CHAPTER X

When the north wind moans thro’ the blind creek courses,And revels with harsh, hot sand,I loose the horses, the wild red horses,I loose the horses, the mad red horses,And terror is on the land!

When the north wind moans thro’ the blind creek courses,

And revels with harsh, hot sand,

I loose the horses, the wild red horses,

I loose the horses, the mad red horses,

And terror is on the land!

—Marie E. J. Pitt.

DUSK fell, and the stars came out to ride in a blue-black sky, before the sound of horses’ feet, galloping, floated to the quiet house at Billabong. Mrs. Brown came out on the verandah, one hand at her ear, listening.

“Here they are—an’ thank goodness!” she uttered. “I’m never easy in me mind when they’re out on them young horses—not as anything ever happens, but who’s to say it isn’t goin’ to? It’s always a relief, like, to see them come scrimmagin’ in!”

Hogg, a dim figure in the gloom of a big clump of hydrangea, merely grunted. Norah considered that a serious realization of the claims of his name had induced Hogg to practise grunting. It was a fine art with him, and capable of innumerable shades of expression.

Just now he was hunting snails—his dour face occasionally revealed in an almost startling manner by gleams from the tiny lantern he carried.

“Watter will always bring them,” he remarked.

“Eh?” asked Brownie, sharply.

“Ay. The place was free a week back—an’ noo they’re crawlin’ all through it—rapacious beasts!”

“What on earth are you saying, man?” demanded Brownie, bristling.

“Tes the snails, Mistress Broon. Whiles, ’a wes thinkin’ there wes none; but sin’ ’a’ve been soakin’ this pairt o’ the gairden they’ve made ma life a burrden. ’A ken fine there’s nae gairdener wull get to heaven gin he has to deal much in life wi’ snails!” said Hogg, desperately.

“Nasty beasts!” said Brownie sympathetically. She shuddered as a crunching sound came from under Hogg’s boot, and fled indoors; and the Scotchman worked on, pondering upon the peculiar and painful susceptibilities of women. “It makes ma heart glad to scrunch ’em!” he reflected, demolishing half a dozen of his enemies with a massive boot.

The riders trotted into the stable yard, tired, but cheerful.

“Coming home was the best part of the day,” said Norah, happily, slipping off and beginning to unbuckle Bosun’s breastplate, leaving Garryowen to Jim. Garryowen had carried her like a bird; but Norah had a fancy for letting her own property go.

“I think you can put Bosun in the stable to-night,” her father said; “Monarch and Garryowen, too; they deserve a bit of hard feed.”

“And don’t Nan and Warder?” protested Jean.

“Yes—but they aren’t used to it,” said Mr. Linton, laughing. “These three are pampered babies, and the others are matter-of-fact old stagers.”

“Nan’s a dear!” said Jean, indignantly. She caressed the brown mare’s long nose.

“I’ll slip over after tea and feed them,” Jim said. “They’re a bit hot now.”

“Very well,” his father answered, leading Monarch into the dark recesses of the stable and returning for Bosun. “Better leave the others in the yard, too, until you come over; then you can give them some chaff, just to set Jean’s mind at rest.” He pulled that lady’s hair gently. “Make haste, we’ve kept poor Brownie unconscionably late.”

Brownie showed no signs of having been delayed. She met them smilingly, and called Wally “poor dear!” when he simulated extreme fatigue. Tea was a mighty meal, and before it was over Norah and Jean felt their eyelids drooping. It was still very hot in the house. Outside, a wind began to blow fitfully from the west.

“Go to bed, both of you!” ordered Mr. Linton, as they rose from the table and went out through the long windows upon the verandah. “You’re both knocked up. What’s that light moving?”

“That’s Hogg, snail hunting,” Jim answered.

“I’ll be fined for working him overtime some day,” said his father. “Most of them are only too glad to knock off, but Hogg’s a demon to work.”

“This isn’t work, it’s sport!” grinned Jim.

“I should think Hogg’s dreams would be haunted by the screams of slaughtered snails!” Wally said. “Wonder how many of their scalps he’s entitled to wear at his saddle bow—slain in gentle and joyous combat! He’s a mighty hunter.” He yawned, cavernously. “Jim, if you want me to help you feed those horses before I go to sleep you’d better hurry.”

“Come on,” Jim said, swinging himself over the low railing of the verandah. “Then I’ll race you to bed, if you like. Good-night, kids!”

“Kid yourself,” said Norah, in great scorn. “Jean, first into the bath gets it!” Uttering this mystic prediction, she kissed her father hastily, and fled upstairs, with Jean toiling in her wake. Sounds of much splashing kept the bathrooms lively for some time. Then Billabong, clean, refreshed and profoundly sleepy, tumbled into bed and became oblivious of the world.

* * * * *

Norah woke from a confused dream of Hogg, mounted on an immense Queensland bullock, and chasing a battalion of snails down Mount Kosciusko. Variety was lent to the vision by the fact that Kosciusko had become an active volcano, and was in wild eruption behind the Scotchman, who was silhouetted blackly against a background of burning lava.And the snails were screaming.

For a moment she did not think she could be awake. The ridiculous dream had been vivid, and still the glow filled her room. Then again came the sound she had dreamed, and Norah was suddenly broad awake, and, flinging herself out of bed, fled to the window. She uttered a cry, and tugged at Jean frantically.

“Whatever’s the matter?” asked Jean sleepily.

“Quick, tell Jim! Call him! Oh, hurry, Jean, the stables are on fire. I’m going—the horses!” She was groping for shoes and flinging on a coat. Then she tore downstairs, shouting as she went. From the stables, as she stumbled out upon the verandah, came again the sound of her dreams, and she caught her breath in a sob. For no one who has ever heard it can forget the horror of a horse’s scream.

The stables were burning fiercely. One end, the westward end, that held the buggy house and harness rooms, was a sheet of flame; but the fire had not yet fairly seized upon the whole, although the door of the loose boxes showed trails of smoke coming from within. She could hear the trampling of hoofs, jostling, terrified, and then a long whinny of utter fear, rising again to a scream. Sobbing, she wrestled with the stiff bolt of the door.

Across the garden came a shout—Jim’s voice.

“Come away from that, Norah! Come back, dear. They’ll trample over the top of you.” He was running desperately towards the little figure against the lit building.

“They’re burning!” said Norah, sobbing. The fastening yielded, and she flung one door back, unable to see anything for the dense smoke. She called the horses by name, pushing open the lower door, and had barely time to jump aside when Monarch and Bosun bolted out, frantic with fear. Further back, the scream came once more.

“Oh, it’s Garryowen!” Norah gasped, “and his door’s shut; and if I don’t go in, Jim will.” She took a long breath, a child’s fear fighting against pity and love. Then she put her arm up, as if to guard her eyes, and stumbled into the smoke.

Within, it was almost impossible to breathe. Fierce little shoots of fire came through cracks in the wall that showed a mass of flame beyond; and the heat was choking and deadly. Already the roof was burning; the hay in the loft above had caught, and the flames were shooting fifty feet above the stables. In his box, Jim’s big bay thoroughbred was rearing and kicking, mad with terror. Even when Norah had managed to open his door, he would not come out to face the unknown horrors. She called him, trying to steady her voice—knowing that to venture within his box in his maddened state was little short of suicide. From outside she could hear Jim’s voice, shouting for her, sharp with anxiety.

“Oh, I’ll have to leave him!” Norah sobbed. “The fire’s coming through the roof. Oh, Garry, dear, do come out!”

Above the loose box the ceiling split open for about a yard, and a shower of burning fragments came down. They struck Garryowen on the quarter—and the great horse, screaming, plunged through the open door and out like a whirlwind to the glimpse of star-lit sky that showed through the further doorway. Behind him Norah staggered feebly, brushing burning particles from her hair—holding one hand across her mouth in the vain effort to keep out the choking smoke. Within sight of safety, consciousness left her; she tripped, falling face downward on the wooden blocks.

Jean’s terrified voice at his door had awakened Jim almost before Norah had flown downstairs. The glow in his room did not put the fear into his heart that flashed there at the stammering words—

“Norah’s gone over!”

“Norah—she mustn’t!” the boy gasped. He flung himself past Jean, shouting to her to warn the rest of the house, and raced across to the burning stables. At the gate of the yard Monarch and Bosun almost were upon him—they swerved in their maddened gallop, missing him by a hair’s breadth as he ran. But there was no sign of the little sister.

He peered through the smoke wildly, calling to her. For all that he knew, his own horse was already out, safe in some dark corner of the yard; that Norah had gone into the burning building did not enter his head. He searched for her, shouting her name more and more loudly. A sudden terror came upon him lest the horses should have knocked her down as they rushed out—he sprang to the open doors, in sick fear of finding her hurt—senseless. But nothing was visible—nothing but the rolling clouds of flame-shot smoke. He paused, irresolute.

Then he heard Norah’s voice at Garryowen’s box, and even as he leapt forward, amazed and despairing, came a clatter of hoofs on the wooden pavement, as the bay horse bolted out in his last wild dash for safety. His shoulder just brushed Jim as he plunged through the doorway, but the touch was enough to send the boy staggering back, almost falling. He recovered himself with an effort, dashing into the stable.

Beyond him, above Garryowen’s loose box, the roof split gradually, and the roar of inrushing flames filled his ears. They lit up the dark interior, for a moment even stronger than the cruel smoke. Then he saw Norah at his feet. He picked her up, holding her with her face pressed against him to save her from the burning fragments that filled the air—staggering out, grim and determined, with his breath coming in choking gasps. Then his father’s voice rang in his ears, and he saw Wally’s face dimly and felt their hands as they drew him and his burden to safety.

He put Norah down on the grass gently, a limp, unconscious figure. A voice he did not recognize as belonging to him was gasping something about water, and he heard Wally’s swift feet, that seemed to go and come all at once——. They were splashing water on Norah’s face, but she did not move; and suddenly he heard a dry sob break from his father, more terrible in its agony than any sound could ever be again. Perhaps it was in answer to it that Norah’s eyes flickered a little and presently they opened more widely—red-rimmed eyes, half blind—and she smiled at them faintly. Her smoke-grimed lips moved in words that sounded like “all right.”

Jim got to his feet and moved over to the fence, his shoulders shaking as he gripped the pickets.

“I thought she was dead,” he said; “I was jolly well sure she was dead.”

Voices and shouting were coming from the men’s hut. Behind him a long, thundering crash echoed to the sky as the stable roof fell in. Then his father’s hand was on his shoulder.

“Steady, old chap,” said David Linton, “she’s all right. Get to the hose in the garden quickly, Jim. The house has caught.”

CHAPTER XI

This is the homestead—the still lagoonKisses the foot of the garden fence,Shimmering under a silver moonIn a midnight silence, cold and tense.

This is the homestead—the still lagoon

Kisses the foot of the garden fence,

Shimmering under a silver moon

In a midnight silence, cold and tense.

—W. H. Ogilvie.

SARAH, the housemaid, was at the big bell of the station, ringing it wildly. Long after every man and woman on Billabong was awake and busy, Sarah continued to ring. She said afterwards that it seemed to ease her!

A flying fragment from the burning loft had been carried by the wind across the gardens to the oldest part of the homestead—wooden rooms that were now used as storerooms and out-offices. In five minutes they were blazing fiercely.

Jim and Wally had raced for the garden fence, vaulting it, and landing in the midst of a bed of pansies.

“Lucky for us they weren’t roses!” gasped Wally, picking himself up out of the soft soil. “A fellow wants to have on more than pyjamas for this sort of a lark!” They tore on, ploughing over Hogg’s most cherished flower beds.

“Where is that blessed hose?” Jim uttered, wrathfully. He dived into various dark corners where taps existed. Then he stopped, frowning.

“Hogg was mending it. Confound the delay!” he said. “Start with the little one, Wal.; you know, it’s near that palm you were climbing. I’ll find Hogg.” Shouting, he ran round the corner of the house, and collided violently with the gardener, hurrying to meet him with the great rubber coil in his hands. The shock sent them both staggering, and Hogg sat down abruptly.

“Ye took me—fair i’ the wind!” he gasped. “Run on, laddie. A’ll get ma breath presently.”

Flames were shooting from half the windows upstairs when Jim at length got his hose to work. The fire had caught the wooden balcony, spreading from it to the upper rooms, and downstairs the kitchen was burning, and the back verandah had caught. Mr. Linton, running over after carrying Norah far out of the way of heat, and leaving her in Jean’s care, saw how the flames were being sucked into the house through the wide-open back door.

“Won’t do!” he muttered. Dashing in through the smoke, and gripping the almost red-hot door-handle with his felt hat, he managed to slam the door. He staggered off the verandah just as the flooring collapsed.

Black Billy, his eyes apparently starting out of his sable face, was at his elbow.

“Run round and shut the front door, if it’s open, Billy!” Mr. Linton said, coughing.

“Plenty!” murmured Billy. He disappeared round the corner of the house, a black streak of fear.

On the eastern side the window of Mr. Linton’s office stood open. The squatter swung himself through it with the lightness of a boy, and ran to his desk, which stood open, its roll-top flung back. It held papers that must not be risked—he thrust them into his overcoat pockets hurriedly; then, spreading the cloth from a little table on the floor, he emptied the drawers upon it, working by the dancing glow of the flames that lit up all the surroundings. Already the heat and smoke were almost unbearable.

“The safe’s fireproof,” he muttered, glancing towards its corner—“that’s a comfort, anyhow!”

The room was becoming untenable. Clouds of smoke rolled in from the windows and crept, snake fashion, under the door. On the side of the room nearest the fire the plaster began to crack, and the paper shrivelled on the wall. It was difficult to breathe—David Linton’s panting gasps seemed to choke him. He knew he could do no more. He added to the heap on the table cloth the portrait that always stood upon his desk—Jim and Norah’s mother, sweet and young, smiling from her silver frame. Then he gathered all into a bundle and groped his way to the window.

Every available hose was already at work. The hiss of the water, falling on the flames, sounded like snakes angry at being disturbed. Beneath the office window, flames were licking at the wall; the woodwork at one side was blazing and crackling. David Linton hesitated, one hand on the sill—it was hot, and his load made him awkward.

From the garden came Jim’s shout.

“Half a minute, Dad! Don’t try to get out yet!”

The stream of water from his hose played suddenly upon the burning woodwork, splashing on the sill, and sprinkling the man who stood waiting. Above him the flames died out sullenly. Jim played on the hot bricks of the wall for a moment, in fear less already the fire in the house should be finding its way into the office—then he shouted again, deflecting the stream, and Mr. Linton climbed out, bringing his bundle carefully after him. He carried it across the garden, nodding at his son.

Behind the house, Murty O’Toole and Brownie had organized a bucket brigade.

“I can’t carry buckets up to much,” Brownie observed, “but I can pump a treat!” She worked the force-pump manfully, never ceasing, though the heat from the burning house made the metal portions of the pump too hot to touch, and her plump old face was crimson, and her breathing pitifully distressed. Sarah and Mary were in the line, passing the brimming buckets to the men with the easy swing of young bush-trained muscles. Mr. Linton, arriving at a run, shook his head.

“There’s not a hope of saving this part,” he cried. “We’d better concentrate on the front. Brownie, you’re not to work like that—go over to the pepper trees and look after Norah. No—I’d rather you did——” as Brownie hesitated, unwillingly. “It would really be a relief to me to know you were with her—she said she had no burns, but I don’t see how she can have escaped without any.” Even at that moment a twinkle came to his eye, for at the hint Brownie uttered a dismayed exclamation, and fled away across the yard to her nursling. With Norah needing her, the house might burn, indeed!

“We’ll save what we can from the front rooms, Murty,” the squatter went on, leading the way with rapid strides. “Some of you get to work with the buckets—there are four of them hosing. It’s a mercy the water pressure’s good.”

They flung open the French windows in the front of the house. Already every room was filled with smoke; the men dashed in and out, holding their breath—bringing out silver and pictures and books first—the things that no insurance money could replace. Jim, from his post near the tap, smiled a trifle to see his father’s first load—his own silver cups, trophies of his years at school. Stopping at the edge of the lawn, Mr. Linton bowled them down the sloping grass, and hastened back for more.

From the window of the drawing-room came Dave Boone and Black Billy, staggering under the piano. At the edge of the verandah Billy’s end slipped and jarred heavily upon the kerb, the strings setting up a demoniacal jangle. Billy uttered a yell of terror, and bolted down the lawn, being recalled with great difficulty by Mr. Boone, who expressed a harassed wish to “break his useless black neck.” But the dusky one firmly refused to touch the piano again.

“That pfeller debbil-debbil!” he said. “Baal me hump him any more.” He rescued the drawing-room fire-irons with heroic determination, while Mr. Linton came to the assistance of the bereft Mr. Boone, whose wrath was tending towards apoplexy.

Lee Wing held the nozzle of one hose firmly directed upon a dangerous point. He was a peculiar spectacle. The prudence characteristic of the gentle Chinaman had induced him to put on as many clothes as possible before leaving his hut, and he was attired in at least three suits. They were uncomfortable, but he had the consolation of knowing where they were; and a spark might send his hut up in smoke at any moment. Upon his bullet head were four hats, each pulled down firmly. His pockets bulged with miscellaneous possessions, his pigtail floated behind him. If the worst should come to the worst, Lee Wing was clearly prepared to start back to China.

His hereditary enemy, Hogg, worked not far off. As a rule the feud between the gardeners did not slumber, but just now they were as brothers. Hogg’s mind was too full of woe over the destruction of his garden to be troubled by what he was wont to call contemptuously the Yaller Peril, and Lee Wing, his trim expanse of vegetables well out of harm’s way, felt something resembling pity for his competitor, whose flower beds were mere highways for trampling feet. Even as they looked, Billy dashed out of the house carrying a heavy carved box—Jim’s handiwork—and dropped it upon a delicate rose bush with a loud, satisfied grunt. At the spectacle of slaughter Hogg gave a heavy groan and a sudden involuntary movement of the hand that held the nozzle of his hose. It turned the stream of water from its course—a matter of which Hogg, gazing open-mouthed at the destruction of his hopes, was quite unconscious, until a wrathful shout brought him back to earth with a start. Then he realized that he was hosing Jim vigorously, deaf to his very justifiable remarks.

“What on earth are you up to?” sang out the dripping Jim. He burst out laughing at the Scotchman’s dismayed face. “I’m not sorry for the bath, Hogg, but the house needs it more!”

“Losh!” gasped Hogg, gazing at his handiwork—paralysed past any possibility of apologizing. He swung the stream of water again to the fire, muttering horrified ejaculations in broad Scotch.

The stable had almost burned itself out. A dull, red glow came from the smoking bed of coals that smouldered angrily between the broken and blackened brick walls. One of these had fallen, with a crash that echoed round the hills; the others still stood, black holes gaping in them where windows had been, like staring eyes that watched the ruin of the pride of Billabong—for there had been no such stables in the district. Harvey’s little plan had hit even harder than that ingenious gentleman had anticipated.

Beyond the fences the cattle stood in interested groups, fascinated by the fire; further off were the horses, thrilled with more fear than the stolid bullocks, but unable to tear themselves from the mysterious glow. But Monarch and Garryowen and Bosun were away at the farthest corner of the homestead paddock, quivering and starting yet, their hearts still pounding at the memory of the terrible moments in the burning stable; and on Garryowen’s quarter were round, burnt patches, while half of his tail was singed off. Yet pain was not so dreadful to the big thoroughbred as Fear—fear that he could not understand, that had come to him in the darkness, and was yet knocking at his heart.

At the house the fire was slackening. Billabong was built of solid brick, so that there was not a great deal of inflammable material for the flames to fasten upon; and they had been discovered soon—not allowed, as in the stables, to obtain a firm hold. The defence had been prompt and thorough. David Linton blessed the forethought, coupled with the love of his garden, that had made him equip the homestead with water laid on from the river as well as with many tanks. They had needed it all.

He was at the hose now, having relieved Jim, to whom the business of standing still and holding a nozzle had been no light penance, despite the necessity of the proceeding. One of the men had taken Wally’s place, and the boys had dashed off on a tour of the homestead, to look for any possibility of a further outbreak. David Linton looked at what remained of his house, his mouth stern—going back in memory to the time of its building, and the old, perfect companionship that had been by his side. Now the rooms that he and his wife had planned were black, smoking ruins, and the roses she had planted were shrivelled masses on the wall. There was no part of the house that did not have its memories of her, so vivid that often it seemed to him that he saw her yet, flitting about its wide corridors and the rooms that even until now had borne the magic of her touch. All the years the home had helped him to fight his loneliness and his longing. Now——. He stared at it with eyes suddenly grown old.

Then across the grass came a little odd figure—Norah, still grimy with smoke, and very shaky, with Brownie’s arm near her to help, and Jean not far off. Norah, her coat open over her blue pyjamas, and her hair, in her own phrase, “all anyhow,” about her, and her grey eyes swimming as she looked from the house to her father’s face. David Linton put down the hose and held out his hand to her silently, and Norah clung to him.

“Oh, Daddy, poor old Daddy!” she whispered.

Jim came round the corner with long strides; even odder than Norah, for he had not waited to put any overcoat over his pyjamas, and he had been drenched and dried, and blackened and torn, until he resembled a scarecrow in an advanced stage of disrepair. He gripped his father’s free hand.

“It’s not so bad, Dad!” he said, cheerily. “Lots of the old place left. We’ll all build it up again, Dad!”

David Linton smiled at his children, suddenly.

“Right, mates!” he said. “We’ll build it up again!”

CHAPTER XII

And the creek of life goes wandering on,Wandering by;And bears for ever its course uponA song and a sigh.

And the creek of life goes wandering on,

Wandering by;

And bears for ever its course upon

A song and a sigh.

—Henry Lawson.

ADROVER on the road with store cattle miles away saw the glow in the sky that night, and reported it next morning to a farmer driving in to Cunjee; and before noon half the township seemed to be out at the station.

Little Dr. Anderson, in his motor, was the first to appear. He found the Billabong inhabitants straying about the ruins to see what remained to them. The overseer’s cottage and the men’s hut had given them shelter for the remnant of the night after the fire had been finally extinguished, except Mr. Linton and Jim, who remained on guard until morning.

Within, the devastation was only partial. Most of the rooms in front were practically untouched, though all had been damaged by water. The back of the house had suffered most; little but the walls were left. Jim brought a long ladder for further explorations, for the stairs were unsafe, being burnt through in two places. He found that the rooms belonging to his father, Norah and himself bore traces of flood rather than of fire. The walls were cracked with heat, but otherwise they were intact. But the water had done its worst, and he groaned over the spectacle of Norah’s pretty room, its red carpet a vision of discoloured slush, and the white furniture stained and blistered. All its little adornments were lying in confused heaps, swept down by the water. It was a gruesome sight.

Within the wardrobe and chest of drawers, however, clothes were unhurt. Jim took up a rope and lowered bundles down to his father, so that when Norah and Jean awoke, very late in the morning, it was to find clean raiment laid out for them by Brownie, and breakfast waiting for them in Mrs. Evans’s neat little kitchen.

“Isn’t it a mercy?” Jean confided to Norah. “Last night it didn’t seem to matter at all running round before all Billabong in a nighty and a coat, but I went to sleep wondering how they’d look in the daytime!”

Brownie and the maids were the most to be pitied, for they had lost everything but a few cherished possessions, snatched up as they ran out of the house. Mary and Sarah were not hard to clothe—but Mrs. Brown was a different proposition. The united wardrobes of Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Willis, the men’s cook, contrived something in the nature of a rig-out by dint of ripping out gathers and tucks and using innumerable safety pins. “I’m covered, if not clothed!” said Brownie, “an’ thankful to be anything!”

Mr. Linton had resolutely put away his trouble, and was inspecting the remains with a keen, businesslike face.

“It’s a matter of restoring rather than rebuilding,” he told Dr. Anderson, who was spluttering with indignation still, more than an hour after his arrival. “The insurance should cover the damage, I fancy; and the back of the house can be built after more modern notions, which won’t be a disadvantage. The stables? No—they will go up again precisely as they were. And the place will look the same, in the main; we don’t want it altered. It will look abominably new, of course; our old mantle of ivy and virginia creeper is destroyed, and the walls will be bare for a long while. Poor old Hogg is mourning over his dead roses and the general havoc in his garden.

“Well, you take it calmly!” said the little doctor, explosively.

David Linton shrugged his shoulders.

“No good doing anything else,” he answered. “And, after all, I have such immense cause for thankfulness in getting Norah out of that confounded place unhurt, that nothing else really matters. It’s a nuisance, of course, and what I’m to do with the youngsters’ holidays I don’t know; it’s pretty rough on them. But—good Lord, Anderson! I want to go and feel the child whenever I look at her, to make sure that she’s really all right! It seems incredible—I never saw so hideously close a shave!”

“Norah’s absolutely matter of fact over it,” the doctor said. “I rebuked her in my best professional manner for doing such a mad thing, and she looked at me in mild surprise, and remarked, ‘Why, if I hadn’t, Jim would have gone!’ It seemed to finish the argument as far as she was concerned. Wonder if your fellows have got Harvey?”

“Oh, they’re bound to get him,” the squatter answered. “And I wouldn’t care to be Harvey when they do.”

Murty O’Toole had commenced detective operations with break of day. He had not ceased to abuse himself for failing to be at the stables in time to help.

“A set of useless images,” said he, in profound scorn. “Slapin’ an’ snorin’ like so manny fat pigs—an’ Miss Norah an’ Masther Jim on the shpot! Bad luck to the heat an’ the races!—ivery man jack of us was aslape almost before we was in bed, ’twas that tired we was. But that’s no excuse!” Murty refused to be comforted, and only derived faint solace from the determination to find out the cause of the fire.

It did not require sleuth-hound abilities. The little paddock had burned in patches, for here and there were green expanses of clover that had checked the fire, and the hawthorn hedge had helped to stop it at the boundary; but the west wind had taken it straight across to the stables, and in the morning light the brown, burnt ground led Murty quickly to the clump of lemon gums. Behind them a kerosene tin stood, inverted, and the burn began there. When the stockman picked it up the blackened square of charred grass beneath it showed out sharply.

“That ain’t the kind of thing that happens wid an accident,” said Murty between his teeth. He looked further.

Behind the burnt ground, the place where a man had lain was easily visible in the long grass. There were cigarette butts in plenty, and a little further away an empty cigarette box. Murty pounced upon it in triumph.

“Humph!” he said. “Harvey smokes that brand—an’ no wan else on Billabong.”

Then the whisky bottle, half hidden in the hedge, caught his eye, and he picked it up. He was sure now. The smell of fresh spirit was still in it; and he had seen the bottle in Harvey’s room two days before. And, with that, black rage came over Murty’s honest heart, and for five minutes his remarks about the absent Harvey might have withered that individual’s soul, had he indeed possessed such a thing. Then Murty replaced his evidence, and went for Mr. Linton.

He led the men away from the homestead an hour later, each as keen and as enraged as himself.

“Mind, boys, you’ve promised not to hurt him,” David Linton said, “He’ll get all that’s coming to him—but I won’t have the station take the law into its hands. We can’t be absolutely certain.” The men were certain: but they had promised, unwillingly enough. They went down the paddock at a hand-gallop, with set, angry faces.

Wally had ridden into Cunjee, to send telegrams and letters, and with an amazing list to be telephoned to Melbourne shops, since the township could not rise to great heights in the way of personal effects, saddlery, or even groceries. Billabong was, in patches, blankly destitute. Not a decent saddle was left, save those belonging to the men: buggies, harness, tools, horse feed—all had gone in the destruction of the stables. Norah and Jean were completely hatless, their head gear having been downstairs; and as Jim was wont to keep most of his every-day possessions in a downstairs bathroom where he shaved and dressed, he had nothing left but his best clothes, and a Panama sternly reserved, as a rule, for trips to Melbourne.

“Nice sort of a Johnny you look, to be wandering round ther—ruined ancestral hall!” Wally told him derisively. “You might be a bright young man on the stage. It’s hardly decent and filial for you to think so much of personal adornment at a time like this!” Further eloquence was checked by sudden action on the part of his friend, who was too unhappy over his own grandeur to bear meekly any jibes on its account. He had headed the telephone list with urgent messages for riding breeches and leggings, and a felt hat of the kind his soul desired. There was something little short of appalling to Jim in finding himself suddenly without any old clothes!

Following Dr. Anderson came riders from other stations, policemen from two or three scattered townships, and many other people anxious to help, so that the fences near the homestead were soon thickly occupied with horses “hung up” in every patch of shade. There was, of course, nothing to do. Nor could Billabong even maintain its reputation for hospitality, since it had been left almost without provisions. The storeroom containing the main quantities of groceries, as well as the meat house, had been amongst the first parts of the house to catch. Bags of flour could be seen, burst open, in the ruins, and thick masses of what looked like very badly-burned toffee, and had been sugar. The men’s hut had fed the exiles, and further supplies would be brought out from Cunjee by Evans in his buggy—the only vehicle, except the station carts and drays, left on Billabong.

“It’s really rather like being cast on a desert island,” said Jean.

Norah laughed.

“I guess it’s like that to all the people who have come out,” she said. “Just fancy, Jean, we can’t even give them a cup of tea. There’s milk, and that’s all there is. Isn’t it awful?”

But the visitors had not come to be fed. They condoled, and looked round the ruins, and made strong and unavailing comments, and then, in the Australian fashion, offered all they had, from their houses to their buggies, to fill in any deficiencies. Invitations to find shelter at neighbouring places poured in upon Mr. Linton and his family. The squatter would not leave the homestead, but he considered the question of sending Jean and Norah to spend a week in Mrs. Anderson’s friendly care, finally referring the matter to the girls themselves, and finding them so horrified at the idea that he promptly withdrew it.

“I don’t want to crowd Evans’s cottage out altogether,” he said, half apologetically.

“Well, Mrs. Evans has a spare room, and she lets us wash up, and I’m going to bath the baby to-night!” said Norah. “And she wants us to stay—and Jim and Wally and you are going to sleep in the tents, anyhow. Oh, Daddy, don’t send us away. I would hate it so!”

“All right, all right, you needn’t go!” rejoined her father, laughing. “But it will be very dull for Jean: you can’t ride or drive, and the cottage isn’t as comfortable in this heat as Billabong.”

But Jean reassured him, hastily. She had no desire to migrate to a world of strangers.

“It is hot, though, Daddy, that’s a fact,” said Norah. “I was thinking——” She broke off, watching him a little doubtfully.

“When you think in that tone, I have generally no chance of escape,” said he. “What is it this time?”

“Well, there’s another little tent.” Norah hesitated, half laughing. “Jim would put it up and fix up bunks for us. Couldn’t we come and join your camp down there?” She pointed towards the lagoon, where Jim had already taken two small tents and was hunting about for ridge poles. The bank looked cool and shady, fringed with groves of wattles and big box trees. “We could keep our things up at Mrs. Evans’s cottage, and dress there: but it would be lovely to sleep in a tent. That little room is certainly hot.”

Mr. Linton pondered. The lagoon was only a hundred yards from the cottage. Certainly, there was no great objection to the plan. And Norah was still bearing traces of the previous night, in white cheeks and heavy eyes: it was hard to refuse her anything in reason.

“Well, you may,” he said, “if you can arrange matters with Jim.”

“Oh, can we, Daddy? You are the blessedest——!” said Norah. Suddenly he was alone. Two strenuous figures in blue frocks descended upon the hapless Jim.

“Whatever’s the matter?” Jim asked, looking up as they raced down upon him. “Not another fire? And aren’t you two hot enough without doing Sheffield handicaps across here?” He had borrowed a pair of blue dungaree trousers from the wardrobe of Mr. Evans, and was, in consequence, much happier.

“Want you to put us up a tent,” Norah said, cheerfully. “You don’t mind, do you, Jimmy?”

Jim whistled. “What does Dad say?”

“Says we can if you’ll fix it. You will, Jimmy, won’t you? We’ll help you ever so. It would be so lovelier than sleeping in a hot little room!”

“Oh, all right,” said her easy-going brother. “You’ll have to make yourselves scarce in the mornings, you know—this is our bathing place.”

“Yes, we know. We’ll do whatever you say,” said Norah, with amazing meekness. “You’re a brick, Jimmy. Shall we carry down the tent? I know where it is.”

“No, you won’t,” said Jim, severely. “You can’t try to commit suicide over-night and then make yourself a beast of burden in the morning. Wal. and I can bring it when he comes out; he ought to be back soon. Just you sit down in the shade and think of your sins.”

“That won’t keep me busy,” Norah retorted. But she did as she was told, and they sat peacefully under a big weeping willow until Mrs. Evans summoned them to dinner.

After lunch there was nothing to be done at the homestead. Mr. Linton had gone to Cunjee in Dr. Anderson’s motor to transact much business and talk on the telephone to Melbourne insurance people and building contractors. Wally appeared about three o’clock, hot and dusty, and reported the condition of the township.

“Every one’s talking fire,” he said. “The police and half the men are out after Harvey. I’ve never seen Cunjee so excited—it seems quite appropriate that they’ve still got the Christmas decorations in the streets! They’re considerably withered, of course, but it seems to indicate that something’s in the air. I guess Harvey will have a lively time when they catch him.”

“Wish I could be in at the death,” said Jim, grimly. His father’s wish had kept him from joining the pursuit, but he had stayed unwillingly.

“Yes, it wouldn’t be bad fun, would it? Wonder is they haven’t got him already. He must be pretty well planted,” Wally said. “He’s certainly the man you’ve got to thank: if he’d a clear conscience he’d be in Cunjee now, instead of nobody knows where. Whew—w, it is hot! Come and have a swim, Jim.”

“No swim for you yet awhile,” Jim told him, grimly. “You’ve got to come and fix camp.”

“Me?” asked Wally, blankly. “Of all the unsympathetic, slave-driving wretches——”

“Yes, that’s so,” grinned his chum. “All the same, you’ve got to come.”

“I felt there was something in the wind,” said Wally, lugubriously. “I left you as beautiful as a tailor’s block, and looking very like one, only woodener, in your best suit; and I find you in dungarees and a shirt, and hideously happy. It isn’t fair, and me so hot. Isn’t he a brute, Norah?”

“Not this time,” laughed Norah. “You see, it’s our tent you’ve got to fix. Go on, and we’ll get a billy from Mrs. Evans and brew afternoon tea for you down by the lagoon.”

So they spent the hot hours in the shade, while the boys made the little camp ship-shape, their tent and that of Mr. Linton close together near the bank, and the girls’ a little way off in a clump of young wattles. Jim fixed up bunks in bushman fashion, with saplings run through bags endways, and supported on crossed sticks.

“You won’t want any mattresses on those,” he said: “they’re fit for anyone. What about blankets, Norah?”

“Brownie’s been drying the ones you amateur firemen soaked last night,” said his sister, unkindly. “They’re all water-marked, of course, but they’re quite good enough for camping.”

“First rate,” Jim agreed. “We’ll get ’em. Come along, Wally.”

“More toil!” groaned that gentleman, who had been working with the cheerful keenness he put into all his doings. “Why did I come here?”

“Poor dear, then!” said a cheerful, fat voice. The creaking of a wheelbarrow accompanied it, and preceded Mrs. Brown, who came into view wheeling a load of bedclothes.

“Brownie, you shouldn’t, you bad young thing!” exclaimed Wally. He dashed to take the barrow, and was routed ignominiously.

“Never you mind—I can manage me own little lot,” said Brownie, cheerfully. She pulled up, panting a little. “Lucky for me it was all down hill; I don’t know as I could have managed to get it up a rise.”

“You oughtn’t to have wheeled that load at all,” Jim said, with an excellent attempt at sternness. It appeared to afford Brownie great amusement, and she chuckled audibly.

“Bless you, it pulled me here!” she answered. “I come down at no end of a pace. Now haven’t you got it all just as nice as it can be. Makes me nearly envious!”

“We’ll fix up a tent for you, if you like,” Jim told her. “Just say the word.”

“Not for me, thank you,” said Brownie, hastily. “This open-air sleeping notion is all very well for them as likes it—but I’m used to four walls an’ a winder. I like something you can lock—an’ where can you lock a tent, Master Jim?—tell me that!” She propounded this unanswerable query with an air of triumph. “Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to any bunk to put me into it, bunks not bein’ built on my lines. I’d hate to come down in the night, like that there Philistine idol in the Bible.”

“Why, you wouldn’t have far to fall!” said Jim, laughing.

“Thank you, but any distance is far enough when you’re my weight,” Brownie responded, with dignity. “Now, Miss Norah an’ Miss Jean, seein’ as how I’ve got my breath again, I think we’d better start bedmaking.”

“Don’t you bother, Brownie; we can fix up our own,” Jim said, politely—and greatly hoping that his politeness would have no effect. It had none.

“Humph!” said Mrs. Brown. “Handy you may be with tools an’ horses, Master Jim, but I never yet did see the man or boy that was handy with bedmaking. I’ve noticed that bedclothes seem to paralyse a man’s common sense when he starts to make a bed; he don’t seem to be able to realize what relation they have to the mattress. Generally he fights with them quite desperate, and gets them nearly tied in knots before the job’s done. So just you two lie there peaceful, an’ me an’ the young ladies will do it in two twos.”

The boys’ bedmaking ambition was of no soaring nature, and they were very content to “lie peaceful,” watching the sun dip behind the trees that fringed the lagoon. Then came Mr. Linton, who nodded approval of the workmanlike camp.

“First rate!” he said, warmly. “For destitute and burnt-out people, we shan’t fare too badly.”

“Rather not!” Jim answered. “How did you get on, Dad?”

“Oh, all right. Telephone was as indistinct as usual, but I managed to say a good deal of what I wanted through it. There will be an insurance man down to-morrow.” Mr. Linton smiled at the bedmakers, who came out of the last tent and settled down under the trees thankfully. “They’ve found Harvey,” he concluded.

“Found the brute, have they?” Jim exclaimed. “What did he have to say, Dad? Did they hurt him?”

“Harvey had had luck,” said Mr. Linton, slowly. “He’d hurt himself first.”

“How? Tell us, Dad.”

“Well, they hunted most of the day before they got him. They had every road searched before noon, the police were in communication with all the townships in the district, and there was no sign of him. Then the men left the roads and went across country, hunting up the river and along any creek, and through scrub. But I don’t think Mr. Harvey would have trusted himself in scrub without a horse.”

“Not he!” Jim agreed.

“Murty found him. He was riding across the Duncans’ big plain, and thought he heard a coo-ee; but there was no cover anywhere, and he couldn’t see a man wherever he looked. But he rode about, and found him at last in a little bit of a hollow. Murty said you might have ridden past it a hundred times and never have seen anyone. Harvey had shouted once, but when he saw that it was Murty he was afraid to call again, and tried to lie low.”

“Couldn’t he walk?”

“He broke his leg last night,” Mr. Linton answered. “The poor wretch has had a pretty bad time. He was jumping over a log, he says, and came down with one leg in a crab-hole, and it twisted, and threw him down. He didn’t know it was broken at first, but he found he couldn’t use it. So he crawled away from the log, being afraid of snakes, and got a couple of hundred yards into the paddock. Since then he’s kept still.”

“What—out in the open?” Jim asked.

“Yes; not a scrap of cover. And think of the day it’s been—it was 112° in the shade in Cunjee—and Harvey wasn’t in the shade. He told Murty he was badly thirsty before he got hurt, and had been looking for water. His leg is in a bad state, and he must have had a terrible day. Murty came in for the doctor, and we went for him in the car—of course, Murty could do nothing on horseback. Harvey was a bit delirious by the time we got to him. Anderson says he’ll be three months in hospital.”

“Whew-w!” whistled Wally. “Three months!”

“Then he’ll have three munce to reflect on the error of his ways!” said Brownie, implacably. “Oh, I know me feelings aren’t Christian, an’ I don’t set a good example to the young; but what did he want to go and do it for?”

“Break his leg? But did he want to?” Jim grinned.

“You know very well I don’t mean his wretched little leg,” Brownie said, testily. “He never had no call to burn us all out. Now he’s broke his leg, an’ you’ll think he’s an object of sympathy an’ compassion, an’ nex’ thing Miss Norah’ll be visitin’ him in the ’Ospital an’ holdin’ his hand an’ givin’ him jelly!”

“By gad, she won’t!” uttered Norah’s father, with satisfying emphasis. “There are limits, Brownie. But it’s all very well for you to talk—if you’d seen the poor little weed you’d have been sorry for him.”

“Not me!” Brownie answered, truculently. “I only got to think of Miss Norah in that horrid stable, an’ every soft feelin’ leaves me, like a moulting hen.” Brownie’s similes were apt to be mixed, and nobody marked them. “Does he say why he did it? He’s got nerve enough to stick out that he never lit it at all!”

“Oh, no, he hasn’t—not now,” said Mr. Linton. “He admitted it to Murty meekly enough, and Murty says he was awfully taken aback at hearing the amount of the damage; he said he only thought of burning the grass. Whether his concern is for my loss or the possible results to himself, I’m not clear. I don’t regard him as exactly a philanthropist.”

Brownie snorted wrathfully as they rose to go up to the cottage. The sun had set, and Mrs. Evans was calling from the hill.

“I don’t give him credit for no decent motives at all,” she said. “He’s bad right through—an’ don’t you ask me to be sorry for him—he’ll have three munce takin’ it easy in ’Ospital, livin’ on the fat of the land an’ doin’ no work—an’ that’ll just suit Harvey! I got no patience with that sort of worm in sheep’s clothing!” She subsided, muttering darkly, and Wally offered her his arm up the hill, while Jim wheeled the barrow.

Brownie dropped her voice as they neared the cottage.

“Ah, well,” she said—and paused. “I don’t suppose them gaol ’Ospitals is exackly dens of luxury. If you an’ Master Jim, Master Wally, think as how a little strong soup or meat jelly might go in to that poor, wicked, depraved little wretch——?”

“Fattening him for the slaughter, eh, Brownie?” asked Wally, gravely.

“Yes, that’s it,” said the fierce Mrs. Brown, accepting the suggestion with ardour. “P’r’aps he mightn’t get what he deserves if he looked pale an’ thin at his trile!” She mused over the matter. “Wonder if they feed ’em on skilly when they’re in ’Ospital,” she pondered. “An’ a leg like that. Well, well, we’re all ’uman, after all, an’ likely his mother never did much by him—he looks as if he had growed up casual! You find out about that soup, Master Wally.” And Wally nodded, his eyes kindly as he smiled at the broad, motherly face.

“Makes you feel a bit small, though,” he confided to Jim later on. “Because I’m not in the least sorry for Harvey. I think he deserved all he got, and more, and these beggars don’t mind gaol. Suppose I’m a hard-hearted brute!”

“Well, I’m another,” Jim responded. “When I think of young Norah—and the horses! I guess my poor old Garryowen had about as bad a time as Harvey. Says he never thought of the house! Well, he lit the grass three hundred yards from it, with a west wind blowing—that’s all! When I can work up any sorrow for Harvey I’ll let you know!” And the stern and unmoved pair sought the lagoon for a final swim before “turning in.”

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