MOONDARRA."
+
+Dick woke early next morning, and looked about him for a minute in
+bewilderment before he remembered where he was.  He had been dreaming
+that he was in the dormitory at school, with Bottles snoring as he
+always snored.  It was confusing to awaken in a narrow berth, with
+white-panelled walls creaking close by.  The ship gave a lurch, and a
+cabin trunk slid half-way out from under the opposite berth, then it
+went back again, and Dick experienced a peculiar feeling of hollowness
+and discomfort that he could not classify, coupled with a longing for
+fresh air.
+
+He hopped up on his bed, and put his head out of the open porthole.
+The sun had just risen, and stared him in the face across a long
+stretch of heaving sea--grey, tossing water, broken here and there by a
+"white horse."  A keen breeze swept by; Dick drank in a great draught
+of it, and from that moment forgot his first and last hint of
+seasickness.  It was too cold to stay, however, he shivered in his thin
+pyjamas, and returned to the shelter of the blankets.
+
+The snoring that had put Bottles into his dream was still going on,
+though louder than Bottles had ever snored.  It came from the berth
+where Mr. Warner slumbered peacefully, lying on his back, with his
+mouth wide open.  Dick reflected enviously upon the chance such an
+attitude on the part of Bottles would have afforded his interested
+dormitory mates, though Master Glass had grown cunning, even in repose,
+since his friends, having caught him snoring open-mouthed, had filled
+up the yawning cavity with soap shavings.  The memory of the victim
+foaming at the mouth returned to Dick and he chuckled--at which, to his
+great alarm, Mr. Warner half roused and said, "Eh, Merle?"  Dick
+refrained from answering, and in a moment there was audible evidence
+that the huge man, waked, like the lobster, too soon, was slumbering
+again.
+
+The ship was beginning to stir.  Overhead could be heard trampling feet
+and the swish of hoses, as the decks were washed down; in the passages
+the stewards were busy with mops and brooms.  Dick decided that bed had
+lost its charms, and, seizing a towel, went forth in search of a bath.
+A friendly steward directed him to a bath-room, and gave him a big,
+rough towel, remarking that the smooth and shiny one he carried was
+merely for "moppin' yourself up in the cabin," and Dick presently
+revelled in a huge bath of hot sea-water, followed by an icy shower.
+He returned glowing, and finished dressing rapidly, while Mr. Warner
+slumbered and snored in calm majesty.  Then he seized his cap and ran
+out.
+
+In the alleyway he met his own cabin steward, who greeted him
+cheerfully.
+
+"Morning, you're up early.  Like a cup of tea?"
+
+"Rather!" said Dick, who, like all bush boys, could drink tea a dozen
+times a day if opportunity occurred.
+
+"Right-oh!" said the steward.  "Wait half a jiff."
+
+He dived into a passage, and presently reappeared with a cup of tea,
+the saucer encumbered with two biscuits and a banana.
+
+"Like to take it up on deck?"
+
+"Good idea," said Dick.  "Thanks, awfully."
+
+He mounted the stairs with care--the ship was lurching a little, and he
+was not used to carrying liquids on a floor that rose and fell beneath
+him.  Still, he reached the deck, although with not more than a quarter
+of the tea in the saucer--he had prudently pocketed the biscuits and
+fruit--and sat down near the rail to dispose of his load.  This over,
+he took back his cup and saucer and was greeted with astonished thanks
+by the bewildered steward, who said, "Lor', you could 'a lef' it up on
+deck--someone or other'd take it down."
+
+Dick ran up again quickly.  The wet decks glistened in the morning
+sunshine.  A few of the men passengers were astir; some still in
+pyjamas; but no women were visible.  An officer coming by gave him a
+pleasant greeting.  He went forward until he could look down on the
+lower deck, where sailors were busy mopping, coiling ropes and
+generally stowing everything in ship-shape fashion for the
+uninterrupted run west.  Land was still in sight on the starboard, a
+faint blue line of hills; ahead and to port there was nothing but the
+grey waste of heaving sea, brightened to blue wherever the sunlight
+sparkled on it.  The air was full of sea birds, circling round the ship
+on the alert for any scrap of food that might be thrown over.  As he
+watched a flock of gulls pounced, screaming, on the contents of a
+refuse tin from the galley, and fought over the spoil.  To port, half a
+mile away, a little steamer wallowed along, her smoke making a black
+trail in her wake.
+
+It was too cold to stand still, so Dick joined the steady march round
+the deck, taken by the few passengers who were about.  Turning a corner
+presently he almost ran into someone coming rapidly in the opposite
+direction--Merle Warner, with her shock of hair flying in the wind, and
+her hands digging deeply into the pockets of a rough blue serge
+overcoat.
+
+"Can't you look where you're goin', silly," she demanded.
+
+"Didn't see you," Dick responded cheerfully.  He had had ideas of
+apologising, but they vanished hurriedly.  They glared at each other.
+
+"Is my daddy up?" she demanded.
+
+"He wasn't when I left," Dick said.  "Don't think he meant to be,
+either, by the way he was snoring."
+
+She flamed into anger.
+
+"You're cheeky.  My daddy never snores!"
+
+"Oh, doesn't he?" returned the bewildered Dick.  "Well, you go down to
+the cabin and listen, that's all, if you don't believe me."
+
+"I don't need to go--I know he doesn't," she said loftily.  "I expect
+you were snoring yourself, and thought it was my daddy.  I think he's
+jolly good to let you sleep in his cabin."
+
+The amazing effrontery of this made Dick gasp.
+
+"Well--you have a nerve!" he said.  "His cabin, indeed.  I like that.
+It's mine just as much."
+
+"No it isn't---my daddy had it before you came."
+
+"Well, we've paid for half, anyhow," said Dick, practically.  "And even
+if your father is big, he can't sleep in two bunks."
+
+"I don't care--you're just a horrid little nuisance, getting into a
+gentleman's cabin," declared Merle, endeavouring to tilt a rather snub
+nose.
+
+The speech was meant to crush--as Dick remarked, later, to his mother,
+it might have been employed in describing a cockroach; but it had the
+wrong effect on Dick.  He broke into a shout of laughter.
+
+"I say," he cried, "it's as good as a play to hear you talk.  You
+weren't behind the door when they served out bad tempers, anyhow, were
+you?"
+
+It was ordinary schoolboy repartee, but it reduced Merle to impotent
+fury.  She glared at him, speechless, her face flushing from brow to
+chin; and just then a friendly, boisterous presence swung round the
+corner.
+
+"Hullo, children."  The doctor greeted them cheerily.  "Out for an
+early walk, eh?"  Something in their demeanour made him look more
+keenly.  "Why, I believe you're quarrelling!  Fie now, for shame."
+
+"Not we!" declared Dick laughing.
+
+"I am," Merle exploded.  "He's just a beastly little boy."
+
+She turned, wriggled from the hand the doctor dropped on her shoulder,
+and fled, leaving the two bewildered males staring after her.
+
+"Now that's a firework in petticoats!" ejaculated the doctor.  "What's
+annoyed her, Dick?"
+
+"Blest if I know," Dick replied, grinning.  "You wouldn't have said she
+was in a good temper from the start, and then she went off like a
+packet of crackers 'cause I said her father snored.  And he does snore,
+too!"
+
+"Snore--why, man alive, he's like an engine!" said the doctor.  "He
+went to sleep in the smoking-room the other day, and before long he'd
+cleared the room.  Snored 'em clean out.  How could a man of his build
+fail to snore, may I ask?"
+
+"Well, he doesn't fail to," said Dick laughing.
+
+"That is so, certainly.  But I suppose that square-faced small daughter
+of his thought you were insulting him.  Never mind, she'll get over it.
+Come for a walk.  You ought to do a mile round the deck three times a
+day at least.  Passengers who do that never develop livers!"
+
+"I don't think I have one," Dick grinned.
+
+"Continue in that belief, if you can, my son, and then you won't make
+any doctor's fortune.  There's disinterested advice for you!"  The
+doctor set off round the deck with long strides, so that to keep up
+gave Dick no little exertion.  They pounded along, too fast for
+conversation.  The deck was sprinkled with passengers now, and at every
+moment new heads appeared, coming up the companion ladders.  There was
+no sign of Merle, but presently they encountered Mrs. Warner, with a
+five-year-old boy, and stopped to greet her.
+
+"Good morning," said the doctor.  "And how's my friend Bobby?"
+
+"Vezzy well," said Bobby, solemnly.  He looked at Dick with interest.
+"Is you the new boy?"
+
+"I expect so," Dick replied.
+
+"Merle says you is a beast.  Is you?"
+
+"Never mind Merle," Mrs. Warner said hastily.  "She's just an old
+stupid.  Of course Dick isn't a beast, Bobby."
+
+"I don't fink you looks like one," Bobby pronounced, solemnly, after
+inspecting him.
+
+Dick grinned, somewhat confused.  He was never a person of many words,
+except with his mother; it was somewhat disconcerting to be dissected
+in public.
+
+"You come along, and I'll show you the gulls," he said, and Bobby
+tucked a fat little hand into his hard paw and trotted off
+ecstatically.  They made great friends over the swooping gulls, and
+Dick learned that there were two little Warners younger than
+Bobby--"twinses," the small boy said.  Being but three, they were
+considered too young to travel; they stayed in Perth with Grannie.
+"We's goin' back to find the twinses now," Bobby finished.
+
+"Are you glad?"
+
+"Wather!  They's troublesome kids, but they's nice.  I've got a pony at
+home."
+
+"So have I," said Dick.  "Is yours a good one?"
+
+"He's lovely," Bobby said solemnly.  "His name's Micky.  Can yours
+jump?"
+
+"Can he--what!" said Dick, with a sudden homesick vision of Tinker and
+the great galloping stretches at home, of the log fences over which
+they loved to fly.  It was believed that Dick would take Tinker across
+anything over which the pony could lift his nose.  "Yes, he can jump a
+bit."  Speech fell upon him with that beloved subject, and he talked of
+Tinker, with his eyes dancing, while the little boy hung upon his words
+and spurred him whenever he paused with, "Tell me more about him."
+
+"We lost him once when he was a two-year-old," Dick said.  "Some ass of
+a swagman burned some of our boundary fence--didn't put his camp fire
+out properly---and a lot of our horses got out through the gap and into
+the ranges.  We got most of 'em back, but Tinker and a little bay mare
+joined a mob of wild horses, and we never saw them for six months."
+
+"Never any more?" Bobby's eyes were round with horror.
+
+"Yes, we did.  Father said he'd get Tinker back if it took him a year,
+and he took all the men out with him to hunt the mob down.  He took me,
+too, on old Pivot.  And we found the wild horses in a big gully in the
+ranges, and the men managed to get nearly round 'em before they smelt
+us.  Then they went off like smoke.  I was on top of a hill and I could
+see Tinker going with them.  The men headed them back towards the
+plains, but they found a way up another gully, and I don't believe we'd
+ever have seen them again if it hadn't been for father."
+
+"What did your faver do?"
+
+"He just set sail across country--up the hill between the two
+gullies--you never saw such a hill to ride up--and down the other side.
+If it was bad going up, it was simply awful going down--all overgrown
+with trees and scrub, and great rocks sticking out of the ground.  And
+father went down it at a gallop, as if he was on one of the plains.
+You never saw anything like it.  The men said, 'Well the boss can break
+his neck if he likes--we're not going!'"
+
+"Oo-oh!" said Bobby.
+
+"The mob came up the gully at an awful bat--it was just a race between
+them and father.  But he got down first, and he swung round down the
+gully, and, my aunt! you should have heard his stockwhip.  It was just
+like rifle shots.  He met the mob coming up in a narrow place, and they
+wouldn't face him--they pulled up and looked at him for a moment, and
+then they wheeled and went tearing back, and father after them.  And of
+course the men were ready enough then--they kept 'em going down, never
+gave 'em a chance to wheel back into the ranges--got em out on the open
+plain and across through the gap into our run--and we yarded the whole
+blessed lot!"
+
+"And Tinker, too?"
+
+"Yes, Tinker too, of course.  Father never would have come back if we
+hadn't got Tinker.  My word, that was a gallop!"  Dick's eyes were
+dancing.  "I don't know how I got down the hill--old Pivot did it--he's
+the best stock horse you ever saw.  He just did what he liked.  I
+hadn't a say in it.  You see, the only chance was to keep the mob
+going, never giving them a second to turn or break.  All the men were
+using their stockwhips and yelling like fury, and father was riding out
+on the wing, near the big chestnut that was leading the mob---he knew
+that was the horse to watch.  He did try to wheel too, but father was
+always there with his whip.  I guess that chestnut found out who was
+boss that day!"
+
+[Illustration: "'I don't know how I got down the hill--old Pivot did
+it.'"]
+
+"I say--your faver must be splendid."
+
+"Of course he's splendid."  Dick brushed away so superfluous an
+observation.  "That chestnut's his best hack now.  Father lassoed him
+in the yards, and broke him in himself, and you should have seen him
+buck.  The men swore he'd always be an outlaw, but father said he
+wouldn't, and he beat him in the end.  He wouldn't let another soul
+touch him, and though he goes quietly enough with father, no one else
+can ride him now.  I guess father will have to break him in again now,
+'cause he's been turned out for a year since father went to England."
+
+"Was Tinker all right?" asked Bobby eagerly.
+
+"Tinker just came up to me in the yards when they cut him out from the
+mob and put his old head down to my pocket, looking for an apple.  He
+always did that from the time he was a foal."
+
+Someone behind them--they were leaning over the rail, the ship
+forgotten--put a hand on Dick's shoulder, and the boy jumped round, his
+face flushing.  Mr. Warner stood laughing at him--near him, Merle, her
+face a curious mixture of interest and sullenness.
+
+"That was pretty exciting," said Mr. Warner.
+
+Dick's colour deepened.  He muttered incoherently something about "just
+telling the kid a yarn."
+
+"You come to breakfast, Bobby," Merle said crossly.  "Mother wants
+you."  She seized the unwilling Bobby's hand and led him away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+HOW DICK PRACTISED HIGH DIVING.
+
+Many people find the run across the Great Australian Bight a dull
+matter; and, indeed, if you should ever find yourself returning from
+the other side of the world, it is apt to be the longest part of all
+the long six weeks at sea.  But to little Dick Lester, afloat for the
+first time, it was a voyage full of marvel and delight.
+
+Dick did not give his masters at school an especially easy time; there
+was, I fear, nothing of the saintly little boy about him; nor did any
+of them ever have reason to suspect him of any especial cleverness.  He
+was a very ordinary, healthy youngster, unencumbered by much brain
+power.  But he did respectably at school and more than respectably at
+sports, because he was quite unable to take things easily.  There was
+in his nature a streak of keenness that made the pursuit of the moment
+the most interesting thing possible.  He flung himself heart and soul
+and generally with all his alert young body, too, into all he did.
+Naturally, his very keenness often made him make mistakes; but at least
+it saved him from dullness.  "He's a provoking little animal," a tired
+form-master once said of him; "but, thank goodness, he's no slug!"
+
+Being so designed, partly by Nature and partly by parents who had
+themselves that strong quality of keenness, it may readily be imagined
+that a ship opened up to Dick a storehouse of novelty and opportunity.
+He made his way into every permitted corner, and since he did not do it
+bumptiously, he found a welcome where a cheeky youngster would have
+been promptly ejected.  The chief engineer succumbed to the longing
+face at the entrance to his mysterious domain, and let him spend hours
+in the engine room, where the roar and beat of the mighty machinery was
+the purest music in Dick's ears.  He penetrated even to the stokehold,
+where, stripped of his outer garments, he toiled eagerly with a
+stoker's shovel, flinging great lumps of coal into the yawning mouths
+of the furnaces, where the flames leaped redly.  There was something in
+feeling that, even for a moment, he was helping the onward rush of the
+ship that brought him nearer to Fremantle and his father.  He stopped
+only when he could no longer hold the heavy shovel, and the fourth
+engineer, laughing, hustled him from the stifling stokehold into the
+not particularly fresh air of the engine room, which seemed to Dick an
+ozone bath by comparison.
+
+The men made him free of their quarters, and spun him long yarns of the
+sea, more or less true, while they taught him intricacies of splicing
+and knotting that are generally hidden from the landsman.  They made
+him highly technical in speech, so that he would have shuddered at
+calling the companion a staircase, or in misusing such ordinary
+expressions as "abaft the binnacle."  He saw their dim and smellful
+sleeping accommodation, and came away with his small soul full of wrath
+that men so admirable should be herded in dens so uninviting.  They
+took care of him in more ways than one; he saw a sturdy apprentice
+roundly cuffed on the head for having made some remark in his presence
+of which the older men did not approve.  Dick had not caught the
+remark--which was as well.  It made him rather uncomfortable to see the
+boy cuffed, but having great respect for the cuffer, a boatswain of
+wonderful ability where knots were concerned, he took it for granted
+that everything was all right.  He told them stories of station life in
+return for their sea yarns, and altogether spent some of his happiest
+hours in the fo'c'sle.
+
+The baggage officer took him into the upper hold and held forth
+learnedly on the art of handling cargo; the cook showed him the galley,
+with its rows of shining copper pots and pans, its contrivances for
+washing and peeling potatoes by the hundred, and other strange
+devices--which so enthralled Dick that he obtained permission to come
+again, and to bring his mother, who was no less interested than he.  He
+even penetrated into the mysterious regions where the stewards lurk
+when off duty, and had no small hand in the fun behind the scenes, when
+the stewards gave a concert in aid of the funds for seamen--a Christy
+minstrel entertainment, at which the performers appeared with faces so
+well and truly blacked that for the remainder of the voyage they had a
+murky look sadly out of keeping with their otherwise spic and span
+appearance.  But the crowning point of Dick's voyage was when the
+Captain found him on deck very early one morning--so early that no
+other passengers were astir, and, first swearing him to secrecy, took
+him to his state-room under the bridge where they hob-nobbed over an
+early cup of tea, and afterwards showed him chronometers and sextants,
+chart-room and navigating room, and the forbidden glory of the bridge
+itself; a condescension that left Dick gasping with delight and
+amazement.  He did not know that the Captain had a little son in Perth;
+another boy with an eager face, for whose sake the great man had a soft
+corner in his heart for all small boys.
+
+With so many distractions, it was natural that the days should fly
+quickly.  But in addition there was the sea itself, which Dick loved;
+an Australian sea at its best, with bright sunshine, dancing blue
+water, and a long, easy swell that barely rocked the _Moondarra_ as she
+steamed westward.  They passed but few ships.  A great English liner
+overtook them one morning, passing so close that greetings could be
+shouted from deck to deck; a P. and O. boat, her black and tan painting
+and her winking brasswork making her a heartsome sight.  Beside her,
+the _Moondarra_, which had seemed to Dick enormous, became quite a
+small affair.  The liner was outward bound, most of the people on her
+decks were Australians, off on the long trip to the old countries that
+every son and daughter of the Southern Cross longs to see some day.
+Once there passed another inter-state boat, like themselves; now and
+then a little tramp steamer, red with rust and generally grimy.  And
+one day came the most beautiful sight of the sea, a great four-master,
+with every sail set, swinging by to Sydney for wheat.  She came down
+towards them, until she was quite close--then, tacking suddenly, she
+swung away, the sunlight, as she went about, turning every sail to
+glittering silver.  Dick had no breakfast that morning--he remained
+glued to the rail until the beautiful ship was only a tall shadow on
+the horizon.
+
+At all odd moments during the day there were games; deck-tennis,
+bull-board, quoits, cricket.  Dick was handicapped in being the only
+boy of his age on board, so that he found it hard to get a suitable
+partner, but some of the elder girls took him into their games, and on
+the whole he had a good time, though, to Dick, girls were curious
+beings, with mysterious and incomprehensible ways.  He told his mother
+one day that he could not imagine why any fellow ever wanted to get
+married--"unless it was to you, of course," he added, gallantly.  To
+which Mrs. Lester listened gravely, and did not even make the annoying
+rejoinder that some day he would think differently--to which species of
+remark grown-ups are so prone.  Merle Warner remained the most
+incomprehensible female of all.  Circumstances conspired to throw the
+two children together, for the elders quickly made friends; the Warners
+were pleasant, kindly people, and, as table companions, they were a
+good deal brought into association with Mrs. Lester.  Mr. Warner and
+Dick had struck up a great friendship; the big man liked his small and
+unobtrusive cabin-mate and felt for him something of the protective
+feeling he would have experienced had it been his own little lad who
+lay asleep in the opposite bunk each night when he came to bed.  They
+used to tramp the deck together in the early mornings and after dinner,
+and "yarn" of station matters, of the ways of bullocks--and most
+inexhaustible theme of all--of horses.  Dick had been his father's
+constant companion until Mr. Lester sailed for England; he had learned
+a good deal of station affairs, and where his knowledge failed his love
+of the subject was enough to make him a good mate.  He used to beg for
+stories of the Western life, that held so many differences from his
+own, and Mr. Warner was ready enough to tell of his early days, with
+their struggle and adventure.  Dick thought him a very wonderful man.
+He told his stories very simply; they were, indeed, very commonplace
+happenings to him, and on the rare occasions that he became
+enthusiastic it was in speaking of the part his wife had played.  "You
+take it from me, son, women are pretty wonderful," he said.  "She's
+plump and placid and comfortable enough now--but I've seen her holding
+off a crew of yelling blacks with only an old shot gun.  She never was
+afraid--or if she was, she never showed it; and that's the most
+wonderful of all."  Dick agreed, and thereafter looked at Mrs. Warner
+with eyes of awe, which considerably puzzled the cheery, motherly woman.
+
+Possibly it was her father's friendship for Dick that made Merle so
+definitely unfriendly.  She was devoted to him; her mother and Bobby
+counted for something to her, but her father ranked before the whole
+world.  It hit her hard to see him make a companion of this new boy.
+She was a child of a queer, silent nature--her own worst enemy, for she
+struggled against her better impulses.  Something in her made her rude,
+unfriendly, unforgiving.  So much was evident, and led to punishments
+and unpopularity.  What was not so apparent was that the queer streak
+made her very unhappy as well.  "I know jolly well I'm a pig," she had
+said once to her father, "only I don't seem to be able to be anything
+but a pig.  Why do people get born like that?"  To which Mr. Warner,
+not understanding in the least, had replied, laughing, that the sooner
+she left off being a pig the better for everyone.  Merle knew that very
+well.  But the bad fairy who had dealt her the wrong kind of temper at
+her christening was as yet too strong for her.
+
+She could not make friends freely; not like Bobby, whom she sometimes
+almost hated for the ease with which he fell in love with everyone.
+Everyone liked Bobby, too.  He was so merry, so full of quaint chatter,
+so ready to make the best of the world.  Their trip to Sydney had been
+as complete joy to Bobby as it had meant misery to Merle.  They had
+stayed with a big family of boy cousins; town boys, knowing nothing of
+the country that Merle loved, and wildly keen on swimming, yachting and
+school sports--all of them sealed books to Merle.  Her shyness and
+sullenness had meant rare fun to them, and they had teased her with all
+the thoroughness of public school boys.  She hated them all, with an
+intensity that almost frightened her; for their sake she was ready to
+hate all boys, and Dick was merely another member of the abhorred
+species.  That her father should take to him instantly was almost more
+than she could bear.
+
+Dick was civil to her, in his off-hand boy fashion.  He was too busy
+and too happy to worry about a cross-grained little girl.  If she had
+cared to be friendly he would have met her half-way, but as she showed
+him very definitely that she did not want him, he was quite willing to
+let her alone.  It was sometimes a little awkward to be paired off with
+her--to have an elder say cheerfully, "Run away, Merle, and play with
+Dick."  A ship, however, is a place of many corners, and after rounding
+the nearest it was an easy matter to go off in different directions.
+Merle would say, "I'm not comin' with you!"  Dick would reply, "Right
+oh!" and that would end the matter.
+
+"You know," Mrs. Lester said to Dick--they were talking in her cabin
+one evening--"I'm really sorry for that little girl.  She gives herself
+such a bad time.  And if she would only let herself be nice, she would
+be quite nice."
+
+"You always think people are nice, mother-est," said Dick.  He was
+lying on the spare bunk, his hands crossed under his head, glad to keep
+still after a hard set of tennis.  "But why shouldn't she behave
+decently?  No one does anything to annoy the poor thing!"
+
+"N-no."  Mrs. Lester hesitated; she did not choose to hint to Dick that
+Merle might be jealous.  "I think she feels herself out in the
+cold--Bobby is so attractive, and everyone likes him, and of course she
+is different."
+
+"She's a silly ass, then," said Dick, unexpectedly.  "Nothing's wrong
+with her looks, is there, if only she didn't seem so jolly cross?"
+
+"Why, no--nothing, of course," Mrs. Lester answered.  A vision of
+Merle's face, square and defiant, came to her.  "Only, of course, Bobby
+is such a friendly little man.  I wish she would chum up with you,
+Dick.  You wouldn't mind, would you?"
+
+"Well, a fellow doesn't always want a girl at his heels," Dick said.
+"She's only a kid, too"--with the condescension that thirteen feels for
+eleven.  "But, of course, she could come along if she liked--if you
+want her to, mother."  He grinned all over his sunburnt face.  "But
+what's the good of talking?--a team of bullocks wouldn't bring her!"
+
+And that seemed so far beyond argument that Mrs. Lester held her peace.
+
+Nevertheless, despite Merle's attitude, the friendship between the
+Warners and the Lesters flourished.  Bobby frankly adored Dick, and as
+Dick didn't mind admitting that he "liked small kids," Bobby trotted at
+his heels and, if he could not actually be with him, remained glued to
+the spot if he could watch him playing games.  Mrs. Warner, relieved
+from a good deal of attendance on her small son, found Mrs. Lester a
+congenial spirit; the Lester deck-chairs were pitched near the Warner
+encampment, in a sheltered angle of the deck, and they grew to know
+each other with the swiftness of board-ship friendships--a week at sea
+having the curious faculty of making perfect strangers better
+acquaintances than if they had lived in the same township for a year.
+Mr. Warner hovered about like a large guardian angel, glad to see his
+wife enjoying the most restful portion of her trip.  Even Merle fell a
+little under the spell of Mrs. Lester's charm.  She was so used to
+people who found fault with her that it was almost amazing to know
+someone who never seemed to notice bad temper or black looks.  Mrs.
+Lester's attitude was that no one--not even Merle--could possibly mean
+to be rude or unpleasant.  It somehow made Merle feel that rudeness and
+unpleasantness were cheap and nasty.
+
+Their fellow passengers were, on the whole, a pleasant set.  Miss
+Simpson and the "dear bishop's" wife were apt to be a little
+overpowering; the bishop himself made elephantine efforts at being
+jolly, because of a peculiar belief that only by so doing could he
+succeed in understanding Australians, and thereby puzzled very much the
+Australians themselves, who liked him far better on the rare occasions
+when he forgot to be playful and was just plain bishop.  There was
+enough musical talent on board to provide excellent concerts each
+evening, after which energetic people danced on the deck until an
+unfeeling quarter-master came along relentlessly to extinguish the
+lights.  The captain and his officers made friends with everyone and
+kept things moving with the quiet tact that seems part of the training
+of a passenger boat's officers--and answered questions innumerable
+concerning the ways of the _Moondarra_ and the wonders of the deep,
+such questions being an unfailing part of the routine of each voyage.
+So the quiet days passed swiftly enough, too swiftly for Dick, who, but
+that Fremantle meant his father, would willingly have had it twice as
+far away.
+
+He came on deck one afternoon, after an hour spent in the fo'c'sle; it
+was their last day at sea, and he had been saying good-bye to his
+friend the boatswain, who had presented him with a marvellous trophy--a
+full-rigged ship, built in the most astounding fashion, inside a
+bottle.  Dick had inspected this curiosity with bewildered awe, never
+dreaming that it might actually become his own; and when the boatswain
+gave it to him as a farewell gift he was speechless with gratitude.  He
+carried it carefully to his cabin, and stowed it away.  Then he ran up
+in search of his mother.
+
+He came out on the starboard side, where a keen wind whistled that had
+driven nearly everyone away in search of shelter on the port deck.  The
+only people in view were Bobby Warner and Miss Simpson; and it was
+evident that Bobby was very naughty.  He was perched on the top of the
+rail, holding lightly to a stanchion, his handsome little face glowing
+with delighted mischief.  Miss Simpson--who had the faculty of arousing
+all that was worst in him--was lecturing him severely.
+
+"Are you not ashamed, Bobby?  Come down at once, you naughty little
+boy!"
+
+"S'an't," said Bobby calmly.
+
+"Come down, or I shall bring your father to whip you."
+
+"He won't," said Bobby, unmoved.  "He never does."
+
+"So I should think," said Miss Simpson, with bitterness.  "It is high
+time he began.  Come down immediately."
+
+"You go 'way, ole fing," Bobby said, unmoved.  "Don't like you."
+
+"No one likes naughty boys like you," returned the lady, severely,
+"Will you come down, or must I pull you down?"
+
+"Don't 'oo touch me," said Bobby, meeting her eyes fearlessly, as she
+stood angry and irresolute.  "Dis is my pony--I'm goin' to ride it."
+
+He threw one leg over the rail as he spoke, balancing his slender body
+easily.  Miss Simpson uttered a muffled shriek, and sprang to hold him,
+gripping at his knee.
+
+"'Oo get away!" Bobby threatened.  He twisted himself from her grasp,
+bending outwards, just as Dick came upon the scene.  Dick gave a low
+whistle.
+
+"Come down out of that, Bob, you silly ass!"
+
+Bobby started at the voice.  Simultaneously the ship rolled, and then a
+shriek from Miss Simpson rent the air and she clutched at him
+unavailingly as he lost his balance and fell.  The list of the ship
+sent him clear of her, down to the lazy green swell, flecked with foam
+from the bow.  He gave one cry--a frightened baby's scream for help.
+The water choked it almost unheard.
+
+Dick did not hesitate.  He reflected afterwards with shame that he did
+not even shout, "Man overboard!" as do all well-conducted rescuers;
+instead he gave an incoherent cry of, "Coming, old chap!" as he swung
+himself up by the stanchion and dived outwards.  It did not seem
+far--he had often dived from the top of the gallery round the swimming
+baths near his school.  What he was not prepared for was the icy
+coldness of the water.  It caught his breath--he came up blinded and
+gasping, unable for a second to see anything.  Then, just as despair
+seized him, he caught sight of a white jersey a few yards away on the
+crest of a wave, and flung himself through the water towards it.  His
+fingers closed on it, and the wave swallowed them both.
+
+They came up again after what seemed an eternity.  Dick's head was
+bursting, and his whole body numb.  Mechanically his training in
+life-saving came back to him, and he turned on his back, still gripping
+Bobby, from whose little body the breath had been knocked so
+effectually by the fall that he was merely a log in the water, unable
+to struggle.  It was as well for Dick, for there was no fight left in
+him.  The icy water chilled him, body and soul; he could only keep
+afloat, with his fingers twisted into Bobby's jersey.  His mother's
+face seemed to float before his tired eyes.
+
+Back on the _Moondarra_ Miss Simpson's despairing shrieks had been
+drowned by the long hoot of the steamer's siren.  The officer on duty
+on the bridge had seen Dick's dive; almost before he had struck the
+water the steamer's engines were reversed, life-belts had gone skimming
+overboard, and a boat's crew was working desperately at the davits
+swinging the boat outboard.  Quicker still two others had flung
+themselves after the boys--Dick's friend, the boatswain, and the thin,
+silent man who sat at their table.  It was he who reached them first;
+his voice came to Dick as though muffled in wool, like the voice of a
+person very far away.
+
+"Keep still, old chap; I'll take the kid."
+
+Bobby's weight was lifted, but Dick could not detach his clutching
+fingers from his jersey.  He saw, as in a mist, a face near him in the
+water, but the cruel cold held him, choked him, gripped his very heart.
+He moved his free hand feebly, resisting, as he knew he must, an
+overpowering instinct to grasp at the new-comer.  Another voice came,
+even further away.
+
+"I can manage this one," it said.  There was comfort in that, since
+Dick knew he could not manage anything more.  The waves seemed to be
+swinging him in a great cold bed--up and down, up and down.  A hand was
+under his head, more restful than the softest pillow he had ever known;
+he let himself sink back with a little sigh, just as the blue sky above
+him flickered suddenly and turned black.  Close, very close, was the
+sound of oars working furiously in rowlocks, but he did not hear them.
+
+The _Moondarra_ was turning in a great circle, her railing black with
+people.  Women were clustering round the two mothers, who stood
+silently watching the sea that was fighting out beyond for the little
+lives; and there were men holding back Mr. Warner, who could swim
+scarcely at all, but had been in the very act of flinging himself over
+the rail when an officer caught him.  "If Flanagin and the other fellow
+can't get them, no one can," the crisp voice said.  "You'll only
+complicate matters if you go in."  And after that Bobby's father stood
+still, gripping at the rail, not feeling the hands that held him
+mechanically.
+
+The long moments dragged themselves away--how long they seemed, first
+from the time that the two little heads had been a tiny speck together
+on the sea, and then until the other heads and the long, clean overarm
+strokes had forged through the water towards them!  Then, longest of
+all came the terse waiting while the boat, lowered with swift
+dexterity, reached the water--the waiting oars ready to pull the
+instant she touched--the straining muscles flinging themselves into
+each stroke that sent her flying across the long green swells.  A
+sudden, broken cheer came from the ship, mingled with a woman's sobbing
+cry.
+
+"Oh, they have them, they have them!"
+
+The two mothers, silent yet, caught at each other's hands.  Beyond,
+strong arms were lifting the boys together into the boat; then, strain
+their eyes as they might, they could see nothing, for two sailors were
+working over the little figures, wrapping them in rugs; they had to
+loosen Dick's fingers by force from Bobby's jersey.  Others were
+hauling the rescuers on board, the boat turning even as they were
+pulled in; and then she came racing back to the ship.  On the bridge
+the captain glanced at his watch, with a flash of professional pride.
+
+"Seven minutes from the time of the alarm--not bad going!" he said.
+
+The cheering broke out again as the boat swung alongside, and then died
+out uncertainly.  Was it a time to cheer?  The little muffled figures
+lay still and stiff, white faces upturned to the towering ship.  Mr.
+Warner's heart seemed to stand still as the doctor suddenly tapped him
+on the shoulder.
+
+"Bring your wife and Mrs. Lester to the hospital," he said.  "I have
+everything ready."
+
+A hush seemed to fall upon the ship, long after the boat had been
+hauled slowly upwards, and waiting arms had received the motionless
+bundles and borne them swiftly to the hospital.  The steady beat of the
+re-awakened engines bore the _Moondarra_ westward; but on the decks
+passengers stood about in little knots, with their eyes ever wandering
+to the doorway behind which the dripping procession had disappeared.
+The captain came out once, shaking his head at the eager inquiries.
+
+"Both unconscious," he said.  "I'm afraid----" and stopped.
+
+There was a sick hush on the decks as the Bishop--no longer
+playful--came forward, holding up his hand for silence.
+
+"If you will come with me to the saloon," he said, "we can do our best
+for the children.  They need our prayers."
+
+The people flocked after him--card-playing men and half-grown girls,
+and women who sobbed as they went.  There were sobs round the saloon as
+the Bishop prayed--simple, manly words that asked for help and mercy.
+He finished, and there was silence, and then a cheer from the deck and
+a steward burst in.
+
+"Doctor says they're all right!"
+
+In the sick bay, Mrs. Warner held Bobby to her like a baby--a bundle of
+hot blankets, in which his sleeping face nestled peacefully.  Dick lay
+in a cot, also a mound of blankets.  He opened his eyes and a smile
+flickered weakly on his lips as he saw his mother's face.
+
+"Mother-est!" he whispered.
+
+She put her head down beside him, trembling--one arm across him,
+holding him to her.  He gave a half sigh of utter contentment, nestling
+to her, as he fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+WESTRALIA.
+
+It was many hours later that Dick woke up, at an unfamiliar noise,
+feeling stiff and tired and extremely puzzled as to where he was.
+Bobby, who had awakened him with a dismal little howl, was sitting up
+in his cot.  The two mothers had been dragged away to dinner by the
+doctor, who had brutally remarked that the boys would sleep just as
+well if they didn't sit and stare at them, with other wise observations
+as to the necessity of over-strained people taking nourishment.  The
+steward, who had been left on guard at the hospital, was gossiping
+placidly outside on the deck.
+
+Dick regarded Bobby sleepily.
+
+"Hullo, kid," he said.  "Don't howl."
+
+"Isn't howlin'," returned Bobby, untruthfully.  "Wants my muvver."  His
+lips quivered.  "I tumbled into the water," he said, his blue eyes
+suddenly misty.
+
+"So you did," said Dick, memory coming back to him.  "Weren't you an
+ass?  Never mind, you got out all right."
+
+"It wasn't nice," said Bobby, miserably.  The eyes brimmed over.
+"Don't like this funny place.  Want to come an' 'nuggle on your bed."
+
+"Come on, then," Dick said.
+
+Bobby made an effort to clamber out, but relapsed into his blankets.
+
+"My legs is all funny and horrid," he said.  "They--they won't work."
+Tears were in his voice.  "Wants to 'nuggle wiv you--wants my muvver!"
+
+"Well, you stay there--I'll come," Dick said, hurriedly.
+
+He climbed out, realising fully the moment he moved Bobby's accusation
+against his legs.  His own felt as though they belonged to someone
+entirely different--Mr. Warner for choice, for they felt enormous.  He
+found himself glad to hold on to the cot after he was on the floor, and
+his progress across to Bobby was slow and painful.
+
+"What's the matter?" Bobby asked.  "Is your legs funny, too?"
+
+"Jolly funny," Dick returned.  He climbed in beside the tearful Bobby,
+who clung to him vehemently--and somehow Dick was not sorry for the
+warm, comforting touch.  He was desperately stiff and weary; he, also,
+wanted his mother every bit as much as the small boy who snuggled
+against him.  He put his arm round him.
+
+"Just you go to sleep, old chap," he said--and in a moment followed his
+own advice.
+
+"Ain't never stirred, mum," was the calm assurance of the steward at
+the door, ten minutes later, when the anxious mothers came hurrying
+back from dinner.  "I been sittin' in there near 'em--they----"
+
+His jaw dropped and the mothers gave a stifled exclamation at sight of
+the two heads on Bobby's pillow--both boys fast asleep.  The steward,
+when taken outside for purposes of discussion, found difficulty in
+inventing a suitable explanation, cut short by the arrival of the
+doctor, who remarked that he would attend to him later, and went to
+inspect the patients.
+
+"Well, they're all right, anyhow," he said.  "But I'd like to know how
+young Dick felt on his journey across."
+
+It was a journey of which Dick had no recollection when he woke for the
+second time, four hours later; and he was sufficiently astonished at
+finding Bobby beside him.  The mothers were close by; at Dick's first
+movement Mrs. Lester came swiftly to the side of the cot.  Presently,
+just as Bobby too awoke, came the doctor; and close on his heels, the
+repentant steward, bearing hot soup, which seemed to the boys the most
+heavenly thing they had ever tasted.  They ate it, and asked for more,
+and would have made a gallant effort at that, too, had not sleep
+overcome them again.  Bobby tumbled asleep almost over his bowl, and
+his father, coming in, carried him off to his mother's cabin; and
+presently, just as Dick was settling to a dream, the big man was back,
+and this time it was Dick whom he picked up like a baby and carried
+down the long alleyways; not to their own cabin, but to the spare bunk
+in Mrs. Lester's, which had been made ready for Dick.  She was waiting
+for him, ready to tuck him up.  It was comforting to think she would be
+near him.  He was very sleepy--too sleepy to do more than wonder when,
+as he put him down, Bobby's father said, huskily, "God bless you, old
+chap," and brushed his forehead with his lips--and then went hurriedly
+out.
+
+It was all like a dream when Dick woke next day, still a little stiff,
+but otherwise feeling his usual self.  Mrs. Lester was asleep, which
+was not unnatural, seeing that she had been up at ten-minute intervals
+throughout the night, to bend over him and make sure that he was still
+breathing.  He got up softly, and slipped out for his bath; somewhat
+embarrassed, on his return, by the necessity for hunting out fresh
+clothing in his own cabin--though he had long ceased to have any fear
+of waking Mr. Warner, which, indeed, was a task beyond the average
+small boy.  He managed to get dressed at last, and went up on deck.
+
+A steward gave him tea, and asked feelingly "how he was keeping?"  A
+quarter-master came over to him and inquired, "All right, this morning,
+after your swim?"  The third officer, very busy with landing
+preparations, tossed him a greeting across the deck, and asked if he
+thought the water would be nice for bathing.  Dick began to feel rather
+hot, and moved away to another part of the deck, where there might be
+people who had failed to notice yesterday's adventure.  There, however,
+he met the captain, who patted him on the head, and said, "Good kid;
+where did you pick up high diving?" and just after he had escaped from
+this encounter, who should come along, stately and tall, but the
+Bishop's wife, who made a kind of run at him, grasped his hands, and
+said, "My child, how can we express our feelings of gratitude and
+admiration?" which so terrified Dick that he broke away without
+ceremony, and, muttering something incoherent, fled as he would never
+have fled from the most infuriated bullock.  He went round a deck house
+at a run, and cannoned into Merle Warner, who scowled and said, exactly
+as she had said on the first morning at sea, "Can't you look where
+you're going, silly?"
+
+Dick burst out laughing.
+
+"I wish you'd say that again," he said.
+
+"Why?" demanded Merle, blankly.
+
+"'Cause it sounded quite decent.  Everybody else on this blessed ship
+is talking such bosh!"
+
+"What sort of bosh?"
+
+Dick turned red.
+
+"Oh, nothing," he said.  There was a moment's pause, and then Merle
+flushed in her turn.
+
+"I say--thanks for goin' in after Bobby," she said awkwardly.
+
+Dick gave a kind of howl of disgust.
+
+"Oh, you, too!" he cried.  "I say, do chuck it.  If you knew how sick I
+am of hearing about it!"
+
+"Oh, all right," said Merle, plainly comprehending this point of view,
+and relieved to find that no more politeness was expected of her.
+Somewhat to her surprise, however, she found herself making further
+conversation:
+
+"You glad we're gettin' in to-day?"
+
+"Oh, rather!"  Dick's face suddenly lit up.  "I like the ship--but I'm
+awfully keen to see father."
+
+"Whose father?"
+
+"Mine, of course.  He's coming out from England--we're going to meet
+him at Fremantle."
+
+"Oh, I didn't know," Merle said.  "Has he been long away?
+
+"Over a year," Dick said.  "Seems about ten."
+
+"A year!"  Merle's eyes grew round.  Life without a father seemed an
+impossible thing.
+
+"'M," Dick nodded.  "It's been jolly nice to be with your father on
+this ship.  A fellow misses his father a bit, I can tell you."
+
+"'Spect you do," Merle said.  "When's yours coming?"
+
+"To-morrow, some time, his boat gets in," Dick answered.  "He's on the
+_Ohio_."  His eyes were dancing; somehow, as Merle met their glance,
+she smiled in spite of herself.  "I guess mother and I will be on the
+old pier pretty early."
+
+There was a moment's pause, while they looked at each other like two
+awkward young puppies.
+
+"I better go an' see if mother wants me," Merle said at length.
+
+"Right oh!" Dick answered with alacrity.
+
+They parted with a glance that, at any rate, was semi-friendly.  Merle
+went away with a feeling that she had been, as usual, a pig.  She had
+been grudging her father, for a few days, to a boy who had not seen his
+own father for over a year--twelve whole months!  It was a bit low
+down.  And on top of this, he must go into the sea after Bobby, which
+made her feel more of a pig than ever, especially as he did not seem
+inclined to make a fuss about it.  Merle was accustomed to put an end
+to such uncomfortable thoughts by shrugging her shoulders and
+reflecting that, after all, no one expected her to be anything but a
+pig, so what did it matter?  But this time she found herself
+unexpectedly troubled about it.
+
+Dick made his way swiftly to the companion, in the vain hope of eluding
+his fellow-passengers.  But the ship was getting up for
+breakfast--everyone was coming on deck, or going along the alleyways in
+search of baths, and he met a string of inquiries, congratulations and
+compliments that reduced him to the lowest pitch of shy discomfort.
+The Bishop, extraordinarily human in pyjamas and a short dressing-gown,
+patted him on the back and said, "Feel all right, old man?" which was
+easier to bear than most of the greetings.  But the flappers fairly
+oozed over him, the men pumped his hand, while he tried vainly to edge
+past them, and Miss Simpson, holding him tightly by the arm, made him a
+speech, in which Dick vaguely recognised quotations from the prayer
+book.  He escaped, scarlet cheeked, and ran with his head down, darting
+round the corner towards his own cabin, and there ran into Mrs. Warner,
+who said nothing at all, but only looked at him piteously, with her
+mouth trembling, just as Bobby's had trembled the night before, and
+then put out her hands to him suddenly and kissed him.  Somehow, to his
+own astonishment, Dick did not mind it at all.  He found himself
+patting her very hard, and saying, "Never you mind, he's all right." He
+felt so terribly sorry for her that he forgot all about himself, and
+they went to breakfast with Mrs. Lester, while Mr. Warner remained with
+Bobby, whose legs were still refusing duty, though his appetite was
+unimpaired.
+
+Land was in sight--the coast of Western Australia, and there was much
+bustle of packing and preparing to leave the ship.
+
+"It isn't a very interesting-looking coast," Mrs. Warner said, looking
+at the low line of sandy hills.  "But I remember what it meant to me
+when I came back from two years in England when I was nineteen.  I had
+been desperately home sick all those two years, and when at last the
+homeward voyage was nearly over it almost seemed to kill me with joy.
+I couldn't sleep the night before, and I got up before dawn to see the
+land--it was like heaven, as it came slowly out of the mist.  West
+Australia!"
+
+"But you weren't a 'sand groper' yourself?" said the doctor.
+
+"Oh no; I was a Sydneysider.  But you don't worry about inter-state
+differences when you're coming home--Australia is all that matters."
+
+"I wonder if father's thinking that," Dick said.
+
+"Most certainly--as you're going to meet him at Fremantle!" said the
+doctor, laughing.  "Otherwise I fancy he'd be stretching out his neck
+towards Port Phillip Bay, and regarding anything between as an annoying
+interlude."
+
+"Well--that may be," admitted Mrs. Lester demurely.  "Come on, Dickie,
+we must finish our packing."
+
+The _Moondarra_ slipped quietly into Fremantle Harbour while they were
+still in their cabins; Dick's first intimation of the fact being a
+shadow across the port-hole as a yacht's tall masts slipped by,
+followed by the blackened smoke stack of a collier.  He jumped up on
+his bunk to peer out.  The land was very close; a confused jumble of
+uninteresting red-brick houses met his eyes, and a mass of shipping of
+all sorts and sizes.  The western sea gate of Australia is busy, but
+unbeautiful.  Dick remarked, "H'm--about up to Port Melbourne!" and got
+down again to finish locking a suit-case.
+
+"Can I help you, Dick?  We're nearly in."
+
+"Just finished, mother, thanks.  Did the steward strap up your trunks?"
+
+"He's doing them now.  Dick, I have been talking to Mr. Warner; they
+are going to an hotel in Perth, and he suggests that we should go there
+too; it is the best, he says."
+
+"Right oh, mother.  And where's Perth?"
+
+"What do I send you to school for?" demanded Mrs. Lester laughing.
+
+"Oh, I know it's on the Swan," said Dick, grinning in his turn.  "But
+is it far?"
+
+"Only a few miles.  Mr. Warner advises us to go up by motor."
+
+"That would be jolly!" Dick exclaimed.  "I say, mother--can we go to
+the Orient office and ask about father's boat?"
+
+"We'll go there at once," said Mrs. Lester.  "Dick, are you sure you
+feel all right?"
+
+"Right as pie," Dick answered, unpoetically.  "Don't you worry about
+me, old mother."  He got up, putting his arm into hers.  "Come on deck
+and see new things."
+
+There was not much new, save that anything is a change to eyes that for
+several days have seen nothing but sea and sky.  The _Moondarra_ was
+slowly warping into the wharf, amidst a mass of shipping.  A knot of
+interested people stood watching her come, some of them exchanging
+signals with her passengers; but the centre of attraction, ashore and
+afloat, was the big P. and O. liner that had passed them in the Bight.
+She was on the point of sailing, her gangways already drawn up; and a
+big crowd was watching her go.  Somewhere a band was playing "Auld Lang
+Syne"; the sweet notes came dreamily across the water.  Slowly she drew
+out from the pier.  There were confused sounds--shouts of farewell,
+cheering, long coo-ees shrilling a last Australian call.  Her wash set
+the _Moondarra_ rocking.
+
+"Isn't she splendid!" Dick breathed.
+
+She was very splendid, as she moved slowly out past the breakwater,
+fronting the wide sweep of western seas that tossed between her and the
+old world whither she was bound.  A German submarine was to send her to
+the bottom years later--without warning, leaving her freight of
+helpless souls to the mercy of an angry sea.  But the veil of the
+future was drawn yet: stately and secure, the great ship went out,
+scarcely rocking to the great ocean swells that rolled in to meet her.
+The cheering and the long cries of farewell died away.
+
+Simultaneously the gangway of the _Moondarra_ went down, and people
+poured on board, friends meeting passengers, hotel and motor touts,
+carriers, shipping agents.  Mr. Warner's deep voice boomed behind the
+Lesters.
+
+"Been looking for you," he said.  "Not in a hurry, are you?  It's
+pleasanter to wait until the first rush has gone.  Then I can get you a
+good car from an hotel if you like."
+
+Mrs. Lester thanked him, and they stood chatting until Merle arrived to
+say that Bobby was ready.  His father disappeared hastily, presently
+returning, carrying his small son, whose extremely cheerful face showed
+only amusement at being unable to walk.  Mrs. Warner followed.  They
+deposited Bobby in a deck-chair, and smiled down at him.
+
+"How are the legs now, Bobby?" Mrs. Lester
+
+"They's nearly all right, only they wobbles," said Bobby.  "Doctor says
+they'll stop wobbling to-morrow."  He grinned delightedly.  "I is just
+awful funny when I tries to walk!"
+
+"He is too," echoed his father, laughing.  "He'd make his fortune in a
+circus.  Bobby, man, do you see we're nearly home?"
+
+"'M," nodded Bobby.  "Where's the twinses?"
+
+"Oh, we'll get the twinses soon--Grannie has them."
+
+"And when do we go to own-truly home?"
+
+"In a few days.  Will you be glad, old son?"
+
+"Wather!" said Bobby.  "Micky's there!"
+
+"And when he gets on Micky's back nothing else in the world matters,"
+said his mother, with a half sigh.  "I sometimes wonder if either of
+the twinses will be domesticated--there's no sign of my two eldest
+being anything but stock riders!"
+
+The crowd on the ship had almost cleared away, swallowed up by motors
+and cabs, and the business of unloading cargo was beginning, with its
+rattle of cranes and winches.
+
+"Well there'll soon be too much noise here to be pleasant," said Mr.
+Warner.  "Are you ready, Mrs. Lester?  Shall I go after cars?"
+
+"Quite ready--my luggage is all on deck," she told him.
+
+"Then, come on, Dick, and we'll go car hunting."
+
+They went together down the gangway--there was a new stab of the old
+jealous pain in Merle's heart as she watched them go.  Mrs. Lester
+called her to her side with a question about Fremantle--her keen eyes
+had noticed the shadow on the little girl's face.
+
+"I am shockingly ignorant of this part of the world," she said,
+laughing.  "You are an old inhabitant, so you must tell me all about
+it"; and she kept her near, making her talk, until Merle had forgotten
+her troubles.
+
+Dick followed Mr. Lester along the wharf, and up a wide and dusty
+street, until they came to one rather wider and a little less dusty,
+where trams rattled and business seemed brisk.  There were big shops
+and fine buildings, and people moved about as though they had no time
+to dawdle.  There is always a kind of feverish activity about a city
+that lives by shipping.  Other places may doze sleepily between trains,
+waking now and then to send off or receive mails, but a seaport knows
+no time-table, and is busy all the time, as the big ships come and go,
+and the blue-clad sailors hurry along its streets.  So Perth lies
+dreamily on the borders of its wide river, and, but a few miles off,
+Fremantle, like a busy watchdog, never seems to rest.
+
+They found a garage that readily supplied Mr. Warner with two cars, in
+one of which they were soon back at the _Moondarra_, where they found
+the others waiting on the wharf.  Carriers had taken their heavier
+luggage; lighter effects were quickly packed in, and presently they
+were gliding along a well-kept road, where sparse gum trees fringed
+bungalow houses set in gardens flaming with many unfamiliar flowers.
+The motors made short work of the distance; soon they could see the
+buildings of Perth, and then a gleam of silver, and a turn in the road
+brought them out beside the Swan, a wide, shining expanse, dotted with
+the white sails of many little yachts.  Dick uttered a delighted
+whistle.
+
+"I say!  Did you know it was such a big river, mother?"
+
+"No, I didn't," admitted his mother.  "Why it is almost a lake!  What
+an ideal place for yachting!"
+
+Perth seemed to think so, for the boats were legion; fairy-like yachts,
+little rowing skiffs, motor-boats chugging across the rippled surface,
+and even canoes, their broad paddles flashing in the sunlight as they
+dipped and fell.  Boat-houses were thick along the banks: here and
+there the big buildings of yachting clubs, with wide verandahs and
+balconies overhanging the water.  All the river was full of the stir of
+moving boats.
+
+"I think this is a jolly place," Dick pronounced, solemnly.
+
+The car turned from the river and ran along a wide, tree-fringed road,
+and in a moment they were in the heart of Perth itself, winding in and
+out of the traffic until they stopped before a big hotel.  Mr. Warner
+was before them.  Their rooms were already engaged, and a boy in
+buttons took them up and brought their luggage.  Dick was kneeling on
+the floor in his mother's room unstrapping her dressing-case, when a
+knock came to the door.  Mrs. Lester opened it.
+
+Mr. Warner stood there, his enormous bulk seeming to fill the corridor.
+
+"I ran out to the Orient office, it's no distance from here," he said,
+beaming at them.  "The _Ohio_ comes in at ten o'clock to-morrow
+morning.  And there's a wireless for you!"
+
+He held out a thin brown envelope.  Then he was gone, and the door
+shut, and Mrs. Lester was tearing at the envelope with fingers that
+shook.
+
+"All well.  Love to you both."
+
+"Dickie!" she said, catching at the boy; "Dickie."  They clung together
+for a moment, and the flimsy paper that was like a dear voice speaking
+after twelve months of silence fluttered to the ground between them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE "OHIO" COMES IN.
+
+Dick Lester and his mother never had any very clear idea of how they
+passed that day in Perth.  Lunch filled up an hour; then they took a
+hansom and drove to the beautiful public gardens, and wandered about
+them, and at intervals took out their precious wireless and read it
+again, as if expecting to find some new remark tucked in among its six
+brief words.  In the evening Mr. Warner took them to a theatre--Mrs.
+Warner declining to be again separated from the twinses.  Presumably it
+was a good play, for Mr. Warner and Merle seemed to enjoy it, but
+neither Mrs. Lester nor Dick could have told you what it was about.
+The wireless also went to the theatre, in Dick's pocket.  He had asked
+his mother if he might keep it.
+
+"Rather a curio, when you've never seen a wireless before, you see," he
+explained, in an elaborately off-hand manner.  Mrs. Lester had nodded
+comprehendingly, a little sad at heart, for she would certainly have
+liked to keep it herself.  Dick went to bed, declaring that he could
+not sleep; his eyes so bright that Mrs. Lester was half afraid that his
+belief was true, but when, half an hour later, she peeped into his room
+he was lying peacefully with his head on his arm, already far away in
+the land of dreams.  She sat down in a chair near his open window,
+feeling the need of companionship, if only that of a sleeping little
+son.  It was moonlight; from the high window she could catch a glimpse
+of the river, a streak of silver.  Beyond it her mind flashed out to
+sea, where a great ship ploughed landwards, and on its deck a man paced
+up and down, gripping his pipe in his teeth, and striving with his mind
+to bridge the few miles that yet lay between him and his dear ones.
+Possibly he succeeded, for thoughts often fly further than we know.
+After an hour Mrs. Lester's wakefulness left her, and she stole to bed,
+drowsy and content.
+
+Breakfast in the morning was a scramble, for they woke late, and were
+both quite unable to think of anything so ordinary as food.  Dick put
+salt into his tea and sugar on his fish, and would probably have
+consumed both without noticing anything amiss had not the waiter
+intervened in horror.  Mr. Warner ordered a car for them, and very soon
+they were flying down the road, that seemed oddly familiar.  It was
+early; but then, as Dick said, the _Ohio_ might be early too.  Dick was
+not acquainted with the clock-work methods of mail steamers.  He dashed
+breathlessly on to the wharf at Fremantle to ask if the _Ohio_ were in,
+and was met with bored surprise by a man in a blue jersey, who said,
+"The _Ohio_?  But she don't come in till ten"--much as a railway porter
+might answer if you demanded the Sydney express an hour too soon.  Dick
+returned ruefully to the car.
+
+"No sign of her, mother.  It really will be ten o'clock."
+
+"I was afraid so," said his mother, laughing, while the chauffeur
+grinned broadly.  "Jump in and we'll go for a spin while we wait."
+
+Dick would have preferred to stay on the wharf, straining his eyes to
+the horizon.  But he obeyed, and they went careering over strange roads
+that neither saw, though the sense of swift motion helped them in a
+measure.  Still, it was a relief when at length the car turned, and
+again they spun towards the pier.  The chauffeur had judged his time
+well; the wharf was crowded now, and, just beyond the breakwater, a
+great ship loomed through a little drifting mist.
+
+"That's her," said the chauffeur, half-turning.  "Steady--it'll take
+her a quarter of an hour to get aside yet."  This to Dick, who was
+wrestling with a stiff door-handle before the car could stop.
+
+They edged through the throng on the pier to where a dock-hand told
+them the mail steamer's gangway would come down.  She was close in now,
+they could see sailors on board getting the great gangway ready.  The
+passengers were crowding along every yard of the deck railing; it was
+impossible to pick out one face amidst the mass, no matter how hard
+they might strain their eyes.  Everywhere, people were waving to their
+friends ashore, shouting, coo-eeing; Dick coo-ee'd too, but with a kind
+of helpless irritation at being unable to see the only face that
+mattered.  The minutes dragged on, while the ship edged her way in,
+yard by yard; and still they scanned her decks in vain.
+
+"Oh, mother, isn't it awful?"  Dick's voice had a quiver in it.  "Do
+you think he's really there?"
+
+"Of course he's there, son."  The voice was little more than a whisper.
+
+Suddenly, and together, they saw him.  The crowd was densest on the
+deck near the gangway, but he must have taken up his position very
+early, for he was in front of everyone, talking to the officer in
+charge of the landing operations.  He towered over the other people;
+six foot three of lean, muscular activity, with a clean-shaven face,
+bronzed and keen.  Dick heard his mother catch her breath, and he
+slipped his hand through her arm.  Then, as if their upward gaze drew
+him, John Lester turned and looked down, straight into their eyes.  His
+cap was pulled low on his brow, but they saw the sudden light that
+sprang into his face--the quick smile that was a caress, singling them
+out from the crowd.  He took off his cap with a swift movement, and
+stood bareheaded, his eyes never moving from his wife and son.  So they
+stood, until, with a rattle, the gangway came down--and while it still
+shook from the impact, John Lester ran down it lightly, the first man
+to leave the _Ohio_.  He put an arm round them both, hustling them
+gently towards the gangway.
+
+"Come up," he said, a little breathlessly.  "I've squared the man on
+top."
+
+The officer greeted them with a smile as they mounted--it was against
+rules, but John Lester had a way of getting what he wanted.  He edged a
+way for them through the crowding passengers with courteous little
+apologies; somehow they found themselves in the clear space behind the
+throng, hurrying along the deck--and in a moment they were in a
+single-berth deck-cabin, and the door was shut, and he was holding them
+as if he could never let them go.
+
+"A year!" he said.  "Well, don't let either of you think you're ever
+going to get rid of me again!"  He scanned his wife deliberately.
+
+"A bit thin, I think," he said.  "But you haven't let her get any
+older, Dick.  She hasn't grown up yet."
+
+"Not she!" said Dick.
+
+"To read her letters you might almost think she had--sometimes.  I used
+to be a little anxious about it.  I wouldn't know her if she grew up!"
+His arm tightened round her, and the keen eyes turned to Dick, dwelling
+on the well-knit, active figure.
+
+"It's you who have done the growing up, old son," he said.  "I left a
+little kiddie--but you aren't that now.  Is he too big to be hugged, do
+you think, mother?"
+
+"He's not!" said Dick, and proved that he was not.
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Mr. Lester, with a great sigh.  He sat
+down on the sofa, and drew one down on each side, holding them closely.
+The time flew by unheeded; they talked, more or less incoherently,
+occasionally falling into silence that was as satisfying as talk, since
+they were together again.
+
+A tap came to the door an hour later--a steward, with telegrams.  Mr.
+Lester glanced over them.
+
+"Just greetings," he said.  "I must answer them, though.  Dick, can you
+find a telegraph office here?"
+
+"Rather," said Dick.  "I can go in the car."
+
+"Good gracious!" said his mother, faintly.  "I forgot the car!"
+
+"What--have you one waiting?  Well, it's a nice day for it!" said her
+husband placidly.  He was scribbling answers.  "Here you are, old chap,
+and here's the money.  Sure you can manage?"
+
+"Of course he can," said Mrs. Lester.  "Hasn't he been looking after me
+ever since you went away?"
+
+"I'll take up my job again," he said, as the door closed behind Dick.
+
+The chauffeur welcomed the boy with some relief.
+
+"Thought you were never comin'," he remarked.  "Well, did 'e get here
+all right?"
+
+"Rather!" Dick answered.
+
+"So I should think, by your face," quoth the chauffeur.  "Beamin's no
+name for it.  Well, where to now?"
+
+"Telegraph office," said Dick, getting in beside him.  They whirred up
+through the busy streets, while the chauffeur discoursed learnedly on
+the ways of motors, in terms which were Greek to Dick though he tried
+to conceal the fact.  He tried once to divert the conversation to
+horses, but the chauffeur said loftily, "Oh, 'orses is out of date,
+unless it's on a racecourse!"--which made Dick gasp with disgust.
+
+"I'd sooner have my Tinker than all your jolly old cars!" said he.  To
+which the chauffeur responded, "Oh, you'll grow out of that!" in a
+manner so intensely superior that Dick writhed beneath it.  He was glad
+when they reached the telegraph office, and he could dash in and write
+out his telegrams.  There were dozens of other people on the same
+errand, most of them from the mail steamer.  Dick had to wait his turn,
+and, as he was a slow writer, it was some time before he could finish;
+after which a very fat lady blocked him at the counter until he was
+almost dancing with impatience.  He got through at last, and hurried
+the chauffeur back to the wharf.
+
+His father and mother did not seem to notice that he had been long
+away.  They were still sitting together on the sofa.  John Lester
+looked at his son with a glance at once tender and proud.
+
+"Come here, old chap," he said.  He put his hand on Dick's shoulder,
+gripping it tightly.
+
+"Mother has been telling me," he said, and stopped; something seemed to
+make speech not easy.  "About your swim after that small boy.  I'm
+proud of my son, Dick."
+
+Dick reddened furiously.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't anything," he mumbled.  "A chap couldn't see the poor
+kid go in, and not go after him."
+
+"No, of course you couldn't.  Still I'm glad you thought quickly--and
+moved quickly.  Was it very cold?
+
+"Oh, beastly!" said Dick, with a reminiscent shiver.  "You couldn't
+imagine how cold, father!  I didn't seem to be able to kick or do
+anything, after the first minute.  I thought I could just swim back to
+the ship with him, as easy as wink, but my word, I couldn't!"
+
+"A good thing you didn't have to try," said John Lester, his grip on
+Dick's shoulder tightening.  "Well, all's well that ends well, anyhow.
+Now how about getting up to Perth?"
+
+Dick hesitated.
+
+"Could I have a look round the ship first, father?"
+
+"Why, of course you can.  Come along."
+
+They explored the great mail steamer thoroughly--meeting, on their
+tour, the captain himself, who took them over his quarters and up on
+the towering bridge.  Behind Dick's back he asked Mr. Lester in an
+undertone:
+
+"Is that the small boy who's been diving off the _Moondarra_?"
+
+"Yes, that's the culprit," Mr. Lester answered in some surprise.  "How
+did you know?"
+
+"Why, there's half a column about him in the Perth morning papers."
+
+"Good gracious!" ejaculated Mr. Lester.  "I trust he won't hear about
+it."
+
+"Well, you ought to be proud," said the captain severely.  "If I had a
+kid like that----"
+
+"I'm proud enough," said John Lester.  "But I don't make a song about
+it to Dick.  He takes it as the most ordinary thing--only beastly
+cold!"  He shuddered.  "Good Lord--when I think how nearly I might
+never have seen him again!"
+
+"Yes," said the captain, staring at Dick.  "Great kid.  Rough on his
+mother, too--paper said she was looking on."  He opened a cupboard and
+solemnly presented Dick with a little ebony elephant.  "There's an
+Indian beastie, for luck," he said.  "You can teach him to swim----" At
+which Dick turned scarlet, and fled, cutting short his thanks.  He had
+hoped to leave such annoying reminders on the _Moondarra_.
+
+But there was a more substantial reminder in store for him that night,
+when he was dressing for dinner in the hotel.  A tap on his door
+heralded Bobby Warner, very pink and important, bearing a little parcel.
+
+"Daddy said I was to give you this myself," he said.  "And he and mummy
+send veir love wiv it, cause you jumped into the water after me.  I
+say, can I open ve parcel for you?  I does love opening parcels!"
+
+"Right oh!" said the puzzled Dick, vigorously towelling his face and
+head.
+
+"It's a tick-tick, but you has to be vewy sp'rised," explained Bobby,
+kindly, fumbling with the string.  "I fink I ought to have one, too,
+'cause I was in the water wiv you.  Oo-oh, it's tumbled!"
+
+It had, but no further than the hearthrug on which he was sitting.
+Dick, who had had a vague idea that the small boy was carrying sweets,
+suddenly made a jump towards a little glittering heap that had slipped
+from its white tissue paper A beautiful gold watch and chain--no boy's
+watch but a man's; inside the hunting case his own name, with a brief
+inscription:
+
+  "To remember the _Moondarra_."
+
+The date followed, and the Warners' initials.  Dick stared at it
+blankly.
+
+"It's a pwetty tick-tick, isn't it?" Bobby remarked, placidly.  "Daddy
+has one like it, only ve twinses gave it to ve goat.  I wouldn't let
+vem have yours, if I was you."
+
+"I say, they oughtn't to," murmured Dick, still blankly looking at the
+watch.  He did not refer to the twinses, but Bobby was satisfied.
+
+"Vat's what daddy said when he got his back from ye goat," he remarked.
+"She had nearly etted it--it's all funny wiv her toof marks now.
+Where's you goin', Dick?"
+
+Dick had plunged out into the hall in his shirt-sleeves, his wet hair
+standing on end, the watch and chain in his hand.  There he ran into
+Mr. Warner, whose memories of the twinses' methods with watches
+possibly made him a little anxious at having made Bobby a messenger.
+
+"I say, sir, you shouldn't!" blurted Dick miserably.
+
+"Shouldn't what?"
+
+"This."  Dick held out the watch, looking very much as if he had
+received a beating.  "I--I didn't do anything."
+
+"Well, you can look at it that way if you like, old man," said Bobby's
+father.  "I look at it another--it seems to me I'd have no Bobby
+to-night but for you.  And I have a value for Bobby.  Don't you worry,
+anyhow.  Just remember that you spoiled a good suit of clothes on his
+account, and got jolly wet and cold; and that we're goin' to be good
+friends always."  He patted Dick's wet head, reassuringly.  "I say,
+what about this father of yours?  Am I going to meet him?"
+
+"Rather!" said Dick.  "He's in his room.  I ought to be getting ready,
+I suppose."
+
+"I'll come with you and rescue Bobby," said Mr. Warner.
+
+They found Bobby gloriously happy over the forbidden joy of Dick's
+pocket knife, and presently, leaving him with the twinses and their
+nurse, went downstairs together.  At the foot of the staircase stood
+John Lester, smoking.  Dick's confused introduction was scarcely
+necessary.  The two men gripped hands over his head.
+
+"I owe your boy a heap," Mr. Warner said.
+
+"I'm glad he was handy," Dick's father answered.
+
+Which was all that either said upon the matter.  Instead, they talked
+stock and station, crops and weather, horses and dogs; all the bush
+talk of Australia, from which John Lester had been exiled.  The talk
+began in the hall before dinner--they sat at adjoining tables, and
+continued in the lounge afterwards.  Dick sat near, blissfully content;
+it was the talk that he, too, loved to hear, and Mrs. Lester lay back
+in a great easy-chair, watching her husband's face.  It lit up
+wonderfully when he talked; he leaned forward, asking eager questions,
+drinking in the other man's slow speech.  After a time he turned to
+Mrs. Warner, apologetically.
+
+"I shouldn't let you in for so much 'shop,' should I?"  His smile was
+as boyish as Dick's.  "But you have no idea what it means to hear
+Australian talk again.  I haven't enjoyed anything so much for ages."
+
+"You are very glad to be back?"
+
+"Glad!"  He gave an expressive shrug of his broad shoulders.  "Well, I
+knew I was homesick, but I didn't know how badly until I got here."
+
+"He has lain flat on the grass in the wildest corner of the gardens all
+the afternoon, looking at the gum trees," Mrs. Lester said, laughing.
+
+"So would you, if you hadn't seen one for a year."  His eyes dwelt on
+her tenderly.  "Of course, I did see blue gums now and then; they grow
+them in big gardens--funny leggy things, that never look quite healthy
+or quite right, somehow.  They let them get too tall and spindly, and
+then the winter gales break them to pieces.  I used to preach the
+advantages of lopping their tops when young, but the English can't
+bring themselves to do it.  It's good to come back and see the old
+things growing as they were meant to grow."
+
+"So Australia is still good enough for you?" Mr. Warner asked.
+
+"Quite good enough.  I'll go back some day, and take my wife and Dick;
+I want to show them everything on the other side--and possibly then I
+shan't be so homesick.  But we'll come back again.  And I don't want to
+think of starting for a very long while!"
+
+He finished with a little smile at his wife.
+
+"You don't know the West?" Mr. Warner said.
+
+"No--not at all.  I've only passed through on my way to England."
+
+"Well, look here----"  Mr. Warner leaned forward eagerly.  "My wife and
+I were thinking how delightful it would be for us if you three would
+come up with us to Narrung Downs.  We could show you some unfamiliar
+country--the wild flowers should be at their best now, Mrs. Lester--and
+I think you'd be interested in the working of a Western place.  There
+are some fairly decent horses that Dick might try.  What do you think
+of our plan?"
+
+John Lester hesitated, looking at his wife.
+
+"It sounds delightful--many thanks," he said.  "But I don't know about
+inflicting such a party upon you."
+
+"Oh--!"  Mrs. Warner brushed this aside.  "We have such a barrack of a
+house; and servants of a kind, even if they are mostly blacks.  We know
+you would make allowances for the shortcomings of the bush, wouldn't
+you, Mrs. Lester?"
+
+"I don't think they would exist for me," Mrs. Lester said.  "It's a
+lovely plan, Mrs. Warner; I don't know how to thank you."
+
+"Would you like to come up into the back country, Dick?" inquired Mr.
+Warner.
+
+Dick's eyes were round.
+
+"My word, wouldn't I!" he uttered.  Everyone laughed.
+
+"Well, think it over," Mr. Warner said.  "We don't leave for three
+days; that would give you time to look round Perth and the country near
+here.  We shall be more than pleased if we can take you back with us."
+They drifted away, murmuring something about writing letters.
+
+"What do you think, Jean?  Shall we go?"
+
+Mrs. Lester smiled up at her husband.
+
+"You must decide," she said.  "I'm just like an absolutely contented
+and placid old cow at the moment----"
+
+"I never saw you look less like anything," he said.  "Go on, however."
+
+"But I am, John.  I have everything I want in the world; you aren't in
+England, and Dick isn't drowned, and nothing can possibly matter.
+Whereever we may be doesn't seem to signify in the least.  Would you
+like to go?"
+
+"Yes; I think so," he said.  "They're nice people, and it would be good
+experience for the boy.  You'd like it, Dick?"
+
+"I think it would be ripping, father," said Dick eagerly.  "After all,
+once we get back to Victoria we'll be a long time there, won't we?"
+
+"That's a highly philosophic remark," said his father, laughing.  "All
+right, old son; we'll go."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE JOURNEY NORTH.
+
+After all, they did not go north with the Warners.  Mrs. Lester's
+housewifely soul realised that am woman who had been away for six weeks
+from a home principally staffed with black servants would prefer to be
+without guests for at least a few days after her return, and
+accordingly it was arranged that they should follow Mr. Warner's party
+within the week.
+
+The plan suited the Lesters very well.  They were, as Dick's mother
+said, in a state of absolute content at being together again.  It was
+delightful enough to explore Perth, to go yachting on the Swan with a
+friend of Mr. Warner's who had a beautiful little cutter; to take a
+motor-boat for the day, exploring up the river, or to go out into the
+country in a car.  Wherever they went they only seemed to want to talk.
+There was so much to tell and to hear; so many details of the long
+separation to remember, to discuss, to laugh over.  Dick's memory of
+that first happy week was that they seemed to have laughed all the time.
+
+The Warners left in a huge motor, heaped confusedly with luggage and
+passengers, the twinses occupying precarious positions whenever they
+could escape from their mother's anxious eye.
+
+"See you next week!" shouted Mr. Warner.
+
+"Be sure you bring some rough clothes!" was Mrs. Warner's farewell, as
+she clutched at a twin who threatened to dive over the wheel.  "Thick
+boots, mind!"
+
+"Mind you come, old Dick!"  This from Bobby.
+
+Only Merle said nothing.  She sat beside her father, looking stiffly
+ahead, as the car slowly slid away from the little group on the hotel
+steps.
+
+"I don't see why they want to come," she had said to her father.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  I hate visitors."
+
+"I suppose you'll get sense some day," was all Mr. Warner's rejoinder.
+He did not know that the curt remark hit her more sharply than a whole
+volume of remonstrance.
+
+Merle was the one fly in the ointment in Dick's cheerful anticipations
+of his visit to the Warners' station.  On the _Moondarra_ and in the
+hotel it had been easy enough to avoid being much with her, since she
+so clearly showed that she did not desire his company; but in her own
+home it would be different.  They were too near in age, and too similar
+in tastes, not to be thrown together.  That in itself was painful
+enough, since girls, to Dick, were rather boring creatures, full of
+queer whims and notions--not plain, straightforward people like Teddy
+Raine and Bottles and Nugent.  But a girl who would not even take the
+trouble to be civil--that, in Dick's language, was "over the odds."  He
+hoped that her governess would make regular demands upon her time, and
+grinned to think what would have been Merle's opinion of him, had she
+guessed at that particular hope.
+
+However, life was too joyful at the moment to allow him to worry over
+Merle's whims.  He began each day with a walk before breakfast with his
+father; long, brisk walks outside Perth, and long talks that bridged
+the year of silence that lay behind them.  They swung along together,
+Dick rejoicing that he could now keep in step with his father--a year
+ago he had to jog if Mr. Lester lengthened his stride; and the father
+noting the development of his boy's mind as well as of his body, and
+meeting his questions and his crudely expressed views with a ready
+sympathy that knitted them more closely together than anything else
+could have done.
+
+"He's only a baby yet, of course," John Lester said to his wife.  "His
+mind is clean and open and honest; just a child's mind still.  But his
+body--well, he's going to be something of a man, I believe."
+
+"He is, I think," agreed Dick's mother.  "And so good looking, John!"
+
+"Oh, that!"  He laughed down at her.  "You women only think about
+handsome faces!"
+
+"Indeed, I don't," Mrs. Lester defended herself.  "I've been just as
+keen about his physical training as you have.  I wanted him to be
+strong first of all.  But he might have been strong and ugly--and he
+isn't.  And you're just as proud of it as I am!"
+
+"Well--perhaps."  He smiled down at her.  "But physique comes first;
+and he certainly has that.  His muscles are extraordinarily good for
+such a kid."
+
+"Fresh air and cold water," said Mrs. Lester solemnly.  "That has been
+Dick's treatment since he was a baby, and it certainly has paid.  He
+hardly knows what medicine is, and he looks the very picture of
+strength and fitness."
+
+"Thank God!" said her husband hastily.
+
+"Yes, thank God," she agreed.  "Why do you say it in that way, John?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know."  He gave a short, half-embarrassed laugh.  "They
+say in Ireland that if you don't add 'Thank God' after you praise
+anyone it brings bad luck.  The peasantry there never omit it; you'll
+hear, ''Tis a fine child, thank God!' or 'She have lovely eyes, thank
+God!'--and you'll worry a peasant woman badly if you admire her baby
+without giving God the credit.  I got into the way of it, I suppose."
+
+"Well, it's a pretty good habit to cultivate," said his wife
+thoughtfully.  "Look at Dick now!"
+
+They had motored far out into the country, and had camped in the bush
+for lunch; after which Dick had stripped to his shirt and
+knickerbockers, and had begun to climb trees.  Nine months of hard
+training in the gymnasium at school had put a finish on lifelong
+practice, a steady eye and a cool head.  Dick had always loved
+climbing--before he had discarded frocks for knickerbockers he had been
+found by his horrified nurse some distance up a pepper tree.  Now he
+was almost like a monkey in the swift agility of his movements.  As his
+father and mother watched him, he swung himself cleanly across a wide
+gap between two trees; caught a bough with one hand, and came dropping
+down from branch to branch until he reached one about ten feet from the
+ground--a smooth, straight limb, that tempted him with its likeness to
+a horizontal bar.  He swung head downwards, hanging by his knees, and
+then circled round and round with such swiftness that the slender bough
+bent and quivered.  Finally, he turned a quick somersault in the air
+and came down on the grass, landing lightly on his feet.
+
+"Good man!" said his father approvingly.  "It's a pity that the
+gentleman who derived us all from tree-apes couldn't see you.  You'd
+have been great support to his theory."
+
+Dick grinned.
+
+"Can't climb decently in boots," he said, casting a disparaging glance
+at his feet.  "But it's jolly to get up a tree again."
+
+"No trees at school?"
+
+"Oh, some," admitted Dick.  "We're not supposed to climb them, of
+course, but----"  He grinned again.  "But, anyhow, they're not like
+good bush trees, like these.  I don't suppose anyone ever climbed here
+much, but the trees at school--well, they're just polished with
+climbing!"
+
+"Being a forbidden luxury," said his father, laughing.  "Well, I think
+I was one of the early polishers of those same trees, so I can't say
+anything to you."
+
+"But you never do jaw a chap, father," said Dick comfortably.
+
+That was one of the points that made their early morning walks so
+satisfactory--that there was never any "jawing."  John Lester
+encouraged his boy to tell him each little detail of his life at
+school.  He learned all about his friends--Teddy Raine, the captain of
+the junior eleven, who was easily the leader of the lower school;
+Bottles, fat and cheery and honest, whom everybody liked; Nugent, the
+homeless boy, with a father in India and no mother; these were the
+chief, but there were a host of others.  Mr. Lester knew them all
+fairly well now.  He learned about their scrapes and their pranks,
+their midnight suppers, half-holiday escapades, and--not in such
+details--their schoolroom life.  Dick was a little shy of talking at
+first; but, finding only ready sympathy and interest, his tongue became
+loosened, and he chattered away as freely as he would to the
+irrepressible Teddy Raine.  Mr. Lester never preached.  His eye
+generally held a twinkle; his sharpest criticism was, once or twice, "I
+don't know that that's altogether the thing."  There the matter ended,
+for him; but Dick made up his mind that the incidents in question
+should not happen again.
+
+They would come back to breakfast; glowing and hungry, and make a raid
+on Mrs. Lester in her room, declaring that she was the laziest person
+alive, and did not know how much she missed; at which Mrs. Lester
+smiled quietly, and would go down to breakfast arm in arm between them.
+Not for worlds would she have made a third--even a beloved third--in
+those walks.  Dick had lived in her pocket long enough; it was his turn
+for his father now, and she rejoiced in each day's new evidence of how
+completely they were becoming mates.
+
+They visited the great limestone caverns at Yallingup, making a three
+days' expedition of it, and coming back to Perth full of the weird
+charm of the glistening underground world.  At the hotel they found a
+two-days' old telegram from Mr. Warner.
+
+
+    "Can you start Thursday obliged to take car Westown with sick
+    governess like meet you same trip don't worry if inconvenient can
+    arrange anything suit you had good trip up."
+
+
+Mr. Lester glanced at the date.
+
+"H'm; and Thursday is to-morrow.  The train starts at five o'clock."
+
+"In the morning?" gasped Mrs. Lester.
+
+"Oh, no--don't be anxious!"  He laughed at her.  "Five in the
+afternoon; and we get to Kalgoorlie at ten next morning."
+
+"And after that?"
+
+"After that a little train that wobbles north to Westown at its own
+sweet will, I suppose," said her husband.  "I don't know anything about
+it; but it's believed to put us off at Westown some time in the
+afternoon, and Warner will be there with his car.  We must go, if
+possible.  I don't want to give him the long journey in from Narrung
+Downs again."
+
+"Oh, we couldn't do that, of course," said Mrs. Lester hastily.  "And
+there is no reason why we should not get away to-morrow."
+
+"No more shopping?" asked he, smiling down at her.
+
+"Of course, there's always shopping!" returned his wife with dignity.
+"But not more than we can get through to-morrow.  Oh, and the packing I
+must do!  Don't let me think of that to-night, John--take us to the
+theatre instead!"
+
+"Indeed, I think it would be wiser if you went early to bed and had a
+good night's sleep," he said.  "Was there ever such an irresponsible
+young person!"
+
+"Don't want to be responsible!" said she.  "I'm having a holiday.  If
+you telephoned for seats, now----"
+
+"You know you'll have to, father!" said Dick, capering.  "Better give
+in nicely."
+
+"This is what it is to be meek--you get systematically bullied!" said
+his father, with mock despair.  "All right; I suppose I shan't get any
+peace if I don't."  He departed whistling.
+
+"Mother, it is nice of you not to grow up!" said Dick solemnly.
+
+They followed their last gay night in Perth by a busy day; there was a
+rushed visit to shops, collecting the last odds and ends of country kit
+that had seemed so unnecessary when packing in Melbourne--riding gear,
+chiefly, with thick boots and the cooler clothes that might be found
+necessary up North.  Then came packing, with much sorting out of
+luggage; most of their baggage was to be left at the hotel until their
+return.  They were glad to get into their train at five o'clock, and
+its jolting failed to keep them awake during the long night while it
+rattled into the north-east towards Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie.
+
+They breakfasted on the train, arriving at Kalgoorlie soon afterwards;
+and after a wait too short to allow them to do more than peep at the
+busy gold-fields capital they were off again, travelling slowly into
+the north.  Soon the mullock heaps and poppet heads of the mines
+thinned out and they found themselves running through country covered
+with sparse scrub, with mulga and saltbush mingling with stunted gum
+trees and she oaks; a dreary enough land, dry and desolate, where many
+a gold seeker had perished from thirst in the days when every yard of
+earth was turned up in the search for nuggets.  Now and then the train
+pulled up at a little township, built of weatherboard and corrugated
+iron, where the people crowded the narrow gravelled platform to look at
+the train and peer curiously in at the passengers.  It seemed to Dick
+that as they travelled farther and farther into the country these bush
+folk grew more and more lean and bronzed; tall men, in blue shirts and
+moleskin trousers, wrinkled about the eyes, as men grow early when they
+live in wild spaces under a hot sun; women, in faded blouses and skimpy
+skirts, with print sun-bonnets or men's felt half pulled down over
+their eyes.  Such lonely women!  They stood in the doorways of little
+isolated homesteads watching the train wistfully as it roared past
+them; generally with a baby tucked into one arm, and three or four
+older children playing near them, or perched on the railway fence,
+shouting greetings to the train.  Indeed, all through that lonely
+country, as the train sped north, came appealing shouts--from the
+isolated cottages, from children evidently sent a mile or two to be at
+the line when the train was due, or rising almost from under the
+wheels, from navvies working on the line.  Just one word--"Papers!
+Papers!"--and people would jump up, and sleeping travellers rouse
+themselves, to hurl newspapers and magazines from the windows.  Dick
+used to lean out to watch them flutter down like great white birds, to
+be pounced on by eager hands before they touched the ground.  It did
+not much matter who got them, for they were sure to be passed round and
+read by every family and every camp within five miles.
+
+Here and there, as they rattled over stony ridges or wide sandy plains,
+were mines; the big mullock heaps and towering poppet heads seemed to
+dot all the country.  Some were working still; others derelict; with
+hardy bushes trying to find a footing in every corner where men had
+toiled in the feverish hunt for gold.  Sometimes they saw long strings
+of camels slouching along in their sulky fashion, laden with wood for
+the mines; there were Afghans in charge of some of the teams, tall,
+dirty-looking natives, whose dark faces, under grimy turbans, scarcely
+turned to glance at the train.  Donkey teams came into view, hauling
+waggons along the sandy tracks; it was curious to watch them sneaking
+in and out of the sparse mulga scrub.
+
+The carriage grew hotter and hotter, and ever more full of dust.  There
+was a halt for a meal at a wayside station, where the food in the
+refreshment room also seemed to have acquired a liberal coating of
+dust, and the tea was stewed to an inky blackness.  Mrs. Lester fled
+from the meal, and lunched frugally on bananas, which, she remarked,
+were at least dust-proof.  Then they rattled on into country that
+became wilder and yet more sandy, until, about the middle of the
+afternoon, they found themselves standing on a rough gravel platform,
+surrounded by their luggage, while the train vanished in a belt of
+kurrajong trees.  A motor hooted outside, and in a moment Mr. Warner
+appeared, looking huger than ever in an enormous wide-awake hat, and
+very red-faced and hurried.
+
+"It's splendid to see you all--welcome to Out Back!"  He shook hands
+vigorously all round.  "Had a good trip?  But I needn't ask.  I've done
+it too often myself.  I was nearly late for you.  A dog insisted on
+trying to commit suicide under the car as I was coming from the hotel,
+and I had no end of trouble getting him out.  Wasn't hurt, only pretty
+badly frightened.  I don't think he'll choose a motor next time he
+feels tired of life.  Come along--we'll get your stuff loaded up, and
+then have a cup of tea at the hotel before we start.  I told them to
+have hot scones ready!"
+
+"Hot scones!" said Mrs. Lester faintly.  "It sounds too good to be
+true!"
+
+"I know that refreshment room on the way up," said Mr. Warner,
+laughing.  "You all look starved; however, we'll have you home in time
+for dinner.  Getting off here saves you two hours in the train.  Of
+course, it's a longer run in the car, but not so wearying."
+
+"And the governess?" asked Mrs. Lester.
+
+"Oh, poor soul, she's pretty bad.  The wife of the doctor here is her
+sister, and nothing would do but she must come to her.  I didn't think
+she was fit for the journey myself.  However, she wept until we had to
+let her go.  So Merle's at a loose end again, as far as education is
+concerned.  I've no doubt she'll find occupation enough."  He was
+scientifically fitting luggage on the steps of the car, and lashing it
+firmly.  "You people are wonders; I thought you'd have twice as much
+baggage as this.  Sure you haven't lost a trunk or two?"
+
+"Why, we were afraid you would have heart failure when you saw the
+amount we were bringing," said Mr. Lester, laughing.
+
+"Bless you, this is nothing; my wife's sister came up last year with
+three times as much for her lone self," Mr. Warner answered.  "We get
+accustomed to carrying luggage on the car in a way that would horrify a
+Melbourne or Sydney motorist.  I believe I'll come home some day with a
+few trunks perched on the bonnet.  There, that's all right."  He stood
+back, opening the door.  "Now, Mrs. Lester, I'm sure you're needing
+those hot scones!"
+
+The scones proved all that hungry travellers could wish, and twice they
+exhausted the hotel's largest teapot.  Mr. Warner hurried them over the
+meal, and soon they were in the car again, and the iron roofs of the
+little township a grey blur in the distance.  The road was good firm
+sand, with a few softer patches where bullock teams had cut up the
+surface; but on the whole they made good time over it, slipping through
+the scented scrub that bordered the track.  Wild flowers, unfamiliar
+and beautiful, gleamed among the trees in every clear patch; wild arums
+and asters and clumps of dwarf yellow cassia.  They passed a wide
+swamp, where red legs and sand pipers stalked among the sparse rushes
+on the edge, and further out pelicans swam lazily, with a host of
+lesser fowl.
+
+"Great shooting here," said Mr. Warner--"or would be if it were not for
+the blacks.  Any amount of teal and musk duck and wild geese.  But the
+blacks fairly live in the swamp when the birds are here."
+
+"Do they shoot them?" Dick asked.
+
+"Oh, no--they're not allowed guns.  But they're very useful with spears
+and throwing sticks; our blacks are fairly uncivilised, you see.  Later
+on I suppose they'll lose all their old darts and become utterly
+useless; that's what has happened in the eastern states."
+
+"Do you find them faithful?" asked Mr. Lester.
+
+"Well--sometimes.  You never can tell.  A woman or a boy may have every
+appearance of being thoroughly settled down, and of responding to
+training, and then some fine morning you find one 'gone bush'--back to
+the tribe.  Possibly you never see that one again; possibly he or she
+will turn up six months later, quite prepared to go back to work.  On
+the other hand, we have a few who have been for years with us.
+Children are their best tie; if they once become attached to your
+youngsters they're much less likely to go."
+
+He talked on, telling stories of the blacks and of the wild life of the
+early days, leaning back in his seat with one careless hand on the
+wheel, while the car seemed to find its own way along the noiseless
+sandy track.  The scattered farms that spread out a few miles from the
+township gave place to wide plains, partly covered with scrub, where
+only an occasional house was to be seen; and the road grew more and
+more lonely.  At first they had met buggies, bullock wagons, and one or
+two other motors, but after a time they seemed to be the only people on
+the plain, and it was almost a relief when they met a "sun-downer"
+slouching along under a heavy swag, his felt hat pulled low over his
+eyes, and a battered quart pot in his hand.  The sun sank lower and
+lower, and a keen breeze made the travellers glad to put on heavier
+coats.  It was almost dusk when they emerged from a dense belt of gum
+trees and saw ahead of them a fence, stretching apparently for miles
+east and west, and a gate that stood open, held by a solemn black boy.
+Mr. Warner nodded to him, and they swept through.  The track curved
+round a plantation of pines, and they saw a homestead so large that it
+looked like a village.  White-painted roofs gleamed among the trees,
+and scattered buildings fringed the main block until there seemed no
+end to them, while the tall, spidery outlines of windmills towered
+above the green.  The deep emerald of a lucerne paddock stretched down
+to a little creek.
+
+"I didn't know you could grow lucerne here," remarked Mr. Lester.  "In
+fact, I had a vague idea that nothing but sand and mulga really
+flourished in the West.  But your place doesn't suggest that!"
+
+"You can do a heap with irrigation," his host answered.  "Between the
+windmills and a hydraulic ram down at the creek I can get as much water
+as I want; and with water you can grow anything in this climate.  I'll
+show you all the place to-morrow."
+
+He gave a long coo-ee, bringing the car more slowly round a fence that
+bordered a great garden.  There seemed a dense crowd waiting for them:
+Mrs. Warner first, her kind face alight with welcome.  Merle beside
+her; close at hand the twinses, struggling against control; and then a
+few white faces amidst a mass of black ones, all striving to have a
+good look at the new arrivals.  The car came to a standstill, and
+suddenly Bobby hurtled through the throng and flung himself at the step.
+
+"Hallo, Dick!  Oh, I's so glad you came!"
+
+Willing hands, black and white, seized upon their luggage.  They
+drifted in through the gate, and found themselves on a very wide
+verandah, which completely surrounded a long, one-storied house, almost
+hidden by creepers.  The architecture of that house was simple.  It had
+begun by being two rooms, opening out of each other; than a room had
+been added at each end; then more, as need arose; until at last there
+were fourteen rooms, all in a long row, and all opening upon the
+verandahs.  Kitchen, storerooms and other offices had been built across
+a little space from the main building, and at a later date a wing had
+been thrown out connecting the two; and now the space was a great sandy
+courtyard, with shrubs and palms growing in enormous tubs, and seats
+scattered here and there.  The living rooms--dining and drawing rooms,
+Mrs. Warner's workroom, and a big man's "den" were in this new wing;
+the long side of the house was principally given up to bedrooms.  Mrs.
+Warner led them inside.  Two strapping black girls were putting trunks
+into a big airy bedroom.
+
+"This is your room, with the dressing-room opening from it.  Dick's is
+next door," she told them.  "Bobby, you take Dick to his room."
+
+Bobby tugged at his friend's hand.
+
+The room into which he ushered Dick was long and bright, with two
+little beds in opposite corners, and windows at each side.
+
+"Muvver said I wasn't to ask you somefing," Bobby began and hesitated.
+
+"How's that?" asked Dick.
+
+The small boy cast an appealing look at the second bed.
+
+"Vat's not your bed," he said.  "The uvver one has ve sheets and fings.
+Nobody sleeps in vat bed.  'Course, I could easy bwing up my sheets
+from my howwid silly bed in the nursewy, if----"
+
+He stopped, round-eyed.  "O-o-oh, I nearly wented and asked you, after
+all!"
+
+Dick laughed.
+
+"I believe you nearly did," he said.  "Better not, or mother might be
+cross with you.  I say, I'll ask you something instead.  How'd you like
+to come and sleep in this spare bed?  I'd rather like a mate!"
+
+Bobby was out like a flash.
+
+"Muvver!  Muvver!  Dick wants me to sleep in his room."
+
+Came Mrs. Warner's voice reproachfully:
+
+"Oh, Bobby, you asked!"
+
+"No, I didn't--I only nearly did.  True, mother!"
+
+"He really didn't, Mrs. Warner.  I asked him," said Dick, appearing.
+
+"And do you really want him, Dick?"
+
+"Oh, rather!"
+
+But Bobby waited for no more.  He fled down the verandah like a rabbit
+to its burrow, his voice coming faintly as he ran:
+
+"I'm goin' to ask Nanna--for--my--sheets--an'--fings!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+NARRUNG HOMESTEAD.
+
+"Merle!  Where are you?"
+
+"Here," said a sulky voice.
+
+"Make haste, then," said her father.  "I want you."
+
+Merle emerged from the shrubbery slowly.  The expression on her face
+was not inviting, but her father was too preoccupied to notice it.
+
+"Look after Dick, will you?" he said.  "A man is sick in one of the
+huts in the far paddocks, and Mr. Lester is going with me to have a
+look at him.  Show Dick round a bit and keep him entertained."
+
+Merle scowled.
+
+"Can't Bobby?" she asked.
+
+Her father stared at her.
+
+"You can't leave a boy of Dick's age to a kid like Bobby," he said.
+"Whatever is the matter with you?  One would think you would be only
+too glad of the chance of a mate.  Behave yourself, and remember the
+boy is our guest."
+
+A black boy called from the gate.
+
+"Horses ready, boss!"
+
+"All right.  Now, mind what I told you, Merle."  He strode away across
+the garden.
+
+Merle stood watching his retreating form, her heart seething with
+rebellion.  She had not wanted Dick; she did not like him.  Why should
+she be saddled with his entertainment?  She had kept out of the way the
+night before, and her absence had not been noticed in the excitement of
+their arrival.  To-day she had planned to climb up a favourite tree
+with a book and remain there until they were all out--she was sure her
+father meant to take them on a tour of the place.  To have this
+cheerful plan frustrated, and to find herself responsible for Dick, was
+a heavy blow.  She made her way inside, her scowl darker than ever.
+
+Dick was with his mother, watching Mrs. Warner ordering her household
+for the day.  Her cook was a middle-aged Scotchwoman, whose husband was
+storekeeper to the station; but all her other maids were black gins,
+and, with a native, nothing can be indefinite--orders have to be
+repeated daily, supplies doled out as they are needed, and only
+constant watchfulness ensures any comfort.  She was at the moment
+interviewing the laundress, a big lubra, whose scanty attire was
+already soaked from splashing in the tubs.
+
+"But I gave you plenty soap last night, Julia."
+
+Julia rolled her great eyes wildly.
+
+"Not this pfeller, missis.  Mine thinkit that very little picaninny
+soap you bin gib.  All bin tumble down (die) in water."
+
+"Havers!" broke in Mrs. Macleay, the housekeeper briskly.  "'Twas the
+usual quantity, and the wash no bigger than usual.  Julia, you bin give
+soap to that feller Ben."
+
+"No, no, missis, Julia no gib Ben good pfeller soap.  That Ben no
+good."  Julia's air of virtuous surprise and indignation was perfect.
+
+Mrs. Warner pondered, and then turned to a little girl.
+
+"Mary, you go and bring me Julia's bag."
+
+Julia heard the order unmoved--a circumstance that did not escape Mrs.
+Macleay's keen eye.  She slipped away, as the little girl, returning
+with the lubra's woven grass bag, tipped the contents out on the floor
+for Mrs. Warner's inspection.  There were a few lumps of sugar, half a
+stick of coarse tobacco, some string, a half-eaten chop, a cup handle
+and a strip of bright print.  But no soap.
+
+"I bin tell you truth, missis," said Julia smugly.  "Now, you gib it
+more soap?"
+
+Mrs. Warner hesitated.  Then came the whisk of Mrs. Macleay's starched
+skirt, and a large and capable hand deposited part of a bar of yellow
+soap on the table before her.
+
+"You bin no good, Julia," said Mrs. Macleay severely.  "Carefully
+planted under a tub of clothes, ma'am.  I know Julia."
+
+Julia's eyes rolled anew, and her lips parted in a childlike grin.
+
+"I bin put 'em there by mistake," she said airily.  "Mine thinkit you
+very good woman, Missis Mac."
+
+"I don't doubt it," said the Scotswoman dourly.  "Suppose you get on
+with the washing, Julia?"
+
+Julia grasped the soap and disappeared, while Mrs. Warner turned to her
+guest.
+
+"Julia's husband is very fond of soap."
+
+"Rather unusual in a black fellow, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Lester,
+laughing.
+
+"Quite.  He eats it."
+
+"Oh," said Mrs. Lester blankly.
+
+Mrs. Warner was attending to another case.  A tall young black answered
+to a call of "Jacky," and stood before her, looking sheepish.
+
+"Jacky," said Mrs. Warner sternly, "I bin give you Boss's washing to
+carry down to Julia, and one fellow pair of trousers gone.  You tell me
+what you do with 'em."
+
+"Mine gibit all that pfeller clothes to Julia, missis," said Jacky
+stolidly.  "Mine thinkit she steal 'em that pfeller t'ouser for Ben."
+
+Julia suddenly reappeared, with the briskness of a pantomime artist.
+
+"Nebber mine see that white pfeller t'ouser," she screamed angrily.  "I
+good lubra--nebber steal!" She paused and added a convincing proof.
+"Boss's t'ouser no good for Ben--he too big!"
+
+"And that's true," said Mrs. Macleay.  "What's more, ma'am, you sent
+four pairs down by Jacky and I counted them over to Julia, and there
+was only three."
+
+"What you done with 'em, Jacky?" Mrs. Warner asked severely.
+
+"Mine gibit all them things to Julia," reiterated Jacky.  "She no good."
+
+Mrs. Warner knitted her brows.
+
+"You not telling me truth, Jacky," she said.  "I send you to boss
+unless you do."
+
+"Mine thinkit always tell truth," said Jacky.  "That pfeller God him
+kill Jacky if not tell truth.  Jacky very good black pfeller."  He
+beamed on his mistress in a childlike fashion.
+
+A tall man strode into the kitchen verandah--a stockman, so bronzed
+that he might almost have been taken for a native.  He carried in his
+hand a begrimed and crumpled pair of flannel trousers.
+
+"Morning, missus!" he said.  "Glad you've got that chap on the carpet."
+He nodded wrathfully at Jacky, who suddenly assumed the air of a hurt
+baby.  "I seen him last night doin' the grand in these down at the
+camp--reckon he got lost if he tried to put 'em on, so he was wearin'
+'em tied round his dirty neck!  I wasn't able to stop just then--I was
+after a bullock--but I turned out his hut this mornin' and got 'em from
+his gin.  Good pants, too.  They'll take a bit of washin' now."
+
+"I go wash 'em, missis," said Julia, in a voice of oil.  "I tell you
+that pfeller Jacky no good."  She seized the trousers and departed.
+
+"Jacky!" said Mrs. Warner sternly.
+
+Jacky rolled his eyes and said nothing.  Possibly from his point of
+view, there was nothing to say.
+
+"No baccy for you this week," said his mistress.  "I tell boss, too;
+very like he send you back alonga camp."
+
+"No, missis--I not go back alonga camp!" cried Jacky.  "I be good boy!"
+
+"Then you not steal again!  I give you one chance," said Mrs. Warner.
+"Now you go work in garden."
+
+Jacky withdrew, crestfallen, and Mrs. Warner proceeded to deal with
+each native in turn, giving instructions, seeing, where necessary, to
+the weighing out of supplies; and, so far as possible, guarding against
+any chances of household matters going wrong.
+
+"Of course, they do go wrong," she remarked, as the last lubra left the
+verandah.  "No matter how careful one may be there is always to be
+taken into consideration the airy nature of the black.  You can't count
+on them; however contented and docile they may sometimes seem, they
+will always yield to the merest impulse--to steal anything that takes
+their fancy, to drop any job they may be at, generally at the most
+inconvenient moment, or to clear out altogether to the tribe.  I have
+known my best housemaid leave a room half-scrubbed, bucket and brush in
+the middle of the floor, and be found up to her armpits in the lagoon
+looking for lily pods!"
+
+"It must lend great variety to housekeeping," said Mrs. Lester,
+laughing.
+
+"It does.  Of course, it's funny enough--one is always laughing at
+them--but it can be rather awful as well.  I had some bad times before
+I got Mrs. Macleay as second in command."  Her eye fell on her
+daughter.  "Oh, there you are, Merle.  Take Dick round the place--Mrs.
+Lester and I are having a morning indoors."
+
+"All right," said Merle.
+
+"Thanks," said Dick.
+
+They looked at each other like two distrustful puppies, and moved off
+together.
+
+"I say," said Dick, "don't come if it bothers you.  I can easy poke
+round by myself."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't matter," said his entertainer--with a sudden
+determination that he should do no such thing.
+
+Conversation flagged after that.  They went down a wide path, bordered
+with flowering shrubs, which opened out into a broad, sanded yard
+behind the kitchen.  Here were a series of small buildings, made
+fly-proof with wire sides, and kept cool by thick roofs projecting so
+far that they almost formed verandahs.  They stood in the shadow of
+some huge trees.
+
+"What are all these for?" Dick asked.
+
+"Oh, that's the meat house, and that's the dairy, and that's the
+bacon-curing house.  They make salt beef and corned beef there too.
+That new place is for a 'frigerator thing daddy's just bought."
+
+Dick peeped in through the wire.  Rows of hams and sides of bacon hung
+from whitewashed beams, and there were great tubs and vats where,
+presumably, many a good bullock found a last resting place in brine.
+At one end was a kind of table with a ledge all round, where the
+salting of the meat was done.  The floor was cemented; so was that of
+the dairy, where stood a separator, a churn and a complicated apparatus
+for cooling milk.  Cream and milk, in enamelled buckets, stood on big
+slate slabs, and all the woodwork was scrubbed to a snowy whiteness.
+
+"We can keep water dripping all round the dairy in the summer, and
+running over the floor," Merle said proudly.  "Daddy fixed it.  Could
+your father do that?"
+
+"I don't know--don't suppose he ever tried," answered Dick, much
+impressed.  "How d'you get the water!"
+
+"It's all pumped up from the big dam by a windmill.  When it's cooled
+the dairy, it runs away down that little channel to the vegetable
+garden."
+
+"That's a jolly good idea," said Dick.  "I say, don't the blacks ever
+try to steal the meat?  They could break that light wire as easy as
+wink."
+
+"They did try once, but daddy was all ready for them--he had some big
+fireworks, and he let them off just as they were coming on a dark
+night.  You ought to have seen them run!"  And for the first time Merle
+permitted herself to smile.  "Now they say, 'Big pfeller debbil-debbil
+live here,' and none of them would go within a hundred yards of the
+meat-house after dark."
+
+Dick's eyes danced.
+
+"My word.  I wish I'd been here!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Do you?" said Merle coldly--and Dick felt as if he had suddenly
+received a ducking with icy water.  "Oh, well, these old houses aren't
+up to much--we'll go and see the stables."  And Dick followed meekly,
+not because he felt meek, but because he did not know what else to do.
+He was conscious of a wholly unchivalrous desire to smack her.
+
+But the stables were a spot so near to the heart of each that it was
+impossible to keep up coldness.  They were large and roomy, with great
+lofts full of sweet-smelling hay, where the sunlight flickered in dusty
+shafts from cracks in the walls.  There were big loose boxes and
+comfortable stalls, and a large harness-room, where the saddles and
+bridles were so beautifully kept that Dick lingered lovingly over them,
+feeling the supple, glossy leather with all a country boy's delight.
+Merle pointed out her own saddle proudly--a splendid little English
+hunting model.
+
+"I s'pose you'll use one of the stock saddles when you go out," she
+said carelessly.  "Can you ride?"
+
+Dick's heart swelled within him, but he kept his temper.
+
+"Oh, a little," he said.  He could not remember any time that he had
+not ridden; but there was no need to say so to this small, scornful
+person with the tilted nose.  Anyway, he reflected, she knew that he
+lived on a station; she was probably only trying to get a rise out of
+him.  School had taught him not to rise to such easy baits.
+
+"Dad has lots of quiet old horses you could try," went on Merle.
+
+"Thanks," replied her guest.  "You don't feel anxious on a quiet horse,
+do you?"
+
+"I don't know," she answered.  "I never ride 'em."  And this time the
+desire to smack her was so strong that Dick was obliged to take down a
+bridle and examine it to keep his hands out of harm's way.
+
+They found O'Mara, the head groom, busy in a yard behind the stables,
+helping a black boy to bathe the hock of a fine bay mare that had
+managed to get entangled with some barbed wire.  The mare was young and
+half-broken, and could understand neither her throbbing leg nor the
+hands that were dealing with it; and the boy was stupid and rough, with
+the result that she was plunging and kicking violently, and resisting
+every attempt to touch the injured part.  O'Mara was rapidly losing
+patience.
+
+"Ye have no more gumption than a cow," he told the boy angrily.  "Take
+her aisy, will ye?  Remember her laig is sore, an' don't touch it as if
+ye were scrubbin' a brick floor."  The boy dabbed at the swollen hock,
+and the mare kicked furiously and danced away on three legs and O'Mara
+uttered pungent comments.  "That you, Miss Merle?  Take care, now, an'
+keep back; that one'd kick the eye out of a mosquito, she's that
+bothered with this black omadhaun.  'Tis all I wish the boss hadn't
+gone before he helped me to do her; this boy's no good either to hould
+her or to bathe her.  Whisht now, my beauty--no one's going to hurt you
+at all."
+
+"Can I hold her?" Dick asked.
+
+"Better keep back, sir.  She's gentle enough, only she don't understand
+why she's hurt."
+
+"Poor old girl!" said Dick gently.  He went up to the mare's head, all
+his horse-loving soul eager to touch her.  The wild eyes softened under
+his quiet hand.  He stroked her nose, and then slid his fingers up
+quietly, rubbing her neck and talking to her under his breath.  It was
+months since he had handled a horse, except the forbidden luxury of the
+milkman's pony.  The very feel of the rippling muscles under the satin
+skin of her neck was a delight to him.  He put his cheek against hers
+and the mare stopped trembling and muzzled against him.  Dick looked up
+at O'Mara half shyly.
+
+"Isn't she a beauty?" he said.  "Seems a shame to hurt her."
+
+"We'll try not to," said O'Mara happily.  "Sure, 'tis yourself has the
+way with you, with a horse.  Keep talkin' to her, now, and I'll do her
+hock that gentle she won't know she's touched."
+
+He took the sponge from the black boy, who stood aside thankfully, and
+softly bathed the injured leg, keeping away from the hock at first,
+until she had grown used to his touch.  The mare started a little when
+she felt the sponge, but Dick's caressing voice and fingers steadied
+her, and presently she stood quietly, only flinching when the sponge
+finally rested on the worst place.
+
+"There now--'tis nice an' comfortin' against that hot place, isn't it,
+my beauty?" said O'Mara wheedlingly.  "Begob, she'd say 'Thank you,' if
+she could spake.  'Is it kick?' says she.  'I'll not kick at all if
+only I'm treated like a lady,' she says.  Divil a bit of vice have she
+in her, only she couldn't see why we'd want to hurt her, an' she havin'
+done no harrm to anny wan of us.  Whist then, me jewel, let me hould it
+on ye just a wee bit now."
+
+The soft Irish voice ran on coaxingly, and Dick's hand never ceased
+fondling, and finally the mare stood quietly, submitting to the gentle
+handling of her hock with perfect confidence.  It was finished at last,
+and Dick led her to the gate of a shady little paddock close by.
+
+"This is the hospital paddock," O'Mara told him.  "'Tis only invalids
+goes in here, where we can keep an eye on them.  She have not much
+company, only ould Druid, an' he's nearly well afther stakin' himself."
+He indicated a big bay Clydesdale grazing in the corner.  "But they're
+the best of friends entirely."
+
+"Where are the other horses?" Dick asked.
+
+"They're all out in the home paddock; there's just a few gets stabled
+at night since the boss came home.  Pretty fresh, most of 'em; nearly
+the whole mob was turned out for a spell while he was away, barrin' a
+few needed about the place, and they're all kicking up their heels.
+And have you many, sir, at your own place?"
+
+Dick told him, and they stood by the gate talking of horses--both
+forgetting Merle, who stood still in the yard, looking after them
+sullenly.  She had experienced only a new pang of jealousy over Dick's
+handling of the bay mare.  O'Mara need not have called to her to stand
+back, she reflected angrily; she knew the mare, and she was certain she
+could have quietened her just as well as any strange boy who had never
+seen her before.  It was just the way in everything, she thought;
+whenever Dick was about she was not wanted.  Now O'Mara and he stood
+talking as if she did not exist.  Well, if she was not wanted, at least
+she did not mean to stay.  She had been told to entertain Dick, but to
+stand waiting while he talked to the groom was quite a different
+matter.  Her book was still where she had left it in the tree.  Thus it
+was that when Dick suddenly remembered his guide and turned from the
+entrancing company of O'Mara, who was telling him stories of horses he
+had managed as head-groom in a big hunting stable in County Cork, there
+was no Merle to be seen.
+
+"Is it Miss Merle?" asked the Irishman.  "I seen her streakin' across
+to the garden five minutes ago.  That's the queer little gerrl
+entirely.  She's that short in her temper you'd hardly hould her at
+times."
+
+"I suppose she's all right," said Dick uncomfortably.
+
+"You can be very sure Miss Merle's all right," said O'Mara.  "She do be
+getting all she wants, most times--herself is the wan to make sure of
+that.  Well, as I was sayin', Captain Keogh had a big brown horse----"
+and Merle and everything else faded from Dick's mind.
+
+It was an hour later that Mr. Warner and Mr. Lester, riding home,
+perceived, in a tree in the front garden, the flutter of a blue print
+frock.
+
+"That looks like Merle," Mr. Warner said.  "I wonder if Dick is with
+her."  He gave a short whistle.  It was Merle's signal from him, and
+she responded to it promptly, running to the fence.
+
+"Where's Dick?" queried her father.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Mr. Warner's face darkened.
+
+"How's that, Merle?  I left you to look after him."
+
+"Well, he doesn't want me--he started talking to O'Mara," Merle said
+sulkily.
+
+"H'm," said her father, giving her a keen look.  They rode on.
+
+"For goodness' sake, don't worry about my urchin," said Mr. Lester,
+laughing.  "He's well able to look after himself."
+
+"I assure you I'm more worried about my own," said his friend.  "If I
+could only inculcate some ordinary good manners into her----"
+
+"Why, she's a nice little soul.  I think you worry unduly," said Mr.
+Lester.  "And she's only a baby yet."  He gave a short laugh.  "Dick is
+happy enough, at any rate."
+
+They had come into view of Dick and O'Mara--the former perched on the
+gate-post of the little paddock, while the old man, leaning against the
+gate, was talking so earnestly that he failed to see his master
+approaching.  Dick's intent face suddenly beamed, and a shout of
+delighted laughter rang out.
+
+"Oh, that was ripping!" he cried.  "My word, I'll tell father that!"
+Then his eye fell on his father, and he slid from the post and ran to
+meet the riders.
+
+"I say, what a lovely horse!"  His glance dwelt for a moment only on
+his father's mount--a useful black--and then lingered on Mr. Warner's.
+Indeed, there was excuse for looking at that horse.  He was a great
+iron grey, all of seventeen hands in height, and built on perfect
+lines.  He carried Mr. Warner's huge bulk as if it were a feather
+weight, and his beautiful head and mild eye showed both spirit and good
+temper.  As he stood there, arching his powerful neck, he was a picture
+to delight any horse lover.  Mr. Warner laughed.
+
+"Not bad, is he?" he said.  "I bred him myself, and he's carried me
+through many a long day and never seemed tired--and I've never been
+able to say that of any other horse.  Good old Conqueror!"  He swung to
+the ground and patted the grey's neck, and Conqueror put his head
+against him.  "Well, young man, and how have you been getting on?  Did
+Merle desert you?"
+
+"I'm afraid she may have thought I deserted her, Mr. Warner," Dick
+said, reddening a little.  "I got talking here, and I clean forgot she
+had stayed behind.  I hope she isn't offended."
+
+"He was helping me with the mare beyant, sir," said O'Mara.  "An' 'tis
+the fine help he was--that black imp Jimmy had me an' the mare
+desthroyed with his clumsiness."
+
+"Good man!" said Mr. Warner, nodding at Dick approvingly.  "I'm glad
+Merle didn't leave you alone.  We'll soon make it all square with her.
+Did she show you all round?"
+
+Dick grinned.
+
+"We didn't get very far," he said.  "We just came by the meat houses
+here, and then we stopped.  You see, the bay mare was very interesting."
+
+"I see," said Mr. Warner, inwardly wondering why the mare seemed to
+have failed to interest his daughter.  "Well, shall we have a look
+round now?"
+
+They left the horses to O'Mara, and went down the hill to the creek,
+where an hydraulic ram conserved the flow of the water and ensured an
+ample supply for the household.  There was a great storage dam--a
+miniature lake, indeed, whereon swam many strange waterfowl.  A dinghy
+was moored to a tiny landing stage, and there was a bathing box, with a
+good spring-board projecting over the deepest part.  The lake was
+fringed with trees.  Beyond them was the vegetable garden, where a
+stolid Chinaman gave them a friendly greeting, as he worked among his
+well-tended beds; and then came a high green hedge, through a gateway
+in which they passed to the wide lawns and gay flower beds surrounding
+the house itself.  Everywhere there were great trees, and the whole
+impression was of space and shade and beauty.  A tennis court, where
+the twinses and Bobby were playing a tennis of their own, with
+forgotten balls, lay to the east; the players uttered loud shrieks of
+joy at the sight of the new-comers, and fled to meet them, pursued by
+their protesting black nurse.  Thereafter the tour continued, with
+Bobby clinging to Dick's hand, and with Mr. Warner and Mr. Lester each
+in undisputed possession of a twin, while nanna followed disconsolately
+in the rear.
+
+"It's a rambling old place," Mr. Warner said.  "We began with two
+rooms, and every drop of water had to be carried up from the creek in
+buckets.  The windmills do it all now, and I've an oil engine that
+pumps our supply if the wind fails us."
+
+"You added a good bit to your two rooms," said Mr. Lester, laughing.
+
+"Well--rather.  Of course, there's no architecture about it; we just
+planted rooms wherever we needed them.  That big shed is for the black
+girls; the men have a camp on the other side of the creek.  That"--he
+pointed with his pipe stem--"is Macleay's cottage; the store is close
+by.  The building connecting with the house by that covered gallery is
+the children's special preserve--school-room, play-room and den.  They
+can make as much noise there as they like--and they generally do!
+That's the barracks--the bachelors' quarters--beyond the tennis court.
+I've generally two or three jackeroos on the place, and there are beds
+there for any stray man who happens along.  The stock yards are on the
+far side of the stables; I'm a bit proud of my yards.  The forge and
+blacksmith's store are near them.  The new-looking building is, of
+course, the garage; the car is a recent toy."
+
+"Do you like it better than horses, Mr. Warner?" queried Dick.
+
+"No," said his host, explosively.  "I wouldn't give my old Conqueror
+for a dozen cars!  Still, it makes a tremendous difference; we really
+were pretty well cut off from civilisation before we had it.  As it is
+we seldom get a mail more than once a fortnight, and our stores come up
+twice a year, by bullock wagons or donkey teams.  But we can get down
+to the railway fairly easily now, if we want to, and we can get a
+doctor in eight or ten hours.  That feeling makes life much easier to a
+woman."
+
+Mr. Lester pulled at his pipe.
+
+"Do you reflect, Dick," he said, "that we've been accustomed to think
+ourselves quite in the country at Kurrajong?"
+
+"My word, yes!" said Dick.  "Three miles out--and we reckon we're bush
+whackers!  Makes you feel small, doesn't it, father?"
+
+"It makes me feel suburban," said his father, laughing.  "And that's a
+thing I never expected to feel."
+
+Mr. Warner gave his big, comfortable laugh.
+
+"Come and see old Macleay's domain," he said.
+
+They found the storekeeper busy supplying the wants of the two
+stockmen; men camped in huts five miles from the homestead.  A red
+blanket--"burned the best one, goin' to sleep with the pipe alight,"
+explained one--shirts, boots, a dog-collar, tobacco, tinned fish and
+fruit, cartridges, boiled sweets, writing-paper, for the
+younger--"Engaged, 'e is!" was the explanation from his mate--a comb, a
+jack-knife, a box of pills, and some hair-oil.  The pile on the counter
+grew, and the brown, silent men gazed at it with the satisfaction of
+children; finally wandering round the store and selecting various
+articles that they did not want at all, for the mere pleasure of
+buying.  Finally they sauntered off, asking Mr. Macleay to send out
+their purchases by the ration-cart.
+
+"First time those laddies have been in for three months," said the
+storekeeper, after greeting the new-comers.  "They canna get whisky,
+and they must knock down their cheque somehow.  'Tis a harrmless enough
+dissipation--bullseyes and hair-oil!  But these mouth-organs were their
+greatest finds.  There'll be great serenading of the dingoes and
+'possums wi' those!"
+
+"There'll be a split in the camp, I should think," said Mr. Warner,
+laughing.  "One will want to play 'Swanee River,' and the other
+'Camptown Races,' and it will end in a fight!"
+
+"Aweel, there's country enough where they are for them to get out o'
+hearin' of each ither," Macleay said.  "Happen they'll agree to play
+duets.  What do you think of our store, Maister Lester?"
+
+"I think it's ripping," said Dick, with enthusiasm.
+
+"I had no idea you had such a stock as this," Mr. Lester remarked,
+looking round the big building.
+
+"Oh, it's necessary," Mr. Warner said.  "We're a kind of outpost of
+civilisation--even for the station wants, and for the blacks we need to
+stock a lot of goods, and the men are far more contented if they can
+get the oddments they need--and some that they don't need!  There are
+lots of things here that ordinarily we wouldn't dream of keeping, but
+that some of the men ask for them--mouth organs, for example.  They get
+the things almost at cost price, and they can pick up some dainties
+that aren't included in the station rations."
+
+"Why, you've a regular chemist's shop in this corner," said Mr. Lester.
+
+"That's the maist popular corner of the store," said Macleay.
+"Pills--ye've no idea how the bushman loves pills; any new brand tempts
+them.  I think they eat them for dessert!  Patent medicines of every
+kind--hair oil--soap; 'tis as much as my life is worth not to have
+everything on hand.  There's a few likes books--I keep a lot of cheap
+novels; and they're fair terrors for a Bulletin, or any ither weekly
+paper.  Sweets are low at the moment, but the stores wagons will be up
+soon and then there'll be a rush in from the out stations!  If you're
+here then, Maister Lester, I'll tak' ye on as junior clerk and
+salesman!"
+
+"If it's sweets, I'd like that!" grinned Dick.
+
+"Do you let the blacks in here?" asked Mr. Lester.
+
+"No; they have their own store for baccy, cheap cloth and a few other
+things.  You see, they don't deal in money at all; they get goods as
+wages.  And it's no good dangling temptation before their thieving
+eyes.  Also, even with an honest and quiet tribe like this, there's
+risk of information leaking to tribes that are not so quiet."
+
+"Do you ever have any trouble?"
+
+"Hardly ever.  Sometimes a raiding party comes down to the out station
+from the north, and we get a few cattle speared.  But they've a
+wholesome fear of us; every stockman is armed in that part of the run,
+and cartridges are part of the regular ration issue.  I don't let any
+man work alone in a lonely place, and indeed I like three to camp
+together if possible.  But it's two years since we had any bother,"
+finished Mr. Warner, "and I think the blacks have come to regard us as
+too far south to be good hunting ground."
+
+A bell rang loudly from the house--so suddenly that Dick jumped.
+
+"Did you think that was a raiding party?" queried his host.  "Well, it
+used to be the signal for that; only then you wouldn't forget hearing
+its ring.  It can make a very tolerable din in the hands of an active
+person.  Now it's reduced to a polite tinkle, and it means lunch.  Come
+along, or we shall have Mrs. Warner sending a search party for us; so
+long, Macleay!"  He hurried them hospitably towards the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE NARRUNG TRIBE.
+
+"Coming down to see the blacks' camp, mother?"  Dick put a head in at
+the open window of the room where his mother sat talking to Mrs. Warner.
+
+"Do," said the latter, putting down her sewing.  "Are the others going,
+Dick?"
+
+"Mr. Warner and father are waiting.  They sent me in."
+
+"Well, we'll all go, if you are not too tired, Mrs. Lester," Mrs.
+Warner said.  "It isn't a long walk."
+
+"I should like it of all things," said Mrs. Lester.  "Run for my hat,
+Dick, please.  May we take that nice fat Bobby?--and Merle?"
+
+"Bobby, certainly--he adores the camp.  But Merle had better
+stay--she's in an unfortunate kind of mood," said her mother, with a
+little sigh.  "I tried to get her to go out for a ride with Dick, but
+she wouldn't.  She's very difficult at times."
+
+"Oh, she will grow out of it," Mrs. Lester said, comfortably.  "Some
+children don't like strangers--and I honestly think that a good deal of
+Merle's trouble is shyness.  Don't worry about her, Mrs. Warner."
+
+"I try not to, but she's rather a problem"; and Mrs. Warner's kind face
+was clouded.  "Dick is so nice with her that it is a shame for her to
+treat him badly."
+
+"Oh, Dick is all right----"  Mrs. Lester broke off as her son came
+running back with her hat, and with Bobby in close attendance.  He
+swung the little fellow upon his back and galloped off with him, Bobby
+drumming his heels delightedly on his sides, and the two mothers
+following.
+
+The well-worn footpath they took led them away from the homestead, on
+the far side from the lake.  It snaked through the grass of the home
+paddock--no black fellow ever makes a straight track--and then turned
+down a hill towards a bend of the creek, where, half a mile below the
+house, the camp was situated.  The place looked sleepy enough as the
+visitors came down to it in the afternoon sunshine.  Most of the men
+were away hunting, and a good many of the lubras were in the scrub
+looking for yams and berries, or gathering lily pods in the lagoon, a
+wide swamp with stretches of deeper water, that gleamed a mile down the
+creek.  The miserable-looking dogs that always hang about a blacks'
+camp woke the echoes with sharp barking as the visitors approached; and
+from the tumble-down wurleys of bark and interlaced boughs came the
+blacks, men and women, while children of every age suddenly swarmed
+into view.
+
+"There's old Tarwan--he's the Chief," remarked Mr. Warner.
+
+A tall old fellow came to meet them, giving them a courteous enough
+greeting in his own language, which the Warners spoke as well as they
+did their own.  They shook hands with him, and the Lesters followed
+suit.
+
+"He says you are welcome," translated Mr. Warner.
+
+Mr. Lester smiled and said, "Thank you," and produced a large parcel of
+coarse tobacco which he had brought from the store.  It made a great
+impression upon the tribe, who uttered guttural ejaculations of
+pleasure, and expressed the opinion that he was a great chief.  From
+his pockets came a few handfuls of sweets for a scramble for the
+children--but it was a scramble in which the entire camp joined, even
+old Tarwan finding it impossible to refrain from diving for a
+brandy-ball that rolled to his very feet; while the other men pursued
+the sweets as whole-heartedly as any picaninny.  When the hunt was over
+the camp was on very good terms with the new-comers.
+
+The wurleys were pitched here and there, with no attempt at order,
+Tarwan's standing a little apart from the others.  There was no attempt
+at architecture either--most of them were lean-tos, affording scarcely
+any protection and looking as though a gust of wind would blow them
+away.  Here and there smouldered the embers of a fire, over which
+crouched a few very old men and women.  Mr. Warner had brought a little
+tobacco for them, and their bleared old eyes lit with something like
+delight as they grasped at the gifts.  Some concealed the tobacco
+hurriedly in their bags.  A few brought out short black pipes and
+prepared happily to smoke.
+
+"You can't do much for an old black fellow," Mr. Warner said.  "They
+have only three wants--warmth, food and baccy.  The Government grant of
+blankets supplies most of the warmth, and this tribe lives well enough
+not to let its old folk be hungry.  Baccy is the one real luxury, and
+there's no doubt it eases old age enormously.  I generally carry a few
+bits for the old folk."
+
+"Money is no good to them, I suppose?" asked Mrs. Lester.
+
+"No, thank goodness, so you don't get the perpetual whine of 'Gib it
+tickpen,' that is always on the lips of more civilised blacks.  If they
+get an occasional coin it's only valued as an ornament," and he pointed
+to a young lubra who proudly wore a penny as a locket.
+
+"And do they stay here always?"
+
+"Oh, no.  They go off, perhaps in the summer, or if game gets scarce.
+You don't get any warning.  One day they'll be here as usual, the next
+the camp will be deserted and the tribe 'gone bush.'  But they always
+come back, especially when it's near 'blanket time.'  Then the women go
+fairly far afield for the rushes and grasses they want for their
+weaving.  These women are quite industrious--we can get you anything
+you'd like in the way of woven mats or baskets or bags."
+
+"They won't do much of that work in the eastern states," said Mr.
+Lester.  "It is becoming a lost art."
+
+"Yes--a pity; for much of it is beautiful work.  But the civilisation
+of cities kills every decent impulse in them.  To like the aboriginal
+you want him as we have him here--neither civilised nor wild.  Once he
+gets to know the meaning of either money or drink he's done for."
+
+There was a cluster of picaninnies round Bobby, staring at him with
+great, wondering eyes.  The little fellow, rosy cheeked and fair
+haired, in his white linen suit, was a curious contrast to the black
+babies, most of them innocent of a rag of clothing.  Bobby was enjoying
+himself hugely--making occasional dashes at them, at which they would
+scatter in every direction, shrieking with laughter.
+
+"The twins were a particular source of interest to them," Mrs. Warner
+said.  "They used to come to the house in flocks, begging to be allowed
+to see the 'two-pfeller picaninny'--and so many wanted to touch them
+that we had to make an absolute rule against it for fear the poor
+babies would be poked to death.  Even now I hardly dare to bring them
+near the camp--not that they will touch them without leave, but they
+make a ring round them, everyone trying to see them, and blackfellow in
+the mass is rather overpowering."
+
+"That's so," said Mr. Warner, with feeling.  "'Possum fat is one of the
+chief toilet articles of the camp."
+
+"Ugh," said Mrs. Lester, and shuddered.
+
+"What do the men do?" asked Dick.
+
+"Mighty little.  They hunt, of course, whenever necessary, but they're
+lazy even over hunting.  If a gin will keep one supplied with any other
+food he won't go hunting until he actually craves for meat.  They make
+their weapons--spears, throwing sticks and boomerangs--but they are by
+no means as skilful with them as they used to be.  They like to get a
+job on the station, but only a few manage to keep their jobs.  They
+can't stand the regular employment.  Still, even if they go back to the
+tribe, they don't forget all their teaching, and we can always count on
+them for odd help in a time of stress--a big muster, a bush fire, or
+any other emergency."
+
+"I have one as a stockman," said Mr. Lester.  "Very good boy, too."
+
+"Yes.  When you get a good boy with stock he's a treasure.  It's the
+work they like best, and they are born riders--but apt to be cruel with
+horses.  We have to keep a sharp eye on them in that respect."  He
+turned to the old chief, and spoke to him in his own language.  "Can
+any of your young men show us how they throw their weapons, Tarwan?"
+
+Tarwan hesitated.
+
+"Nearly all my young men are away," he answered.  "But there's one who
+can throw the boomerang."
+
+"All right; let's see him."
+
+There was a little delay before a tall young fellow appeared from one
+of the wurleys, with three or four boomerangs in his hand.  He walked
+to the edge of the camp, where the green of the creek bank gave place
+to tussocky plain, and then, poising himself suddenly, flung one of his
+weapons, apparently with little effort.  The boomerang seemed to move
+slowly at first--then it appeared to gather way in mid air, whirling
+round and round until it turned and came back with a low, dropping
+flight, falling almost at its thrower's feet.  Before it had returned
+he flung the remaining weapons, one after another, so that they seemed
+to be leaping and pursuing each other in the air, making amazing
+circles and dives.  Two came back to the black fellow so truly that he
+caught them in his hand.  A crow flew slowly across to a tree; he
+watched it for a moment, and then flung a boomerang that caught it just
+as it alighted, and brought it like a stone to the ground.  A chorus of
+delight arose from the camp, and half a dozen small boys dashed to pick
+up the bird.  The visitors applauded energetically, and complimented
+Tarwan.
+
+"Well, I've seen a lot of boomerang throwing, but it always beats me,"
+said Mr. Warner.  "Some of these fellows seem to be able to make the
+blessed thing do anything they like after it leaves the hand.  Kind of
+wireless, I believe!  Well, Mrs. Lester, have you seen enough of the
+gentle aborigine for to-day?"
+
+They bade good-bye to old Tarwan, whose extremely hideous face relaxed
+into a toothless smile as they shook hands with him.  An escort of
+small boys accompanied them half-way up the hill, until sent back by
+Mr. Warner, who evidently was a great and terrible being in their eyes,
+for they scuttled like rabbits when he spoke to them.
+
+Tea awaited them on the wide verandah, with Mrs. Macleay anxiously
+watching for their arrival, lest her hot cakes should be toughened by
+waiting.  Presently three jackeroos drifted in, tall and brown and
+silent--two of them young Englishmen gaining colonial experience, and
+the third a Perth boy, not long emancipated from school.  They had been
+camping at an out station, helping to muster some young stock.
+
+"The black boys out there are keeping pretty close to camp," drawled
+one of the English lads.  "They won't talk, but old Bill Summers says
+he believes some of the Northern blacks aren't far off."
+
+"Is he taking any extra precautions?" Mr. Warner asked.  Summers was an
+old hand, and could be trusted to deal with any emergency.
+
+"Well, he can't hear anything definite, so he isn't really bothering.
+But you can be sure he's keeping a wary eye on the cattle."
+
+"Yes.  I'm very sure Bill is," said Mr. Warner laughing.  "Bill's
+jumpiness is a family joke where anything black is concerned; the men
+have a story that he found a black beetle once among some stores and
+fired his gun at it before they could stop him!  These rumours of
+blacks are always cropping up, but, as I told you, it's two years since
+we had any trouble."
+
+"All the same, it's a good thing to have a man constantly on the jump,"
+commented Mr. Lester.
+
+"Oh, the best thing possible.  Bill's so jumpy that I never have to be
+jumpy at all!" Mr. Warner answered.  "He saves me any amount of worry.
+How are the cattle looking, Downes?"
+
+"First rate, Bill says.  I thought you'd rather have his evidence than
+mine!" answered the jackeroo, who had a lively sense of his own
+limitations.  "He's awfully pleased with them.  The feed out there is
+better than usual; even the men's horses are in great form.  We had
+some good shooting, too; Bill was anxious that we should fire as many
+cartridges as possible, as a warning to possible trespassers."
+
+"Very sound," commented his employer.  "No," he added hastily.  "I
+don't mean that for a pun!  You needn't look as though you suspected
+me, Dick.  Have some more cake?"
+
+"No, thank you," said Dick, laughing.
+
+"When I was a boy I wanted more cake all the time," Mr. Warner said.
+"Well, if you won't, how about some tennis?  You three boys ought to be
+ready for a game after a week in the wilds."
+
+The jackeroos were very ready, and said so as one man.  They trooped
+off to the court, taking Dick with them.
+
+"You're not really worried about the blacks, Robert?" his wife asked.
+
+"My dear, no!  Old Bill will send a boy in to me long before there's
+any need to worry.  Of course I'll keep in touch with him, but my own
+impression is that the northern tribes have long ago given us up as too
+hot to handle."  He rose, stretching his great form; like many very big
+men he was constitutionally restless.  "Come on, Lester, and we'll go
+and see if these youngsters have learned as much tennis as you and I
+have forgotten!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+SOMETHING OLD AND QUIET.
+
+The horses were mustered in the homestead yard--twenty or thirty,
+ranging from Conqueror, towering over the mob, to the children's
+ponies--Merle's fiery little black, Bobby's quieter bay, and a
+diminutive Sheltie of ten hands, whose mission in life at present was
+to draw a tiny carriage sacred to the twinses.  It was not yet seven
+o'clock, and the sun was slowly mounting into a sky of cloudless blue.
+Mr. Warner stood by the rail, looking over the restless horses.  He
+glanced round, hearing a step.
+
+"Hullo, my daughter!" he said cheerfully.  "Coming out with the crowd?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I s'pose so," Merle answered.  "Where are we going, Daddy?"
+
+"Oh, just for a ride round, to show the Lesters something of the
+place," he said.  "We might send the cart out to meet us at Gaffney's
+Lagoon, and have lunch there--it's as good a place as any, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, I think so," Merle answered.  "Will you ride Conqueror, daddy?"
+
+"No, I'll give Bayard a turn.  He's pretty fresh, and needs riding.  So
+does Agility, by the way.  I think I'll let young Downes go to give the
+horse exercise; he bucked with one of the black boys on Monday, but
+Downes can handle him.  You'll ride Olaf, of course, and we'll put Mr.
+Lester on the horse he had yesterday--he liked him; and Mrs. Lester on
+Delight.  What shall we give Dick?"
+
+Merle hesitated.
+
+"Well, he said yesterday he couldn't ride much," she said.
+
+Mr. Warner looked surprised.
+
+"Really?" he said.  "I should have thought he'd be pretty useful on a
+horse--he must have had plenty of riding.  Are you sure?"
+
+"Well, I asked him, and he said, 'A little,' and afterwards he was
+saying he didn't feel anxious if he was on anything old and quiet."
+Merle's eyes did not meet her father's.  She affected to be very
+interested in a black mare near her.
+
+"Oh, if that's the case, he'd better have something of that kind," said
+her father, looking disappointed.  "I wouldn't have thought he was like
+that.  Let's see--he'd better have old Sergeant; he won't play any
+tricks with him, unless indeed he goes to sleep."  He whistled to a man
+in the stable yard, who came across to them, and gave him the orders
+for O'Mara.  "Nine o'clock sharp, mind," the squatter finished.  "Come
+on, Merle.  I want to go round the new Ayrshires before breakfast."
+
+Merle trotted off beside her father, completely happy for the first
+time since they had left the station on their eastern trip.  This was
+like old times, when he had always wanted her for his mate; before
+other places and other people--especially Dick Lester--had come between
+him and his well-worn routine.  He talked away to her cheerily,
+pointing out the various beauties of the new Ayrshire heifers, and
+discussing station matters generally, just as he had been always wont
+to do.  Merle's face lost its scowl, and became almost merry.  As they
+turned back to breakfast she felt even charitable to Dick.  After all,
+he would soon be gone back to Victoria, and then she and her father
+would settle down to the good old ways again.
+
+It did not worry her at all that she had arranged a dull ride for Dick.
+Sergeant did not shine as a hack, she knew; he had been "general
+utility" horse so long, ridden by all sorts and conditions of people,
+black and white, that his paces had become curiously jumbled, and his
+one ardent desire was to pause and sleep.  In her own heart Merle knew
+quite well that Dick could ride; he had talked to her of Tinker, his
+own beloved pony, and no one who had seen him handling the maddened bay
+mare the day before could have imagined that his preference was really
+for "something old and quiet."  Partly she meant to "pay him out" for
+openly preferring O'Mara's company to hers; partly she wanted to keep
+him from mounting any further in her father's regard.  "Daddy's quite
+silly enough about him as it is," was her mental comment.  "He won't
+think half as much about him if he thinks he can't ride."  Therefore
+she went cheerfully to breakfast, certain that Dick was not likely to
+shine on a horse on which Merle herself would have remarked that she
+would not be seen dead at a pig fair.
+
+O'Mara meanwhile was puzzled.  Certain questions put to Dick the day
+before had satisfied him that the boy could ride!  He whistled in
+astonishment when the message came to him that Dick's mount was to be
+the ancient Sergeant.  He rubbed the horse down himself, and saddled
+him, still pondering the matter.  There was something he did not
+understand.
+
+The horses stood ready saddled, tied to a fence in the shade of a row
+of grevillea trees, when Dick came out after breakfast.  He was aching
+to be in the saddle; the milkman's pony had been his one means of a
+ride during the long winter term at school, and he longed to feel the
+creak of the leather and the movement of a good horse under him again.
+Meeting a stable-boy, he stopped him.
+
+"Do you know which I'm to ride?"
+
+The boy jerked his head towards the horses.
+
+"Bay 'orse there, under the tree," he said casually; and added with a
+grin, "Look out 'e don't sling yer orf, mind."
+
+"Right-oh," said Dick, grinning.  He walked towards the horses; and it
+never occurred to him that the "bay 'orse under the tree" meant old
+Sergeant.  That ornament to his species, with drooping head and
+slumbrous eye, was probably waiting to go on a station errand; he
+looked like it.  But the boy's description equally applied to Agility,
+and Dick went over to him without hesitation.
+
+The stirrups were too long, and he shortened them while Agility tried
+to walk round himself in a way that made it sufficiently clear that he
+was very fresh.  He was a light bay, half thorough-bred; not more than
+fifteen hands in height and very compact.  At the moment he was like a
+restless mass of steel springs enclosed in a satin skin.  Dick slipped
+off his halter and talked to him for a moment, patting his neck.  Then
+he put the reins gently over his head and was in the saddle with a
+movement so quick that the horse had not time to realise it.
+
+It was just at that moment that Mr. Warner and Mr. Lester, with Merle
+beside them, came strolling across from the house.  The big man was in
+the midst of a sentence when his eye fell on the line of horses, and he
+broke off with a startled exclamation.
+
+"Good God--is O'Mara mad!  That horse will throw the boy!"
+
+"Where?--throw Dick?"  Mr. Lester gave a little laugh.  "Oh, I don't
+think so."
+
+Mr. Warner did not hear him.  He broke into a run, calling agitatedly:
+
+"Steady, Dick--hold him!  Let me get to his head!"
+
+The words were lost on Dick.  Agility, feeling the light weight on his
+back, was dancing sideways, giving playful little kicks and trying to
+get his head down.  Dick's hands gave to the strain on the bit to a
+certain point; then they were steel, and the horse knew it.  He reared
+suddenly, striking out with his forefeet, so nearly upright that even
+Mr. Lester, who had no nerves where his son's horsemanship was
+concerned, caught his breath.  Agility came down, with all his hoofs
+firmly planted; stood motionless for a moment, and then began to buck.
+
+Dick sat him lightly, giving to the furious plunges just enough to save
+himself from jar.  He knew quite well how the horse felt--he felt
+rather like it himself, on this beautiful spring morning, when the very
+air was like a draught of wine.  It was not the first time he had sat
+on a buck; it would not be the last, if Dick knew anything about it.
+So he sat quietly, his hands well down and his shoulders back.  Mr.
+Warner broke into a sudden shout of laughter.
+
+"Oh, Merle, you duffer!  So you thought he couldn't ride!"
+
+"Who?  Dick?" asked Mr. Lester, in a voice of utter amazement.
+
+Merle said nothing.  She stood with her black brows drawn together,
+watching the slight, erect figure on the plunging bay.  Agility had
+nearly bucked himself out; it was evident to him that Dick did not mean
+to leave the saddle, so he came gradually to a standstill, while the
+boy patted his neck and spoke to him soothingly.  Dick glanced over and
+caught Mr. Warner's eye.
+
+"May I take him round the paddock?  He's just spoiling for a gallop!"
+
+"Anywhere you like," said Mr. Warner, resignedly, still laughing.
+
+Dick gave Agility his head, and the horse went off with a flying bound.
+The gentle slope of the hill ended in a long stretch of flat--good
+galloping ground, firm and sound, with the spring grass like a carpet
+underfoot.  They swept round it at a hard gallop, keeping near the
+fence.  Then a fallen tree tempted Dick, and he put the bay at it.
+Agility asked for nothing better.  His ears pricked daintily; he
+shortened his stride, and flew the log like a bird.  O'Mara, watching
+from the stable yard, gave a hoarse cackle of laughter.
+
+[Illustration: "His ears pricked daintily; he shortened his stride, and
+flew the log like a bird."]
+
+"Is it that one you'd be putting on old Sergeant, now?" he demanded.
+"Yerra, ye might do worse than take him on as horsebreaker!"
+
+"I might, indeed," laughed Mr. Warner.  "Oh, Merle, aren't you easily
+taken in!"
+
+But Merle had disappeared.  Endurance, for her, ended when Dick put
+Agility at the big log; she turned and scurried indoors, her heart hot
+with shame and disgust.  She had been made to look and feel a fool--and
+it was Dick Lester's fault!  Dick, who was always in her way.  She hid
+her burning face in her room, and did not reappear until all the party
+had mounted, and her father was shouting for her with angry impatience.
+It was the final touch that she passed old Sergeant, hastily let go,
+and slumberously cropping the grass; while Mr. Downes, on a fresh
+horse, capered airily in the distance beside Agility, to whose back
+Dick was still glued.
+
+Nobody bothered about Merle.  Bobby was as close as he could get to
+Dick, while Mr. Warner and Mr. Lester were riding beside Mrs. Lester.
+There was nothing for Merle to do but fall in behind them, where she
+had the doubtful pleasure of hearing her father tell the story of the
+morning, and of his careful plans for Dick.  It was Mrs. Lester who
+looked round after a time and took pity on the unhappy face, checking
+her mare that she might ride beside her.  The charm of her voice chased
+away some of Merle's ill-humour; but the sting of the morning remained.
+
+They passed a number of young blacks from the tribe, coming in after a
+night's hunting, laden with game--wallaby, 'possum, bandicoot and
+gerboa, all speared or killed with the throwing stick.  One man had got
+three or four bright-coloured parrots with his boomerang, as well as a
+beautiful black cockatoo.  Mr. Warner stopped to talk to them,
+complimenting them on their good luck, and one opened a skin bag and
+showed him other prizes in the shape of a fat, stumpy-tailed lizard, a
+young iguana, and--greatest delicacy of all--half a dozen of the big
+tree grubs that the black will go far out of his way to secure.
+
+"People say they're quite good--but I don't feel like experimenting on
+them," remarked Mrs. Lester, wrinkling her pretty nose as she looked at
+the plump insects.
+
+"I've been very glad to eat them when I ran short of tucker in the
+bush," Mr. Warner said.  "They're really good, too--if you grill them
+they're very like chicken.  But I'll admit that their appearance is
+against them."
+
+The blacks were in a hurry to get back to camp; it was long since they
+had brought with them such promise of solid feasting.  They said
+good-bye, and set off with their long, noiseless stride--ball of the
+foot down first and then the heel, as is the way of natives nearly all
+the world over.
+
+"Those fellows could go through the bush, with dead leaves and bark and
+dry sticks lying all over the place, and you'd never hear them," Mr.
+Warner said.  "I've watched 'em sometimes stalking musk duck in the
+lagoons.  They tie a bundle of rushes over their heads and faces, and
+wade neck-deep in the water, zig-zagging here and there, perhaps taking
+half an hour to cover fifty yards.  Sometimes they get near enough to
+grab the ducks under water.  Sometimes they have to straighten up in a
+hurry and get them with the throwing stick.  But it's mighty seldom
+they fail to get them."
+
+"Do they supply you with game?" Mr. Lester asked.
+
+"Yes, to a great extent.  We can nearly always depend on them for
+certain things--fish, wild geese, and duck and teal and quail.  Of
+course there are a good many of their delicacies that we don't
+touch--and we had some difficulty in persuading them that we really
+prefer game fresh!  Payment is in goods or baccy, and they soon become
+pretty shrewd at driving a bargain.  We've had to adopt a regular
+tariff for ordinary things."
+
+"They are good-looking fellows, as aborigines go," remarked Mr. Lester.
+
+"Yes, far before the eastern tribes.  They're taller and stronger, and
+their standard of intelligence is higher.  Many of the piccaninnies are
+quite pretty little chaps--you saw them yesterday.  Of course they all
+become abominably ugly as they grow old.  Their features spread and
+thicken until they are positively repulsive.  I don't believe there's
+any human being less attractive than an ancient Australian black gin!"
+
+Ahead, Dick and young Downes were galloping, picking out a natural
+steeplechase course over fallen tree trunks, while Bobby followed as
+best he could on his pony, delighted when he could make him hop over
+smaller obstacles.  Merle looked at them enviously.  She knew her pony,
+Olaf, could jump anything in the paddock, and yet she was out of it,
+condemned by her own ill-temper to ride sedately with the elders.  Her
+father glanced down at her curiously.
+
+"What's up, Merle?  Why don't you join in?"
+
+"Don't want to, thanks," Merle muttered.
+
+"Well, you are turning into an old woman," he said contemptuously.
+
+Merle flushed and said nothing.
+
+"I believe I'm not too old to jump," said Mrs. Lester.  "Those logs are
+very tempting.  Can Delight manage them, Mr. Warner?"
+
+"She'll jump whatever you ask her to," he said.  "If you'd really like
+a few jumps, Mrs. Lester, we'll give you a lead."
+
+"Then come on, Merle, and we'll show them we're not the inferior sex,"
+laughed Mrs. Lester.  "I can't let Dick get superior!"
+
+The two big horses thundered off ahead, and close behind them came Olaf
+and Delight, each capering with joy at the sudden gallop.  In and out
+they went among the trees, finding natural jumps everywhere and an
+occasional clear space where they could put on speed.  The noise of the
+hoofs came to Dick and the other boys as they circled round the great
+paddock, so wide that the fences were out of sight.  Dick shouted with
+joy, and bore across until he was riding abreast of his mother, yelling
+encouragement at each big log.  He was more than ever sure that nobody
+had ever had a mother like her!
+
+Merle shot ahead of them suddenly, and set to work to overhaul her
+father and Mr. Lester.  Her pony was a beautiful black, full of fire
+and breeding; he jumped like a deer, and took his logs almost at racing
+pace.  Merle sat him as though she were part of him--leaning forward a
+little at each leap, and lifting him at the log with little
+inarticulate words of encouragement.  Gradually he lessened the
+distance between him and the great horses in front, making up by
+quickness in jumping more than the handicap of his shorter stride.  He
+forged ahead at last, so stealthily that they did not realise they were
+being left behind, and then Merle sat down to ride him in earnest, and
+soon was far in the lead.
+
+Agility put an end to the steeplechase by bolting.  His feelings became
+too much for him altogether, and he suddenly swerved from a log, and
+dashed through the timber at such a pace that Dick was only saved from
+overhanging boughs by lying flat on his neck--in which position he
+could do little to check him.  The others pulled up, in some anxiety,
+to watch him.  He emerged from the trees safely, and shot across the
+tussocky plain beyond, where Dick at length got him in hand, and he
+returned more sedately, except for an occasional irrepressible caper.
+On the way they overtook Merle, walking Olaf back to the other horses.
+
+"My word, that pony's a beauty!" said Dick, looking at Olaf with open
+respect.  "And I say, you can ride!"
+
+The black dog that had sat so long on Merle's shoulders was gone for
+the moment--routed by the joy of the gallop.  She gave the boy
+something like a smile.
+
+"He's a darling, isn't he?" she said, patting Olaf's arching neck.  "He
+can beat any horse on the place at jumping--you ask dad if he can't."
+
+"Well, I guess I've seen for myself this morning," Dick answered.
+"This chap's not too bad, either, is he?  He can't beat your pony,
+though."  He grinned.  "Didn't we have a ripping go!  I'm jolly glad I
+wasn't on old Sergeant."
+
+The brightness suddenly faded from Merle's face.  Her eyes dropped
+before Dick's merry ones.  To her own amazement, a lump came in her
+throat.
+
+"I say, what's up?" blurted Dick.
+
+She managed to meet his eyes with a great effort.
+
+"It was my fault," she said, speaking very low.  "I mean, I worked to
+get you put on Sergeant.  I told dad you couldn't ride."
+
+"Well, I'm blessed!" said Dick, in utter astonishment--too amazed to be
+indignant.  "But why?"
+
+"I don't know."  She flushed hotly.  "Oh, because I'm a pig, I suppose.
+I'm sorry."
+
+It would have taken more than Dick's easy-going nature could assume to
+be stern.
+
+"Well, it doesn't matter, anyhow," he said.  "You only made a mistake."
+
+"No.  I didn't make a mistake," Merle said shrilly.  "I knew you could
+ride all right.  I--I told you I was a pig!"  A large tear rolled down
+her cheek, to her intense shame.  She felt for a handkerchief, and,
+finding none, rubbed her cheek on Olaf's mane.
+
+Dick pondered the situation gravely.
+
+"I guess, if you're a pig, it hurts yourself more than anyone else," he
+said at length.  "I say, why don't you knock off being one and be pals?
+I'll help."
+
+At the moment he forgot altogether that he had no real desire to be
+"pals" with her at all.  But no boy could help being rather sorry for
+this small, incomprehensible person, with the miserable face.  And
+there was no doubt she could ride!
+
+Merle swallowed twice before she could command her voice.  Then she
+merely managed to mumble "All right"--and immediately found her hand
+shaken in a manly fashion.
+
+"Well, I guess we'd better canter," said Dick, thankfully putting an
+end to the situation.  "Those other people are getting too far ahead."
+They cemented their bargain in the way most acceptable to both of them,
+by a quick sprint across the plain, to join the main body of the
+expedition.
+
+The paddocks immediately surrounding the homestead were comparatively
+clear, except for belts of timber left standing for shelter for the
+cattle.  The soil was good, and long ago, when the ground had been
+cleared and burnt off, English grasses had been sown, making a firm
+sward.  But as the riders went further, the country gradually assumed
+more and more of a bush aspect, and the good soil changed.  They passed
+over stony ridges, with red rock outcropping from the short, sparse
+grass and ironstone rubble that necessitated careful riding.  The trees
+grew smaller in character; there were patches of mulga, tall whip-trees
+with slender tops curving beneath their load of little green flowers
+like berries; banksias covered with honey-laden blossoms and all
+a-flutter with the wings of honey-eaters, whose long, curved beaks
+plunged deep into the sticky flowers.  Everywhere there were flowers.
+They passed swampy patches, full of the fragrance of wild boronia, and
+murmurous with the hum of innumerable wild bees; near at hand, ti-tree,
+with flowers of many colours--some scarlet, some pink, and some of
+tender green and white.  There were curious plants with leaves
+apparently made of flannel, and others bearing blossoms like balls of
+red and blue down.  Later, Mr. Warner said, the plains would blaze with
+a dozen kinds of everlastings, the crimson seeds of the native hop
+would vie with the trailing black and scarlet of Sturt's desert pea,
+and the cottonwool berries, with their white eye would be everywhere.
+Rose-coloured mesembryanthemums would trail a gorgeous blanket over the
+loose granite on the stony ridges--"beastly stuff it is to slip on when
+you're galloping after kangaroo," added the squatter, with a callous
+disregard of beauty.
+
+There were birds in every belt of timber; parrakeets, their brilliant
+colours flashing in the sun as they went screaming overhead; parrots,
+more brilliant still; cockatoos, black and white, and a host of tiny
+feathered people, twittering among the blossoms that garlanded the bare
+earth.  Now and then a curlew stepped daintily away, out of sight like
+a grey shadow, but sure to be ceaselessly watching the intruders from
+its hiding place.  Wild turkeys passed overhead, in swift flight, or
+black swans, spread fan-like in the sky, the leader ahead, winging
+their way to some distant lagoon.  They saw a group of emu out on a
+plain--the great birds made off at their approach, their heavy feet
+sounding almost like a horse's hoofs on the hard ground.
+
+It was after midday when they came in sight of Gaffney's Lagoon, a
+broad stretch of water named after a stockman who had been attacked by
+blacks while camping near the shore.
+
+"A good man, Gaffney," said Mr. Warner; "one of the best hands I ever
+had.  He was looking for some lost cattle, and the blacks got round him
+quietly one night.  Poor old Gaffney--he must have put up a good fight,
+for they didn't get him until he had used up all his ammunition.  He
+had been in Canada, in the North-West Mounted Police, and he could
+shoot quicker than any man I ever saw."
+
+"They killed him?" asked Dick, wide-eyed.
+
+"Oh, yes, poor old chap.  There were nearly twenty spears in him.  But
+there were dead blacks all round him--he had a good escort to the next
+world.  I don't think he'd missed a single shot."
+
+"A pity to lose a man like that," said Mr. Lester.
+
+"Yes, it was bad luck, though it was the sort of finish he had always
+hoped to get.  I used to have great yarns with Gaffney, and the one end
+he didn't want was to die in his bed.  That fellow Stevenson would have
+appealed to him, with his 'Under the wide and starry sky.'  And he did
+good, even in his death, for his last fight gave the blacks such a
+wholesome dread of the white man's capabilities that they sheered off
+for a long time.  That was fifteen years ago, and I don't think they
+ever came so close in again."  Mr. Warner pointed ahead with his whip.
+"Do you see our camp fire, Mr. Lester?"
+
+A trail of blue smoke was lazily rising under some trees near the head
+of the lagoon.  Near it was a cart, with a couple of donkeys hobbled
+close by, and across the rough grass came a light buggy, drawn by a
+fine pair of browns.
+
+"The missus is just on time," said Mr. Warner.  "Let's get there to
+welcome her."
+
+They put their horses to a canter, and arrived at the camp fire just
+before the buggy came up, Mrs. Warner driving herself, while the
+twinses, spotless in white, were with difficulty restrained by nanna,
+whose smile was like a streak of ivory across an ebony surface, as she
+clung to each wriggling small body.
+
+"The sight of you has a most demoralising effect on them," said Mrs.
+Warner to her husband, laughing.  "They have been quite good until they
+saw you, and since then nanna has her hands full.  Be quiet, twinses,
+and sit still!"  It was noticeable that nobody ever thought or spoke of
+the Warner babies either singly or by name; being inseparable both in
+companionship and wickedness, it was not necessary to allude to them as
+anything but "the twinses."  Dick had an idea that they were boy and
+girl, but as they were always dressed alike, and resembled each other
+so closely that he was quite unable to tell one from the other, even
+that was uncertain.
+
+Mr. Warner lifted his restless infants out of the buggy, holding them
+tightly until nanna was on the ground, and able to resume at least
+partial control.
+
+"There--keep away from the horses' heels," he said.  "Go over and see
+what old Harry is cooking."  The twinses fled tumultuously.
+
+"Harry's an old soldier," Mr. Warner told Mrs. Lester, "and, like most
+old soldiers, the handiest man on the place.  He has a wooden leg,
+which was interfering very badly with his career as a swagman, when I
+found him ten years ago; but it never affects his usefulness now.
+There's nothing he can't or won't tackle, but his particular
+accomplishment is camp cooking, so I sent him out to fix up lunch for
+us to-day."
+
+They gave the old man full credit as a cook presently, when they ate
+the wild turkey, roasted in the ashes, in a jacket of clay, which he
+had prepared.  There were potatoes, also roasted in their jackets, to
+be followed by flapjacks of surpassing lightness.
+
+"Do you always have banquets like this when you come out on the run?"
+demanded Mr. Lester.  "I'm accustomed to a packet of sandwiches and
+creek water!"
+
+"My lunches vary," said Mr. Warner, laughing.  "They range from turkey,
+like to-day--but you'll admit this is a special occasion---to yams and
+grubs, and I've been more thankful for the yams than for the turkey!
+You see, you're exceedingly hungry before you take to black fellows'
+tucker, and when you're really hungry you're glad to get anything."
+
+After lunch they went to compliment old Harry, a courtesy he received
+unmoved, standing stiffly to attention, but inwardly very proud.  Then
+they explored the shores of the lagoon, when the twinses created a
+diversion by falling into a pool, in an effort to catch fish which were
+not there.  Mrs. Lester marvelled at the calmness with which Mrs.
+Warner received her soaked offsprings from the rescuers.
+
+"You might as well wash the mud off them while they're wet, nanna," she
+told the black nurse, who was agitatedly proclaiming her opinion that
+"that two-pfeller Mas' Twinses bad babies."
+
+"But, good gracious! how will you manage?" ejaculated Mrs. Lester.
+"They'll catch their deaths of cold!  You must be five miles from home."
+
+Mrs. Warner had risen leisurely.
+
+"Oh, but we know the twinses," she said, laughing.  "Their amazing
+capacity for getting into trouble developed before they could crawl; we
+never come out without a complete change of clothing for each.  If
+there is fire, or water, or mud--preferably mud--the twinses will get
+into it.  I'll go over to the buggy and help nanna."
+
+"Let me come, too," said Mrs. Lester, jumping up.
+
+That refitting the twinses was no new thing was amply demonstrated by
+their mother.  A clump of bushes, reinforced by the buggy rug as an
+additional windbreak, formed a dressing-room; from under the seat of
+the buggy appeared a flat basket with fresh raiment.  Nanna appeared
+presently with her charges, and they were stripped and rubbed
+down--creating a diversion by contriving to elude even the vigilance of
+their mother, and, all unclad, making a dash for liberty.  The mothers
+pursued the gleaming little white bodies and brought them back,
+wriggling and protesting, to be clothed anew.
+
+"You can't have many dull moments," said Mrs. Lester, hugging a twin.
+
+"I haven't," said Mrs. Warner, dryly.  "But then, I never had before
+they came, so really it doesn't matter much.  When you have fifteen or
+twenty grown-up black babies under you, a couple of small white ones
+really don't signify!"
+
+The twinses, restored to dry clothes, proved unexpectedly docile, and
+consented to be taken by nanna to visit an enormous anthill, towering
+in the distance, a column of dried mud.  The elders explored the lagoon
+and gathered wild flowers, until there seemed some doubt as to whether
+there would be any room in the buggy for its passengers.  Old Harry
+presently produced tea, with old-time damper, perfectly baked.  They
+gathered near the camp fire again, and back across the paddock,
+scenting the banquet, came nanna and the twinses.
+
+Merle came up to Dick just as they were preparing to go home.
+
+"I say," she said, speaking with an effort, "you can ride Olaf home if
+you like."
+
+"Thanks awfully," Dick returned in astonishment.  "But I'm all right on
+Agility--and I know you like Olaf better than anything."
+
+She hesitated, flushing.
+
+"I'd like you to try him."  Suddenly it came to Dick that it would hurt
+her to be refused.
+
+"All right, it's jolly good of you," he said awkwardly.  "Come on, and
+I'll change the saddles."
+
+Merle helped at that, slipping her saddle off her own pony, and
+bestowing upon him a surreptitious little pat.  No one but herself ever
+rode him; she knew every inch of him, even, she herself believed, to
+his thoughts.  Nothing would have made Merle agree that horses did not
+think.  She wondered, rather miserably now, what his views were on
+being handed over to a stranger.
+
+"I've got to," she whispered to him, "for being a pig!"
+
+Dick did not understand anything of this; boy-like, he rather fancied
+that Merle was offering him her pony to show off his perfections.  It
+would have interested him more to ride Agility; but, being as
+good-natured as he was dense in these fine matters, he got up on Olaf
+good temperedly, and had to admit that he was a far more finished hack
+than his previous mount.  Merle looked pleased at his praise.
+
+"He is lovely, isn't he?" she asked.  "Daddy bought him at the Perth
+show; he's won lots of prizes.  He and I are awful good mates."
+
+"I'm sure you are," Dick said.  "Jolly good of you to let me ride him."
+
+Across the grass Mr. Warner had suddenly gaped in astonishment.
+
+"Well, I'm blessed!" he ejaculated to his wife.  "I believe Merle is
+repenting in style; she's actually put Dick on Olaf.  That's in amends
+for the ride he might have had on old Sergeant, I suppose!"
+
+"Making amends isn't much in Merle's line," said Merle's mother.
+
+"No, so I suppose we should be thankful for any sign of grace.  At
+least, they seem happy enough now--look at them!"
+
+Two small figures on galloping horses dipped down into a grassy hollow,
+flashed up again on the further side, made for a big log ahead, flew it
+together, and fled on again across the plain at full speed.
+
+"That's all right," said Mrs. Warner, comfortably.  "They can't
+possibly be bad friends now."
+
+"No.  But isn't it characteristic of Merle that although even the fact
+that he'd saved Bobby's life didn't make her treat him decently, she's
+reduced to penitence and friendliness by nearly giving him a ride on a
+bad horse!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE TEN-MILE HUT.
+
+A week went by, and the Lesters found themselves dropping so completely
+into the life of the western station that it might almost have seemed
+to be their own home.  They applied insistently for work, and got it;
+Dick and his father were constantly out on the run with Mr. Warner and
+his men, while Mrs. Lester lent a willing hand within the house, plying
+a busy needle at Mrs. Warner's perennially overflowing mending basket,
+and, by way of recreation, embroidering linen smocks for the twinses.
+
+"They'd be happier in sugar bags!" said their father, looking at the
+dainty garments.
+
+"But I wouldn't get any fun out of sugar bags," protested Mrs. Lester.
+"It's mere selfishness!"
+
+The twinses adored her, and constantly impeded her work by climbing
+over her and piling themselves upon her; at which times the matter
+would generally end by the disappearance of all three into the garden,
+where, under a big tree, she would tell them stories of fairies and
+leprechauns until their big eyes grew round with delight.  Merle often
+formed a third listener.  She and Mrs. Lester had become great friends,
+albeit the friendship on Merle's side was a silent one.  Speech was
+never easy to her; her father was the one person to whom she could talk
+without constraint; and yet he knew less of her heart than did this
+woman who had known her but a few weeks.
+
+"I'm really sorry for her," Mrs. Lester said to her husband.  "She's
+just like a chestnut burr; quite sound inside that hard, prickly
+exterior.  It's very bad luck to be born with a shell like that!"  So
+she was unceasing in her efforts to be friends with Merle, and had the
+satisfaction of seeing the prickles visibly decrease.
+
+As for Dick, nothing troubled him.  He bathed at daybreak each morning
+in the lake with the jackeroos, and added to his learning in the matter
+of fancy diving, for the Perth boy was a swimmer of note.  With them,
+too, he rode and shot and fished and played tennis, since Mr. Warner
+gave them a few slack days after their time in camp--"to put on
+condition," said he.  In the long blue days there were expeditions to
+the out stations, mustering of the cattle, marking and branding clean
+skins, picnics in the scrub and by the lagoons, and motor runs wherever
+the roads would allow the big car to go.  Dick took lessons in driving
+from Mr. Warner, and, though his allegiance to horses never wavered,
+was obliged to admit that there was more in motoring when you happened
+to be the man at the wheel.  There were no dull moments, largely
+because there were no empty ones; no day was half long enough for all
+that he wanted to pack into it.
+
+The jackeroos took kindly to the new-comer; he was "only a kid, but a
+decent kid," Downes said; and he brought a breath of the outer world,
+with his cheery stories of life at school.  He was keen to learn, too,
+and enjoyed everything so intensely that it was rather fun to have him
+with them.  So they made him one of them, both in the work and play of
+the long clear days, and in the star-lit nights when they fished in the
+lagoon, or went 'possum hunting in the belt of scrub that fringed the
+creek, or came back from a visit to another station, racing through the
+long grass with all the nameless thrill and leap of the blood that
+catches alike horses and riders in a night gallop.  Afterwards, when
+galloping days are over, it is the night rides that come back to us
+most clearly; memories of scented darkness, with only the clear stars
+overhead; memories of the moonlight, when the ring-barked gums stood
+ghost-like, throwing long shadows across the track--shadows over which
+the racing horses plunged, half-shying, too excited to be more than
+half afraid.  They come back to us, and with them come the sounds of
+the night: the long howl of a dingo in the ranges, a mopoke's weird
+cry, or a fox's bark; mingled with the tinkle of a bell on a working
+bullock, grazing fitfully, the creak of saddle leather and the jingle
+of bit and stirrup-iron; and over all the hot scents of the dew-wet
+bush.  Dick Lester, being a very ordinary boy, did not talk of these
+things; did not even frame them into thoughts.  But a night ride left
+him glowing, in mind and body; so that his mother, seeing his shining
+eyes, understood.  The child in Dick was fast giving way to the manhood
+stirring in him; and Mrs. Lester--bring an ordinary mother--found
+herself looking ahead, proud and yet regretful, clinging to her baby,
+and yet eager for all that she hoped for him.
+
+Dick came in one night with the jackeroos to find the elders discussing
+plans.
+
+"We're going to be civilised to-morrow," Mr. Warner told him.  "That
+is, we're going to put on our best clothes and take the car and go
+calling--the Harrisons at Mernda have asked us all over.  Means
+starting at eleven and not home until dark."
+
+"Oh," said Dick, his face falling involuntarily Calls--in best
+clothes--did not appeal to him; always they seemed to him waste of
+time, and here in the free western life, with so many new things to do
+daily, to go calling was little short of sacrilege.  Moreover, the
+ration cart, escorted by the jackeroos, was to go to the out-stations
+next day, and he had hoped to accompany it.  Good manners came to his
+aid--but his "That will be jolly!" was like flat sodawater.
+
+Mr. Warner laughed.
+
+"Yes, you look as if you thought so!" he said, at which Dick reddened,
+grinning.  "Well, we meant to give you your choice, old man; there's
+room for you in the car, if you're hankering after society, but if you
+have such queer taste as to want to stay and take rations out to old
+Bill Summers, I've no doubt Downes and Stephens and M'Leod will be glad
+of your company."
+
+"Oh truly?"  Dick brightened visibly.  "I'd rather stay, if you don't
+mind."
+
+"I suspected as much," Mr. Warner said, turning to Mrs. Lester.  "No
+use to offer him flesh-pots; old Agility and a job on the run have them
+beaten every time!  All right, then, Dick; you four can get away early.
+Send your tucker by the cart, Downes, and you can pick it up in time to
+lunch at the Ten-Mile."
+
+"I don't fancy we need take any, sir," Downes said, smiling.  "Last
+time we were out with Dick, old Bill made us promise we'd have dinner
+with him next visit; and Billy Fox was in from his camp three days ago,
+so we sent him word we'd be there on Thursday."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said the squatter.  "You won't miss the
+flesh-pots so much after all, Dick, for Bill is safe to have got a wild
+turkey."
+
+Dick laughed.  Damper and corned beef were to him better than any feast
+which had to be eaten in "best clothes," and inside four walls; it
+puzzled him to imagine why people should drive south in a cushioned
+motor-car when they could mount good horses and ride north over the
+saltbush plains and into the forests of whispering gums.  However, it
+was merciful that no such sacrifice was expected of him.  He had been
+once to the Ten-Mile, and had instantly made friends with old Bill
+Summers, who, having watched him helping to bring in an unruly bullock,
+had decided that there was something useful in "the Melbourne kid," and
+had shown his favour by spinning him long yarns of the bush.  It would
+have troubled Dick to be unable to fulfil his promise to go to see him
+again.
+
+Later, Mr. Warner talked to the jackeroos in the office.
+
+"Fox reported that the scare had died away; I don't think it ever
+existed, except in old Bill's imagination," he said.  "Still, there's
+never any harm in being on the safe side, and, though a revolver is a
+nuisance to carry, it's better to be sorry you have one than sorry you
+haven't.  So you'll each take one; you needn't say anything about it to
+Dick.  Not that he's at all likely to be scared, but he'd probably want
+to carry one himself, and then the scare would be on my side!"
+
+"I don't think he'd do any harm with it," Macleod said.  "We've been
+teaching him to use one."
+
+"I daresay not--still, he's only a kid, and kids and guns are best
+apart, especially on a horse that may buck.  Tell Bill he can come in
+with the cart for a couple of days if he likes; a spell at the
+homestead won't hurt him, and I want to talk to him about his cattle."
+He went on with other directions, concise and curt, and the lads nodded
+comprehendingly.
+
+Dawn found them in the lagoon; an alarum clock near Macleod's bed had
+shrilled its clamorous summons ten minutes before, and he had dragged
+the others out, awakening them by the simple process of first hauling
+them, bed clothes and all, to the floor, and then dividing the contents
+of the water jug impartially between them.  He fled, pausing on his way
+to collect Dick; and the drenched and injured Downes and Stephens
+pursued them, and took their revenge by ducking Macleod very thoroughly
+in a muddy corner near the bank, so that it took him some time to get
+clean.  They they dived and swam, and skylarked like four healthy young
+porpoises, getting back to the homestead with gigantic appetites for
+the gigantic breakfast which Mrs. Macleay had ready for them.  It was
+quickly disposed of, and they clattered down the verandah and out to
+the stable yard.  As they passed Mrs. Lester's window she called Dick
+softly.
+
+He went in to her room.  She was in a dressing-gown, looking very
+little and sweet.
+
+"I just wanted to say good morning to you, Dickie," she said.  Her eyes
+dwelt on him restfully--tall and bronzed and eager-eyed, in his soft
+shirt, breeches and leggings.  "Take care of yourself, old man."
+
+"Rather," Dick answered.  "You, too, mummie.  Have a good day."
+
+"Oh, yes."  She kissed him, her hand lingering wistfully on his
+arm--she could feel the hard muscles under the shirt sleeve.  "I'd
+rather be going with you, Dick."
+
+"Then why ever don't you come?" Dick ejaculated.
+
+"Because it wouldn't be manners," she said, and laughed.  "Never mind,
+I'll hear all about your adventures to-night."  She kissed him again
+suddenly.  "Now go on; you mustn't keep the others waiting."  From her
+window she watched him racing across to the stables.  Presently they
+all came out, and went down the paddock helter-skelter, Agility reefing
+and plunging in the lead.  She watched them until the trees swallowed
+them up.
+
+Early as they were the ration cart had been earlier still.  Drawn by
+two stout mules, and driven by old Harry, it had set out more than an
+hour before, for it had to visit a number of camps and huts, and the
+tracks between them were rough and sandy.  And, whatever may happen,
+the ration cart must not fail.  To the men in the lonely huts on the
+out stations it is the one link with civilisation, and the food it
+brings does not count so much in their longing for its monthly visit as
+its cargo of mental "tucker"--news, letters, papers, the sound of a
+fresh voice, the chance of a little new companionship for men who have
+lived together so long that there is often little between them but
+silence.
+
+"I don't know how these fellows stick it," said Downes, as they rode
+along.  "Most of 'em come in to the homestead about once in three
+months; between those times all they see is the ration cart once a
+month, and an occasional visit from the boss or some of us.  You'd want
+to be awfully keen on your mate to be able to live with another fellow
+like that."
+
+"Do they ever fight?" queried Dick.
+
+"Oh, sometimes.  Not often, though.  Of course there are plenty of
+stories of fellows who have gone off their heads and murdered their
+mate, but we haven't had them going in for those capers on this
+station.  Now and then a man comes in and asks for his cheque--says he
+can't stand Bill or Jim, or whoever he is, any more.  Then the boss has
+to hustle to get Bill or Jim another mate."
+
+"Like the old story of two mates who couldn't agree about the bird,"
+said Stephen.
+
+"What's that?" asked Dick.
+
+"Oh, it's a chestnut.  They were going back to their hut one night and
+one man said, 'There's a magpie up in that tree.'  The other chap said
+nothing till a long while after, and then he said, 'That wasn't a
+magpie--it was a crow.'  The first man didn't answer; but next morning
+his mate saw him rolling up his swag.  He said, 'Where y' goin' Bill?'
+The other fellow slung his swag up on his shoulder.  'Too much bloomin'
+argument about this camp,' he said--and went."
+
+The boys laughed.
+
+"Well, if you once began to argue, I guess you'd go mad," observed
+Downes.  "Most of 'em know that, and they hold their tongues rather
+than start any subject that may lead to a quarrel."
+
+"There's one old man at the Three Crows.  Well, who prefers to live
+alone--won't have a mate," Stephens told Dick.  "He says it's better to
+be a hatter than to have the wrong man with him and that he doesn't
+believe the right one exists.  So he goes on being a hatter, and he
+seems to like it all right."
+
+"He writes poetry in his spare time," said Macleod with a grin.  "I
+camped in his hut one night and he showed me stacks of it.  Awful rum
+stuff.  There was one poem that I thought was to his girl.  It began:
+
+  "Ader, she can't be licked by much,
+  And I have often told her such,
+  She has the neatest little head,
+  From horns to hoofs she is clean bred!"
+
+at which point I recognised that Ada was a cow!"
+
+There was a howl from the boys.
+
+"I believe you made it up yourself," Downes accused him.  "It sounds
+like the drivel you'd write!"  Which led to retaliation on the part of
+the injured Macleod, and they wrestled until their horses ended the
+matter by going off in opposite directions--the combatants, refusing to
+separate, being left on the ground still wrestling.  The horses were
+restored by Dick and Stephens, weak with laughter, and they resumed
+progress.
+
+They crossed a belt of timber fringing a creek that in summer dwindled
+to a few muddy waterholes, and struck across a sandy plain, where
+saltbush and spinifex grew among outcrops of ironstone.  The grass was
+harsh and scanty, and the breeze brought with it loose particles of
+sand.
+
+"Glad we haven't much of this country," Macleod said.  "And it gets
+worse the further you go in this direction--no water, except native
+wells, and you can't always rely on them; and no grass except dry
+sticks."
+
+"Can stock live on it at all?" Dick asked.
+
+"They'll eat the salt bush sometimes--in a bad year.  But it isn't a
+white man's country, this sort of stuff, unless you can get gold out of
+it.  I think it must have been intended for that," Macleod said.
+"Further out in the desert they used to say that at the Creation that
+part must have been meant for the bottom of the sea, only the sea
+wouldn't lob there!"
+
+"My father used to prospect in that country," said Stephens, the Perth
+boy.  "He never found any gold worth picking up, and then he struck two
+dry wells and 'did a perish,' and he wouldn't have got back alive if
+some other prospectors hadn't found him.  He says that where the early
+miners used to camp for any time they used to cut a spiral ringbark in
+the big trees, from as high as they could reach to the ground.  Then,
+if it rained--not that it often did--the water running down the tree
+would get caught in this spiral cut, and flow down the tree to the
+ground.  They nailed a bit of tin there to lead it into a bucket."
+
+"Seems a complicated way of getting a drink," remarked Downes.
+
+"The only other way was to condense--and condensed water wasn't up to
+much," Stephens answered.  "I guess those old prospectors earned all
+the gold they got."
+
+"Any gold on this place?" asked Dick.
+
+Stephens shook his head.
+
+"They've hunted for it, of course," he said.  "Where haven't they
+hunted for it in Western Australia?  This little old State is dotted
+all over with poppet-heads and mullock-heaps like plums in a pudding.
+Mr. Warner reckons if you could go down deep enough you'd get gold; but
+there'll never be the water available for deep mining."
+
+Near the boundary of Narrung they came upon a frowsy camp, where half a
+dozen Afghans were cutting timber for the mines.  They were eating as
+the boys rode up, and their greeting was not over-cordial; swarthy,
+hook-nosed fellows in dirty clothes that were a mixture of East and
+West.  Two or three half-starved dogs flew out to yelp at the horses.
+
+"Wouldn't have them on the place, if it was my say," remarked Stephens.
+"Dirty, lazy brutes, and look at their poor wretches of starved camels.
+They haven't had a decent feed for a month.  I told the boss they'd
+start a lively fire on the run some day, but he reckons they can't do
+any harm in this sandy corner.  Well, I wouldn't trust 'em."  He rode
+on, muttering, and shaking an anxious young head.
+
+They had reached the eastern boundary line; a fence had to be mended
+half a mile beyond the Afghan camp, and when it was finished, they
+turned north, riding fast until they came to more fertile country.
+They passed the hut where lived Macleod's poetical "hatter," pausing
+for five minutes' chat with the old man, who was seated on a stump
+outside his door under a big belar, devouring papers left him by the
+ration cart; and then on, across a wide, grassy plain, until they came
+into the belt of timber that extended beyond the out-station, where
+Bill Summers and his mate spent their lonely existence.  The wheels of
+the ration cart had left a recent mark upon the grass.
+
+"Harry must have hurried a bit," said Downes.  "Of course he goes
+straight from point to point, and we go round all the corners--still,
+he must have made his mules travel.  He's going to have dinner with old
+Bill, too; it's a great day for Bill.  He'll be awfully sick if he
+hasn't managed to get a turkey and has to give us salt horse."
+
+"Much we care!" said Stephens.
+
+"No, but he does.  Bill's what my mother calls 'house-proud,' and he's
+also jealous of Harry's cooking.  He's a great old chap!" said Downes,
+enthusiastically.
+
+They came into sight of the hut.  The cart was standing near it, the
+mules contentedly cropping the grass; but there was no sign of any of
+the men.
+
+"Harry's inside advising Bill as to the last stages of the turkey,"
+laughed Stephens.
+
+"Helping him light up his fire, I should think," said Downes, glancing
+keenly at the hut.  "There's no smoke."  He looked puzzled.  "Wonder if
+the old chap is out after cattle--let's give him a coo-ee."
+
+They shouted, and as there was no response they shook their horses into
+a canter.  The mules looked up at them uninterestedly as they dashed
+up; then they resumed feeding.  Something in the utter stillness of the
+place caught at the boys' hearts and stilled their merry voices.
+
+"Hold my horse a minute, Dick."  Downes flung his bridle across.  "I'm
+going in."
+
+He ran up to the hut.  As he did so old Harry limped out, with a face
+so ashen that the boy cried out in alarm.
+
+"Harry!  What's wrong?"
+
+The old man was looking at Dick.
+
+"Don't let that kid come," he said.  "Get him home--quick.  They've got
+Bill and Fox."
+
+"Got them?  Who?  What do you mean?"
+
+"The blacks.  They're there--in their bunks--speared."
+
+[Illustration: "'They're there in their bunks--speared.'"]
+
+Downes reeled back.
+
+"Dead?"
+
+"Yes; both dead."  The old man's voice broke in a quavering sob.  "They
+couldn't've known, that's the only thing--both of 'em must have bin
+asleep.  The brutes! the brutes! the brutes!  Poor old Bill Summers,
+that never hurt man, woman or child in his life!  My God, if I could
+get my hands on them!"
+
+The other boys were round them now, leaving Dick with the four horses.
+They stared at each other, white-faced; and Stephens looked into the
+hut, to stagger back, hiding his eyes.
+
+"They couldn't've suffered," Harry repeated.  "That's the only thing.
+But it's hard on old Bill, to go out without a chance to hit back.  And
+Fox, too--a decent young chap as ever stepped.  Got an old mother, and
+a girl in Geraldton."
+
+"What are we to do?" Downes gasped.
+
+"Get the kid there home, and warn the other out stations.  For all we
+know they're in the timber here now; not that they're likely to attack
+five or six men together and in daylight.  I must take the--the bodies
+in in the cart.  One of you must help me--you're the eldest, Mr.
+Downes, you'd better stay--and then you'll have to ride with me; 'cause
+I can't keep a lookout from the cart, and we must go round by the Five
+Mile and warn 'em there.  Mr. Stephens can go to the eastern
+stations--not likely to be trouble there, but they must get in their
+cattle.  Mr. Macleod can take the little chap home and warn the other
+huts on his way.  Mr. Warner must hear as quick as you can get home to
+tell him, Mr. Macleod."
+
+"He's over at Mernda," Macleod said, his voice husky.  "Won't be home
+until after dark."
+
+The old soldier's keen face darkened.
+
+"You'll have to go after him, then.  The news has got to get to
+Westown, and he'll do it quickest in the car.  Get a fresh horse when
+you go in.  The police and the black trackers'll have to come out from
+Westown.  Ride as hard as you can, every one of you.  And keep your
+eyes skinned all the time--you don't know where the black fiends may
+be."
+
+"We'd better wait on guard until you--until you start," Macleod said.
+"You can't keep a watch while you get them----"  The words stuck in the
+boy's throat.  "They could rush you from the trees if we left you
+alone."
+
+"Yes, that's right," Harry said.  "Well, take the little chap off for a
+minute, Mr. Macleod--poor lad, he doesn't know what's up, and he's
+looking like a ghost--and we'll get a start."
+
+Macleod went over and took two of the horses from Dick, leading him off
+behind the hut while he told him of the tragedy.  Dick stared at him
+blankly; evident as it had been to him that something was terribly
+wrong it was impossible to realise that the old man who had been kind
+to him lay dead in his hut, foully murdered with his sleeping mate.
+
+"I don't think we've anything to be scared about," Macleod said.  "I've
+a revolver, and, besides, I don't think the brutes would attack any of
+us in broad daylight."
+
+"I'm not scared," Dick said dully.  "I say, do you--do you think
+it--hurt them much?"
+
+"Harry says not," said Macleod, with a gulp--he was only a boy himself.
+"He says they couldn't have known.  Bill must have been very sound
+asleep or they would never have got in--I don't expect he ever woke,
+poor old chap."
+
+"That's something," Dick said.  His eyes blazed suddenly.  "Can't we do
+anything?  Can't we fight?"
+
+"We'll raise the whole country when we get home," Macleod answered
+savagely.  "I only hope the boss will let us go out with our guns, and
+not wait for the police.  But our job is to warn the out stations, and
+then to get the news to the boss."  He wheeled round, and suddenly took
+off his hat.  "Here they are."
+
+The cart came by, its pitiful burden covered with the dead men's
+blankets; old Harry, tight-lipped, driving, and the white-faced boys
+following.  Downes made two efforts to speak before his voice would
+come.
+
+"That's all right, Mac," he said.  "Get to the huts and home as quick
+as ever you can.  Keep close together, mind, while you're in the
+timber, and go like smoke!"
+
+Stephens had gone off at a hand gallop already.  Macleod nodded, and he
+and Dick gave their horses their heads, taking the track through the
+trees where the cart wheels had left their print on the soft grass.
+They were out of sight in a moment, galloping side by side, with keen
+eyes searching through the timber on either hand.  Once Dick fancied
+that he saw a shadowy black form, and it was easy enough to think he
+heard, above the pounding hoofs, the whistle of a spear; but the moment
+passed and they were racing onward, only checking their speed when they
+came to another lonely hut.  A few words, and they were off again,
+leaving the amazed and infuriated men to look to their guns and muster
+their cattle out of harm's way.  Another hut, and another; and then,
+their work half done, they turned their horses towards home.  The trees
+were left behind them now, and they came out upon the wide plain where
+scattered clumps of timber, easy to dodge in their gallop, gave shade
+to the lazy bullocks.
+
+"We can get a move on now!" Macleod said, between his teeth.  "And
+every minute we save means more chance of catching those fiends!"
+
+They leaned forward in their saddles to ease the horses, and urged them
+to racing speed.  Mile after mile, trees flashing by them, cattle
+lumbering, affrighted, out of their way, with no word between them, and
+only the dull thud of the hoofs to break the silence.  Not until they
+reached the gate of the paddock near the homestead did they draw rein.
+Macleod, leaning across his horse's dripping neck to open it, glanced
+at Dick.
+
+"Tired?" he asked.  "You've had nothing to eat, poor kid."
+
+"I'm not tired," Dick said; "and I feel as if I never wanted to eat
+again."
+
+"Same here!" Macleod nodded.  "But it isn't sense.  We'll have to get
+something at the house.  No use in cracking up just when we're wanted."
+
+They were galloping again, across the last stretch of grass.  Suddenly
+Agility faltered in his stride and half pulled up, limping heavily.
+Dick was off in a flash.
+
+"He's picked up something," he cried.  "Don't wait; I'll lead him in."
+
+Macleod had checked his horse, but at the words he shook his bridle and
+shot forward.  Dick patted Agility's neck, and lifted his forefoot.  He
+whistled softly.
+
+"You poor old beggar!" he said.  A scrap of barbed wire was embedded in
+the frog by two cruel teeth.  The horse flinched from the touch.  Dick
+soothed him a moment, and then, with a quick movement, drew out the
+torturing steel, dodging back as Agility plunged wildly.
+
+"There!" he said.  "All over, old chap.  Now come and get doctored."
+
+He led him slowly across the grass, Agility on three legs.  Near the
+gate O'Mara, wide-eyed with horror from Macleod's story, met him.
+
+"Barbed wire, is it?  I dunno why they have the misfortunate stuff on
+anny decent place," he said, taking the horse's foot up to examine it.
+"H'm--'twill be a while before he gets that to the ground.  Could ye
+bathe him now, Master Dick?  I'd do it meself, only I must drive Mr.
+Macleod to Mernda; the browns are ready in the stable, an' 'twill be
+quicker than riding.  And there's not another man about the place;
+they're all out at some job or other.  Sure I'm only in meself ten
+minutes, and that's why the browns are handy; I drove Mr. Macleay over
+to Andrews's for the day."
+
+"I'll bathe him, of course," Dick said, taking Agility's bridle.
+"Don't you worry about him."
+
+"I'd have worried ten minutes ago, but it don't seem to matter much
+now," the old groom said.  "Poor old Bill Summers!  Well, I hope them
+murdherin' fiends will find it the worst day's work ever they did.
+Masther Dick, will ye keep a lookout, an' the first man that comes in,
+send him over to Andrews's for Mr. Macleay--he'd betther be home.
+There'll be guns and cartridges wanting out of the store."
+
+"All right," Dick nodded.  "Better let me help you put the browns in."
+
+The light buggy was still in the yard, and the horses harnessed.  They
+put them back, and O'Mara drove out just as Macleod came running over.
+
+"Good man!" he said, swinging himself up.  "You all right, Dick?  Mind
+you get something to eat.  Let 'em go, O'Mara!"  The buggy dashed away
+down the hill, the browns resenting the unaccustomed touch of the whip.
+
+Dick bathed Agility and rubbed him down, finally putting him into loose
+box and giving him a feed.  He glanced into the other boxes; they were
+empty, until he came to the last one, where Conqueror's iron-grey head
+poked over the half-door.  Dick patted the long nose as he passed.
+
+"You'd better take a rest while you can," he said.  "I guess you'll be
+wanted pretty soon."  But just how soon he did not dream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+HOW CONQUEROR BOLTED.
+
+The day had gone slowly for Merle Warner.
+
+From her room she had watched the boys ride off in the early morning,
+sore and resentful that she was not one of the party.  It was her
+favourite ride: of all the station jobs there was none Merle loved like
+going out to the Ten-Mile.  Bill Summers and she were great friends; he
+always expected to see her when the ration cart went out.  And just
+because her father was not going, she also must remain at home, since
+long rides were only permitted her under his wing.
+
+She had begged that the rule might, for this once, be relaxed, but her
+father had been adamant.
+
+"Don't be stupid, Merle," he had said sharply, at last.  "Apart from
+the fact that I wouldn't let you go without me, you might have the
+sense to realise that the boys really wouldn't want you.  Boys don't
+want a little girl always hanging round."  Then--a little sorry for her
+quick flush, "You can come with us to Mernda in the car, if you like."
+
+"I wouldn't go a yard to Mernda!" Merle had flashed.
+
+"Very well, then, stay at home," Mr. Warner had responded cheerfully.
+"After all, it's the best place for you.  Run off to bed, I'm busy."
+He had turned to his writing-table and forgotten all about her.
+
+The memory did not tend to make Merle amiable at the breakfast-table,
+which seemed curiously empty without the cheery presence of the four
+boys.  She hurried through her breakfast, and then retreated with a
+book to her nest in the big pine tree in the garden, turning a deaf ear
+to occasional calling of her name.  From her hiding-place she watched
+the car drive off after a while, her father at the wheel.  She did not
+descend until the luncheon gong boomed out its summons; and then
+strolled in, rather hoping that her absence had caused anxiety.  It was
+rather crushing to learn from Mrs. Macleay that Yet On, the Chinese
+gardener, had seen her climb the tree and had mentioned the fact to the
+first person he had heard calling her.
+
+Lunch, with Bobby and the twinses, had been both dull and irritating;
+Bobby, who was mourning Dick's absence, was in a provoking mood, and
+the twinses insisted on emptying their soup into a vase, and howled
+dismally when nanna, returning after a short absence, checked this
+interesting diversion.  The pudding, too, was one Merle did not happen
+to like; she refused to eat any, and, pushing her chair impatiently
+away, left the table.  Bobby pursued her, presently demanding that she
+should play with him; she locked herself in her room to avoid him,
+declining to come out until the sound of little voices, dying away in
+the distance, told her that nanna had taken the children for their
+afternoon walk.
+
+She opened her door and strolled out upon the verandah.  It was a
+glorious afternoon; the sun, shining through the trailing masses of
+tecoma on the posts, was enough to charm away even bad temper.  A
+sudden thought came to her, and she turned back into her room, to
+emerge presently dressed for riding.  Olaf was in the stable, she knew.
+Why should she not take him out?  Mrs. Macleay was the only person
+likely to interfere with her, and she was safely in the kitchen.  Merle
+ran across to the stable yard, almost cheerfully.
+
+She called O'Mara, but received no answer; and then remembered that she
+had seen him go out, driving Mr. Macleay.  Well, it did not matter.  It
+was easy enough to saddle Olaf without help.  She mounted and rode down
+towards the lake, looking out for the children.  They were playing with
+nanna near the bank, and she trotted along to them.
+
+"Where's you goin', Merle?" demanded Bobby.
+
+"I'm going to meet the boys," Merle said.  "You can tell Mrs. Macleay,
+nanna, if she asks for me."
+
+The black nurse looked uneasy.
+
+"Boss, him be cross this pfeller if you go far," she protested.  "Mine
+thinkit baal you go all by you'se'f, Missy Merle."
+
+"Oh, rubbish, nanna," Merle said.
+
+"Dad'll be jolly wild wiv you--an' so'll mummy," said Bobby warningly.
+
+"I don't care.  I'm not going far, anyhow.  The boys'll be home soon.
+I'm sure to meet them in the Middle Plain."
+
+"Boss him say baal you go out on yarraman (horse) 'less he go longa
+you," said nanna.  "Mine thinkit better you get off."
+
+She put out a hand to the bridle.  But Merle was too quick for her; a
+touch of her heel, and Olaf sprang aside.  She cantered off along the
+track, turning to laugh at them.  Bobby's woeful little face touched
+her a little.
+
+"Never mind, old chap," she called to him.  "I'll bring Dick home, and
+we'll have a game."
+
+She cantered across the first two paddocks.  The boys should be home
+soon now, she thought; better fun not to meet them too near the home
+stead, in the smaller paddocks, where they could not have a good
+gallop.  Out on the plain they might put up a hare, and a racing spin
+over the grass would be some compensation for the disappointment of her
+day.  Olaf was very fresh; she gave him his head when she had shut the
+last gate, and soon was far out in the open.  Once she thought she
+caught sight of the boys in a clump of trees, and rode away from the
+track to see; but, though she beat through the trees, thinking they
+were hiding from her, she found only a big shorthorn bullock, which
+lumbered off at her approach.  There was still no sign of the boys as
+she emerged again upon the plain; she stared ahead fruitlessly.  Had
+she glanced back she might have seen two racing figures making for the
+homestead: Dick and Macleod, getting the last ounce they could out of
+their horses.  But it did not occur to Merle to look back.  She touched
+Olaf impatiently, and again cantered forward.
+
+The green line of the timber ahead beckoned her.  She knew well that
+she would never have been allowed to enter it alone; but she was in the
+reckless, defiant mood that considers it as well to be hanged for a
+sheep as for a lamb.  After all, she thought, she must certainly meet
+the boys very soon; every moment she paused, thinking she heard their
+voices.  It would be cooler to wait in the shade, even if she only went
+just within the edge of the belt of trees.  But once there, she strayed
+further and further in, tempted by the leafy green alleys that she
+loved.  Olaf loved them as much as she; he paced along, daintily
+arching his beautiful neck.  The sunlight, filtering through the gum
+leaves, made dappled patterns on the black satin of his skin.  Once or
+twice he pricked his ears questioningly, as though listening to some
+sound Merle could not hear--surely, she thought, the boys' horses
+coming through the trees from the Ten-Mile.  So she went slowly on.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Dick came across to the homestead from the stables, feeling suddenly
+very tired.  He had not eaten since breakfast; and morning, with its
+early start and the fun and laughter of the ride out, seemed to belong
+to another age altogether.  Then, cruelty and murder had been things
+that people talked about, without realising their existence; now they
+had suddenly come close enough to be touched, and the whole world was
+altered.  His heart was heavy for the old man who had been kind to him;
+dead now, and without the chance of striking a blow in his own defence.
+Dick's fists clenched in helpless anger.
+
+The great bell of the station crashed out suddenly, in such thunderous
+clamour that he jumped and then stood still.  What Mr. Warner called
+its "tinkle"--the daily summons to dinner--had seemed to Dick violent
+enough; but this was a new sound altogether, a resonant, brazen din
+that clanged furiously, sending its strident clashing far out across
+the paddocks.  The squatter's words came back to him--"It can make a
+very tolerable din in the hands of an active person."  Well, that was
+no exaggeration--surely its wild clamour must reach every man working
+out on the run.
+
+He went across to the high stand from which the bell hung.  It was
+swaying back and forth in a kind of mad dance, and below stood Mrs.
+Macleay, her muscles swelling under her thin blouse as she tugged at
+the rope.
+
+"I'd nearly forgot the bell," she panted. "'Tis two years since we had
+to ring it--and then 'twas for a bush fire.  Go in, laddie--there's
+food waiting for ye in the dining-room, and Mr. Macleod said ye were to
+eat."
+
+Dick turned away heavily.  The black girls were gathered round, staring
+and chattering.  At the moment even their friendly ebony faces were
+horrible to him, and he brushed past them as quickly as he could.  The
+food in the dining-room seemed to choke him at first; he gulped down a
+cup of strong tea, and then found it easier to swallow.  The clanging
+of the bell never ceased; he felt as though it were beating inside his
+head, paralysing him.  And he was suddenly terribly lonely.  A great
+longing for companionship came over him, and he went out again.
+
+Mrs. Macleay had given the bell rope to a black girl, and was speaking
+hurriedly to nanna, who had run to the house with the children when the
+bell began to ring.  Her kind face was white.
+
+"Think what you're saying, nanna!  Miss Merle gone out on her pony!
+Where?"
+
+Bobby piped up.
+
+"Merle's gone to meet Dick and the boys," he said.  "Out over the
+Miggle Plain towards the Ten-Mile.  We tole her dad would be jolly
+angwy, but she would go."
+
+"That Missy Merle bad pfeller, mine thinkit," said the black gin,
+stolidly.  "Ball she let me stop her--she kicking yarraman, all same
+jump away quick."
+
+"Bobby!" Mrs. Macleay's voice was a wail.  "Are you sure she went
+towards the Ten-Mile?"
+
+Bobby nodded decidedly.
+
+"Dead certain.  She was awful cwoss 'cause dad wouldn't let her go wiv
+'em this morning.  She said she'd meet 'em comin' home."  His eye fell
+on Dick, and he sprang to meet him with a gay little shout.  "Oh, Dick!
+Didn't you meet Merle?"
+
+Over the fair head Dick's eyes met the Scotchwoman's, and there was
+dread in both.
+
+"How long ago, Bobby?"
+
+"Since Merle went?  Oh, ages!" said Bobby airily.  "Didn't you see her?"
+
+Dick shook his head.
+
+Mrs. Macleay gripped his shoulder suddenly, pulling him aside.
+
+"Can you go after her?"  Her voice was thick.  "I can't ride, and
+there's not a man on the place.  Is there a horse in?  Mr. Macleod said
+yours was lame."
+
+"Conqueror's in the stable," Dick said.  "Of course I'll go; most
+likely I'll catch her up before she gets to the timber.  Anyhow, she'll
+never go into the timber by herself, and no black fellow would go near
+her in the open on Olaf."
+
+"Are you fit to go, child?"  The woman wrung her hands.  "You look dead
+beat now.  But what am I to do?"
+
+Dick forced a laugh.
+
+"Don't you worry; I'm all right," he said.  "Ten to one she'll have
+turned back and I'll meet her coming home.  I'd better scoot, hadn't
+I?"  Turning, he ran, pursued by an indignant wail from Bobby.
+
+Conqueror was fresh and impatient, and to saddle a horse of seventeen
+hands is not an easy task for a boy of thirteen, even if that horse be
+inclined to stand still.  Dick was struggling with him when Mrs.
+Macleay appeared.
+
+"I'll hold him," she said, briefly.  She helped to saddle the great
+horse, and then gave Dick an awkward leg-up.  Still holding the bridle
+she took something from her pocket.
+
+"Is this any good to you?"
+
+It was a small automatic pistol, and Dick's heart leaped at the sight
+of it.
+
+"I can't hit a haystack," he admitted.  "But I know how to use
+it--we've been practising every evening--and at least I can fire it
+off.  Is it loaded?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Yes--but I can't find any more cartridges."
+
+"Well, I mightn't need even these, but I'd better take it," Dick said.
+He slipped it into his pocket.  "Can you open the gate, Mrs. Macleay?"
+
+"Ay," she said.  "And there's black girls ahead at the next two gates
+for ye.  Ride fast, laddie, and God keep ye!"
+
+Dick needed no telling.  Conqueror was already reefing and dancing with
+impatience.  He went through the gate in a flash and settled into his
+stride across the next two paddocks, in a way that would have been
+impossible but for Mrs. Macleay's forethought in sending the gins ahead
+to open the gates.  The wide Middle Plain spread before him, and he
+gave his head a little shake, taking the bit in his teeth.  This
+featherweight on his back was as nothing; and the stretching plain,
+with its soft grass, was a galloping ground that he loved.
+
+Dick had never ridden such a horse.  On his father's station, while at
+odd times he might ride anything, as occasion demanded, his favourite
+mount was his pony, Tinker; here, he had ridden Agility, a horse full
+of fire and speed, but not big.  Conqueror's huge bulk beneath him made
+him feel like an insect on an elephant.  There seemed miles of great
+neck before him--iron-grey in colour, and hard as iron; and to pull at
+the huge head was like pulling at the side of a mountain.  The massive
+hoofs seemed to fling themselves out, pounding the grass with
+earth-shaking thuds.  Dick tried to get the horse in hand once, but
+realised that he had no chance whatever, Conqueror merely shook his
+head and galloped on.
+
+Well, after all, to gallop was all Dick wanted.  Luckily, the great
+horse kept to the faint wheel track, and that, presumably, was the line
+that Merle had taken.  He ceased to try to steady Conqueror or to guide
+him, realising that all his energies would be needed for sitting still
+on the mighty, plunging bulk beneath him.  Leaning forward, he scanned
+the plain eagerly for a glimpse of a little figure on a black pony; but
+there was nothing save open grass and blue sky, except for the
+scattered clumps of trees to right and left.  She would not be in one
+of those, he thought, or if she were, the noise of thundering hoofs
+would make her show herself.  He could do nothing but gallop ahead
+towards the long-blurred line of timber.
+
+But he was cruelly tired.  Each great bound under him seemed to shake
+him from head to foot.  The spring had gone out of him; between hard
+riding and shock, his nerves had tightened almost to breaking point.
+Yesterday, riding out to revolver practice with the jackeroos, he had
+fancied himself almost a man; to-day he knew himself for a little boy,
+and a tired one at that.  The thought of his mother came to him, and a
+sob rose in his throat.
+
+Yet, when the line of timber grew near, and he knew that he must enter
+it, with all its stealthy peril, something of the clean pluck that was
+his inheritance came back to him.  He sat erect, and tried to steady
+Conqueror; and to his surprise the mighty horse gave to the light
+fingers on his bit, and the stretching gallop steadied to the slow
+canter that his master declared was the easiest pace in the world.
+With the slackening of the pounding gallop relief came to Dick's
+overtaxed senses.  Had it gone on, he had known that he must fall; now,
+that fear left him, and with it some of his weariness.  He reined
+Conqueror to a walk as they reached the trees, peering into their dark
+recesses.
+
+Nothing seemed stirring there.  The wheel tracks lay before him, faint,
+yet clear enough; he was not bushman enough to say if other hoof-prints
+had stirred the soft grass.  With a sudden impulse he coo'ee'd loudly,
+wondering immediately if he had done the wrong thing.  There was no
+answer.  He took his courage in both hands and rode into the forest.
+
+Everything there was very quiet.  Not even a bird seemed awake among
+the trees.  So still was it that when a long trail of bark came
+fluttering down Conqueror jumped, and Dick felt himself turn cold.  He
+realised that he was very badly afraid, and the knowledge brought with
+it an angry disgust of himself that did more to steady him than
+anything else could have done.  He tried to keep himself from thinking
+of the hut ... of what had lain in it that the men had not let him see;
+but the thought came over him like a wave.  The utter stillness of the
+bush was like a cold hand upon his heart.  He rode on, deeper and
+deeper into the green silence.
+
+Then, ahead, something crashed over some dry sticks; and Conqueror
+flung up his head and whinnied loudly.  He thought he heard a cry.
+Then came galloping hoofs, and suddenly, down a long aisle of the
+trees, Olaf came into view, riderless and mad with fear.  Conqueror
+plunged aside shivering with some sense more keen than Dick's; and the
+black pony flashed past them, his head low, his eyes glazed with
+terror, and right through his neck a long spear that hit the trees as
+he galloped.  A moment and he was gone, and the silence of the bush was
+more profound than ever.
+
+"Merle!  Merle!"
+
+Dick's cry shrilled through the forest.  He took Conqueror by the head,
+and sent him at a sharp trot down the open space whence Olaf had come,
+glancing keenly from side to side, peering into the scrub.  Again and
+again he shouted, as much in the hope that the blacks, hearing, might
+imagine that he was not the only new-comer as to warn Merle herself.
+But indeed, though he rode on desperately, he had but little hope.
+Surely, when the black pony lost his rider it was because the spears
+had found her first.
+
+The glade ended in a dense thicket so overgrown with creepers that to
+force a way through would have been difficult.  Dick pulled up,
+thinking hard.  Someone was near, he felt--and there came a queer,
+pricking sensation in his skin as he wondered what it felt like to be
+speared.  Then he saw an opening on his right hand, and pushing
+through, found himself on the edge of a long gully, fringed with ferns
+and thick with sarsaparilla and clematis.  Here was where Olaf had
+come; the pony's hoof marks were clearly visible among crushed flowers
+and leaves in the rich soil.  And then his heart gave a great bound,
+and stood still.
+
+Merle was running desperately towards him, dodging in and out of the
+trees that grew on the bank of the gully.  She was hatless, and there
+was a long smear of mud on her face that looked like blood.  And behind
+her, running swiftly and silently, were half a dozen men--slender black
+figures with horrible patterns on their bodies in black and red, and in
+their hands bundles of spears.  Dick saw one flash in the air past
+Merle, burying its point in a tree.
+
+He shouted, sending Conqueror forward.  Something hard knocked against
+his side with the sudden movement, and he gasped with relief as he
+remembered Mrs. Macleay's pistol.  There was no aiming, with Merle
+between him and the racing black figures; he fired twice in the air,
+shouting with mingled joy and excitement when he saw them pause and
+dodge behind cover.  Then he was beside Merle, and she was clinging to
+his stirrup.  He found himself praying desperately.
+
+"Oh, God! keep Conqueror steady!"
+
+The great horse stood like a rock.  Dick kicked his feet out of the
+stirrup and slid to his back behind the saddle.
+
+"Jump up!" he said sharply.  "You've got to be in front."
+
+Somehow, with his help, she managed it.  Her boot caught him in the
+face as she gained the saddle and almost knocked him off.  She gathered
+up the reins, and Dick caught her belt with one hand.  The blacks
+showed again on both sides of the gully.  He fired wildly among them,
+and thought he saw one man drop.  But there was no time to see
+anything.  Conqueror was off, and they were tearing up the long glade.
+A spear whistled by them, and Dick flung his arms around Merle,
+sheltering her as best he could.
+
+"Lie down on his neck," he gasped.  "He'll take us home if they don't
+hit him."
+
+Right ahead a knot of blacks showed, fiercely barring the way, and a
+flight of spears came whirring through the air.  Dick fired his last
+shot, with a feeling of numb despair.  Conqueror would never face them,
+and once he turned, wheeling back among the trees, what chance had
+they?  For the bush was alive with blacks.  He could see their fierce
+forms slipping in and out among the timber; could hear their guttural
+shouts.  He forced Merle down yet further, vainly trying to shield her
+with his body.
+
+A spear caught the tip of Conqueror's ear, and another grazed his
+flank.  He plunged so violently that his riders were almost unseated;
+and then, mad with pain and terror, the great horse charged forward,
+pounding the glade with outstretched neck and nostrils flecked with
+foam.  The blacks stood for an instant, and then wavered and fled, and
+Conqueror swept by them, shaking the earth in the might of his stride.
+A few spears flew harmlessly past, and then Dick felt a sudden red-hot
+pain in his shoulder; but it did not seem to matter--nothing mattered
+save the wild exultation of that race with Death.  He shouted
+triumphantly, "Good old Conqueror!" and heard a sound from Merle that
+was half laugh, half sob.
+
+[Illustration: "Then, mad with pain and terror, the great horse charged
+forward."]
+
+The plain danced before their tired eyes.  They were out of the timber,
+and galloping towards home, with no hideous lurking dangers ahead--only
+the long stretch of thick grass over which the wheel-tracks made a
+pathway.  Conqueror was settling down to a steady gallop--the reins
+were loose on his neck, for Merle had no strength left to guide him;
+she could only cling to the pommel, her breath coming in short gasps.
+The pain in Dick's shoulder suddenly flashed into burning life; he put
+up one hand, and could feel the haft of a spear.  There was blood on
+his hand when he took it away; he looked at it curiously, as if
+wondering if it could be really his own.  Then a sick faintness came
+over him, and he could only cling to Merle's belt and struggle for
+self-command.
+
+Ahead, a blur showed on the grass--the ration cart, which had come out
+of the trees at a different angle, and was now jogging slowly homeward,
+with Downes riding beside it.  He turned at the sound of the galloping
+hoofs; and then shouted in horror, as Conqueror came up, drew level,
+and then thudded past.  It was as though neither horse nor riders saw
+them.
+
+"Harry--it's the kids!  And did you see Dick's shoulder?  There's a
+spear in it!"
+
+"Keep as close as you can without racing them," the old man cried.
+"The boy may fall off any minute."
+
+Downes set off in pursuit.  Conqueror was still galloping hard, but
+without his first terror--only with his smarting ear and flank, and the
+memory of the yelling black figures to spur him on.  The reins flapped
+on his neck; he missed the light touch of a hand on his bit, the
+sensitive pressure of the knees--all that makes horse and rider seem as
+one.  This dead weight on his back, that neither spoke, nor moved, nor
+guided him--what was it?  Something was all wrong; there was nothing to
+do but gallop forward, since ahead lay home and his stable, and behind
+was the yelling, hideous terror of the scrub.
+
+A clump of trees was before him.  He rounded them in his gallop, and
+then shied violently at a new horror--the black pony, lying dead across
+the track, with the cruel spear still sticking in his neck.  The sudden
+movement was too much for Dick.  The sick faintness had been creeping
+steadily over him, and the quick wrench, twisting the spear in his
+wound, brought an agony beyond endurance.  Consciousness slipped from
+him as his fingers loosed their hold.  He had a sudden vision of the
+earth rushing up to meet him.  Then he was falling--falling--through an
+eternity of space, and the world was blotted out in blackness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+"BUCK UP, SCHOOL!"
+
+It was night, and everything was very dark.  Somewhere, a million miles
+away, was a pinpoint of light.  He kept his eyes fixed upon it, because
+it seemed the one thing in the world where there was any hope.  Someone
+was swinging him backwards and forwards through space, sometimes
+bringing him near the light and then drawing him steadily back until it
+seemed that he would never reach it.  He could not put out a hand to
+touch it, even when it drew near, and he knew that the pain that
+wrapped him round would be gone if he could but grasp it.  There were
+sharp cords holding him tightly, cutting into him; and all the time the
+ceaseless swinging, swinging.  He tried to cry out, but no sound would
+come.
+
+Then a hand came on his brow, so cool, so gentle, that the formless
+blackness wavered and melted, and the light grew stronger.  The utter
+helplessness was still there; but the sense of being gripped by
+something mercilessly cruel faded, and it was as though something
+infinitely pitiful was holding him quietly.  He gasped, "Don't let me
+swing!" and the soft touch held him closer until he was still and
+quiet.  The light came nearer.  Pain was there yet, but pain was as
+nothing compared to the relief of stillness.  Nothing mattered, if only
+those soft hands would hold him--would keep him from swinging into
+space again.
+
+Gradually the darkness melted.  Things took shape in a kind of dim
+twilight; he looked long at a strange silver ball, floating in space,
+before he knew that it was but the knob on his bed-post.  The window of
+his room came out of the dimness; through it he could see gum leaves on
+boughs that fluttered softly in the breeze.  These things he saw
+because they were in front of him; to turn his head was a task much too
+hard to be thought of, no matter what might be there.  It troubled him
+that he could not, because he felt something beside him that he wanted
+desperately to see--something soft that nestled close to his cheek.  If
+it moved, he grew afraid, and cried to it to come back, and it always
+came quickly and gently, so that he was not afraid any more.  Still
+nestling to it, he drifted into sleep.
+
+"You can get up."  The doctor was bending over Mrs. Lester, whispering,
+"He's asleep."
+
+"He might wake if I moved."  Her lips formed the words almost without
+sound.  She could not bear him to cry to her again, in his agony, for
+the help that only the touch of her lips against his cheek had seemed
+able to give.
+
+"He won't--yet.  The medicine has taken effect."  The doctor's face was
+almost as ghastly as her own; together they had fought death in the
+little room for thirty-six hours.
+
+He helped her to her feet gently.  John Lester slipped an arm about
+her, putting her into a chair.  Her eyes asked the question that her
+lips could not frame.
+
+"Good, as far as it goes," the doctor answered.  "That the sleep has
+come at all is a big thing; now, we can only hope that it will last
+long enough to rest him.  He wants it, poor little chap."
+
+"You want it, too," her husband said gently.  "Come and lie down while
+he sleeps."
+
+"I won't leave him."  She shrank back pitifully.
+
+"You needn't, dear.  Lie down on the sofa.  I'll call you if he stirs.
+I promise, Jean."
+
+She let him put her on the sofa, wrapping a rug about her, and taking
+off her slippers.  The doctor went out, after whispering a few
+directions, and John Lester sat down beside his son.
+
+He did not know much about the outside world since they had come racing
+home in the car on Thursday evening, to find Dick's broken body,
+mercifully unconscious, awaiting them.  The car had turned back within
+five minutes, breaking speed records to bring a doctor from the nearest
+town, sixty miles away; and since that they had never left the boy's
+side.  To the stupor of unconsciousness had succeeded delirium, when he
+had struggled with unseen enemies and urged on unseen horses, fighting
+blindly with pain that robbed him of all sense.  The doctor, a young
+country practitioner, acknowledged his helplessness; the thing was
+beyond him, and until a surgeon and nurses could arrive from Perth he
+could only administer narcotics and opiates, that had until now been of
+little effect.  There was injury to the head, that was certain; beyond
+that he feared that the spine was affected.  The spear wound, once
+relieved of the terror that the barb might have been poisoned, was
+comparatively simple.  But John Lester's face was old and haggard as he
+stared at his son.
+
+Out in the bush, north of the run, infuriated men were scouring the
+ranges for the flying blacks, dealing out swift justice without waiting
+for black trackers and police, whose slower methods were little
+satisfaction to a district that clamoured for revenge.  From fifty
+miles around men had come to help to hunt down the slayers, until
+Narrung resembled a huge camp when night brought the hunters home to
+the head station.  In another room lay Merle, ill from shock and
+exhaustion.  She had clung to Conqueror's mane until the grey horse
+came to a standstill at the gate of the home paddock.  Downes and old
+Harry had found them there, and had had to use force to unclasp her
+fingers.  But the Lesters knew nothing of these things.  The world, for
+them, began and ended round Dick's bed.
+
+The slow hours passed, and still Dick and his mother slept.  Now and
+then Mrs. Warner, as haggard as they, tiptoed to the door, bringing
+food or offering help; but John Lester would not leave the room.  He
+ate mechanically, knowing that he must eat; but his eyes scarcely
+wandered from the dark head on the pillow, half hidden in its ice-pack.
+He prayed, desperately, muttering thanks for every moment of the
+blessed sleep that meant freedom from pain---that might bring healing
+in its wings.  All the while he watched for any change--for any shade
+of colour to creep into the still, white face.  But no change came; and
+the day dragged on to evening.
+
+Mrs. Lester woke with a start, trembling.  Her husband was beside her
+in a flash, holding her, whispering.
+
+"No change--and he has slept all this time!  Oh, thank God!"  Her pale
+lips quivered--and then she clung to him, starting up.  "John--you are
+sure it is really sleep?"
+
+"It's really sleep," he told her.  "Now you go--get a bath and some
+food.  No, you must do it, Jean--remember, this isn't going to be a
+short business, and you will need all your strength.  I'll call you if
+he moves."  Mrs. Warner came in answer to his finger on the electric
+bell, and took her away.
+
+It was an hour later that Dick's eyes opened, and he looked at his
+mother wearily.
+
+"Mother," he said.  The voice was weak, but his eyes were clear.
+
+She kissed him gently.
+
+"Don't worry, old son."  The doctor was beside him, raising his head
+ever so little.
+
+"Take this, lad."
+
+Dick drank obediently and lay without speaking while they busied
+themselves over him.  When he spoke again his voice was steady, but his
+lips were grey with pain.
+
+"What's up, father?  Am I going to die?"
+
+"Not you!" said the doctor hastily.  The boy's glance went past him, to
+his father.
+
+"Am I, father?"
+
+"No, my son, I think not.  But you're badly hurt.  You have got to help
+us to get you better, Dick."
+
+Dick pondered that, his fingers closed round his mother's.  Then memory
+came back to him with a flash.
+
+"Did we get in all right?  Is Merle hurt?"
+
+"No; only knocked up.  You brought her in."
+
+"I?" said Dick.  There was a sorry little ghost of his old smile.  "I
+didn't have any say in it.  Conqueror bolted."
+
+"Well, you went out for her, and you brought her back," the doctor
+said.  "And now you mustn't talk any more.  Go to sleep, if you can."
+
+But sleep was gone for Dick.  He lay in silence, with his eyes closed;
+so quietly that after a while his father gave way to entreaties and
+went off to find the rest he so badly needed.  Twilight gave place to
+darkness, and only a shaded lamp lit the little room.  The doctor moved
+in and out, presently coming to whisper that he was going for a walk.
+Mrs. Lester nodded, glad that he should have the opportunity.  Silence
+brooded everywhere.
+
+It was a little later that she saw that Dick's eyes were open.  His
+fingers moved towards her, on the counterpane.  She bent over him
+swiftly.
+
+"What is it, my son?  A drink?"
+
+"No."  The word came with difficulty.  "If I--if I could hold your
+hand."
+
+She put her hand in his, and felt hot fingers close round it tightly.
+So he lay, and then a stifled moan broke from him.
+
+"Is the pain bad, Dick?"
+
+"Pretty stiff," he said.  "I'm--I'm sorry, mother."  She saw his lips
+tighten, and he clutched at her fingers desperately.  "My aunt!" he
+gasped presently; and then she heard a whisper, as if to himself--"Buck
+up, School!"
+
+She bent over him, murmuring broken words of love and pity.  It was
+almost more than she could bear to see the motionless struggle.  He
+lay, unable to stir; and agony gripped him until his hair lay dark on
+his wet forehead, and great drops of sweat ran down his grey face.  And
+no cry came.  He clung to her hand as if it were the one thing left him
+in the world, and his lips moved in the school call that surely went
+straight to God as a prayer for courage and endurance--"Buck up,
+School!"
+
+She slipped her hand away presently.
+
+"Just a second, Dick--I want to send a message."
+
+She pressed the bell until she heard someone running to answer it, and
+then sprang to the door.
+
+"The doctor, quick!  Find him--he's in the paddock."
+
+Dick's eyes were looking for her desperately as she ran back to him.
+He clutched at her hand.
+
+"I thought you'd gone," he gasped, "Don't let me go, mother--mother!"
+
+"I won't, my darling," she said.  "Hold tight to me.  Oh, Dick, cry
+out--it may help you."
+
+She saw his head move in the ghost of what had been his old, decided
+shake.
+
+"Can't do that," he muttered.  His voice died away to an anguished
+whisper.  "Buck up!" was all she could hear; and once he carried her
+hand to his mouth, holding it against his lips as though with it he
+might hold back the cries to utter which would have been crueller to
+him than pain itself.
+
+It seemed an eternity before she heard the gate of the yard bang, and
+quick strides across the verandah.  The doctor came in, switching on
+another light.  His eyes dwelt pityingly for a moment on the boy's
+ravaged face.
+
+"Having a bad time, old man?" he said quietly.  "Let's see if we can
+help you."
+
+He asked a few questions, his hands busy with Dick's arm.  There was a
+prick with a hypodermic needle, and presently it was as though a
+merciful hand had sponged the lines of agony from Dick's face.  His
+lips relaxed their grim line, and the torment died out of his eyes.
+Mrs. Lester felt his clutching fingers curl themselves loosely in her
+palm.
+
+"That's ripping!" he murmured sleepily.  "Thanks, ever so!"  His
+eyelids drooped and closed.
+
+Mrs. Lester's head went down on the bed-side.  She was shaking with
+suppressed sobs.
+
+"The trouble is, I haven't enough of the stuff," the doctor told Mr.
+Warner presently on the verandah.  "I'd had a sudden run on my
+stock--unusual series of cases, and a fool of a maid smashed a bottle
+in dusting the surgery.  I wired Perth for more just before your car
+came, but I hadn't much to bring up here with me.  Brereton will bring
+some with him, of course, but he can't get here before morning."
+
+"And you haven't enough to keep the boy out of pain?"
+
+The doctor shook his head.
+
+"Not nearly.  I've been using it most cautiously all the time; there'd
+be none left now but for that splendid sleep he had during the day.
+Now--well, we can only hope that he may sleep again."
+
+In the early dawn John Lester came out on the verandah, staggering as
+he walked.  Mr. Warner, who had sat there throughout the night, jumped
+up, catching him by the arm, but the father shook him off blindly,
+dropping into a chair a little way off, his whole frame shaking with
+tearless, rending sobs.  Mr. Warner watched him for a moment, and then
+hurried away noiselessly.  He was back almost instantly, a glass of
+brandy in his hand.
+
+"Drink this," he said authoritatively
+
+John Lester took the draught at a gulp.
+
+"He's asleep," he said.  "It will only be for a moment, of course--the
+pain will wake him.  My God, Warner, it would be easier to see him
+dead!"
+
+"I know," Robert Warner said.
+
+"If he'd cry out!" the father groaned.  "He lies there and holds on to
+us--I tell you my hand is sore from his poor fingers; and his eyes ask
+us for help, and we can't do a thing.  And he will not give in.  Just
+'Buck up, School!' when the pain is almost beyond endurance.  It's too
+much strain for him--it would ease him, I believe, if he would scream.
+We've begged him to let himself go, but he won't."
+
+"And his mother?"
+
+"She just kneels there and holds his hand, and tries to help him
+through.  I don't know how she stands it.  It's been ghastly for the
+last half-hour--poor little son, he asked for pity at last.  'Can't you
+put me to sleep, doctor?' he said.  And there's not a drop of stuff
+left.  It cut the doctor to the heart to tell him."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"He didn't say anything---only tried to smile.  And then I suppose God
+had pity, for he fell asleep suddenly."  He stopped, sitting erect to
+listen.  "There's his mother's voice--he's awake again."  He stumbled
+back into Dick's room, and Mr. Warner heard him speaking, his deep
+tones wrung with pity and love: "Hold on to me, old son."
+
+The big man went out with hasty strides across the yard, with tears
+running unheeded down his cheeks.  To and fro he paced; and then, as
+though the yard were not big enough, he opened the gate with a gesture
+of helpless impatience, and went down the track.  Dawn was breaking
+after the endless night; the trees were black against a sky that began
+to turn to palest primrose.  Half way down the paddock Mr. Warner
+stopped suddenly, listening to a sound from very far away--only a
+bushman's ear could have heard the dull whirr.  Then, as he looked, far
+across the dim plain came a flash--the twin lamps of a motor.
+
+He began to run, uttering a great gasp of relief, thankful to be able
+to help by even so little as opening a gate.  The lights grew in size,
+speeding across the plain to meet him as he ran down the track, until
+they were great eyes of fire.  He swung the gate open as the car came
+up, slowing down.  A keen-eyed man looked out at him from beside the
+driver.  In the tonneau he could see two nurses in uniform.
+
+"This is Narrung Downs?  Hullo, is that you, Warner?"
+
+"Don't stop!" Robert Warner uttered, panting.  "Room with the light,
+off the verandah.  And for God's sake, Brereton, have something ready
+to put him to sleep."
+
+Dr. Brereton spoke to the chauffeur, and the car whizzed on.  They
+heard it in the sick room; and the Westown doctor, with a gesture of
+relief, went out hurriedly.  Presently Dick, in the grip of pain,
+almost beyond endurance, saw a new face by his side--dark eyes that
+looked into his weary ones with compassion, and a voice with a ring of
+quiet strength.  He felt again the divinely merciful prick on his arm.
+Agony and fear slowly slipped away from him.  His fingers grew limp in
+his mother's clasp.  She put her cheek against his, and, with a little
+contented sigh, he fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+UNDER SENTENCE.
+
+"I wish I could give you better hope, Mr. Lester."
+
+"Is there any loophole?"
+
+John Lester's face was white and drawn as he leaned against the fence,
+staring at Dr. Brereton.  There were streaks of grey in his hair that
+had not been there before the night of Dick's agony.
+
+The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"There is always a loophole where the patient has youth and strength on
+his side.  But I would not be justified in telling you to hope.  I have
+known no case of the kind that recovered more than a measure of power.
+These spinal cases are terribly difficult; I suppose in the future we
+may find out more about them."
+
+"But the operation was successful?" Mr. Warner put in.
+
+"The operation was entirely successful--so far as it could go.  If it
+had not been the boy could only have lived a few hours--I was only just
+in time.  Indeed, how he lived through what he must have borne is
+rather a mystery."
+
+"And now--tell me again what the sentence is.  I want to get it
+clearly," said the father.
+
+"He may outlive you both--though these cases sometimes don't last more
+than a few years.  Your boy is so strong that I should not anticipate
+any change for the worse, however.  He should have a fair measure of
+health and strength--given every possible chance, as he will be, with
+skilled nursing.  But--it would only be false kindness to mince
+matters, Mr. Lester--he will never walk again."
+
+The world was going black about John Lester.  Mr. Warner caught at his
+arm.
+
+"You can do a great deal for him," the doctor's steady voice went on.
+"Fill his life with all the interests you can; get hold of nurses who
+know how much incurable cases can be trained to do.  Keep an atmosphere
+of happiness about him--remember, always, how strongly the mind acts
+upon the body.  He has more pluck than anyone I ever saw, and he will
+respond."  The deep voice was wrung with pity.  "I'm sorry for you,
+Lester, from my heart--I've sons myself."
+
+"I had only one," said John Lester, with dry lips, "and I was too proud
+of him, I suppose.  I was proud of every inch of him, mind and
+body--his pluck, his strength, his manliness and his clean, straight
+mind.  Even as a baby he was always such a plucky kid.  I used to say
+he was ordinary enough, even to his mother, but in my heart I thought
+no one ever had a son like him.  And now--well, I suppose I've got my
+punishment for being too proud."
+
+"You have his pluck still," the doctor said.  "He'll need it, as he
+never needed it before; and your pride in him, too.  You can't let
+yourself get down, mind; Dick will need every ounce of help you can
+give him.  Don't let him ever feel he is less your son because he can't
+be the son you've hoped for.  You've got to put every personal feeling
+aside for him and his mother."
+
+"His mother!  Oh, my God!" said John Lester desperately.  He turned
+from them and went across the paddock with his head down.
+
+"No--don't go after him.  He's got to work it out alone, poor chap!"
+said the surgeon, pityingly.
+
+"You haven't told the mother yet?"
+
+"No.  He wants to tell her himself.  But she won't feel it as much."
+
+"She!  Why, she adores the boy!"
+
+"Yes, but women are different, which is something to be thankful for,"
+said the doctor.  "She has the boy still, and the relief of his being
+alive is so intense that the other part will be secondary.  He'll be
+her baby again; she'll be able to attend him ceaselessly; to spend her
+whole life on him.  That's always going to help a mother.  Lester won't
+have as much comfort that way, and he has all a father's broken pride
+and thwarted ambitions.  It's a hard sentence for a man with an only
+son."
+
+From the shadow of a great clump of desert pea a little figure
+crept--Merle, her lank black hair hanging about her tear-stained face.
+She caught at her father's coat with shaking fingers.
+
+"Daddy!  It isn't true--Dick won't be a cripple!  Say it, daddy!"
+
+Robert Warner looked down at her gloomily.
+
+"I wish to God I could," he said.  "And I wish I'd never asked them on
+this unlucky visit."  His face hardened as he looked at his daughter.
+"You'd better go inside, Merle--and remember you're not to talk about
+it."
+
+She went obediently, not crying, but with her childish face set in a
+look of horror that was not good to see.  The doctor looked after her.
+
+"Poor child!" he said.  "She came to me last night, and knelt down in
+front of me and begged me to make Dick well.  Someone has told her it's
+all her fault."
+
+"And so it is," Robert Warner said heavily.
+
+"No good telling a baby that--and she's little more."  The doctor lit a
+cigarette.  "And it was only a bit of childish disobedience."
+
+"Well, its consequences will darken my house as long as I live," Mr.
+Warner said.
+
+Out in the paddocks Dick Lester's father tramped up and down, trying to
+realise the thing that had befallen them, and praying for courage to
+tell his wife.  How could he tell her?  How to find words to shatter
+the hopes and the joy that thirteen years had built up so happily?  She
+had always known his love of physical perfection, and from the very
+first days of Dick's dimpled babyhood she had seconded his efforts to
+make the boy's body splendidly fit.  Together they had trained him,
+proud of every fresh step of physical achievement and muscular
+development.  And now--the body they had gloried in lay a helpless log
+for ever.  Never to walk, never to ride through the bush and the
+paddocks that he loved; never to spring to meet them with all his happy
+soul in his eyes.  He groaned aloud in his misery.
+
+"I won't tell her to-day," he said.  "To-morrow will do."
+
+Then he saw her coming towards him across the grass, fresh and dainty
+in her white gown.  He went to meet her.
+
+"Mrs. Warner saw you going over here," she said, slipping her hand into
+his arm.  "Dick's asleep, and the nurse bullied me into coming out for
+some fresh air.  He's so well this afternoon, the darling!  No pain to
+speak of, and he's quite merry.  The nurse says he's doing splendidly."
+
+"That's something to be thankful for," her husband said.  "Are you
+rested, dear?"
+
+"I?  Oh, it's rest just to see Dick out of pain, and to know that he'll
+be all right soon," she said happily.
+
+He tried to answer, and could not.  Suddenly she turned, looking keenly
+at his face.
+
+"John, there is something wrong!"  She went white.  "Is it Dick?  Tell
+me quickly!"
+
+"Dick is doing well," he said hastily.  For she trembled so that he was
+afraid she would faint.  "But there is something.  Sit down on this
+log."  He put her down gently, and stood looking at her, and then in
+broken words he told her of the doctor's sentence.
+
+She heard him almost in silence, uttering now and then a quick
+question.  The colour died even from her lips, but she took the blow
+without flinching.
+
+"Are we to tell him?"
+
+"No--not until we must."
+
+"He was asking the nurse this afternoon when he could get up," she said
+with a pitiful little smile.  "I--I do not know how one could ever tell
+him.  Dick--my Dick--a cripple!  It doesn't seem the sort of thing that
+could possibly happen."
+
+Suddenly she stood erect, facing him.
+
+"I don't believe it," she said fiercely.  "It may seem so now, and I
+suppose Dr. Brereton knows as much as most men; but, beloved, we'll
+never give up hope.  He's so young, so strong, so perfect!  I don't
+believe that science won't find the way to cure him.  We'll make him as
+well and strong as we can, and take him to Melbourne--to England, to
+America, to Germany, if necessary.  Thank God, there's money enough!
+You mustn't believe it, either.  We've got to keep happy thoughts all
+round him; to be certain in our own minds that he'll get well.  If we
+let ourselves despair we make ourselves less able to help him."
+
+"You haven't talked to Brereton," he said sadly.
+
+"No, and, if necessary, I won't talk to him!" she flashed back.  "I
+won't do anything to lessen my faith that Dick will get well.  Doctors
+have made mistakes before; and you know he said himself that they don't
+understand spinal trouble yet, John!"--she caught at him
+fiercely--"don't believe it!  God never meant our boy to be a cripple
+all his life!"
+
+"I haven't your pluck," he said.  "Warner tells me Brereton's about the
+best man in Perth; he should know.  But there's nothing to be gained,
+at any rate, by giving way to despair.  We'll do all we can to fight
+the verdict.  Brereton did say there was always a loophole where there
+was youth and strength."
+
+He took her hands, looking at her.
+
+"Well, thank God for you, anyhow," he said.  "I wonder if there are any
+depths you wouldn't draw a man from.  I came out wondering how I could
+ever tell you; picturing your despair as black as my own; and instead,
+you've given me--well, if not hope, at least something to fight for.
+And that is always something.  Come home, and we'll see if Dick's
+awake."
+
+He wondered often, in the long, hard days that followed, if there were
+secret moments when her splendid faith and courage did indeed waver.
+If there were, she did not show them.  To Dr. Brereton she listened
+calmly, taking in all he said, trying in vain to gather from him a
+shred of encouragement.  At the end she thanked him for saving the
+boy's life.
+
+"I wish I could have given him health as well as life," the doctor said
+pityingly.
+
+"That will come--some day," she told him.  "Please don't try to make me
+believe anything else."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"It would not be fair to let you hope."
+
+"It would not be fair to take hope from me," she said.  "That's not
+going to help Dick.  Perhaps, in ten years, if everything fails, I
+might believe you.  But we're never going to cease believing and
+trying."
+
+"You are a brave woman," he said.
+
+"Brave!  Why, I am not brave enough to do without hope," she answered.
+"If I once believed that Dick would never walk again, I would not know
+how to face life.  But he will walk--I know it!"
+
+The doctor went back to Perth when it was safe to leave Dick to the
+care of the two nurses--experienced, matter-of-fact women, who settled
+down to the care of an incurable case with a calm professional
+certainty as to the future that often goaded their patient's mother to
+the limit of endurance; a fact which they never suspected.  Dick
+himself gave little trouble.  He was very weak; so tired that it was
+happiness to lie still, now that there was no longer pain to dread.
+"I'm jolly lazy," he said--"but if I move I know the pain will come
+back, so I don't try."  He did not dream that movement was impossible.
+
+Gradually his clean youth triumphed over the minor injuries, and his
+wounds healed quickly.  The Westown doctor, who came out twice weekly,
+professed himself delighted with him; the nurses allowed themselves a
+touch of pride over his fast-disappearing scars.  A faint tinge of
+colour crept back into his white face.  He had no inclination but to
+lie still; but interest in the outer world awoke once more, and he
+liked to hear the station talk; the daily stories of work among the
+cattle--to hear what horses were in use, and how the young ones were
+shaping in their work.  His room, as he grew stronger, became a kind of
+centre for the household, and everybody drifted there throughout the
+day--Bobby and the twinses, with queer offerings of flowers and such
+curiosities as stick insects and blue-tongued lizards; Mr. Warner
+solemnly asking advice on station matters; Macleay, the storekeeper,
+with dry Scots stories.  Each evening the three jackeroos came to him
+with the history of the day; tip-toeing at first, with exaggerated
+caution, and gradually forgetting it, at Dick's quick questions, so
+that the sickroom would become a Babel of cheery voices, until the
+nurse on duty would plead over-excitement for her patient, and turn
+them all out.  Dick hated to see them go, although he would be too
+tired to want them to stay.  "Makes you nearly forget you're lying on
+your back," he would say.
+
+But there were long hours when he did not seem to want to talk; lying
+quietly, his eyes always on the patch of sky outside his window, where
+the gum leaves made a wavering pattern against the blue.  Hours when he
+wanted nothing, he said; neither reading nor stories, nor any of the
+hundred devices with which they sought to make his day less long.  What
+did he think of? his mother wondered wretchedly, watching the still
+face against the white pillows.  Were there fears in his brave heart?
+Unknown terrors of the future, that he would not tell even to her?  She
+would ask him if he were in pain, and he would shake his head with a
+little smile--the smile that never failed for her.  But if there were
+times when Mrs. Lester's own courage wavered, it was in those quiet
+hours when something beyond her knowledge seemed to be drawing Dick
+away from her into a silence where she might not enter.
+
+One shadow haunted the verandah outside the room--Merle, white-faced
+and wretched, haunted by self-reproach too agonising for a child's
+mind.  Whatever bitterness might have been in Dick's mother vanished at
+the dumb misery in her eyes.  She put her arm about the little girl,
+holding her tightly, while Merle clung to her, shaken with dry sobs.
+
+"I wish I was dead!" she had gasped.
+
+"You mustn't say that," Mrs. Lester said.  "Dick would hate to hear
+you.  And you must help us to get him well!"
+
+"But they say he'll never be well!"
+
+"Hush!"  The mother's hand was across her mouth.  "I don't believe
+that.  You must come to see him when he is stronger, and help to cheer
+him up."
+
+Curiously, it became apparent after a time that Dick liked to have
+Merle in the room.  She never talked much, and it did not seem that she
+knew how to smile; but a queer sympathy sprang up between them, for
+which words were not necessary.  She developed an instinct, almost
+uncanny, for knowing what he wanted.  At all times he was slow to voice
+any need--his sturdy independence was one of the hardest sacrifices he
+had to make on the altar of his helplessness, and it died hard.  Merle
+divined needs almost before they shaped themselves in his mind.  He
+would find a book, a fresh handkerchief, a piece of fruit, within reach
+of his hand, put there with a silence that wished to avoid thanks.  She
+saw him feeling awkwardly for his watch, and presently a little clock
+from her own room was placed at an angle where he could always see it.
+If the blind flapped, or the door creaked, or the light fell too
+strongly on his eyes, it was Merle who saw it first, and went quietly
+to mend matters.  "I think she sits there just trying to imagine what
+Dick may want, so that she may do it for him," Mrs. Lester said to her
+husband.
+
+"That child's a born nurse, if only she had a decent bedside manner,"
+said one nurse to the other.
+
+But Dick liked her manner.  It was "not fussy," he said.  She did
+things quietly, and he soon learned that she hated to be thanked by
+anything but a glance and a nod.  A silent comprehension drew them
+together, until, after his mother and father, he preferred Merle to any
+other attendant.
+
+So the weeks went by; and at last one day the Westown doctor declared
+his part of the work done.
+
+"I can't do any more for him," he said to Mr. Lester.  "He has a clean
+bill of health now, except for the one big thing."
+
+"And that is no better?"
+
+The other man shook his head.
+
+"It can't be any better, Mr. Lester.  I wish I could think otherwise."
+
+"What about moving him?" the father asked.  "We can't quarter ourselves
+at Narrung for ever--even if we wished.  And I want to get the boy to
+Melbourne."
+
+"It's a brute of a journey," the doctor said.  "Still, it must be faced
+some time, and the hot weather will make it worse, the longer you
+wait."  He thought deeply.  "The train is vile; and the drive to it,
+even in the Warners' big car, would be a strain."
+
+"My own idea," John Lester said, "was to get a motor ambulance from
+Perth, and do the whole journey by road.  Do you think it's workable?"
+
+"It's your best plan, I believe," the doctor said, with relief.
+"Brereton would fix it up for you."
+
+"We can make the stages what we choose, according to Dick's strength,"
+said Mr. Lester.  "I should take tents, and, if necessary, we could
+camp on the road.  Dick would be better off in the ambulance than in
+some of the wayside hotels.  If it took us a fortnight or more it would
+be easier for him than that jolting, grinding train."
+
+"There's no risk to the boy," the doctor said.  "Only weariness, and
+you want to spare him as much of that as you can."
+
+A week later Mrs. Lester sat on the verandah outside Dick's room.  Her
+husband had been reading to Dick; the boy had fallen asleep under the
+spell of the low, deep voice, and now the father sat watching him.  She
+looked wearily across the garden to the wide paddocks beyond.  Two
+months ago they had driven over them for the first time, radiant in the
+happiness, still a new thing, of being all together; to-night she
+looked at them for the last time, and there was bitterness in her soul.
+They were to take Dick away in the morning, the wreck of what he had
+been; that had been Fate's gift to them at Narrung, the sorry end of
+the visit that had promised such brightness.  Before them lay new
+happiness or despair--which?
+
+A soft step roused her.  Merle stood there, with a kind of trembling
+determination in her face.
+
+"Mrs. Lester," she said, "will you take me with you?"
+
+"Take you, Merle?  My dear child, how could we?"
+
+Merle suddenly slipped to the floor beside her, catching at her skirt.
+
+"I'll slave for you," she said wildly.  "I'll do any mortal thing I
+can.  If you leave me here I'll go mad.  I 'spect you must hate me, but
+Dick doesn't, though I don't know why he doesn't.  Nobody can hate me
+like I do myself."
+
+"Nobody hates you at all, Merle."
+
+"People must.  D'you think I don't know what I've done?" the child
+stammered.  "Wouldn't you let me come, just for a bit, to work for
+you--to help you to look after Dick?  I'd never be any trouble.  I can
+do my own hair and everything.  I'd just be legs for Dick!"
+
+"Legs?" queried Mrs. Lester, puzzled.
+
+"Yes.  It's all my fault he can't use his.  If I came I could just be
+there to hand him things and run his errands.  He doesn't mind telling
+me to do things, but he won't ask you, 'cause he hates you to get
+tired.  Oh, couldn't I come, just as Dick's legs?"
+
+Mr. Lester appeared in the doorway.
+
+"Take care--Dick is awake."
+
+They heard Dick's voice, "Mother."
+
+"Yes, sonnie."  Mrs. Lester put Merle aside and went in.
+
+"Don't let that poor kiddie cry," he said.  "I say, couldn't we take
+her?"
+
+"You want her, Dick?" said his mother, amazed.
+
+"Oh, she's not a bad kid," Dick said.  "I give you an awful lot of work
+now, and she'd save you a bit.  And she wants to come ever so.  Might
+as well let her, don't you think?"
+
+Mrs. Lester looked at her husband uncertainly.
+
+"If you want her I expect you can have her, old son," he said.  "I'll
+see what her father and mother say."
+
+He went out, leaving Dick and his wife alone.  A small, sobbing figure
+crept after him.
+
+Dick looked at his mother steadily.
+
+"I say, mother--am I getting better?"
+
+"Why, of course you are, old man," she said brightly.
+
+"When am I going to sit up?"  It was the question she had long dreaded,
+and she was ready for it.
+
+"When your back strengthens sufficiently.  You must give it time,
+beloved."
+
+"It's not the spear wound?  Nurse says that's all right."
+
+"Oh, the spear wound was nothing--beyond being painful at first.  You
+see, when Conqueror threw you, you fell on an outcrop of ironstone, and
+that is what has given you the real trouble."  She forced a smile.
+"You know, you can't bounce about on ledges of rock as if you were
+india-rubber!"
+
+He was silent a moment, and then spoke suddenly; and there was terror
+in his eyes.
+
+"Mother--my back isn't broken?"
+
+"No!" she said quickly.
+
+"You'd tell me--straight?"
+
+"On my honour, Dick."
+
+He heaved a big sigh.
+
+"I've been wondering ... lying here," he said, "I'd heard about fellows
+with broken backs, and I do feel so queer and helpless.  Of course I
+knew I couldn't get well all in a hurry; but I thought it was about
+time I could move my legs."
+
+He looked at her with the absolute trust that all his life she had seen
+in his eyes.  Twice she tried to speak before words would come.
+
+"Will you just go on being patient, Dick?" she said at last.  "I know
+it is hard--and you have been wonderfully good.  Try not to get
+impatient yet."
+
+"I can stick it all right if I know I'm going to get better," Dick
+said.  "And you say I am, mother."
+
+She met his eyes.
+
+"I believe you are, Dick--with God's help."
+
+"Well, that's all right--mother-est," he said; and he took her hand and
+carried it to his cheek.  So they stayed together while darkness crept
+into the room.  She would have stirred once to switch on the light, but
+he said, "Ah, don't go away," and she drew closer to him.  Through the
+open windows the kind stars looked down in pity as her lips moved,
+praying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE LONG TRAIL.
+
+It was a queer procession that moved away from Narrung homestead in the
+early morning.  A great motor ambulance, with a bed for Dick that was a
+marvel of cushions and springs, went first, his mother and a nurse with
+him.  Mr. Lester and the second nurse followed in another car that had
+come up from Perth; and, last of all, Mr. Warner, in his own motor,
+with Merle's little white face beside him.  For Merle had got her
+wish--not because it was hers, but because of Dick's few words.  "If
+Dick wants Merle, or my house, or every penny I have in the world, he
+has only got to say so," Mr. Warner had said.  "If she's in the way, or
+whenever Dick is tired of her, you can consign her to her grandmother
+in Perth."  He looked at Merle as if she were a bale of goods.  If the
+words stung her she made no sign.
+
+Both the cars were piled high with baggage.  Where possible they would
+stay in towns on the way, but since Dick's fatigue might demand that
+they should stop at any moment, there were tents to be carried, food,
+cooking utensils--all that was necessary for his comfort.  The driver
+of the ambulance was a skilled man, trained to steer his great car so
+gently as to avoid the slightest jolt, if the roads were reasonably
+good--and there were favourable reports of the condition of the tracks.
+The Westown doctor had arrived the night before on his motor cycle to
+see his patient start; he helped to carry him out, with the nurses,
+when it was time to go.
+
+Dick was a little flushed with excitement, and his eyes very bright.
+He smiled at the people who thronged round to say good-bye to him, and
+his weak hand had a special pat for Bobby--Bobby, who wailed because he
+was going, and refused to be comforted.  The doctor and nurses hurried
+the farewells; their patient must not have any more fatigue than was
+necessary.  Indeed, the doctor heaved a sigh of relief when he was
+safely in the ambulance, and it moved slowly away down the paddock.
+
+The two mothers clung together for a moment at the last.
+
+"I would give up my own son if I could give yours back to you," Mrs.
+Warner murmured.  Tears were running down her kind face.
+
+"I will have him back," Mrs. Lester said steadily.  "Some day you must
+come to see him--straight and well again."  But Mrs. Warner had no
+words.
+
+The day passed more easily than they had dared to hope.  If the tracks
+were sandy, at least they were in good order; the ambulance passed over
+them gently, and the fresh air acted as a sedative to Dick, who slept
+calmly during the warmest hours of the morning.  They pitched a camp
+early in the afternoon, afraid to make the first stage a long one.  It
+was an ideal spot--a grassy clearing, ringed round with tall trees and
+low bushes, full of birds that had never learned to be afraid of
+humans.  Dick begged to be taken out, and they lifted his stretcher
+into the shade, where he could lie watching the business of camping.
+Mr. Warner and Mr. Lester were old hands at the business; the tents
+went up, firewood was brought in, and the camp-fire lit, and their
+evening meal prepared, long before it was time to put Dick back to bed
+and make him comfortable for the night.  He put off the moving as long
+as he could.  "I've been in bed so jolly long--I'm sick of four walls,"
+he pleaded.  So they let him wait until their meal was over and dusk
+came down; and the nurses, fearing the chill of the evening air, became
+adamant, and carried him off.
+
+[Illustration: "They pitched a camp early in the afternoon."]
+
+Mrs. Lester woke when the first rays of the sun came into her tent.
+She slipped on a coat and hurried across to the ambulance, peeping in.
+Already the nurse was busying herself about nourishment, and Dick's
+eyes, clear and merry, peeped at her over the edge of his blankets.
+
+"Isn't it jolly, mother!  Did you sleep well?"
+
+"Ever so well," she told him.  "And you?"
+
+"Oh, we've had a beautiful night!" the nurse said, cheerfully.  "My
+patient snored serenely, while the 'possums and wombats and things kept
+me awake.  This boy of yours thrives on the bush, Mrs. Lester!"
+
+"But, of course; isn't he a bush baby?"  She laughed.  Not since his
+illness had there been such a ring of health in Dick's voice.  Looking
+at his face, with its touch of colour, it seemed impossible that
+presently he would not leap up to join her in the old way, to ramble
+through the trees, exploring the new world.  Her thoughts flew back to
+their last day near Perth, when he had gone climbing, swinging from
+bough to bough with all his lithe young body like a steel spring,
+supple and strong.  Now--she choked back the sigh that came to her lips.
+
+"Can he get up to breakfast, do you think, nurse?"
+
+"Oh, I think so, as he's so good!"
+
+"Well, rather!" Dick stated.  "Wash me quick, nurse, dear, and take me
+out.  I want to see trees and scrub, and bacon frying, and everything.
+Oh--cocoa?  Well, all right!"  He submitted to be fed, more or less
+meekly.
+
+So the days passed, one like the other.  They left the main roads as
+they came near civilisation, finding good camping places, since Dick
+showed that he had a dread of being taken to hotels.  "I don't want to
+be carted in and out, with people staring at me," he pleaded.  "And the
+bush is so lovely.  You don't mind camping, mother?"  She would have
+lain on the bare earth to keep the ring of happiness in his voice.
+They made each day's journey short, so that the vibration, however
+softened, should not affect him.  It never tired him to be in the open,
+watching them move about the camp.  His old keen interest awoke again.
+They made a point of consulting him about everything, so that he should
+feel himself an active part of each day's life, his father desiring his
+opinion about the set of a tent rope with earnestness equal to that of
+Mr. Warner when he carried a pan of bacon to his side to find out if it
+were properly cooked.  The motor driver entered into the spirit of it,
+and discoursed to him learnedly on the finer parts of his car's
+anatomy; and no one thought of watching the billy, since it was Dick's
+job to attend to it, and to call out when the steam poured from the
+lid.  Merle had a task all her own.  From the moment they halted each
+day she sought through the bush tirelessly bringing to his bedside
+whatever treasures she could gather--flowers, deserted nests, curiously
+marked stones, gorgeous beetles; all that keen eyes could find.  Dick
+grew to look for her collections with delighted interest.  "My word,
+you are a brick, the way you find things!" he told her.
+
+As she had begged Mrs. Lester, so her desire came to her--she was
+indeed "legs" to him.  He could not shake off his innate distaste for
+asking older people to run about for him.  Even with the nurses he
+would go without something he wanted rather than send one on an errand.
+Somehow, Merle was different.  He began to look on her rather as a
+younger brother; to find it easy to employ one whose eagerness to be
+employed was evident in every look.  He never omitted thanks, but she
+did not want them.  Her gratitude was for being used--thanks did not
+matter.
+
+With everyone else she was as silent as ever.  Sometimes Mrs. Lester
+would manage to make her talk a little; but for the most part she
+rarely spoke, and when she was not watching Dick her eyes followed her
+father about like a hungry dog's.  She knew that he no longer wanted
+her.  In his way he was sorry for her; but his overmastering feeling
+was angry disgust and impatience that through one of his children so
+bitter a calamity had befallen his friends.  He had said to his wife,
+"When I look at that boy, remembering what he was, and then think it is
+Merle's fault that he lies there, I feel as if I never wanted to see
+her again."
+
+The journey might have been accomplished much more quickly than it was.
+There was no need to hurry, for there was no doubt that the open-air
+life was doing Dick good.  He was as helpless as ever, but his appetite
+was keener; he slept better and he had fewer attacks of pain.  They
+watched him hungrily, snatching at each hopeful sign.  Supplies ran
+out, but it was easy for one of the cars to run ahead into a town and
+lay in a store of all that they needed.  The weather held good, with
+calm, starry nights, that made sleeping in the open delightful.  They
+were all better for the trip when at last they rolled into Perth late
+one afternoon.  Dr. Brereton had made all arrangements for them.  His
+big private hospital was on the outskirts of the city, and there Dick
+was installed with his nurses in a room with a balcony overlooking the
+Swan, where he might be wheeled to pass the day.  They found a corner
+also for Mrs. Lester, since she flatly refused to be parted from Dick;
+and there was a hotel not far off for the others.  Dr. Brereton
+whistled with delight when he came in to see his former patient.
+
+"Well, young man!  Why, you look as fit as a fiddle!" he ejaculated.
+"What have you been doing with him, Mrs. Lester?  He's brown as a
+berry."
+
+"Camping suits him, and we have been over a fortnight on the road," she
+said, smiling.  "I don't know how he is going to stand being inside
+walls again."
+
+"We'll keep him on the balcony, then," responded the doctor.  "Feel
+strong, old man?"
+
+"Pretty good," Dick nodded.  "I'll be all right once I can sit up.
+When will that be, doctor?"
+
+"Oh, some day.  We've got to get you thoroughly fit first," the doctor
+evaded.
+
+Dick's face fell.  What he had hoped from his meeting with Dr. Brereton
+only he knew.
+
+"Don't you think I'm well enough to try now?" he pleaded.  "You don't
+know how jolly well I feel."
+
+"I'm going to bring another man to see you to-morrow," the doctor said.
+"Too late to-night to overhaul you; but I want to see how my job looks."
+
+"Oh, your job was all right long ago--you did it awfully well," Dick
+assured him kindly.  "Dr. Carter took the stitches out at Narrung."
+
+"Hurt you?"
+
+"Well--everything hurts a bit," Dick admitted.  "It didn't hurt more
+than other things.  I'd be lonely now if I didn't have an ache or two!"
+
+"Poor old chap!"
+
+"Oh I'm all right.  At least, I would be, I know, if you'd let me sit
+up.  No one could get well, always lying flat.  Why you couldn't keep
+me flatter if my silly back was broken!--and you said it wasn't, didn't
+you, mother?"
+
+His eyes were like a pleading animals.  Mrs. Lester smiled at him with
+stiff lips.
+
+"And it isn't, old son.  But you must be patient--give us time."
+
+Dick saw her mouth quiver, and was seized with swift penitence.
+
+"I didn't mean to be a brute, mother.  I won't worry you."  He gave a
+little laugh.  "You see, Dr. Brereton was someone new for me to worry,
+so I had to."
+
+"H'm!" said the doctor.  "We poor wretches are supposed to be able to
+stand anything.  Never mind--just wait until you're up, and able to
+fight----"
+
+He was interrupted by a quick cry from Dick.  The boy's eyes were
+shining, his voice shaking with excitement.
+
+"Doctor!  You mean that!  You mean I'll t-truly be up--able to
+f-fight--I won't lie here always!  You did m-mean it----!"
+
+Mrs. Lester turned to the window, unable for a moment to command her
+face.  The doctor patted the boy's head with swift remorse.
+
+"Of course I meant it, old man," he spoke soothingly.  "Only you must
+give us time."
+
+"I'll wait any time, if I know it's all right," Dick muttered.  A shade
+of weariness passed over his face.  Then he looked at his mother, and
+put out a hand to her.
+
+"Been a beast again," he said apologetically.  "Didn't mean to,
+mummie--only he sort of surprised me."
+
+She dropped a butterfly kiss on his brow.
+
+"Here's nurse with your tea," she said, thankful for the diversion.  "I
+wonder how you will like food cooked in a respectable oven again?"
+
+"There's no food anywhere like the food you cook over a camp fire,"
+Dick declared.
+
+"You can't have lost the camp appetite yet," said the nurse warmly.
+"So don't tell me."  She tucked a napkin under his chin with a deft
+movement.  "Please, we would like people to run away--my lion doesn't
+like to be watched while he's fed!"
+
+"I'm sorry I said it," Dr. Brereton confessed out in the corridor.
+"One says things hurriedly--anything to soothe a patient.  And you know
+I strongly advised that he should not be told his case was hopeless."
+
+"No, and of course we have not told him so.  But I think he looked on
+any statement from you as coming with special authority.  I'm sorry,
+too; he has never been so excited."
+
+"Poor little chap!  I wouldn't have given him false hope for anything."
+
+"And you are sure it is false?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I haven't any hope, Mrs. Lester.  It wouldn't be fair to you to tell
+you otherwise.  Mind, I would leave no stone unturned; I want another
+surgeon, the best man in Perth, to examine him with me to-morrow.  But
+I think his verdict will be the same as my own."
+
+They told it to the parents gently next morning trying to soften the
+cruel words.  No hope, so far as they could see, that Dick would ever
+walk again.  In time, with special treatment and massage he might sit
+up; but further than that they could promise nothing.
+
+"He's wonderfully strong," Dr. Brereton said.  "Everything is in his
+favour, to a limited extent; there's no reason why he should not have a
+long and happy life, because he has pluck enough to face the future
+when once it becomes necessary to tell him."
+
+"You would not tell him yet?" Mr. Lester said.
+
+The doctor shook his head.
+
+"He's too young--too full of hope.  Later on, when lying still has
+become second nature"--Mrs. Lester shivered suddenly--"it will be
+easier for him to bear the telling.  Now, if you take hope from him, he
+might slip back."
+
+"What did you say to him this morning?  He asked you, of course?"
+
+"Oh, yes, he asked, poor laddie.  We put him off; told him--it's the
+truth, too--that he was getting on well, but that he must be patient
+and put up with the massage.  It will be painful, you know, Mrs.
+Lester.  He was very good--extraordinarily patient under our handling
+this morning.  After it all he was dog-tired, so we have put him to
+sleep.  The nurse is with him."
+
+"When do you think we can move him to Melbourne?" Mr. Lester asked.
+
+"Oh--almost any time.  Let him have a few days' rest.  I should advise
+you to get passages on one of the big mail steamers; the inter-state
+boats are more apt to kick about if there's bad weather in the Bight.
+Not that you should have bad weather now."
+
+"The _Occident_ is due next week," the second doctor put in.  "She's
+one of their newest boats--you should be able to get a deck cabin on
+her for the boy.  I know the manager here, Mr. Lester; would you care
+to go round with me and arrange matters?"
+
+So Dick, lying wearily on his balcony that afternoon, still stiff and
+sore from the morning's handling, heard with relief that they were to
+be homeward bound.
+
+"That's jolly," he said.  "I'd like to see Melbourne again--and the
+fellows at school.  Will the old doc. let Bottles and Nuge and Teddy
+come to see me, do you think, mother?"
+
+"Of course he will," Mrs. Lester said.  "They will be wild to hear
+about your adventures--think of the untold sums they have spent on
+wiring to you!"  The story of the Northern blacks' raid upon Narrung
+had been sent to the papers in the Eastern States, and Dick had been
+inundated with telegrams from his school.
+
+"Well, it will be great to see them," he said.  "Perhaps one of them
+would come up to Kurrajong next holidays, mother; I expect I'll be
+sitting up by then, so it wouldn't be so very dull for them."  He
+grinned.  "Old Bottles is going to be a doctor--it would be handy for
+him to practise on me!"
+
+"Thank you," said the nurse hurriedly; "I'd rather not!"
+
+"So would I," agreed Dick.  "Just you keep your eye on him, though,
+nurse; he's safe to have some patent pill of his own that he'll be mad
+keen to give me!"
+
+"I will be there," said the nurse, with a grim determination not to
+quit her patient's side during any invasion by Bottles.
+
+"Mother," Dick said, "will there be more doctors in Melbourne?--more
+overhauling like to-day?"
+
+"There may be, my son.  You won't mind, Dick, if it's to make you
+better?"
+
+"Oh, no," he said.  "Anything's better than lying still.  I didn't seem
+to mind it so much at Narrung, but since we began to move about, and I
+feel stronger, I just feel that I'd be all right if I could only get
+up.  But these silly asses of doctors won't let me try."
+
+"Never mind," said his father hastily.  "We'll see what the Melbourne
+men say.  Meanwhile, I've got you such a jolly deck cabin on the
+_Occident_, Dick, with one for mother and me next door.  You'll be able
+to be out on deck every day.  It's her first trip out, and she's one of
+the finest boats that ever came to Australia.  It will be something to
+tell the boys that you came in her."
+
+"Yes, that'll be ripping," said Dick, with interest.  "I say, father,
+what about Merle?"
+
+"Well, I don't know," Mr. Lester said, pondering.  "I know she wants to
+come with us; and if you would like to have her, of course she can
+come."
+
+"Oh, I don't think I could do without my old 'Legs,' could I?" said
+Dick, laughing.  "Do let her come--she just hates the idea of going
+back to Narrung.  And let me tell her, father, will you--she'll be no
+end bucked!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+HOW MERLE JUMPED FROM A TRAM.
+
+Merle was waiting at the street corner for a tram.  It was the day
+before they were to sail for Melbourne, and she had been to say
+good-bye to her grandmother; the distance was not great, and she was
+allowed to make the little trip to and from the hotel by herself.  She
+was impatient, for she was to go on to the hospital to see Dick; and
+the only part of Merle's day worth consideration to her was the part
+she spent in being "legs" to the boy.  She looked up the long road,
+fidgeting and frowning to see no tram in sight.
+
+Two men came strolling along and stopped near her, also glancing up the
+tram track.  They went on chatting, without noticing the small figure
+by the lamp post.
+
+"----won't be out here long," one said, completing a sentence.  "No,
+he's not coming out to practise; just on a visit to Melbourne to see
+his mother.  He's been away four years, and she is getting old."
+
+"He was always a very devoted son, wasn't he?" the other said.
+
+"Yes, very.  My brother died when the boy was at school, and he's been
+everything to his mother.  Of course he would have done remarkably well
+in the ordinary course of things; he had a big practice before he went
+to Germany.  But his mother was as keen as he was about his becoming a
+specialist, and he has always been determined to keep himself abreast
+of the latest discoveries in spinal treatment."
+
+"The spine was always Neil's pet subject."
+
+"Yes--he used to say there ought to be another big war, because then
+surgeons had a chance of finding out things they would never find in
+ordinary practice.  True enough, too.  Anyhow, he has been at extended
+research work in America and Germany these four years, and when he
+finally comes out he will practise only as a spine specialist.  That
+won't be for another two years, however; this is only a flying visit,
+as I said."
+
+The word "spine" had caught Merle's idle ears, and she was listening,
+with parted lips, her breath coming quickly.
+
+"There's the tram," the first man said.  "Lunch with us at the club
+to-morrow, won't you, Onslow?  I'd like you to meet my nephew again.
+The _Occident_ gets in in the morning, and I'm going to run down in the
+car to meet him, and bring him up for the day."
+
+"Thanks, I'll be delighted," his friend said.  He nodded good-bye as
+the tram rattled up.  The first man stood aside courteously to let
+Merle in, and then sat down in a seat across the aisle.  The tram
+banged its way down the hill.
+
+The conductor said, "Fares, please!" three times, each with mounting
+impatience, before Merle realised that he was speaking to her.  Then
+she took out her purse and paid him mechanically, with an air so
+distracted that the conductor reported later to the motorman that there
+was a kid back there quite cracked.
+
+Her heart was thumping furiously.  Someone was on the
+_Occident_--someone who knew all about spines--who might cure Dick!
+Someone who would not practise; but if he only saw Dick, he might
+relent.  She did not think anyone could possibly see Dick and not
+relent.  Anyway, if he were asked.  And then she realised with a kind
+of horror that she did not know his name.
+
+She looked across the aisle at the man who had talked about his nephew.
+He was kind-looking, she thought; short and plump, with a grey beard
+and nice eyes.  He surely would not mind being asked.  But to speak to
+a stranger was a stupendous task to Merle, who found it difficult
+enough to speak to anyone she knew quite well.  The very thought was
+enough to make her trembling and tongue-tied.  Perhaps, if he got off
+when she did.  And just then she looked again, and almost cried aloud
+in her dismay.  The tram had stopped, unnoticed by her, and the man had
+got off and was walking briskly up a side street.
+
+The conductor's bell had rung, and the tram was already under way as
+she started up, springing to the side.  A woman caught at her dress
+with an alarmed exclamation; from his end of the car the conductor
+uttered an angry shout of warning; but Merle did not heed them.  She
+swung herself to the roadway, spinning round as she alighted, and
+finally falling heavily.  The tram was stopped, people were shouting.
+Her one thought was to get away.  She scrambled to her feet, brushing
+the dust from her dress, and, bruised but determined, raced up the side
+street.
+
+"It's the cracked kid," reported the conductor gloomily, ringing his
+car on again.  "Wonder why they let her out without a keeper.  That's
+the sort as makes us chaps get bad marks on our tickets!"  He stared
+wrathfully after Merle as long as she was in sight.
+
+The stout gentleman heard running feet behind him, but he was in a
+hurry, and did not turn until a breathless voice addressed him.
+
+"Oh, please!" Merle panted.
+
+"Bless my soul!" said the man, looking at the dishevelled figure.  "Are
+you hurt?  What's the matter?"
+
+"You were talking," Merle choked--and then took a long breath--"about a
+man on the _Occident_--somebody who knows all about the spine."
+
+"Well--if I was?" said the amazed Westralian.
+
+"Oh, please, would you tell me his name?"
+
+"Why on earth----?"
+
+Merle cut him short.
+
+"Oh, tell me!  There's a boy going on the _Occident_ with a hurt
+spine--he might look at him!  It wouldn't hurt you."
+
+"Well----" began the man, staring at her.  "My nephew won't practise,
+if that's what you mean.  But his name is Neil Fraser, if you must
+know.  Better not tell him I told you, for he's on a holiday, and
+doesn't want to think about spines!"
+
+"He couldn't help it if he knew Dick!" said Merle solemnly.  "Thanks,
+very much."  She turned.  "I must go and catch another tram."
+
+"I think you had better let me brush you down a bit first," said the
+Westralian, suiting the action to the word.  "I've got daughters
+myself, and if your mother sees the state your frock is in----!"
+
+Merle submitted to his ministrations more or less gratefully.  At the
+moment it would not have mattered to her if she had no frock at all.
+She was seething with excited hope.  Each night she prayed blindly,
+desperately, to some God she did not in the least realise that He would
+make Dick well--that He would let her work out her wickedness by taking
+Dick's pain, if He only could.  Perhaps God was really there, after
+all--perhaps He really meant to help!  She said good-bye to the
+fatherly Westerner, and managed to get back to the hotel--how, she
+never knew.  A great thought had come to her.  She had heard of cases
+of skin-graft--taking skin from a sound person to heal another's wound.
+Perhaps this wonderful new man could take a piece of her spine and put
+it into Dick's.  She knelt down by her bed, and prayed wildly to God
+that He would arrange it.
+
+"It doesn't matter what becomes of me," she said.  "Daddy has two sons,
+and I'm only a girl--and they've only Dick.  And it's all my fault.  If
+you can fix it so's he'll be able to walk soon, before he gets any
+discourageder, I don't care what you do to me.  Oh, God, won't you let
+this Fraser man know all about spines like Dick's!"  It was a queer
+prayer; but who shall say that it did not go straight upwards?
+
+The burden of Merle's secret was heavy upon her as she climbed the
+gangway of the _Occident_ next day.  She had not dared to speak to
+anyone, in a childish fear of being ridiculed; and the temptation to
+speak to Dick was so strong that in resisting it she became entirely
+silent, until Dick grew worried, and said finally, "Look here, Legs,
+old girl, are you really sure you want to come?"
+
+"Want to come?"  She looked at him in a dazed way.  "Oh, I never wanted
+anything so much in my life!  You don't want to leave me behind, do
+you?"
+
+"Rather not!" Dick said, relieved.  "You're jolly good to me, you know,
+old Legs!  Only I thought you were a bit down in the mouth at leaving
+your father.  Sure you're not?"
+
+She shook her head emphatically.
+
+"No.  He wants me to go with you.  You can send me back any time, you
+know, to Grannie.  But even if you send me back at once, I want to go
+on the _Occident_."
+
+Dick, being a gentleman, was indignant.
+
+"You make me feel like a perfect beast!" he said warmly.  "I don't want
+to send you back at all--and I wish you wouldn't talk as if you were a
+beastly parcel!  You're coming up to Kurrajong with us, and you'll have
+to ride Tinker for me until I can ride him myself."
+
+Until he could ride himself!  The words were in her ears as she climbed
+the gangway, up which two sailors had carried Dick's stretcher
+carefully a moment before.  She went to the side of the ship, scanning
+the faces of the passengers as they came along the pier, wondering
+which could be "Neil Fraser," and hoping that any man with a specially
+kind face would be he.  The time passed, and the cry of "Visitors
+ashore!" startled her.  Then she heard her father's voice behind her.
+
+"That you, Merle?  I'm going."  His big face was sadder than she had
+ever seen it, and he kissed her gently.  She flushed; he had not often
+kissed her since Dick's accident.  "Be a good girl, and do all you
+possibly can for that poor boy.  Remember, none of us can ever make up
+what we have cost him.  If--if you see anything he would like, buy it
+for him--you can have all the money you want."  He half turned, and she
+heard him say miserably under his breath, "If one were not so
+helpless!"  Then he put his hand on her shoulder.  "It's
+something--just a little--if you can be legs for him.  Don't spare
+yourself."
+
+"I won't," she said.  "Oh, I won't, daddy!"
+
+He kissed her again, and went down the gangway.  She watched his huge
+form threading its way along the pier.  His head was bent down, and he
+did not look back again.
+
+Dick did not leave his cabin that evening.  He was tired with the
+excitement of starting, and was, moreover, developing an invalid's
+dread of being stared at.  The nurses kept him very quiet; even Merle
+was not allowed inside the cabin, and she wandered about miserably,
+handicapped by her shyness, and wondering how, in the crowded mail
+steamer, she was ever going to find a man she did not know.  She went
+to bed with the problem still unsolved, slept badly, and got up early
+in the morning, dressing as noiselessly as possible in order not to
+disturb the nurse whose cabin she shared.  In the alleyway she met a
+steward, and a sudden thought came to her.
+
+"Steward," she said, "do you know which is Mr. Fraser's cabin?"
+
+"Not in my lot," said the steward carelessly.  "You don't know 'is
+number, by any chance?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I dunno.  Ask some of the other stewards--or the purser'd tell
+you, of course."
+
+Merle's courage was fast oozing away; to tackle the purser, a
+mysterious and terrible individual of great power, was a task beyond
+her.  She dived into her pocket and produced a bright half-crown.
+
+"You find out for me," she said, proffering the coin, which the steward
+pocketed with an adroitness born of long habit.  "It's very important;
+I've got to know soon.  I'll come down after breakfast, and you tell me
+and I'll give you another."
+
+"Right-oh!" said the steward, with a new respect for a small girl who
+could distribute half-crowns with such large ease.  "I'll 'ave 'is
+number ready for you, miss."
+
+Dick was better; a good night had made him inclined for breakfast, and
+he was longing to get out into the fresh air, even if people did look
+at him.  He kept Merle busy, running errands and telling him all about
+the passengers; and it was not until the nurses were ready to prepare
+him for going out that she was able to slip away and hurry down to her
+own cabin.
+
+The steward met her, rather aggrieved.
+
+"Nice little jig-saw puzzle you set me, miss!" he said.  "Mr. Fraser,
+you says; well, there's seven Frasers on board!  Now which is it?"
+
+Merle's face fell.
+
+"Seven!" she exclaimed.  "How will I ever--oh, but, of course, his
+name's Neil!"
+
+"Ah, that's something like," said the steward, cheering up.  He
+consulted a paper in his hand.  "Neil--that's N.  Well, there's two N.
+Frasers, apparently, miss; N. F. Fraser in 352, and N. H. Fraser in
+279.  Now, which is your mark, I wonder?"
+
+"I don't know," Merle said hopelessly.  "Couldn't you find out for me?"
+
+A sudden cry of "Smithers!" smote upon the ear of the steward.
+
+"That's me," he said hurriedly.  "'Fraid I'll 'ave to go, miss--that's
+my chief 'owlin'.  You won't 'ave any difficulty in findin' your
+man--just try each in turn."  He put the paper into her hand, and
+almost mechanically Merle parted with her second half-crown, and
+watched him rush off in response to another call.
+
+Merle stood looking at the paper for a helpless moment.  To track these
+mysterious Frasers to their lairs seemed a task beyond her courage.
+Still, there was nothing to be gained by putting it off--and the sooner
+she set about finding her man, the sooner would her suspense about Dick
+be relieved.  So she set her lips firmly and went off along the
+alleyways, hunting for one of the numbers she wanted.
+
+She found one presently--279.  No one was about, and she knocked at the
+door timidly.  There was no response at first; but presently awful
+sounds arose, and Merle realised with a shudder of horror that the
+inmate of 279 was extremely seasick!
+
+She took to her heels, rushing wildly along the corridor until she
+considered herself at a safe distance--scarcely realising that nothing
+was further than pursuit from the mind of the unfortunate 279.  Then
+she stopped to consider the position; what she should do if the
+terrible man she had heard was indeed the object of her quest; what,
+if, as might well be, 352 was in no better case.  There seemed nothing
+to be gained by standing still, however, so she wandered up companions
+and along alleyways until she found herself confronting the second
+cabin on her list.
+
+The door was shut, and she stood trying to summon up her courage to
+knock; and feeling the said courage rapidly oozing from her.  But
+before she had time to make up her mind, the door opened suddenly, and
+a man came out, so quickly that he nearly knocked her over.
+
+"I beg your pardon!" he said, stepping back.  "I didn't know anyone was
+there."  He looked mildly surprised; but his voice was pleasant and his
+clean-shaven face was so keen and alert, and his eyes were so kindly,
+that Merle was suddenly no longer afraid.  "Did you knock?" he went on.
+"Were you looking for anyone?"
+
+"I'm looking for someone called Neil Fraser," Merle stammered.  "I do
+hope you're him!"
+
+"Well--I am!" he said, and laughed.  "Why did you want me?"
+
+Twice she tried to speak, and could not.  He saw the struggle in her
+face and patted her shoulder.  "Is anything wrong?" he asked.  "I am a
+doctor--can I help you?  Come in and tell me."
+
+He drew her into the cabin.  Merle made a tremendous effort, and her
+words came with a rush.
+
+"I know all about you," she said.  "You've been all over the world
+finding out all about spines, and now you've got to cure Dick's!"
+
+"Dick's?" he said.  "What's wrong with Dick's?"
+
+"It's all wrong--broken or something.  I don't know what.  It's all my
+fault, anyhow; cause I went out and the blacks nearly got me, only Dick
+came after me--and they speared him, and he fell off Conqueror when he
+was galloping, and lobbed on some rocks, and now they say he'll never
+walk again.  And he must walk--you don't know how splendid he is!  He's
+only thirteen, and you couldn't let a boy like that be a cripple all
+his life if you could cure him!"
+
+Suddenly she went down on her knees before him, catching at his hand.
+
+"Can't you do what they do with skin when they graft it?" she prayed.
+"Can't you take a bit of my spine?  You can have every bit of it, if
+it'll make Dick's all right.  I know it's quite a good spine, if you'll
+only use it!"
+
+If he wanted to laugh he did not show it.  He pulled her to her feet
+gently.
+
+"I can't do that," he said; "we're not clever enough yet.  But I'll do
+what I can, though, of course, I can't promise to cure him.  Tell me
+more about Dick.  Where is he?"
+
+"He's on the ship.  We came on yesterday.  His father and mother--and
+two nurses, and me.  He's in a deck cabin; I'll take you to see him if
+you'll come; he'll be out on deck now."
+
+"How long is it since he was hurt?"
+
+"Over two months.  It was up on our station.  They got Dr. Brereton
+from Perth up to him first, and then they took him to Perth in an
+ambulance Now they're taking him to Melbourne, and they'll take him all
+over the world to try and get him cured.  And--" her voice broke into
+sobs, and tears ran down her face--"he doesn't know they say he'll
+always be a cripple.  He lies so still, but he's always planning for
+when he's going to get up and ride again."
+
+"Poor lad!" said Dr. Fraser.  "And are you his sister?"
+
+"Me?" said Merle.  "No; I'm just his legs!"
+
+"Are you?" he said, and laughed for the first time.  "Well, you're a
+plucky little girl, anyhow.  Shall we come up and see Dick?"
+
+They went up together.  Dick was lying in the shade of a deck house, a
+nurse beside him.  He opened his eyes as Merle came up, and grinned at
+her.
+
+"Hullo, old Legs!" he said.  "Where have you been?  I've been out ever
+so long."
+
+"Oh, just about," said Merle vaguely.  "Dick this is--er--Neil Fraser."
+She flushed scarlet, conscious of the peculiar nature of the
+introduction.
+
+Dr. Fraser sat down near the stretcher, apparently unconscious of
+anything unusual.  Dick had shrunk into his shell at the idea of
+speaking to a stranger, but this man proved to be a very decent sort of
+person, with no tactless ways of looking at a fellow's stretcher, or of
+making silly inquiries as to how long a fellow had been ill.  He
+chatted away, in a low pleasant voice, and actually of horses!  He had
+been, it seemed, in the western states of America, and had the queerest
+stories of cowboys and their ways and their horses, told in a quaint
+American drawl that made them irresistibly funny.
+
+The nurse slipped away.  A little way off Mr. and Mrs. Lester were
+talking to the captain; they glanced round once or twice, hearing Dick
+laugh as he had not laughed since his accident.  The poor mother
+flushed with pleasure.
+
+"Listen to my boy," she said.  "Who is his new friend, captain?"
+
+The captain looked round.
+
+"A nice fellow, and a clever one," he said.  "Dr. Neil Fraser, of
+Melbourne.  I believe he's a spine specialist, but I don't know for
+certain.  Wonder if he could do your boy any good, Mrs. Lester?  He can
+make him laugh, that's certain."
+
+The father and mother stared at each other.
+
+"A spine specialist!" Mrs. Lester murmured.
+
+"So our doctor says.  He's a quiet fellow, with I don't know how many
+letters after his name; but he's out for a holiday, and doesn't mix
+much with the other passengers.  I should say someone must have told
+him about your boy."
+
+"One of the nurses, perhaps," Mr. Lester said.  "I wonder----"  He
+paused, and looked long at Neil Fraser's face, and came to Dick's
+conclusion that it was a face to invite confidence.  The captain
+strolled off to talk to other passengers.  John Lester put his hand on
+his wife's arm.
+
+"Shall we go and speak to him?"
+
+"No, don't go," she said.  "He and Dick are getting on famously--let us
+leave them to make friends.  John, do you think----"
+
+"I don't know," he said slowly.  "Somehow when I saw him beside Dick a
+queer wave of hope came over me.  I'd almost forgotten what hope was
+like.  He looks clever, Jean."
+
+"And kind," she said.  "Let us go and find the ship's doctor, and ask
+him about him."
+
+The ship's doctor, a grizzled old Scot, had only good words to say of
+Neil Fraser.
+
+"He's going to be a great man," he said.  "I heard of him in London
+from my brother--a doctor in Harley Street.  He did some great work at
+Munich, did Fraser, and I knew of a case he tackled in London with
+extraordinary results.  Oh, I'd certainly advise you to talk to him,
+Mr. Lester.  He's not practising, of course, but I'm certain he
+wouldn't refuse to give you an opinion, at least."
+
+"Does he only doctor spines?" asked Mrs. Lester.
+
+"From all I hear," said the Scot drily, "he's disinclined to recognise
+any part of the body but the spine!  He's spine mad."  He hesitated.
+"I tell you this, Mrs. Lester; whatever opinion he gives you I don't
+think you need go past it.  If Neil Fraser can't cure your boy there is
+no one, in Australia at any rate, who can."
+
+Outside the surgery the Lesters looked in each other's eyes.
+
+"Jean!" he said.  "Take care, dearest; don't let yourself hope too
+much."
+
+"I shouldn't, I suppose," she said, trembling.  "But--we've prayed,
+John; who knows if God has not sent us on this ship to answer us!"
+
+"Come and we'll find him," her husband said.
+
+Neil Fraser was still talking to Dick.  The boy called them eagerly as
+they came up.
+
+"That's father and mother!" he said.  "Do come here; this is Mr.
+Fraser, and he has been telling me most gorgeous yarns.  Tell them
+about the pony and the rattlesnake, Mr. Fraser--I'd love to hear it
+again."
+
+Neil Fraser told the story, and they were all laughing when the nurse
+came up with a steaming cup in her hand.
+
+"More nourishment!" said Dick, disgustedly.  "My word, I'll be glad
+when I'm well and can have just food to eat and not nourishment!  Why
+do you have to be nourished when you're ill, and not fed?"
+
+"That's one of the great problems we've never solved," said Fraser,
+laughing.  "Never mind, Dick--it looks good."
+
+"Oh, it's always good," said Dick, grinning up at the nurse.  "It's
+only its name I'm grumbling at."
+
+"Indeed, I'd call it anything you like, so long as you leave me an
+empty cup," she said with spirit, pulling his hair.
+
+"We'll leave him; he doesn't like an audience," said Mr. Lester, as the
+second nurse appeared.  They strolled out of sight, and then he turned
+to Fraser suddenly.
+
+"Will you come to our cabin for a little?" he said.
+
+In the cabin they looked at each other.
+
+"They tell us you are a specialist in such cases as our boy's," John
+Lester said.  "Will you undertake Dick?"
+
+Fraser hesitated.
+
+"I'll examine him, and give you an opinion, if you wish," he said.  "I
+can't say more until we see the result of the examination."
+
+"Will you do it on the ship?"
+
+The doctor shook his head.
+
+"I'd rather not.  The slightest roll, or vibration of the screw might
+make a difference."
+
+"I'm glad," said Mrs. Lester.  "Dick is happy--let him have his time on
+board in peace."
+
+"Yes, that's so," Fraser agreed.  He looked at her eager face pityingly.
+
+"Don't build up false hopes," he said.  "These cases are very
+difficult; there are a hundred reasons why I should not succeed where
+other men fail.  The little girl told me the Perth men had pronounced
+against your boy's recovery."
+
+"The little girl!" John Lester echoed.
+
+"Yes; the one Dick calls 'Legs.'  She came to my cabin and dragged me
+up to see Dick.  I don't know how she knew anything about me, but she
+begged me, on her knees, to take out her spine and use it for Dick."
+
+"Poor little soul!" said John Lester huskily.  He put his arm around
+his wife.  She had broken down as, even in those hard days, she had not
+done before.  Over her bent shoulders he looked at the doctor.
+
+"I don't want to build up hopes," he said, "and the Perth men certainly
+did give us none.  But they admitted there was a loophole; that no one
+understood everything about the spine.  They tell us you know more than
+most men."
+
+"Well, I have studied nothing else for four years," Fraser said.  "And
+fresh discoveries are bound to take place.  We cure things now that ten
+years ago would certainly have been hopeless.  But I'm only a learner,
+as any honest doctor must admit himself.  I shall be a learner all my
+life.  It may be--it is possible--that I may find some solution of your
+son's trouble.  I'll do my best.  Only don't be too hopeful."
+
+He got up, clenching his hand.
+
+"And still, never give up hope," he said.  "More cases are lost through
+hopelessness than you would dream of.  We're only beginning to know the
+power of thought; but this I can assure you, that if you surround your
+boy with an atmosphere of hope and courage you go far towards helping
+him, just as you help to drag him down if your heart is full of
+despair.  He's a boy to fight for, too.  Well--I don't even know your
+name yet--but I'll do my best to help you fight!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+HOW DICK LESTER TOOK HIS CHANCE.
+
+There is a quiet street in a Melbourne suburb--a street lined with big
+trees, where in the long, hot days you can hear the soft cooing of wood
+pigeons; and yet so near the great highway of St. Kilda Road that the
+clang of the tram bells comes clearly.  There are queer wild creatures
+there yet; the mopokes call at night in Fawkner Park, undisturbed by
+the racing motors along Toorak Road, and some quick-eyed people declare
+that they have seen 'possums dart across the tram lines.  If you sleep
+out on a balcony, as wise folk do, you may see owls flit by, even while
+in the small hours the string of market carts from the country creeps
+into Melbourne, the horses plodding along steadily, while the tired
+drivers curl up on the seats asleep.  But the carts do not come up the
+quiet street.  It lies dreaming until the magpies in the Grammar School
+trees carol their morning song.
+
+Back from the road in the quiet street stands a big house, girdled with
+wide verandahs.  It is the quietest place of all, though at all hours
+of the day and night there are motors before its gate.  Its wide lawns
+and gardens shelter behind tall pittosporum hedges; climbing roses and
+tecoma have clambered up the posts, making a screen to shield the
+balconies.  It never sleeps, although it is so quiet; white-uniformed
+nurses flit here and there about it by night and day, and often the big
+glass dome of a room at the back blazes with light throughout the
+night, as busy surgeons fight Death over an unconscious form.  In the
+daytime there are beds and stretchers under the trees on the lawns, or
+sheltered by gaily-striped tents; and people pass in and out, taking
+sheaves of flowers to the people within, or leading pale-faced
+convalescents home, to take up life anew.  But it is a cheery place, as
+a house of healing should be; it had seemed to smile to Dick Lester
+when they brought him there from the ship, so brown and merry, after a
+week on deck, that it was hard to understand why he should lie so still.
+
+Neil Fraser gave his verdict next day.
+
+"It's for you to decide," he told Dick's parents.  "There is a chance;
+I'll admit it's a slender one.  If you decide to have no operation he
+will probably live a long time, as they told you before--always a
+cripple.  Will he suffer?  Yes, probably, at intervals--a good deal;
+and there is always a chance of worse trouble developing."
+
+"And the operation?" John Lester said.
+
+"It is a risk.  I've done it successfully; I've seen as good a man as I
+am fail.  Should it fail, it means a worse condition; possibly
+hastening the end.  If it should succeed--well, Dick will walk out of
+the hospital."
+
+Mrs. Lester drew a long breath.
+
+"Will you tell me," she begged, "if you would advise us to have it
+done?"
+
+"Ah, that's too much to ask me," he said gently.  "That is surely only
+for you and his father to say.  I can only tell you the chances."
+
+There was silence for several minutes.  Then the mother spoke, quickly.
+
+"Then I say--do it!" she said.  "I can't look Dick in the face if we do
+not give him every possible chance.  I can't tell him he's a cripple
+for life without having a fight to save him.  It isn't fair--it's like
+caging some wild, free thing.  I know what Dick would say, if we gave
+him his choice."
+
+Her husband took her hand and held it tightly.
+
+"Yes, Dick would always choose the fight--he never yet lay down to
+anything," he said.  "We'll give him his chance, dear.  Can you get it
+over quickly, Fraser?"
+
+"In two days," Neil Fraser said.  He looked at them pityingly.  "And
+you know I'll do my best."
+
+They knew it on this sunny November morning as they wandered blindly up
+and down the quiet street; over to the roaring traffic of St. Kilda
+Road and back again; ever back to the big house where, with two
+surgeons to aid Neil Fraser, Dick was taking his last chance.  They
+could hear nothing yet, they knew; it was too soon to look for any word
+from the glass-domed theatre at the back.  Of that John Lester tried to
+keep his wife from thinking.  They talked of Dick--of his merry baby
+days; of his first pony, of the happy years when life at Kurrajong had
+centred about him while he slipped from childhood into boyhood.  He had
+looked only a little child when they kissed him that morning.
+
+"We're going out for a little while," they had said.  "You won't mind?"
+
+"Oh, no!" Dick had answered, faintly surprised.  There were several
+surprising things that morning, the worst being that no one had seemed
+to have time to bring him any breakfast.  The nurse had laughed when he
+said he was hungry, telling him the cook had gone on strike; but he was
+nearly sure he saw one of them put her handkerchief to her eyes as she
+left the room.  Perhaps she was worried over something, he had thought;
+he would not bother her any more about breakfast, anyway.  Then his
+father and mother had come for that queer early visit, leaving again
+very soon.  They had gone out quickly--but his mother had turned back
+from the door and kissed him again.
+
+"God bless you, my darling!" she had whispered--and was gone.
+
+He was thinking over it when Dr. Fraser had appeared beside him.  They
+were great friends, and he grinned up at him.
+
+"I say, is mother all right?"
+
+"Quite all right," the doctor had said.  "We've got to poke round you
+again a bit, Dick, old man, but we're not going to hurt you like we did
+last time--we'll put you to sleep instead.  Just smell this--deep
+breaths, now."  Something light had been slipped over his face; he had
+felt the doctor's hand over his, holding it in a firm, comforting
+clasp, while a sudden roaring filled his ears, and the world slipped
+away.
+
+That was an hour ago--an hour since a nurse had run hastily to Mrs.
+Lester to whisper, "He's taken the anæsthetic beautifully, and the
+doctor says you're not to worry."  And since then minutes had been ages
+to the man and woman who waited for another messenger.  They set
+themselves walks, at first, round a block of streets, once, twice; all
+the time with a listening ear for hurrying feet that might be sent to
+fetch them; and when they came back to the end of the quiet street they
+found themselves walking more and more quickly, straining to catch the
+first glimpse of the gate where, perhaps, someone might be standing,
+ready to beckon them to hasten.  And at last they could keep away no
+longer.  They came to the hospital and walked up and down a quiet path,
+that had seen many other people tramp in just such suspense as theirs.
+
+Mrs. Lester gave in at last.  There was a garden seat under a flaming
+mass of bougainvillea; she sank upon it suddenly, and hid her face in
+her hands, not weeping, but shuddering from head to foot with
+convulsive tremors.  Her husband put his arm round her, holding her
+closely, almost welcoming any sign of emotion after long weeks of
+unnatural calm.  She pulled herself together after a while.
+
+"It won't do--he may need us at any moment," she said.  "John, how long
+is it?"
+
+"Nearly two hours.  They can't be much longer, dear heart."
+
+"I can't walk any more--my knees have turned stupid," she said.  "If I
+had something to do--anything----"
+
+A woman turned in at the gate near them pushing a perambulator, in
+which the baby cried angrily.  They had seen her before; a young mother
+whose little girl was in the hospital recovering from pneumonia.  She
+came to see her each morning, leaving the baby boy asleep in the
+garden.  But this morning the boy was considering a tooth that would
+not come through; he declined to sleep, and woke the echoes with his
+protests at being left.  The poor young mother stood rocking him, her
+face furrowed with perplexity.
+
+"Ah, you naughty boy!" they heard her murmur.  "How am I going to see
+Winnie?"
+
+John Lester took a quick stride forward.
+
+"Lend my wife your baby," he said.  "We'll look after him."
+
+He picked up the child with a deft movement that made it clear that
+Dick's thirteen years had not been long enough to make him forget how
+to handle a baby.  Mrs. Lester held out her hands for the crying bundle
+and held it to her, rocking it backwards and forwards and crooning
+brokenly.  The baby struggled for a moment, and then gave in, putting
+out a dimpled hand to catch the lace at her breast; and she leaned down
+to him, holding him until she could touch the velvet-soft cheek.  Her
+husband stood looking at them, a lump in his throat; the years slipped
+away, and she was a child-mother again, holding Dick to her, singing
+the little sleepy song he loved.  He had been so proud of them
+both--his two babies, he had called them; and he had boasted that she
+had never grown up.  There were lines in her face now, graven in the
+last three months; and in the glass-domed room his other baby lay,
+taking his last fighting chance; and he could help neither.  He shut
+his lips on a groan, turning away.
+
+Neil Fraser was coming across the grass, taking the flower-beds in his
+stride.  He was pale and tired, but his eyes blazed with triumph.  John
+Lester stared at him, and no words would come.
+
+"It's all right!" Fraser said.  He put out a hand to each, and suddenly
+grabbed the borrowed baby, for Mrs. Lester trembled so violently that
+he feared she would faint.  "It's all right, I tell you!  He's
+splendid--sleeping peacefully."
+
+"And the operation?" John Lester uttered.
+
+"Don't I tell you it's all right?"  He threw back his head, with a
+laugh like a boy's.  "There were complications, as well as what I
+thought, and I had to take chances--but Dick will be as fit as ever he
+was.  He'll walk out of the hospital, Mrs. Lester--ah, poor soul!"
+
+They caught her between them as she swayed forward.  The baby was
+dumped unceremoniously on the grass, where, in sheer perversity, he lay
+kicking fat legs and chewing a clover blossom contentedly.  Mrs. Lester
+came back to consciousness to find herself on the garden seat, the
+silver cup of a flask at her lips.
+
+"Tell me again!" she whispered.
+
+"I could tell you all day, for I don't mind admitting I'm a proud man!"
+Fraser said.  "I don't think it's been done before.  I had a case much
+the same in Munich, but there were, as I said, complications in Dick's
+case; but it worked out splendidly.  He stood it well--not that I ever
+had any doubt about that; he's so tremendously fit, physically.  And
+next year, unless you go hunting for scars on him, you won't need to
+remember that he was ever hurt!"
+
+"When can we see him?" the father uttered.
+
+"You can look at him whenever you like; he's back in bed, fast asleep,
+with a nurse watching him.  And you can see him for five minutes this
+evening.  I'll ring up to see how he is after lunch, and if you like
+I'll meet you here at five o'clock.  Now I'm going to tell my old
+mother--you've no idea how keen she has been about Dick.  She's coming
+to see him as soon as I'll let her!"
+
+He wrung their hands in turn.
+
+"We can't thank you," John Lester said huskily.
+
+"There's no need; I've had the most entirely successful case I've ever
+handled.  I ought to thank you for giving me such a chance.  And I'm
+more glad than I can say--he's no end of a boy!"
+
+His steps died away on the gravel.  Mrs. Lester looked up at her
+husband.
+
+"Will you go and just look at him?" she said.  "I can't--my silly knees
+won't do as they're told, and I can't risk making a fuss.  Just look at
+him for me, and come and tell me every little thing about him!"
+
+"Sure you're all right if I leave you?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+There was only the baby in sight.  He stooped suddenly and kissed her;
+they clung together for a moment, without speaking.  Then he went away
+across the lawn.  Mrs. Lester sat still for a moment; then she stooped,
+still trembling, and picked up the baby.  She was holding him silently,
+her face against his, when the other mother came back.  Across the
+little face they looked at each other.
+
+"They told me your boy has come through all right," the baby's mother
+said.  "Oh, I'm so glad!  And my little girl is better."
+
+"I'm so glad, too, for you," Mrs. Lester said.  Suddenly the tears she
+had not shed for three months began to rain down her face, but she did
+not hide them.  She looked through the mist of them at the other
+mother--who, being a mother, was crying too.
+
+A big tear fell, presently, on the nose of the baby, who roared
+disapproval; whereupon they both fell to consoling him apologetically.
+
+"I must take him away--he's so big, he'll make you tired," his mother
+said, gathering her son up proudly.
+
+"Thank you for lending him to me," Mrs. Lester said.  "I think he kept
+me from going mad.  He's such a dear, comfortable baby--just what Dick
+was.  How many teeth has he?"
+
+The baby's mother told her, with other thrilling details--so engrossing
+that they did not hear Mr. Lester's step until he was beside them.
+
+"He's just as peaceful as that baby is going to be in two minutes," he
+said, smiling at the little sleepy face.  "And you're going to lie down
+as peacefully, too, the moment I can get you home.  Come on, we must go
+and tell Merle that she need be 'Legs' no longer!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+WHEN THE WORLD CAME RIGHT AGAIN
+
+"Good man!" said Teddy Raine.
+
+"Great action!" said Bottles.
+
+"Do you think," queried Nugent thoughtfully, "that there's any tendency
+to string-halt?  Bit of a kick about that off leg."
+
+"Do you realise, young man, that you're jesting with my professional
+reputation!" said Neil Fraser severely.
+
+"Not to mention with my best leg!" put in Dick.  He flung a cushion
+with a quick movement that found Nugent unprepared.  It took him in the
+face, and he subsided on top of Teddy, who received him without any
+gratification.
+
+"Get off, young Nuge!" he said, hurling him away.  "Trot up and down
+again, Lester; I want to see."
+
+"Not if I know it," said Dick, lowering himself gently on a couch.
+"When you haven't used your legs for about seven ages they don't make
+exercise exactly a joke.  And that's my third walk to-day.  Trot
+Bottles up and down; he needs it."
+
+"Don't you; the balcony won't stand it," grinned Nugent.  "There's a
+notice somewhere that nothing over ten tons is allowed to trot on this
+floor!"
+
+"Don't listen to them, Bottles," said Mrs. Lester, laughing.  "These
+skinny people are always jealous of good, honest weight!"
+
+"Bless 'em, I don't mind," Bottles answered cheerfully.  "Keeps 'em
+happy and good, and then they're no trouble, the pretty dears!"  He
+grinned in a fatherly way at Dick and Nugent.
+
+"When I can put on the pace a bit," said Dick with emphasis, "I'll
+teach you to call me a pretty dear!  Pound him to-night in the dormer
+for me, Nuge, will you?  He's got horribly above himself since I've
+been away."
+
+They were all on the hospital balcony, where, on a table, were the
+remains of afternoon tea.  Mrs. Lester sat near Dick's couch--he still
+liked to feel that she was within reach of his hand.  On a cushion
+beside her chair Merle was curled up; she held jealously to her
+position as "Legs," and looked forward with some dismay to the day when
+Dick would need her no longer.  The three boys had come racing across
+from school directly the unfeeling claims of education ceased to hold
+them.  Afternoon tea with Dick had become an institution that was
+seriously threatening the claims of cricket, insomuch that Melville,
+the school captain, was endeavouring to screw himself to the point of
+exercising his authority in the matter.  He found it difficult to be
+authoritative.  It was not so very long since the day when Mr. and Mrs.
+Lester had kept their vigil in the Quiet Street, when, in the school
+chapel, the boys had gathered while the chaplain prayed for Dick
+Lester, whose feet were in the Valley of the Shadow.
+
+Melville himself had been to tea on the balcony since then, and it is
+safe to say that at no time had Dick been so near pride as when the
+great man, rather shy and tongue-tied at first in the presence of Mrs.
+Lester, had sat on his couch and talked to him, a scrubby junior, as an
+equal!
+
+"You've got to look sharp and well, you know, Lester," he had said, at
+parting.  "We want all our men badly; the Wesley and Scotch juniors are
+going to take a heap of beating next term!"  Which had left Dick
+speechless, yet glowing.  He astonished the nurse that evening by
+demanding two eggs for tea!
+
+Neil Fraser had brought his mother this afternoon--a sweet-faced old
+lady, who sat beaming alternately on her tall son, and on the "case"
+that had already made his name a household word among surgeons.  And
+John Lester leaned against the balcony rail, smoking, and looking
+contentedly at his son.
+
+Dick's feet were very uncertain still.  He had discarded crutches after
+a few days' use, declaring that they hurt him more than they helped
+him.  Then he had hobbled, with a stick or between two helpers; only
+the day before had he suddenly declared that he would walk alone--and
+had walked!  A few steps, at first, from his couch to his mother;
+subsiding on her, flushed and laughing, while she caught him to her and
+held him, as she had done when, twelve years before, his baby feet had
+first carried him to her across the nursery floor.  She remembered yet
+the pride of that long ago day.  It was a small thing beside the utter
+thankfulness of this.
+
+The hospital was keenly interested in Dick's convalescence.  It was not
+often that they had a patient so doggedly determined to get well.  He
+demanded instructions as to working his muscles, and struggled with
+them as soon as he was permitted, rubbing himself, moving limbs that no
+longer seemed to belong to him, and performing the limited amount of
+"physical jerks" possible to one who lies flat in bed.  The scope of
+his energies widened as he was allowed to sit up; he learned from Neil
+Fraser and from the masseur who visited him daily how to second their
+efforts, and the nurses found him, at regular intervals, exercising
+solemnly, grimacing with pain at the creaking of his unused muscles,
+and working the harder the more he grimaced.  The pretty girl in room
+five, who had just lost her appendix, and the stout old gentleman in
+three, very bad-tempered with the gout, used to ask their nurses each
+morning how many inches young Lester had moved since breakfast, and
+send him messages of congratulation; the matron, tall and beautiful in
+snowy white, would stand at the end of his bed, cheering him on, with
+an eye wary for signs of fatigue.  And when he sat up--and when he
+first hobbled on his crutches--the word ran from room to room, and the
+nurses left their work to peep in at him and applaud.  Even the
+bad-tempered old gentleman, who was wont to drive his nurse almost to
+tears if a stray sound penetrated his room, was found only smiling on
+the morning that Dick, forgetting his surroundings in the triumph of
+his first steps, sat on the end of his bed and woke the echoes with a
+shout of "Buck up, School!"
+
+In the intervals of exercising there came over him a great peace;
+something altogether different from the weary patience of the months
+when he had lain helpless.  He seemed to want nothing if his mother
+were near; looking at her, he would lie quietly, his happy face so
+peaceful that a tired night nurse, peeping in, declared to a comrade
+that only to look at that Lester boy made you feel as if you'd had a
+night's sleep and a cold swim!  Not until long after did he confide to
+his mother what the dread and terror of those first months had been.
+"It was only you who kept me going," he said.  "I knew the others
+thought I was always going to lie there; only you told me my back
+wasn't broken--that I'd be better some day.  I just hung on to that,
+when everything else in the world was black, 'cause I knew you'd never
+tell me a lie!"
+
+Peace too, had come to Merle.  Something of her burden lifted upon the
+ship--when Dick's father and mother had heard from her stumbling lips
+the story of how she had found Neil Fraser, and had thanked her as best
+they might.  The rest had rolled away on the day of the operation.  She
+had known nothing of it until it was over; they had agreed that she had
+already borne sufficient strain.  She only knew that heaven had
+suddenly come out of darkness when Mrs. Lester, her worn face smiling
+through tears, had taken her in her arms and told her that Dick would
+walk again.
+
+They did not want her to go back to Narrung for a year.  So much of
+shock and horror and bitter self-reproach hung over the vision of her
+home that they dreaded what might be the effect of returning too soon;
+besides which, Dick declared that he wanted old "Legs" at
+Kurrajong--and nobody just then denied Dick anything, which made it
+fortunate that he was a sweet-natured and unexacting person.  So Mrs.
+Lester had written to ask if Merle might be her daughter for a year--to
+go to a good boarding-school, returning to Kurrajong, with Dick and his
+mates, for the holidays.  Already Bottles and Teddy and Nugent had
+unknowingly done much to convince Merle that she might have been wrong
+in believing that all boys were beasts!  She was beginning to laugh
+naturally; to make, occasionally, remarks that were more than curt
+monosyllables.  "She's getting quite human!" Dick's nurses said.
+
+They were planning the return to Kurrajong that afternoon on the
+hospital balcony.  In a few days they were to go down to a hotel by the
+sea, where Dick could lie in the sand and let sun and ozone have a
+share in completing his cure.  Mr. and Mrs. Lester would leave him
+there with a nurse in charge, while they paid a flying visit to their
+home, to make sure that everything was in readiness for the real
+return.  They would come back for Dick and Merle.
+
+"And that will make it just about breaking-up time," Dick said.  "So
+you three chaps can join up, and we'll all go home in a bunch.  Glory,
+won't it be a day!"
+
+"And Mrs. Fraser and the doctor will come for Christmas," Mrs. Lester
+said, smiling at them over Dick's head.
+
+"I think you had better arrange to travel with us, Fraser," Mr. Lester
+said.  "I'll need some support if I have to take all these young people
+home.  Four--five of them; and a wife who always forgot to grow up!
+You can't expect a man to handle an unbroken team like that
+single-handed!"
+
+"Don't you worry, sir," said Bottles ponderously.  "I can sit on any
+two of 'em at once--except Mrs. Lester!" he added hastily, with a
+furious blush.
+
+The others roared unkindly.
+
+"I'd hate you to try, Bottles dear!" said Mrs. Lester--whereat the
+unfortunate Master Glass reddened yet more painfully.
+
+"It'll be jolly dull for you chaps, I'm afraid," Dick said.  "They
+won't let me ride or play tennis, or do anything, for a bit.  You'll
+just have to find your way about, and get busy on the station.
+There'll be plenty of work for them, won't there, father?"
+
+"Any amount," said his father.  "I'll start a bush fire, if necessary,
+to prevent their feeling bored.  Merle, how are you at fire fighting?"
+
+"Had too much, thanks," said Merle.
+
+"Then I can't entertain you that way.  How is your tennis?"
+
+"Rotten," said Merle, with emphasis.
+
+"So's mine, Merle," said Bottles.  "Never mind--you and I'll go out
+together and kill snakes!"
+
+"Right," said Merle, unusually cheerful.  "I'd like that!"
+
+"There's something unexpected about you; but give me guests who are
+willing to entertain themselves," said Mr. Lester, laughing.  "We had a
+man out from Scotland once who turned down all our schemes for his
+amusement.  But he never gave us any trouble; whenever we missed him he
+was sure to be down in the pig paddock looking at my Berkshires!  Queer
+taste, but it kept him happy."
+
+"When you begin to tell calumnious stories about my nation, it's time
+we went, isn't it, mother?" said Neil Fraser.  "Pigs, indeed!  Are you
+sure your Scot wasn't an Irishman, Lester?"
+
+"He was not--and I never saw an Irishman who would look at a pig when a
+horse was about," Mr. Lester remarked.  "Not that I think there was any
+love of my pigs, as pigs, on M'Glashan's part; he was a confirmed
+mathematician, and he was merely calculating the amount of bacon those
+Berkshires would cut into!  Must you really go?"
+
+"I must--apart from the painful nature of your conversation," Fraser
+said, laughing.  "I'm taking this young mother of mine to the theatre
+to-night, and she must have a rest first."
+
+They said good-bye, and disappeared through the long window.  Teddy
+Raine rose.
+
+"Come on, you fellows," he said.  "I must take 'em back, Mrs. Lester,
+or poor old Melville'll be throwing fits.  Cricket practice has slumped
+since you people came here."  He patted Dick's head, his merry face
+gentle.  "Going to have a mighty supper in the dormer to-night, old
+thing!" he said.  "Wish you were going to be there."
+
+"I wish I was!" said Dick ruefully.  "Never mind, there'll be lots next
+term!"
+
+"And we'll drink more power to your old back," said Teddy, "in
+raspberry vinegar!"
+
+"Out of a soap-dish lid?" queried Mrs. Lester demurely.
+
+"Now, you know too much, Mrs. Lester," Teddy reproached her.  "'Spose
+this fellow revealed all our black secrets when he was delirious.  You
+ought to be ashamed, anyhow, Lester.  No chap in our form was ever
+delirious before!"
+
+"Why, I thought it was your normal condition!" said Mr. Lester.
+
+"That's one below the belt!" murmured Bottles, amidst the laughter.
+"Come on, chaps, we're not appreciated here--or anywhere else!  It
+doesn't matter!"  They clattered downstairs, to the profound wrath of
+the bad-tempered old gentleman.  Dick propped himself on one elbow to
+wave to them as they raced down to the gate.
+
+"Want to be going with them, old son?" his father asked.
+
+Dick shook his head contentedly.
+
+"No," he said.  "Next term I will, I s'pose--when my silly old back is
+in going order again.  But just now"--his eyes lingered on his father
+and mother--"between you two and old 'Legs,' and learning to
+walk--well, I've just got jolly well all I want."
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+  STORIES BY
+
+  MARY GRANT BRUCE
+
+  Published by
+  WARD, LOCK & CO., LTD.
+
+  OF WHICH MORE THAN 320,000
+  COPIES OF THE ORIGINAL EDITIONS
+  HAVE BEEN SOLD
+
+  "THESE BOOKS SHOULD FIND A PLACE
+  AMONGST ENGLISH STORIES; THEY BRING A
+  TOUCH OF SOMETHING STRANGE AND YET AKIN
+  TO THEIR READERS HERE, AND MAY HELP
+  TO AWAKEN NEW INTERESTS."--The Times.
+
+  A LITTLE BUSH MAID
+  MATES AT BILLABONG
+  TIMOTHY IN BUSHLAND
+  GLEN EYRE
+  NORAH OF BILLABONG
+  GRAY'S HOLLOW
+  FROM BILLABONG TO LONDON
+  JIM AND WALLY
+  'POSSUM
+  DICK
+  CAPTAIN JIM
+  DICK LESTER OF KURRAJONG
+  BACK TO BILLABONG
+  THE STONE AXE OF BURKAMUKK
+  THE TWINS OF EMU PLAINS
+  BILLABONG'S DAUGHTER
+  THE HOUSES OF THE EAGLE
+  THE TOWER ROOMS
+  BILLABONG ADVENTURERS
+  GOLDEN FIDDLES
+  THE HAPPY TRAVELLERS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Dick Lester of Kurrajong, by Mary Grant Bruce
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56714 ***