I- ill .Librwry t i A.i . ; jT\ JL^.I USH I RACK <, f.D. Hennessey " lllllfed THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES MA*JiWU\Ji2>2> *A U S T R A LIANA- AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Uniform with "An Australian Bush Track." THE DIS-HONOURABLE. An Australian Story of Modern Days. WYNNUM. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Ltd., St. Dunstak's House, Ff.tteh Lane, E.C. AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK BY J. D. HENNESSEY AUTHOE OF "THE DIS-HONOUEABLE," " WYNNUM," ETC. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MAESTON & COMPANY LIMITED, gt. Sunstan's ?i?oust, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C. [/Til] BY THE SAME AUTHOR. ISSUED UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. ^pinions of ti)C IS'ress. " Mr. J. D. Hennessey, already favourably known to the reading public by his first work of fiction, ' The Dis-Honourable, ' to the conspicuous merit of which attention was called in these columns at the time of its appear- ance, has just produced a second novel of great ability, under the title 1 Wynnum.' . . . We cordially recommend the story for general perusal." — Daily Telegraph. " Mr. Hennessey has given us here a tale of the romantic kind. What does the reader say to a treasure coming down from the Great Plague year, found in a furniture shop, and finding its way into the hands of the owner's lineal descendant, who is half-sister to a villainous moneylender ? And there are more marvels than these, strange workings of poetical justice, and so forth. ' Wynnum ' is a very readable book." — The Spectator. "'Wynnum' is well told .... and possessing an imaginative view that should help its author to do still better work." — The Standard. "Those who are attracted by plenty of incident may find interest in the adventures which the hero — the son of a second-hand furniture dealer — is involved in by the discovery in the old house, which his father has de- serted on his retreat to Australia from his creditors, of a collection of pictures and a mysterious chest of jewels." — The Athenaum. " In his new story, ' Wynnum,' Mr. Hennessey has forsaken his familiar Australian trail, and has laid his plot in London. Wherever he may place his scenes, we are sure with him to get an exciting story. He is fond of invoking the powers of nature. In ' The Dis-Honourable ' a terrific flood played a large part in working out the destiny of the hero ; in ' Wynnum ' not only the minor aid of a fire is called in, but the Great Plague of London is impressed into the author's service." — The Literary World. " It might almost seem as if the resources of fiction with regard to hidden treasure must be exhausted, but readers of ' Wynnum,' by J. D. Hennessey, will find that ingenuity may yet be rewarded. Treasures concealed behind ancient pictures and tapestry are common enough, but jewels enwrapped and guarded by plague-infected garments are a novelty. What tragic and beneficent results accompany the treasure trove may be pleasantly learnt from the story itself." — Manchester Guardian. " The book is well written, and the incident is skilfully woven together. The interest is sustained throughout, and the writer understands the secret of suppressing his own personality." — Glasgow Herald. London: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, Limited, St. Dunstan's House, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C And all Colonial Booksellers. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. THE DIS-HONOURABLE ISSUED UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. ^pinions of tiye "gH'ess. "An unusually powerful and exciting story located at Brisbane in the early days, when that flourishing township was periodically devastated by floods. The weird scene, with its incidents of peril, of intrepid courage, is described with a vividness and force which add hugely to the picture and enthrall the reader's attention. But the plot of the stoiy centre, round a murder mystery, worked out with great dexterity and cleverness. Indeed, the book is full of stir and movement from cover to cover. The author has a good tale to tell, and tells it well."— The World. " 'The Dis-Honourable ' is as exciting a story of crime, mystery, and detection as we have read for long. It is fresh, moreover, for the scenes transport us to the Antipodes, and an Australian Sherlock Holmes does his own detective business and fights his own battle at the Brisbane criminal Bar with a success which is honourably won by rare astuteness and elo- quence . . . the descriptions are extremely interesting, and they give us a good idea of the anxieties of colonists who inhabit a Sahara irrigated by spasmodic deluges." — The Times. "The great machinery of the novel is a flood in Brisbane and it is worked with skill ; the scenes are dramatic and unexpected, and of the dislocation of ordinary circumstances which it brings about full advantage is taken. From the moment in which George Jackson discovers the punt containing its ghastly burden, and rather mysteriously takes upon himself the charge both of the latter and of a rich piece of portable property it bears with it, the interest is well kept up." — The Guardian. "'The Dis-Honourable' is a stirring novel of Eastern Australia, chiefly concerned with a murder and a trial, in which the prisoner, who is also the hero, conducts successfully his own defence. . . . There is a vivid description of a great flood and many rescues. Altogether, the story goes with a fine swing and carries invigorating breath of the outer air with it." — Saturday Review. "'The Dis-Honourable' is a capital story of the old melodramatic type planted upon new soil and amid new surroundings. The hero and heroine are old friends, and so is the arch-villain. Even the minor characters come to us with familiar faces, whilst the plot, which includes among its incidents murder, robbery, the arrest of innocent men, the temporary triumph of villainy, and the final vindication of everybody, the ill-used hero included, is almost as old as the hills. But, despite all this, ' The Dis-Honourable ' furnishes us with fresh and original reading, chiefly because the scene is laid in Queensland, and the whole tale is steeped in local colour. As a story of modern Australian life, affording us numberless glimpses of the different social strata in one of our great colonies, the book is really valuable ; whilst, viewed merely as a novel, it affords real entertainment to the reader who wishes to see how the old melodrama adapts itself to new circumstances." — The Speaker. Se c, &c. London : SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, Limited, St. Dunstan's House, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C. And all Colonial Booksellers. Pft CONTENTS. CHAPTEK I. A Man who relieved in Luck II. Captain Cook's Letter ... III. Hartley's Theory ... IV. Smoke Island ... iV. Stoneham's " Gadfly " VI. Stoneham's Girls VII. What happened on a Sandbank VIII. More about Dorna Stoneham ... IX. Hartley has the Worst of it X. The Bungalow ^tuck up XL Dorna's Account of nER Adventures XII. Dorna's Adventures continued ... XIII. From Jest to Earnest XIV. Miss Bella Crumbs XV. The Western Plains XVI. Beulah Land ... XVII. A Mysterious Track XVIII. An Adventurous Cruise XIX. A Party of Four ... XX. Captain Buchanan's Story PACK 1 11 25 34 47 57 , GS 79 93 105 114 125 142 151 165 177 188 198 211 222 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XXI. Buchanan disappears ... ... ... 235 XXII. Hartley makes a Discovery ... ... 24G XXIII. The White Mountains ... ... ... 255 XXIV. Zoo-zoo ... ... ... ... 269 XXV. A Mountain Storm ... ... ... ... 279 XXVI. White Wings from Tns South ... ... 289 XXVII. The End of the Chapter ... ... ... 302 AN AUSTKALIAN BUSH TEACK. CHAPTER I. A MAN WHO BELIEVED IN LUCK. The shadows of a summer evening were lengthening D DO across one of the lower reaches of the Brisbane. It had been an exceptionally high tide, and the great stretch of water, dotted here and there with mangrove islands, was almost level with the river banks. Some of the adjacent low-lying lands were submerged. The after-glow lingered in the western sky, and its light, broken by the shadows of tall gum and blood wood trees, was reflected, here and there, in weird patches of colour upon the water. There was just — only just — breeze enough to keep the mosquitoes quiet. On the south side of the river a huge ocean steamer in ballast lay at anchor, the high water causing her great sides to tower above the bank, until passers-by on the neighbouring roadway B 2 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. might have thought that she had been stranded, and was shored up upon the land. A coasting steamer had just passed up the river, and although she had turned the bend and was out of sight, the regular throbbing of her engines could bo distinctly heard in the distance. A schooner creeping past in perfect silence from the bay was beating up stream, making a long leg ; she would soon have to " go about " and make a short one, as what little wind there was blew in uncertain puffs from the west. Near shore, a yacht of a few tons had cast anchor, the slightest sound being audible as the crew made her snug. This being effected, they pushed off from the dainty little craft in a dingy. The crew numbered two men and a boy; the latter sat in the bows while one of the others sculled leisurely towards a landing- stage running out a short distance into the water at the foot of the garden, which belonged to a commodious and well-to-do residence. The whole scene was suggestive of repose. A flight of black swans, high above reach of fowling-pieces, moved slowly towards their feeding ground on the shores of Moreton Bay. Not in- frequently large fishes threw themselves out of the still water in their gambols, the heavy splashes they made when falling back into the river being distinctly heard. It must have been nearly a mile from shore to shore. A MAN WHO BELIEVED IN LUCK, 3 The occupants of the dingy, however, had not far to row, and as on reaching the jetty they found the water to be within a few inches of the planking, they pulled the boat up upon the landing-stage, and, throwing their belongings over their shoulders, the two men sauntered leisurely up the garden walk to the house. The place presented a semi-tropical appearance. Clumps of graceful bananas moved their broad pendulous leaves languidly in the fitful evening breeze. Pineapples were growing luxuriantly in the fruit garden, while near them were English apple and pear trees laden with fruit. In the matter of flowers the kindly earth seemed to have become a mother, for they grew in profusion every- where — English and Australian and those of other lands — the very air was odorous with roses and carnations and mignonette, mingled with the per- fume of tropical flowering shrubs. "I hope you are in no hurry fur dinner, Hartley," said one of the two new arrivals, as they came upon the owner of the residence, stretched full length on a cane lounge under the wide verandah portico. " Not for half an hour or so," was the reply. "That's right," said the previous speaker; "it would be too bad to go in and leave that after-glow and its reflection on the river, with no one to look at it." " People talk about the scenery of the Swiss 4 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. lakes," he said, looking down the river, " but when yon catch this part of the Brisbane river in the gloaming, with a full tide, it is one of the most romantic spots in existence. It's not grand, you know, but it's downright interesting. £ee, now, how it changes ! " "Do you often get it like this, Hartley ? " asked the third man as, following his friend's example, he stood and gazed at the truly wonderful scene. "I don't think that I have seen it half a dozen times just as it looks to-night, and never so beautiful as now," replied Hartley, quietly. "But we've had it much like this, twice in four days," said the first speaker. "You have," said Hartley, sitting up and dropping his legs over the side of the lounge, while he felt leisurely about in the pockets of his loose jacket for his tobacco-pouch. " You have ; it's your luck ! " It's strange now," he continued, as his two friends sat down and got ready for a smoke, " some of the biggest strokes of luck, and queerest adven- tures too, which have befallen men in any part of Austral in have happened to the newly arrived. I don't attempt to explain it," he continued, "but facta show that the newer things are the more >capricious is the luck. It has repeatedly happened, for instance, that when experienced miners have failed, and after months of heart-wearying toil have A MAN WHO BELIEVED IN LUCK. 5 thrown up a ' claim ' for a duffer, some raw new- chum has come along and positively stumbled into a fortune. I could give you instances of such things by the score," continued Bright Hartley, stretching himself and putting his hands into his tronsers'-pockets with a self-satisfied air, as he looked through a cloud of tobacco-smoke, first at the river, and then at his friends. It was as much as to say " I, Bright Hartley, was one of the lucky newchums." " Ah ! that may be in regard to mining" drawled out the long individual, who, with his feet elevated upon the rail of the verandah, now lay back in a large cane chair, smoking. " Mining be hanged ! " said Hartley, facing around ; " it has been so in business, and in the learned professions, and politics, and in everything else. Australian luck is a thing which positively revels in surprises. You meet with men in all positions in life in the colonies, of whom, when you come to know them, you wonder how on earth they got to be where and what they are. It certainly was not their talents put them there, so, you see, it must have been their luck. You have an illus- tration of it in the very matter which you told me of last night, and I may say that it is because I attribute it solely to your unsophisticated good luck that I have a leaning towards it." "Go on," said the lomr man, who saw that 6 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. Hartley had more to say, and wanted encourage- ment. " Well, I will make the application then," con- tinued Hartley. " You two fellows came to Australia simply because you were at a loose end. After roaming and shooting and yachting, and all the rest of it, over half the world, you profess to find nothing new under the sun. I suppose, now, that you, Buchanan, would give one of your fingers to have a really original adventure to talk about when you get back to England, and Sir Charles here aspires to literature, and talks of writing a book. Time is no object to either of you ; you want adven- ture, and the queer thing about it is that for a hundred years or more the key to an adventure seems to have been awaiting you two English innocents down in Moreton Bay. It's most extra- ordinary! Stoneham has known all about this mutter for years, without mentioning it to a creature until you two come across him, and fairly stumble into what seems to me to be one of the queerest and most mysterious affairs in Australian history. You actually discover an unpublished and hitherto un- known letter, written by Captain Cook in 1770; you unearth a mysterious aboriginal apparition, and come hero to me witli ancient gold pieces in your possession, and an uncut diamond worth a king's ransom, taking the whole thing as a regular matter of course, and half suggesting, notwithstanding the A MAN WHO BELIEVED IN LUCK. 7 gold and diamond, that Stoneham has been trying to have you, because he is not able to produce a photograph of Long Tom ! " " That is the result of our having been had before," said Sir Charles Dawson, laughing. " Some of your colonials would fill us to the brim with absurd stories if we would let them, in the hope that they might afterward meet with some of their nonsense in a book." " I don't deny that," said Hartley, excitedly, " but this thing is altogether different. Why, if what you have actually shown me only got into the hands of the newspaper men, they would cable it, word for word, to Europe, and you would set all the scientists of Christendom by the ears. The whole thing is so extraordinary that I have hardly thought of anything else all day. You see, you have facts before you, which all allow to be stubborn things. First of all, there's the letter, which, if it is not genuine, must be accounted for in some other way. I'll swear that neither Stoneham nor any other man down there could have written it. Then the gold pieces are certainly ancient, and the stone is genuine — I know a diamond when I see it, even if it is in the rough." " Then do you advise us to accept Stoneham's offer ? " said Buchanan with a yawn, as though it did not matter very much which way it was. " Yes," said Hartley, deliberately. " I have 8 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. thought it carefully out ; it will give you fellows something new to talk about on your return to Europe — that is, if you come back again, for there is always a spice of danger about interior travelling anywhere; and you will find it the same here, although we have no big game such as you meet with in the jungles of India and Africa. If I had not so much business on hand, upon my word, I'd feel inclined to make one of the party. Three or four months ought to do it, and then you will know how much truth there is in Stoneham's story." "And supposing that we do not come back again ? " said Sir Charles, with a smile. " You are neither of you married," said Hartley, " and if you should happen not to return, the girls you leave behind you will soon console themselves with other men. But what's the use of talking nonsense. It's only the good who die young." The speaker was Bright Hartley, of Brisbane, Sydney, and the Barcoo, and sundry other parts of the world in which he had possessions. He was one of the few Australians whose lives show an almost unbroken record of success. It was not so much his business of a general merchant as his outside speculations which had been so singularly fortunate. He always bought in and sold out at the right time. He had in turn gone into mining, sugar-growing, and station property, with equal success. It was a proverb among his acquaintances A MAN WHO BELIEVED IN LUCK. 9 that Bright Hartley's touch turned earth to gold. Men generally attributed it to his luck, and while Hartley would laughingly allow that he had been born under a lucky star, and was a strong believer in individual good fortune, he rightly claimed that foresight, sagacity, and secrecy had much to do with the satisfactory result. Hartley was undoubtedly superstitious. There were men whom lie regarded as unlucky, and with whom he would on no account have joined in any business transaction ; and, among other superstitions, he had a belief that his good luck would leave him the moment he married. " You see," he would say, " a man must tell his wife, if he has one, and that spoils it all. I'll make a big coup some day, perhaps, and then tie up everything in Government debentures, and bank shares, and house property, and risk it and get married." In the mean time, however, he made up for his celibacy by innumerable harmless flirtations, some of which, by the way, were with other men's wives. Bright Hartley was a fair man, rather below the average height, with blue eyes, and tow-coloured hair. He was as tight and round in his garments as is an average, middle-aged alderman, and was conversant with all sorts and conditions of Austra- lian people, places, and things. He knew how to manage a sugar plantation or sheep station, or work lo AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. a gold mine, and had seen a bit of cattle duffing on the Barcoo ; but he also could tell you how Miss So-and-So's stays came to be laced so tightly that she fainted at the last Government House ball. In fact, he read the whole secret of colonial life as from a book. There was nothing of any interest, bad or good, which he had not seen or heard about ; and yet he had not a wrinkle on his brow, and could not be induced to own up to being anything over forty. That he was adventurous and specula- tive may be gathered from his conversation already recorded ; and it should be said that, coming from such a well-informed and prosperous man, the advice he tendered had made a strong impression upon the minds of his two young friends. " I can't make you out," said the senior of the two Englishmen, Sir Charles Dawson, who, with his friend and travelling companion, Captain Buchanan, were the " innocents " Hartley had referred to. " As a matter of fact, you are as hard-headed as any one I have met with, and yet in this affair you appear to be most credulous. You cannot, surely, believe the whole of this most extraordinary story of Stoncham's to be gospel ? " " Come and let us have dinner, and after that I will talk to you," said Hartley. II CHAPTER II. CArTAIN COOK'S LETTER. Dinner at the Bungalow, as Hartley had modestly named his commodious bachelor residence, was an important function, and it was an hour and a half afterward when the verandah chairs were again occupied, and the conversation resumed. " My special difficulty with this matter," said Sir Charles, laughing, " is this ancient black fellow. I thought that Australia was much too now for anything in the shape of superstitious lore. " One expects when on the Rhine, or anywhere else in Europe, to meet with lusty old goblins, and banshees, and wraiths, and goodness knows what ; but to have a hoary old demon down in Moreton Bay, dating back to the time of Captain Cook, is enough to take one's breath away. Look here, Buchanan," he said, placing his muscular white hand upon the shoulder of the captain, a tall, gentlemanly man of four and twenty, " we'll have to take Hartley's yacht and run down to Stone- ham's, and get him to introduce us to ' Bong Tom ' and the ' Fishers of Moreton Bay ! ' " 12 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. " You might not wish to 2,0 a second time," laughed Hartley. " Well, I don't want to doubt the evidence of my senses. Old gold coins and a genuine diamond are very tangible witnesses ; but to have them mysteriously connected with a jolly old ghost with a phantom canoe, supposed to be seen cruising about Moreton Bay, is a pretty big thing for an Agnostic like myself to swallow. But let us have another look at the letter." The three men went inside at this, and Sir Charles lifted an ancient-looking document up to the light. " Ah ! " he said, " there's a 17G7 watermark upon the paper. That favours the letter being genuine ; but without questioning the facts, they may all be attributed to natural causes. Cook was no doubt deceived. Singular disappearances of vessels through the sudden rising of mists, etc., are by no means uncommon at sea, and why not in the bay. But read it out aloud for us, Buchanan, and then we can discuss it further outside." The captain drew a chair up to the table, and slowly read as follows : — " H.M.S. Endeavour, " Oil' Cape Moreton, Australia, "May lOtb, 1770. "Haying met with a very remarkable incident yesterday, the fifteenth day of May, in the year of CAPTAIN COOK'S LETTER. 13 our Lord 1770, I feel it to be my duty to the possible future European inhabitants of this newly discovered continent, and also to His Gracious Majesty, King George the III., to place on record a true and circumstantial account of the singular and ■well-nigh incredible occurrence. "We descried yesterday morning at daylight a long stretch of low sand hills which terminated in a sand spit with a bluff rock on the foreshore. Rounding the cape, we cast anchor in eight fathoms of water in a broad, shallow bay. I have named the former Cape Moreton, and the latter Moreton Bay. Later in the day I moved the Endeavour farther to the south-east on which the bay opened out, reveal- ing a number of islands covered with green foliage, and also the mouth of a large creek or river. I went with the ship's long boat, accompanied by Mr. Green, our astronomer, and Mr. Banks, our botanist, and a picked crew, to explore some of the islands, in hope of adding to our collections of plants and animals, but being but partially success- ful we returned. I had been talking with the chief oflicer and Mr. Green upon the quarter-deck when the former called my attention to a large native vessel, which seemed to have emerged from between the islands, and was rapidly bearing down upon us. "We all remarked the unusual size of the craft. It was fitted with two masts, and carried large, triangu- lar sides, seemingly constructed of some native U AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. cotton or grass, woven into cloth. There was high ornamental woodwork at prow and stern. It was now growing towards twilight, and partly on account of this, hut principally by reason of the sails and high woodwork of the prow and stern, it was im- possible to count the number of the crew. Several natives were seen, however, and at the stern, guiding the vessel's course with a huge sweep, which answered for a helm, stood a native of stature and countenance never before met with bv us in if these seas. They slackened sail as they drew nearer, and the boatswain, by my direction, hailed her, calling out, ' Ship ahoy ! what name ? ' In reply, a clear, wild, ringing sound, came from the throat of the huge steersman, "Do Fuchers " is the best interpretation I am able to give of the sound, which we all distinctly heard. I may say that Dr. Solander and Mr. Green both support my opinion ; but the second officer and others of the crew believe the words to have been " The Fishers," which is, on the face of the matter, most unlikely, as, although they might have followed the calling of fishermen, it is impossible that they could have been acquainted with the English tongue. How- ever, having thus called out, the native suddenly turned and threw towards us one of their weapons of warfare, called, I believe by them a ' boomerang.' It came whirling through the air with great force, and seemed to have been purposely directed CAPTAIN COOK'S LETTER. 15 towards myself and the group around me. It was sharpened upon the edges, and the doctor narrowly- escaped injury. Taking this to be an indication of hostile intention, and indignant at the weapon being directed at myself, some of the marines fired small arms in the direction of the periagua. I regretted this, as I was anxious to maintain friendly relations with the natives. But to our astonishment and consternation, immediately after the discharge of the firearms, we observed the native vessel to be gradually disappearing before our eyes. Many of the crew were watching from the ship's side, and a score of reliable witnesses are prepared to state, on oath, that she neither foundered nor was enveloped in mist, but dissolved before our eyes into air ; the final disappearance being accompanied by a wild, sad scream, that sounded like a repetition of the previously spoken words. This untoward event has, I regret to say, filled the crew with the gravest apprehension and alarm, and I confess that my own mind is not without misgivings as to what warning the phenomenon may have been intended to convey. The weapon falling on the deck is constructed of a dark wood, and on one side is covered with letters or symbols of a singular form. Whatever may be the language, it is one that neither Dr. Solander, Joseph Banks, nor myself can in any way decipher. The crew generally regard it with superstitious dread, and it has been hinted to me that it would 1 6 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. relieve their feelings if I would throw it overboard. Indeed, some of them, I understand, aver that unless it is thrown out of the ship we shall be wrecked before getting clear of the Australian coast. However, I shall not yield to them that far, but, partly to allay their fears, I have decided to have this statement, with an accurate drawing of the weapon and its inscribed characters attached, placed in a box and securely hidden or buried upon a small island of bright red soil, which can be dis- cerned a few leagues from our anchorage. It will be represented to the sailors that the weapon or boomerang is in the box, which will lessen their fears, and in a few days, I hope, restore their equanimity. I intend to take the boomerang to Europe, in hope that its mysterious inscriptions may be deciphered and interpreted by some learned man, to the elucidation of the mysterious pheno- menon which at present is inexplicable and awe- inspiring to all that witnessed it. "Given under my hand and seal, this sixteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord, seventeen hundred and seventy. "(Signed) James Cook. " Witness : Joseph Banks." Attached to the letter was a further sheet of paper, on which was the drawing of a boomerang, almost full size, and engraved upon it were a CAPTAIN COOK'S LETTER. 17 number of singular characters, which could not be represented by any letters comprised in printers' type. Buchanan, who was the scholar of the party, said that the nearest approach to them which he had seen was in the uncial manuscript of the Latin Bible, in the possession of the Bodleian Library, at Oxford. The following translation of this remarkable inscription was signed by a professor of the Bonn L T niversity. THE TATII OF ZOO-ZOO. From the islands of the east, follow the broad flowing waters beyond the snalce-coils to its source. South of the setting sun, a cleft appears in the mountain. Beyond is the great country of many little trees. Folloiv as the birds fly towards the setting sun of winter, beyond the broad plains, over the white moun- tains, and you reach the span longer than the arms of many men. Beware of the great waters ! Beware of the white gates and the golden ! Beyond that fear not ; your eyes will see, and your hands may touch what all men love. The men looked at each other, and there was a pause after the captain had finished, broken at last by Hartley. " I was reading all that over before you came in," c iS AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. he said. " Now come outside and have a smoke, and I will give you the benefit of some information about the north-eastern interior of this continent, which I picked up out on my station on the Barcoo, and I think it will surprise you. That path of Zoo-zoo seems to me to have something in it, and if you don't go with Stoneham, I shall consider seriously whether I cannot make up a party to go there myself. I have a theory about that path of Zoo-zoo." Upon stepping outside upon the verandah, how- ever, it became evident that Hartley's theory of the path of Zoo-zoo was not to be so soon disclosed, for a neighbour known as William Bronckhurst had pulled across the estuary in his boat, and having made her fast to the jetty, had sauntered up to the house, and now reclined at his ease, with a pipe in his mouth, on one of the lounges. " Good evening, Hartley. How do you do, captain? Fine night, Sir Charles," said the new- comer in a long, drawling monotone, without moving. It was evident that he had met the Englishmen before. " Hallo, Bronckhurst ! " exclaimed Hartley, " what brings you round this way to-night ? You should have come earlier, and dined with us. Got the boat down at the steps, I suppose ? " " Yes," said Bronckhurst, who was a retired oyster dredger, and one of the lucky holders of original CAPTAIN COOK'S LETTER. 19 Mount Morgan shares, which had made for him a very respectable competency. It should be said, perhaps, that he was now located in a comfortable place on the river, his principal recreation being to cruise about the bay in a half-decker, fishing and shooting, and occasionally — especially on moonlight nights — to row across to the Bungalow, and have a yarn with Hartley, if the latter happened to be at home. " Look here, Bronckhurst," said Hartley, abruptly, after the four had smoked for a few minutes in silence, "did you ever hear anything about 'The Fishers of Moreton Bay ? ' " " I have," replied Bronckhurst, with a good- natured laugh ; " but what of that ? " " Why, simply this. Sir Charles, the captain, and myself, have been talking over a matter which originated with Stoneham down at Smoke Island, and they laugh at me for a superstitious old humbug, because I tell them that, although what Stoneham says may be exaggerated, there is, at any rate, truth at the bottom of it. These chaps won't believe me ; but if you tell us what you know of 'The Fishers,' they will no doubt pay more attention." " You must take all that Hartley says, cum grano salis" broke in Sir Charles, laughing ; " but we really would be interested, and obliged to you, if you would recount what you may have seen and heard about these local legends. "With the moon- 20 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. light on the river, and the long shadows yonder of the trees, no time or place could be more suitable. I could credit any mysterious story, almost, to- night." "I cannot tell you much from personal know- ledge of the facts," said Bronckhurst. " I have heard from Stoneham himself that he is acquainted with some queer things, although lie is a very reticent man. But there are few iishermen, or pilots in the bay, or indeed warders at the convict settlement on St. Helena, but have something to say of ' The Fishers of Moreton Bay.' I confess that I know nothing personally about these things myself; that is as far as anything supernatural goes. "You know Moreton and Stradbroke Islands form together a very big place," he continued, turning round to the two Englishmen, " and there is the remnant of a very remarkable tribe of black fellows living there. They are believed to be entirely distinct from those here upon the mainland, and have some singular traditions and customs. It's the belief of many of the oyster men and others that they know more about ' The Fishers ' and their doings than they will tell. But the mystery they say is, where the craft they talk of comes from, and how she disappears. They say that men will be netting on the bay at night, sometimes without any luck, when suddenly they see 'The Fishers" CAPTAIN COOK'S LETTER. 21 canoe, or whatever you like to call it, bearing down upon them — occasionally in the very teeth of the wind — and then the fish will suddenly come down in great shoals in front of her, while at other times they will be gone in a moment, and then suddenly the craft will disappear. It is certain, as any one living on the shores of the bay will tell you, that there are moving lights sometimes seen on dark nights, which no one can account for. I have seen them myself, and attribute them to the blacks ; but the old hands among the fishermen generally keep at home on such nights. You ask one of them some day, when there is no fish in Brisbane market, why it is, and he will very likely say, ' Oh, Tommy was out on the bay last night,' and you may guess his meaning if you can. "A warder on St. Helena once told me a queer yarn. It was Eeardon, Hartley ; and he is a decent fellow, as you know. We were yarning about the bay one night, and I asked him what he knew of ' The Fishers.' He said — for I remember distinctly — ' I only once saw the craft myself, and I'll take my Bible oath that I had neither sleep nor drink upon me at the time, but I certainly saw the craft, and heard old Tommy's hail.' " I will tell you the yarn as near as I can in his own words," continued Bronckhurst. "He said that it was during one of those sudden thunder- storms, which occasionally sweep with such terrific 22 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. violence across the bay. He was on duty. It was a moonlight night, but an immense greenish-black cloud came up from the south-east that blotted out everything. It was blowing with hurricane force ; the strange thing was, that the horizon was plainly visible all round beyond the dense circle of clouds. It began to rain soon, pretty heavily, and the force of the wind sent the drops stinging against his face like small shot. The lightning, too, was very vivid. He was standing outside the look-out box on the north-east wall, as he thought that he heard a noise in one of the yards. He had his rifle, of course, in his hand, when suddenly there came two most vivid flashes of lightning. The whole bay seemed illumi- nated for fully a quarter of a minute, and within rifle-shot of the island, right in the midst of the storm, he saw the craft. She had both sails spread, and was sailing along close hauled in the very teeth of the gale. Long Tom was steering. Keardon said he did not know what impelled him, but he lifted the rifle, took steady aim, and fired. There was ball cartridge in the piece, and every one knows that lieardon is a good shot. All the answer he got was, ' The Fishers.' He looked about the same place during several following flashes of lightning, but the craft had entirely disappeared. He said that it was impossible that she could have got away by natural means, for he could see distinctly for miles during the flashes. CAPTAIN COOK'S LETTER. 23 " There is one end of St. Helena, I should say, where the old convicts will never, if possible, go at night. It's known as Long Tom's camp. Three con- victs at different times have committed suicide there. "Some of the old hands say they were there looking for some of Long Tom's property, and that he nabbed them at it." " Have you never tried to account for the origin of these stories yourself ? " said Buchanan. "Not I," replied Bronckhurst— " that is, not in that way. I attribute them to excited imagination, the result of loneliness and singular and grotesque natural surroundings. Why, I have been on the bay myself at night when you could believe you saw anything. I would have sworn one night that I saw quite a number of people on a point which I knew had not a dwelling-place within three miles of it ; and what do you think it was ? Dead man- grove trunks and roots, all broken off just about the same height from the ground, and a flock of shags or curlews or something perched one on each of them. To have seen the movement and heard the sound, and so on, you would have sworn that they were men. " But, so long ! gentlemen, I must be off, or the tide will have run down so that I won't be able to get the boat into the boat-house ; and I want to leave everything snug to-night, fur I am going to Brisbane to-morrow." 24 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. " Stop a while longer," expostulated Hartley ; but Bronckhurst had had his say, and being quite satisfied with himself, preferred to retire gracefully on his laurels. His going was usually as abrupt as his coming, for he was one of the men who allowed no consideration to interfere with their peculiar habits of mind. " He's a queer stick, that," said Hartley, as Bronckhurst took himself off, " but a great fisher- man." ( 25 ) CHAPTER III. hartley's theory. "Now let us hear this theory of yours," said Sir Charles to Hartley, after they had listened for a few minutes to the splash of oars, as Bronckhurst pulled leisurely across the river. " I would like first of all to say that Stoneham's position in the matter puzzles me," replied Hartley. " I have been thinking about it while Bronckhurst was yarning. Why should he tell you two so readily, and be so anxious for you to go in his company ? I cannot get to the bottom of it, and feel confident that there is something personal to himself which he is keeping back, and also that he knows a jolly sight more about the affair than he makes out to you. " However, this is my theory of the matter until something different suggests itself. Either wholly, or in part, the natives of Moreton and Stradbroke Islands are a remnant of a race which once inhabited some at present unknown part of the interior of Australia. For some unexplained reason, some of 26 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. them made their way to the extreme eastern const. In the course of generations they probably lost the actual knowledge of their origin, and even their more recent history may be to them very obscure. The writing which Captain Cook copied from the boomerang is, as far as I know, the only relic of any written language found in Australia. Unlike other ancient lands, we find here no inscriptions, nothing to prove that any of the original dialects have ever been reduced to writing. The inscription, then, points to the one-time existence of a pre- historic race, who were far more highly civilized than any of the present aboriginal tribes. This race possessed a knowledge of the art of writing, and probably a civilization equal to that of some of the more cultured nations of South- Western Asia. We should naturally look for the remains of such a people in the north-central portion of the Continent, as indicated by the inscription on the boomerang. " But, by the way, there is one thing about that inscription which is not clear to me. How did Stoneham get it translated by that professor of the Bonn University ? " " All ! didn't we explain that to you ? " said Sir Charles. " No," said Hartley. " Stoneham explained it, I thought, very satis- factorily, and showed us a letter, which I borrowed," broke in Buchanan. "It seems he had Cook's letter HARTLEY'S THEORY. 27 and the drawing of the inscribed boomerang by him for some years — tried parsons, and doctors, and the curators of two or three of your colonial institutions ; but no one could read the riddle until he met with a gentleman visiting Germany, to whom he entrusted the document. I have Professor Smythe's letter, which Stoneham lent me, somewhere amongst my traps. No, it's here. I must have put it in my pocket this morning." The letter was as follows : — " Bonn University, Germany, "March 20th, 1S77. "Dear Sir, " I received your interesting letter in due course, with an accompanying document for trans- lation. I must congratulate you on the occasion of my being able to furnish you with what appears to be a very accurate and literal rendering of the original. We have, as I dare say you know, nearly one hundred professors and lecturers in our uni- versity, and it was brought under the consideration of a number of men of high distinction as linguists before I could obtain an authentic translation. We are indebted to Professor Franz Schleimann for the translation, which I forward to you herewith. I may say that in two cases he gave alternative readings ; but the sense seems to me so clear that I have not troubled to send them. lie described it as a curious 28 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. specimen of uncial Dhatus. Should anything note- worthy transpire as resulting from the translation, I shall be obliged if you will kindly furnish me with particulars, as the translation has been seen by a number of our professors, and has become a subject of interest to the whole community. " I am, dear sir, " Very truly yours, "CAEL LlJDWIG SMYTHB. " John Gardner, E^q., "Hotel de Hollan noo. " Well," said Hartley, " that bears out what I say about these people being the descendants of some distinct race of Asiatic origin. The sound of our English letter 's' is common enough in Arabic, Persian, Chinese, and other Asiatic languages. The very word first heard from the steersman who an- swered the hail of the Endeavour boatswain contained a sibilant." "It certainly supports your theory," said Sir Charles ; " but there's no need to pause any longer over that. We none of us at present know whether Zoo-zoo is a person, place, or thing." " I have been looking it up while you were away," said Hartley. In Persian, a Soonee is a Sunite; but there is no such word in English, although HARTLEY'S THEORY. 31 there is a somewhat similar word to describe a species of cetacean ; but there is no etymological signification to throw any light upon it, except that zoology is the science of animals." Buchanan read on : " From the islands of the east, follow the broad flowing waters beyond the make- coils to its source." " That's plain enough," exclaimed Hartley. " The islands of the east represent Moreton Bay. The broad flowing waters are the River Brisbane, and, by George ! from the top of Mount Clutha, the twining and twistings of the river look just like snake-coils." "South of the setting sun a cleft appears in the mountains," read Buchanan. " That must be Cunningham's Gap," said Hartley ; " and yet I question whether you could see it from the sources of the Brisbane. However, it does not matter, for ' the great country of many little trees ' can only refer to the Moonie scrub. Vv hat comes next ? " " Follow as the birds fly toward the setting sun of winter." " That, of course, means keep to the north-west," said Sir Charles. "Beyond the broad plains, over the white moun- tains, and you reach the span longer than the arms of many men." " There are plenty of broad plains over in that country," said Hartley. 32 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. "But what about the white mountain?" said Buchanan. " Ah ! I think there is something in that," said Hartley, smoking away vigorously. " You don't mean to suggest that there are moun- tains covered with snow in the interior ? " said Sir Charles. " Yes, I do," replied Hartley. " Never ! " exclaimed both listeners. " There is nothing so very surprising about it," said Hartley. " For seven or eight months out of the year snow lies on Mount St. Bernard, near Beechworth, in Yictoria; and the mailman on the Dar^o Track wears snow-shoes in winter-time, and the snow is occasionally so deep that he will lose his way, because all his guide-posts are covered. There are parts of New South Wales too, in the Snowy Mountains district, where high up there are deep fissures, in which the snow never melts all the year round. " Now, don't think that I am exaggerating or romancing. I think it very possible that there may be while mountains in the north-central portion of the Continent." " Australia is a queer country," said Sir Charles. " People in England would not credit it." "It's true, nevertheless," said Hartley. "I re- member that one of the Barcoo blacks once told me a queer yarn about the north-west. We had HARTLEY'S THEORY. 33 been wool scouring, and the wool was uncommonly white. ' Plenty dat feller up dere,' said the black, and he pointed to the north-west. 'What do you mean, Jimmy ? ' I said to him. ' Nuthin', massa, big black feller tell. He gone bong ' (dead). " After a lot of cross-questioning, I gathered from him that he had heard from an old black fellow that somewhere, many days' journey to the north- west, there were big hills with white wool upon them. It never occurred to me before, but he must have meant mountains covered with snow. No one could reach them on account of a great waterless region which was sometimes flooded in heavy rains. There was ' plenty land,' he said, beyond white hills ' where dead black fellows corrobereed.' You may take it for what it is worth, but there are the facts, and, to say the least, it's a queer coincidence." The three men smoked in silence for some time after this. What Hartley had said had aroused all sorts of imaginative pictures and suggestions. As Buchanan remarked, there certainly appeared to be something in it. Without more ado, the latter at once announced his willingness to make one of a party to go and see, and urged Hartley to go with them. 34 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. CHAPTER IV. SMOKE ISLAND. In bis own mind, Hartley was not nearly so com- placent over this affair as he appeared to be, for he had a suspicion that there was more between Buchanan and Stoneham than was known to either Sir Charles Dawson or himself. His guests had retired for the night, so he sat in his own room, and attempted to get a better under- standing of the position of tilings. " I cannot make head nor tail of Buchanan," he said to himself. "Dawson is as open as daylight, and has introductions which are unquestionable ; but Buchanan is a problem — says little about his friends, and knows altogether too much for a new chum. I'd like to know where he was the other night when he brought ' Beauty ' home regularly knocked up ; said he'd been lost, but he had done some hard riding somewhere. I wonder now whether he had been down to Stoneham's. It's singular they are both remarkably tall men, and not unlike in features. Then he is so dashed non- SMOKE ISLAND. 35 chalant over things — looks to me as though it were put on. He rides and shoots, and does every other confounded thing, even to playing the piano and singing. I'm hanged if I can get to the bottom of him. But I'll swear that he has had some previous knowledge of Stoneham. However, he is not a bad sort, only I like to know things." The fact was, Hartley was upset that they should have so completely got the start of him with Stone- ham ; for he knew more about that mysterious gentleman, and his general mode of life, than his guests had any conception. Aaron Stoneham, the eccentric recluse, of Smoke Island, Moreton Bay, was a character that puzzled a good many people at the time of our story. A man of huge stature and great strength, hailing from the North of Ireland, he had settled some eighteen years before on the above-named island, and calmly announced to the curious that ho did not care a curse about neighbours, and would sooner have the room than the company of the best of them. All kinds of scandal and rumours were current about him on his first appearance. He was an escaped convict, a defaulting Scotch banker, and some hinted at murder ; but he cared no more for what people said of him than he did for the laughter of the jackasses, or the clatter of the locusts in the gum-trees. He took up the whole of Smoke Island from the 35 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. Government at five shillings an acre, and said that he selected there to save fencing stuff, and secure decent company. The island stood about three miles out from the mainland, so it was evident that the decent company referred to comprised himself and his family — if he was possessed of one. However, the few settlers on the adjoining main- land allowed that the new arrival, if unneighbourly, was smart, and must have money at the back of him, for he did a variety of things which rilled them with astonishment, and even admiration. There is nothing which more quickly commands the respect of the average Australian settler than the evidence of skill in dealing with nature and natural conditions. The man that can swing a powerful axe, or " gentle " a horse, or manage a restive team, or hold his own with a gun or rifle, or successfully work an orchard or a farm, is the man he bows down to. One of the first things which Stoneham did after arranging with the Government for the purchase of Smoke Island, was to bny a hundred acres of rich alluvial soil on the mainland just in front of his island, which was heavily timbered with valuable wood. It showed his smartness, for as soon as it was known that he had selected the island, half a dozen people thought of blocking him of a landing- place on the mainland. He at once enclosed this selection with a four- SMOKE ISLAND. 37 railed fence, a proceeding of itself sufficient to attract general attention. Most people in the neighbourhood were satisfied with a two-railed fence. Three rails to a fence signified that the occupant was in very comfortable circumstances ; but a four- railed fence proved a man to be a bloated aristocrat, bent on treating his neighbours as though, like Bateman's bull, they could jump anything but a stockyard. However, Stoneham knew them better than they thought, for having completed his fence with the help of some black boys, he next warned off trespassers by affixing painted signs every few hundred yards, to the effect that any cattle, horses, or other trespassers found upon the property would be shot, by order of the proprietor. In a place where every man, in the matter of grass, and water and timber, tried continually to best his neighbour, this was more than human nature could stand ; so, shortly after the appearance of the notices, two panels of the fence were found one morning sawn through, and a mob of cattle grazing in the pad- dock. That very day, however, Stoneham, with a double-barrelled gun under his arm, stalked into the only house in the neighbourhood which he thought likely to boast of the possession of a saw, and marched the frightened occupants out to the damaged fence, and stood by as the two of them repaired it. He then took his coat off and soundly thrashed them, and having impounded the cattle, 38 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. to the wrath of the whole district, thereafter lived in peace. He at once put up a strong framed stable and shed inside his paddock, and kept a few horses there, with a strong vehicle for use when he occasionally went by road to town. The timber he utilized for building purposes on his island. Notwithstanding his evident dislike of the whites, Stonehain somehow at once made friends with the blacks, who regarded him with great awe, and worked for him with unwonted industry. He brought a cargo of sawn timber, doors, and window- frames, and sashes, and tanks, and other of the more ornamental portions of a house, from the city by steamer, and after a month or two of hard work, with the assistance of the blacks only, had erected a fairly commodious dwelling. This he furnished simply, but comfortably ; the best parlour even boasted a piano. Some good dairy cattle were landed, and a dozen horses, and some sheep, as one enterprising man made out with a telescope. And it became evident that Stonehain had come to stay. Notices next made their appearance all round the island to the effect that trespassers would be summarily dealt with by the proprietor. What this meant a small camping-out party discovered to their cost very soon after, for, having landed on the island foi the purpose of spending the night, Stone- SMOKE ISLAND. 39 ham came down with a gun in his hand and half a dozen dogs at his heels, and simply tumbled them with all their traps off the bank into the water. There was a good deal of bad language, but no bones were broken, and no one was drowned. The loss of a gun or two, which Stoneham deliberately threw into the bay, had to be put up with ; and Smoke Island soon became so notorious for its inhospitable receptions, that it ceased to be visited by any but the blacks. In the meantime, Stoneham, with his aboriginal helpers, worked late and early ; paddocks were cleared, and one of five acres ploughed and sown, an orchard was planted, and other improvements made, until the place acquired quite a home-like and settled appearance. He even had a small flower- garden around the front of the house. Two years passed in this way, and then early one morning Stoneham's yacht, or lugger, or whatever you might call the craft, lay alongside a big steamer at the anchorage, some twenty or thirty miles away from Smoke Island, and a lady-like woman with three young daughters, an old Scotch servant, and a heap of luggage, were taken on board, and sail was made for Smoke Island, and it became known on the mainland that Mad Stoneham had brought his wife and family out from Ireland. No one, however, not even the sugar-planter's wife at Blue Nose Point, attempted to pay a call. There A.Y AUSTRALIAN BUS IT TRACK. was a mystery about them which half the neigh- bourhood were anxious to penetrate, but Stoneham's ugly temper and undoubted strength of limb were held in too great respect for any one to venture to ask for information. As the years slipped by, Stoneham was noticed to wear the look of a disappointed man ; several children had been born to him, but they were all girls. Stoneham, of course, blamed his wife, as men mostly do ; but Mrs. Stoneham was a woman of some spirit and considerable force of character, and she disclaimed all responsibility. " Well," said Stoneham, " it seems to be no one's fault except their own, so they will have to help me work the place as they would if they were boys," and he was as good as his word. Stoneham's girls became the astonishment of the district, for on the very rare occasions they were allowed to run upon the mainland, it was seen that they were handsome, dashing girls, who could, like their father, do any daredevil thing in the way of riding across country, or handling a gun, or managing a sailing-boat ; but there was still a well-bred superiority about them which made them to differ altogether from the selectors and others in the district around the bay. It was rumoured that they could sing and play and entertain as well as the best of the fine ladies in town. It should be said that Smoke Island comprised SMOKE ISLAND. 41 an area of about seven hundred acres, and was in shape not unlike a pear, intersected for fully half its length at the smaller end by a navigable salt-water creek, which Stoneham made the port of his little kingdom, and near to which he had erected his residence. The coast-line facing the mainland was mostly formed of precipitous cliffs, which rose in places sheer out of the water ; but there were also miniature bays, and white sandy beaches, and delightful nooks for bathing, while in the interior there were exten- sive views from a range of miniature hills with a cleared space on one of the highest summits, where, the blacks said that in ancient days they made the smoke signals from which the island had derived its name. The island had a splendid supply of permanent fresh water. One large lagoon near the residence being specially noticeable for its depth and picturesque appearance. Although Stoneham would have nothing to do with his neighbours of the selector class upon the mainland, he was tolerably friendly with a feu- people of the better class like Hartley, Bronckhurst, and others ; but, as may be gathered from the previous narrative, these knew little or nothing of his past history, or indeed of his present occupa- tions, except that he had a snug and profitable island of his own without a mortgage, which, in addition to live stock, was well provided with fruit, 42 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. vegetables, and general dairy produce — and a large family of wonderfully fine and clever girls. Although Stoneham gave his wife and daughters to understand that he would not tolerate ordinary visitors, he seemed to take a pride in finding them well-bred horses to ride about the island on, and had one of the finest and fastest yachts upon the bay — worked, however, like everything else about the place, by the family. In fact, the way in which the Stoneham girls handled that yacht in a gale of wind would have made the commodore of a crack yachting club half choke himself with envy and admiration. It has been said that Stoneham had seven daughters, but at the time of this story there were but six of them resident at Smoke Island. Marjory, the eldest, had disappeared three years before in a cloud of mystery, and had been mourned by the whole family as dead. It was supposed that she had been fishing from the rocks on the west coast of the island, and had fallen in and been attacked and devoured by sharks. That seemed the only possible explanation, for every one of the girls could swim as well as they could walk. Stoneham, however, appeared to take little notice of the disaster, satisfying himself with strolling round, with his pipe in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, to see if anything was floating about belonging to the missing girl. SMOKE ISLAND. 43 He was a strange man, and had many a time threatened to "lay her wig on the green," so possibly he thought that, as girls were fairly plentiful on Smoke Island, one would not be missed. It was remembered, however, that he had threatened the day before to put a stock-whip over the girl's shoulders because she had done something which had displeased him. Marjory had been no favourite, and she had disappeared; and, as far as he was concerned, there was an end of it. There were many things going on upon and about Smoke Island, however, which Stoneham was not cognizant of, for the man's overbearing brutality and tyranny caused both mother and daughters to habitually deceive him when it suited their purpose ; so it was not so very surprising that the whole of the girls took Marjory's disappearance remarkably quietly. They may have known more than they said about it; however, there was no inquiry. Stoneham only scowled when his wife tearfully suggested that there ought to be one, and said he'd like to catch any Government official inquiring about anything on Smoke Island. Ho had been an engineer, or something of the kind, in former years, and had brought a large amount of technical skill and knowledge of mechanics to bear upon the management of things generally on the island. The girls had to help with the ploughing, and other similar farm work ; 44 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. but be had the best of agricultural implements, aud thoroughly good horses, so that the work, for those early days, was exceptionally light. During the slacker months of the year he brought an old schoolmaster down to teach the girls, who, with the assistance of their mother, learnt something of everything possible to such a state of existence. But Stoneham's great pleasure was his yacht — of which, however, more later on. The girls' sleeping quarters formed a separate wing of the house, which had been extended with the growth of the family, and here, a night or two after that on which Hartley had discussed the path of Zoo-zoo with his guests, the four eldest were gathered. It was about eight o'clock on a moonlight night, one girl lay in a hammock, and three others were leaning against the verandah rail, looking away toward the mainland. The milking had been finished, and the cows turned out a couple of hours before, and the two younger girls had pulled over to the letter-box on the mainland to bring the mail-bag; for although there were few letters, Stoneham was a diligent reader of newspapers, and liked to know something of politics, and the move- ment of the shipping. The girls watched the returning boat, and listened to the regular dip of the oars. It was a pleasant, dreamy picture which stretched SMOKE ISLAND. 45 itself away to the west in front of them. The main- land seemed heavily timbered, and beyond the tall tree-tops, upon a distant ridge, the crimson light of the sunset still lingered, and cast its dying hues upon the dark stretch of water. In the south-west heavy thunder-clouds were gathering. And along the shore twinkling lights could be seen; some one had been burning undergrowth, and the glimmering fires among it had a picturesque appearance. There was a steady wind blowing from the north-east, right in the face of the gathering thunderstorm. " Those clouds in the south-west mean mischief," said Dorna, the eldest of the girls. "That will just suit the old man." " You're not going to the anchorage to-night ? " said Molly, from the hammock. " I believe so," replied her sister ; " there's some- thing up — a China boat, perhaps, to be there with three dozen bags of rice for us, duty free." " Rice, indeed ! " ejaculated Molly. " Oh, don't bother ! Perhaps there's opium, or cigars, or some other stuff," said the first speaker. But we never ask the captain ; that's his look-out. If we're late, you'll have to milk our cows to- morrow, for you can't sleep on the Gadfly when there's a Government launch or a Customs boat about. And Jackey says that Long Snoosem is anchored up Black Wattle Creek, on the look-on t for oyster pirates." 46 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. " You'll be caught one of these nights." " I don't think so ; but what if we are ? They could never prove anything, even if they could overtake us, which they can't." " Bless you, Molly," interjected Alice, " if you'd sailed about with the old man as much as we have, you would not talk like that. No one loves him ; but occasionally I do admire him, for he's the smartest man to handle a craft like the Gadfly that I should think ever lived. I would just like to see him have a regular close brush with some of those dapper Custom-house officers ; he'd lead them a pretty dance. You know they put it on an awful lot, with their gold braid and gilt buttons. It's the buttons that do the mischief! A very ordinary, meek sort of a little man will get quite fierce, and stiffen all over with official dignity, when he dons gold braid and buttons. I often think the old man must have been a terror when he was a ship's officer in uniform." ( 47 ) CHAPTER V. STONEHAM'S " GADFLY." While the girls were talking, Stoneham, with a couple of aboriginals, was busy with the Gadfly at the wharf ; for Smoke Island boasted a commodious wharf and sheds and other buildings, which would have astonished a visitor unacquainted with the eccentric character of the proprietor. The eccen- tricity, or rather, perhaps, criminal tendency, of the man was also shown in the names which he gave to things about the place. Smoke Island, as we have said, had been so named by the aboriginals on account of its being used by them as a sort of signal station between the mainland and other islands ; smoke being used to signal with instead of flags. But Stoneham was responsible for the naming of his craft the Gadfly — a most singular name, it will be allowed, but one they had all got so used to that no one thought of its significance. Stoneham's pet saddle-horse was named " Lucifer," and a favourite bloodhound "Satan." The girls wondered some- times how it came about that they had received ordinary Christian names. 4S AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. The residence, which Stoneharn had named Smoke Island House, was erected on rising ground, barely a quarter of a mile from the wharf, where he was now busily occupied. To all appearances, this wharf had been built of stone in the ordinary way. Such, however, was not the case. It was a perfectly natural wall of solid red rock, which extended for about forty yards in length, and had at least thirty feet of water by the side of it at high tide, and fully half that depth at low water. Steps had been roughly hewn in the rock, and a roofing projected out over the water at one end, giving the wharf all the appearance of a well-designed structure. Some fifteen or twenty feet back a substantial shed was erected, with heavy doors and fittings, and there was altogether a workmanlike finish about the place. At the time referred to, however, a stranger might will have wondered as to what was going on, for the pulsations of an engine could be heard within the sh(d, from which a small cable was stretched to the midship hatchway of the Gadfly. Had any one asked black Jack or Tom what was going on, they would have said, "Old man filling Gadfly with debble debble." The fart was that, unknown to any one, and undreamt of by most people in those early days, this craft of Stoneham's was fitted with an ingenious electrical propeller. ST0NEHA3PS "GADFLY." 49 It was no wonder that she could sail so close to the wind, and occasionally force her way in the very teeth of a gale. But the secret of the propeller had been kept in the family, for it could be readily lifted when not required for use. Stoneham was evidently in a bad temper as he bustled about making final preparations for the night trip, for he occasionally swore at the ab- originals — a sign that he was specially irritated ; for, however he might treat his wife and daughters, or other white people, it was a singular fact that he rarely ill-treated or abused the blacks. Men of the Stoneham stainp may be accredited with a selfish motive of some sort when they curb their tempers in any one particular direction. Mrs. Stoneham often wondered why her husband made so much of the blacks ; for he would occasionally be away for days together with them at Stradbroke or Moreton Islands, and gave no word of explanation on his return as to the cause of his lengthv absence. It was on one of these excursions that the hiding- place of Captain Cook's letter on Smoke Island had been disclosed to him by the aged chief of the tribe. Before Stoneham secured the translation of the in- scription, however, he had questioned them long and closely as to their traditions touching the sacred boomerang, and the meaning of the inscription ; but they either did not know, or would not tell him, anything further. Then lie got the translation E So AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. made in Germany, and as patience and perseverance usually bring their reward, the result in this case at last brought to light the coins and diamond. Even Stoneham shuddered, however, on that eventful night, for, after he had explained the inscription to the chief of the tribe, the latter, supported by the others, threatened to take Stoneham's life unless he swore to go with two of them by the track of Zoo- zoo, to learn more about the " plenty land " of their ancestors. He had brought it on himself, they said, by his persistent curiosity, and must take the consequences. They had great faith in Stoneham, partly on account of his mysterious sailing craft, but mostly by reason of his great stature and reckless daring. They credited him with being able to accomplish any matter which he took seriously in hand, and from time immemorial their oldest and wisest men had talked in secret conclave about the mysterious path which lay somewhere toward the setting sun. Stoneham meant, if possible, to satisfy both him- self and them, and, after years of waiting, had at lasl pitched upon Sir Charles Dawson and Captain Buchanan us two men likely to serve his purpose on such an expedition, and the least likely to be missed if some untoward accident should overtake them before their return. It had been no part of his plan for Hartley to go with them. The two English- men, the two blacks, and himself (he had settled in STONEHAM'S "GADFLY" 51 his own niind) would be ample. Hartley's going upset everything. Stonehani had arranged that night to meet Buchanan somewhere near the Boat Passage, and receive from him the gold coins and diamond, which were to be returned to the chief of the tribe, and also make final arrangements about meeting Sir Charles and Buchanan three weeks later somewhere on the Barcoo. He was in a bad temper, however, for it was that very day he had first heard that Hartley proposed to form one of the party ; and there was something else wrong between himself and the captain. It was nearly a mile by the windings of the creek from Smoke Island wharf to the bay. Nine o'clock had struck when the Gadfly cast off and moved slowly down stream. Stonehani was steering, and three of the girls, who formed the crew, were busy forward getting everything in readiness to make sail upon the boat when Stoneham gave the order. They wore woollen guernseys and short skirts, and trod with their bare, white, shapely feet noiselessly about the deck. They had dark oilskins and sou'- westers handy to put on when the thunderstorm, which was now growling ominously in the south- west, should break upon them. It was evidently going to be a rough night. The craft, which was being skilfully navigated clear of rocks and sandbanks by Stoneham, was 52 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. about eight or ten tons, and of rakish build. She was now propelled at half-speed by the electric engine, and moved almost noiselessly through the water. It was noticeable that everything about her was painted dark brown, except that she was white below the water-line ; but, being fitted with water- ballast compartments, could be sunk on occasion, so that only the darker colours were visible. Her sails, too, were tanned brown, and as she moved down the creek not a patch of white was anywhere visible about her. At the distance of a few hundred yards on a dark night she might anywhere have passed unseen. As they swept past a mangrove island and crossed over to the other side of the creek to escape a sand- bank, the bay suddenly opened upon them. " Haul down that jib," said Stoneham. The sail came down immediately, without any flapping of canvas or the rattle of a rimr-bolt. It was evident that everything worked smoothly on the Gadfly. Stoneham was going to lie to, at the mouth of the creek, under the shadow of the mangroves. He had caught the sound of a paddle-steamer going .south, and had decided to let her pass before making sail. She had both masts stepped. He was seem- ingly taking unusual precautions. It should be explained that the yacht was arranged to be sailed with either one mast or two, and only at Bight, when extra speed was wanted, was she fitted STONE HAM'S "GADFLY." 53 and rigged as at present. When carrying only one mast, as she ordinarily did when used by daylight, she would never have been taken for the same craft as that which had scared half the night toilers about Moreton Bay. Stoneham lit his pipe and sat down on the stern- rail, while the girls sat or lay about the deck for- ward ; they had each had a cup of strong coffee before starting, so there was nothing to do in the galley, or elsewhere, and they sat and talked in whispers, and looked out into the night. "What an awful big weird place the bay looks when it is dark," said Alice to Dorna, just above her breath. They spoke very quietly, for the least sound was heard on such a night for a very long distance. Between the muttering of the thunder down in the south-west, which was, however, rapidly drawing nearer, everything was as still as the grave — save for the beating of the stern paddle-wheel of the steamer. She was still a couple of miles away, but from the distinctness of the sound she might have been only a cable's length off. Two white ghostly objects were noticed by the girls moving steadily up the creek, in perfect silence, under the mangroves on the other side. They were a couple of pelicans going up to a favourite fishing bank of theirs. Things were evidently very quiet (or the birds to move alon^ like that. Dorna put 54 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. her hand on a double-barrelled breech-loader for a moment, and whispered her belief that she could bring them both down with one shot ; but there was no sound save the lapping of the waters against the side of the Gadfly, and the sighing of the approach- ing tempest in the tops of the trees, and the beating paddle-wheel of the steamer, or the splash of an occasional fish as it leaped up and then fell back into the water. There were a few lights visible on the mainland, and one or two on the islands far distant in the bay — bush fires probably, most of them. For another quarter of an hour the silence was unbroken, for Stoneham rarely spoke to the girls except to give orders, and as usual sat wrapped in meditation and tobacco-smoke. Soon, however, the steamer had passed south. " Set the foresail and spanker." The yacht, as we have stated, carried two tall masts that night, but so rigged that the second could, if necessary, be easily unshipped. Both masts carried large square lugsails, and spankers with topsails. It was easy to see that the Gadfly had been built for speed. With the propeller at full power sho could show her heels to any craft upon the bay ; in fact, walk round and laugh at them. She was soon bowling along at a great rate, with tho white foam heaped up in front of her bows, and an eddying wake behind, for it was nearly high STONEHAWS " GADFLY" 55 water, and although Stoneham was keeping fairly in-shore, he knew that there was plenty of water everywhere, and no risk of running aground ; she was making at least fourteen knots. The moon was hanofin;]: low down in the west, but the stars were bright in front of them, and they could see that the bank of clouds, which was now rapidly sweeping up in their rear, formed a very curious spectacle. The background of the sky was black as ink ; but stretched right across, from horizon to horizon, was a Great bridge or bow of white clouds. The chain- and forked-lightning flashed brilliantly at the back of it, and reflected occasionally through it like the flashing of opals ; but the white bridge of vapour showed no perceptible movement for several minutes, as though it was fixed across the sky. Then there came a brilliant flash which lit up the whole bay, and a peal of thunder quickly followed, and the fantastic creation melted before the pent-up fury of the storm. " Lower away and furl the spanker." The girls stood by in readiness, expecting the order, and obeyed it with astonishing alacrity. They seemed as nimble as highly trained seamen, and had two reefs in each of the big lugsails before the storm struck them. It seemed for a moment as though it would take the masts right out of her, although she was being driven by the propeller at full speed, and Stoneham 56 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. put her dead in front of the wind. She shivered, and seemed to leap forward as the full force of the gale caught her ; but it was only for a brief minute or two, when it rushed past howling and screeching like some band of mad furies convulsed with rage. It was just such a brief minute or two as has wrecked many a fine vessel upon the high seas. Their course was altered after passing the light- house on Blue Nose Point, and thev ran on for another half-hour ; after which they furled the sails and cast anchor under the lea of an uninhabited island not far from the mouth of the Brisbane river. " You can turn in for an hour," said Stoneham to the girls ; which they took to be his polite way of telling them that something was about to transpire which they had best know as little about as possible. ( 17 ) CHAPTER VI. stoneham's girls. It might be thought, from the little less than brutal way in which Stoneham habitually treated his family, that his wife and the girls would have been thoroughly cowed and their spirits broken. But this was far from being the case. Use is second nature, and, as Dorna put it, they were very much used to the old man's ways. And they were certainly very peculiar. Before a man like Hartley, with whom he had reasons for keeping on good terms, he would be as smooth-spoken to the girls as though he were only a bit strict in his treatment of them. He would even tolerate, on rare occasions, visitors of the better class, like Captain Buchanan and Sir Charles Dawson, and would smoothly hint in a confidential sort of way that he would like to see some of the elder girls comfortably married ; but he never tolerated anything which interfered with their work, and when nine o'clock came visitors' boats were always ready, and Stoneham would stalk 58 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. gravely into the best parlour with a big hat stuck on the back of his head, and sit down stiffly upon a chair until the guests took the hint that it was time to leave. A Presbyterian minister, who called at the island twice a year to see if there were any fresh girl babies to be baptized, was the only male, besides the aged schoolmaster previously referred to, who was ever allowed to sleep upon the island — that is, with Stoneham's knowledge. If the old man was " on the square," as the girls said, he posed before the minister as a true blue son of the old Scotch Kirk, and boasted that the best Scotch Presbyterians hailed from the north of Ireland ; but if he happened to be " on the cross," he was only allowed time for a meal and a prayer, and had to find other lodgings on the mainland. 1 hit the girls had a lot of their father's spirit, and as they grew up he found it wasn't exactly safe to knock them about much. They gave him to under- stand that he might possibly go too far, and there were, at any rate, four of them who were getting to be tall and fairly muscular women. " You touch me if you dare ! " said Marjory to him one day when ho started to thrash her with his riding-whip for being absent from some farm work which bo had given her to do. " Curse you, you slut ! " he called out in a towering STONEHANPS GIRLS. 59 rage, as, white with anger, he was about to rush forward and strike her. " Bess," called out the girl to a younger sister, who stood trembling near them, " go up and call mother." She had a loaded rifle in her hand, for she had been away to shoot an eagle-hawk which had been after the young turkeys, and she stepped back as Stoneham drew near her. Just before he hit her, he seemed for the first time to catch sight of the rifle. The muzzle of it pointed straight at his right leg, the girl's finger touched the trigger, and there was a very awkward look in her eyes. The man suddenly drew back, and called upon Bess, who by this time had scrambled straddle-legs upon Lucifer, and was cantering uj) toward the homestead for her mother. " Come back, you fool ! " " Why did you send your sister up to the house for your mother ? " he asked. " So that she might help dress your broken leg," said the girl, looking defiantly at him. " Do you mean to say you would shoot your father?" " You put that riding-whip across my shoulders, and you will see. I'm a woman now ! " He swore about it, and at his wife too, for the way in which she was bringing up the girls. But, if the truth was known, lie rather liked her pluck, 60 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. and boasted afterward to a settler on the mainland that his girls would as soon shoot a man as look at him, if he wasn't pleasant. But he only threatened Marjory once after that with his riding-whip, and that was the day she disappeared. However, the girls were born and reared to it, and were cheerful enough when they got away from the presence of Stoneham. They had made a tennis court for themselves, and were skilled in getting out of the old man's way for a bit of recreation. They even flirted with the old schoolmaster, to whom they said their lessons — and a good many other things — during the winter months. Then there was the mustering to do, and the girls' laughter, as they raced madly after a mob of young bullocks, and the crack of their stock- whips, and the clatter of their horses' hoofs, when they came on to the bit of gravel at the yards, sounded decidedly healthy. For one thing, they lived well. They could scarcely help it, for their mother sought to forget the disappointment of her marriage in good house- wifery ; and there was, besides plenty of fresh meat, fish in abundance, and an oyster-bed on the rocks to the west of the creek, and milk, and butter, and fruit ; in fact, a rough-and-ready abundance of all good things, and a healthy, wholesome appetite to enjoy them. v If we only had a different father," said Dorna, STONEHAAPS GIRLS. 61 one day to the girls and her mother, " Smoke Island would not be so bad." " Mother," she said, " why ever didn't you marry a different kind of man? " " Ah ! you don't know what your father was like when he came courting. I could have married ever so many nice men, and well-to-do ; but, you see, somehow I loved Aaron Stoneham." And then the kindly hearted woman would heave a sigh. " Well, I am sure I wish you had married one of the other nice men," said Alice. "As it is, I don't know what's to become of us. Mr. Stoneham has got the worst character of any man in the colony, and his daughters are talked about every- where as the 'seven Smoke Island girls.' I shall run away some night, and ask the first man I meet on the mainland to marry me, if it's only to be known by another name." But it would take many chapters to describe the family life of the Stonehams, and how the girls occasionally did the old man, so we must come back to where we left the master of the Gadfly on board his craft, waiting for some one near the entrance to the river Brisbane. It must have been fully two hours after they had cast anchor, when at last the dip of muffled oars was heard near at hand. A boat with one man in it shortly after emerged from the darkness, and 62 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. almost noiselessly glided up under the stern of the Gadfly. Stonehain stood up, and without a word of greet- ing placed a longish parcel in the boat, and stepped into the stern-sheets, as she slipped away again into the night. " Did you see who it was ? " whispered Alice to Dorna." " Yes," answered her sister, quietly and cautiously. " Who was it, then ? " "Captain Buchanan." " Whatever can he want with the old man ? " ejaculated Nettie, for all three of them were as wide awake as possible. " Nothing, I fear, that's any good," replied Dorna. The girls peered into the darkness in the direc- tion which the boat had taken ; but the only sounds were those of the wind and water, or the occasional cry of a curlew, or other night bird. " Do you think it would be safe for us to stand in nearer to the land ? " said Alice. "We should have to go dead slow, for fear of getting on a sandbank," replied Dorna, who was captain in her father's absence. They had taken off their oilskins, for the rain had passed over some time before, and in their blue guernseys, short skirts, and sailor caps, were quite warm enough, for the night was still close, although the storm had somewhat cooled and cleared the atmosphere. STONEHAIiPS GIRLS. 63 " Stand by to get up the anchor," said Dorna to her sisters, as she switched the power on so as to move the Gadfly ahead. The machinery of the yacht was so arranged that both engine and helm could be attended to if necessary by one person. So they soon had the anchor up, and were moving cautiously across in the direction of the river. All at once they heard the sound as of men quarrelling and exchanging blows in the distance. It seemed to be somewhere upon the bay, however. " They are fighting in the boat," said Alice. " I don't think so," said Nettie. " Listen ! " The three girls listened, and distinctly heard the crunching as of shells beneath their feet. " It's dead low water," whispered Dorna, " and they're fighting on one of the sandbanks." She reversed the engine as she said this, and stopped the yacht. They were nearing a sand- bank, and the three girls listened to the quarrel, and tried to make out exactly where it was going on. Just then the nose of the Gadfly grated against the side of one of the muddy, gravelly banks which are so common near the coast-line of the bay at low water. They almost immediately heard the sound of their father's voice, gruffly asking Buchanan if he was ready. " I am ready any time for you, you murderer," 6; AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. was the answer which reached the ears of the startled girls. Then followed the clash of steel. They were evidently fighting what seemed very much like a duel, on a sandbank some distance out from the land. "Let them fight it out," said Alice, bitterly. " They are neither of them good for much, I fear. But they have chosen a most extraordinary spot for their encounter; fancy fighting a duel at midnight on a sandbank in Moreton Bay ! " " Do keep quiet," said Nettie. " One of them will be killed." " Well, I hope it may be the old man, then," said Alice. Just then the noise ceased, and immediately afterwards they heard a cry, and a sound as of one of them falling upon the shingles. Then came another long spell of quietness. " I don't know which way to get round this bank in the dark," said Dorna, "or I would move the Gadjlij nearer. You two keep her just here, and I will slip out and run along the bank and see if I citn make out where they are; they may both of them be wounded." She went forward to get her boots, for the oyster, and other shells and shingles of these banks inflict most painful wounds when walked upon with bare feet; but she stopped and listened STONE HA APS GIRLS. 65 again, for they distinctly heard the sound of oars rolling along the thwarts of a boat. Then followed the noise which a heavily booted man will make getting into a boat ; this was again followed by a splash in the water, as the boat was pushed off from the sandbank with an oar. " Stoneham, you devil ! You won't leave me here wounded, to drown, will you ? " There was no answer but the dip of the muffled oars as the boat was pulled slowly along the widening channel out toward the bay. It was necessary to row round for some distance before Stoneham could reach the yacht. He saw at a glance that it had been moved from where he had left it at anchor. " What did you move the yacht for ? " he asked with an oath as he stepped on board. The girls stood together, and waited for Dorna to answer him. "Are you going to leave that wounded man to drown ? " she said. " Yes," said Stoneham, with another oath. " It will be murder ! " replied the girl fearlessly. The man paused a moment, as though he were going to say or do something, and then placed his hand upon the engine lever and switched on the power. As the propeller began to revolve, he put the helm over to turn the Gadfly s bows in the direction of the bay ; but as he did so Dorna sprang v 66 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. lightly from the side of the yacht upon the sand- bank, and, running off, was almost immediately lost to view in the darkness. Her sisters screamed to her to come back. " Hold your tongues, you fools ! " said Stoneham. " Do you want to bring any boats that may be about the bay down on us ? " He was, however, evidently ill at ease, and regretted the hardihood of Dorna in leaving the yacht ; and he slowed down, and waited about listening for several minutes. He even put the Gadfly up to the bank again, and stepped out and looked about, but presently returned. " I Avon't wait about here," he said. " It will soon be morning, curse her ! and there will be the devil to pay then ! Kun up the jib, and I'll give you a hand with the lugsail and the spanker." " But Dorna ! " cried both the tearful girls in a breath. " She's got to take her chance. Let her wade or swim ashore ; I'm not going to stay here." " Dorna ! " " Stow that, or I'll pitch you overboard ! " he called out roughly. "Here, come and take the helm, Netta, while I get the sails up." Ten minutes afterward, with a fair strong land- wind filling the sails, and at full speed of the engines, the Gadfly was sweeping through the dark waters toward Smoke Island. How is it that fair STONEHAM'S GIRLS. 67 winds so often fill the sails for brutal villainy ? He would have to concoct a tale to account to his wife for the absence of Dorna. And he would have to frighten the girls, so as to somehow keep their tongues quiet. After rounding a point, a stronger breeze caught the sails ; she was running now at racing speed, and seemed to fly before the wind. She showed no lights. Stoneham stood erect at the tiller. Between two islands they dashed alongside and passed a fishing-boat beating slowly up against the wind. The men in her were Eoman Catholics, and they crossed themselves in terror, and muttered a pater- noster, as the dark two-masted craft, without lights, and seemingly without living occupants, rushed wildly on into the night. Said one to the other in an awestruck whisper, as they watched her suddenly disappear, " Them's the Fishers of Moreton Bay." 6S AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. CHAPTER VII. WHAT HAPPENED ON A SANDBANK. Doena had leaped from the yacht upon a sandbank, just as she was, in her bare feet. Fortunately there proved to be more sand than shingle upon it, and in her flight she only received a few scratches. When Stoneham turned back to look for her, she had lain down almost flat upon the sand, for one very bright star cast a wonderful light upon the landscape. She kept still while the yacht was moving off, and heard the cry of her sisters to her ; but she had determined to do what she could for the Englishman who had been wounded by the hand of her father, and left on this treacherous sandbank to drown. She watched the Gadfly fade away in the dis- tance under the starlight before she commenced her search for the wounded man. She had in the mean- time been listening eagerly for any sound which might indicate his position. But the strange popping noise of the shell-fish, and the creeping sound made by the claws of hundreds and thousands of small WHAT HAPPENED ON A SANDBANK. 69 crabs, with an occasional weird cry of a bird or animal in the distant bush, or the splash of fishes in the water, were the only sounds audible. Dorna was as much at home with the bay and all its peculiar features and inhabitants as any one well could be ; but there is a peculiar loneliness when one is left, as it were, unexpectedly alone. Dorna thought that the bay had never before looked so strangely desolate, or the wild stretches of dark slimy sand- bank so vast and uncanny, as they did that night. But she must go in search of Captain Buchanan. " Supposing that he should be dead ? " Nothing could be more misleading than the miles of winding mud and sand which reveals itself at dead low Avater in the bay when seen by starlight only. By taking the bearings of two lights marking the entrance to the channel of the river, Dorna satisfied herself that she could again find the spot on which she landed ; but half an hour's search assured her that Buchanan was not there. " He must be on another bank," she thought ; and there seemed to be a fairly wide stretch of deep water lying between. She had no fear of the water so long as sharks were not about, and she knew that at low tide they invariably make for deep water, so she determined to wade or swim across. It was now, she judged, past midnight, and somewhat chilly to undress for a bath ; but there was nothing else for it, she 70 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. thought, and turned to cross the bank again, when she suddenly remembered Captain Buchanan's boat. It had been cast adrift when Stoneham boarded the Gadfly. She wondered that she had not thought of this before, and at once looked anxiously around ; but it was nowhere to be seen, so Dorna picked out a bit of the highest and driest ground, and slipping out of her scanty attire, stepped down into the water. It was deeper than she had expected, but she made no attempt to swim, not even when the water reached to her chin. It was perfectly calm, being protected from the wind by the sandbanks which wound in and out around it. The tide was on the turn. Dorna believed that the boat was not far away, and she was hoping to catch its dark outline between her eye and the sky, or a star. After nearly half an hour's search she was successful, when she at once threw herself into a swimming posture, and a few minutes afterward, with a dozen or so vigorous strokes, had reached the boat and climbed on board. Dorna now felt immensely relieved; but, unfortu- nately, in wading about after the boat, she had lost the situation of the particular bank on which her clothes awaited her ; and now that all danger to life was passed— for with the boat in her possession she feared nol hing — it was specially aggravating that she Bhould have to row about by the side of that sand- I 'Miik — witha rising tide, too — looking for her clothes. WHAT HAPPENED ON A SANDBANK. 71 " Bother the clothes ! " she said to herself im- patiently. " To think that I am in this fix after finding the boat — and that unfortunate man may be dying ! " Just then, however, she caught the Pile Light and another in line, and turning round to the bank and looking carefully, she soon found the missing garments. To attire herself in them, and start upon the search for Buchanan was the work of a very few minutes. She now pulled slowly along the bank opposite to that on which she had landed from the yacht, carefully scanning the sandbank. She was glad that the tide was rising, for the boat occasionally stuck, and had to be pushed off again. Every few minutes she would rest upon her oars and listen. While doing this on one occasion she heard a moan. " Thank God, he's alive, then ! " she exclaimed ; and picking up the anchor of the boat, she leaped lightly on to the bank, over which the rising tide was just beginning to creep. The girl threw down the anchor to secure the boat, and ran to where a dark heap showed her that Buchanan lay. " Are you much hurt ? " she asked. " I don't know. My leg and arm seem numbed or broken. I should probably soon have drowned if you had not come. But how on earth have you 72 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. got here ? Perhaps I am dreaming, or dying, and you are a good angel." " No, I am not," said the girl. " I am Dorna Stoneham ; and I have got your boat here by the bank. Can you get up ? " "I'm greatly obliged to you, Miss Stoneham. There's some food and brandy in the boat." And thon he swooned away. Dorna looked at him in the dim light once or twice. He was a young man, but a good length, and fairly heavy. And then the girl put her strong arms under him, and staggered with her uncon- scious burden across the sandbank, sinking down at every step until the sand and water came over her ankles. Finally, with an almost superhuman effort, she placed him carefully on the bottom of the boat. Dorna found the brandy, and gave him some, and then put an overcoat she found under his head. " Where am I ? " he asked, as he came back to consciousness. " In the bottom of a boat," said Dorna, simply, and then set herself to row out of the winding sand- banks into the channel, and up to the Bungalow. It was a stiff pull, but fortunately she had the tide with her. " Captain Buchanan," said Dorna to him as they neared their destination, " don't you think we might somehow manage to keep it a secret about my father?" WHAT HAPPENED ON A SANDBANK. 73 " Certainly, if you wish," said Buchanan, faintly. " All right, then, I'll manage it ; you will be too ill to say anything." There was more truth in Dorna's last words than she had imagined. Buchanan tvas ill, and there was no alternative but to send up a hasty messenger to town to bring down a doctor. But Dorna, for a modest girl of nineteen, was in nearly as bad a plight as Buchanan ; for she wore only a short skirt and woollen guernsey, and had neither stockings nor shoes, and had been necessi- tated at three o'clock in the morning, so attired, to rouse up Hartley and Sir Charles Dawson. There was no prudery, however, about Dorna, and in the presence of danger to life — for Buchanan was more seriously wounded than he had seemed to be — she did not give a second thought to her bare feet and legs. They carried Buchanan up to the house between them, and laid him on his own bed. "Mr. Hartley," said Dorna, looking him straight in the face, " I would send a man up to town for a doctor at once, if I were you ; but I would not make any fuss by calling up the servants." " Why ? " interrupted Sir Charles, impatiently. " Because, I think, for Captain Buchanan's own sake, it had better be kept as quiet as possible — as well as on account of some one else." " Who wounded him ? " said the baronet. 74 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. " You had better ask him that yourself when he is better," said the girl, looking somewhat defiantly at Buchanan's friend. "I suppose that I have saved his life, so far as it is saved ; but that arm of his wants dressing, and I think that I can attend to it better than either of you gentlemen." " Miss Stoneham is right," said Hartley, " and we are only wasting time by talking." " That's right," said Dorna, giving Hartley an approving smile. " If you will get me a pair of scissors, or a sharp knife, I will rip his coat-sleeve up and see whether his arm is broken, or whether it is merely a flesh-wound he has received. He would have bled more if an artery had been cut." Hartley got the scissors immediately, and went into the kitchen, and finding the fire banked up with a huge log at the back of the fireplace, soon brought hot water. He was puzzling himself over what Dorna had said about Buchanan having received a flesh-wound. "He and Stoneham must have been fighting with swords ; it's a most extra- ordinary affair. But how came he to be out, and we know nothing about it ? And how comes it that this girl has brought him home in one of my boats, and claims to have saved his life ? It's no doubt a very queer affair." For a couple of hours, until Buchanan was safely in lied with his wounds carefully dressed, Dorna hel«l command. Sir Charles Dawson and Hartley WHAT HAPPENED ON A SANDBANK. 75 simply did what the girl told them to — not without some amazement. It was quite light by this time, and Dorna went into the dining-room, where Hartley had a cup of tea waiting for her. Sir Charles stopped with Buchanan. " Do you think you could borrow me a riding- habit anywhere, and some number five shoes, Mr. Hartley, and then lend me a horse ? I might lie down and have a sleep somewhere while you hunt them up." " Certainly I can, with pleasure ; but you must be terribly tired after being up all night." " You need not trouble about that, 3Fr. Hartley. I have been able to help your friend, and a few hours' sleep will set me right again. "Women who go to balls think nothing of dancing until daylight ; please don't make a fuss about a little thing. I am sorry that Captain Buchanan got hurt last night ; I expect that it was a good deal his own fault. I found him on a sandbank in the bay, and I suppose that if I had not happened upon him he would have been drowned. Now you'll oblige me by not asking any more questions." Hartley looked at her in astonished admiration. He had been all his life used to society belles ; but here was a girl of nineteen, after a night's adventure which uould have taxed the strength and endurance of most ordinary men, looking as fresh as a rose, 76 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. and seemingly utterly unconscious of her singular attire. Her blue wool-worked liberty-cap, with its long silk tassel, was worn with a jaunty air. Her close-fitting guernsey set off her shapely figure, and her blue serge skirts, which reached only halfway from knee to ankle, set off her well-formed feet. Hartley had been in many a difficult situation before, but never had he felt himself to be so thoroughly bowled over as he was by this bare- footed girl of Stoneham's. He wanted to know a score of things, for, as has been said before, he was of an inquisitive turn of mind ; but he would no more have thought of putting another question to Dorna, after what she had said, than he would if commanded to keep silence by the queen. To understand the character of Dorna Stoneham, it must be remembered that she and her sisters had been brought up away from the conventionalisms of ordinary society, and had been treated by both parents not as girls are usually treated in a family, but as though they were boys and men. Dorna never said No when she meant Yes, or Yes when she meant No. She had never been used to have other people wait upon her ; had never habited herself to late breakfasts in bed ; and knew nothing of the pleasures of being coddled for supposed delicate health. She had been used to obey her father, and in turn be obeyed by her sisters; and, WHAT HAPPENED ON A SANDBANK. 77 except from fatigue or overwork, had scarcely known an ache or pain in her life. Nor had she any par- ticular respect or regard for the opposite sex — the only man she had known with any intimacy was her father, and him she neither respected nor loved. And she classed all men more or less in the same category. " They are a set of tyrants, the whole lot of them," she would sometimes say to her sisters ; " and I am glad that I have been brought up like a man. I'm as strong as many of them, and can do what they do better than most." And yet she was a winsome woman, as she stood up to be conducted by Hartley to her room. There was grace in every line of her supple and well-knit frame ; she stood gracefully, and walked gracefully ; her oval face was well set upon a graceful neck and well-formed shoulders ; her features were Grecian in their classic regularity, and the soul in her violet eyes told of an unawakened womanhood, which might yet hear a voice that would arouse the deeper nature for weal or woe. Hartley looked at her, and knew as by instinct that the deeper springs of Dorna's life had never yet been moved to action. Love would come, he thought, some day, and its first kiss would touch the marble, and arouse the girl's whole being to a higher form of life. "But would it come?" thought Hartley, for it had long been his belief that thousands of the race 73 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. pass through life with its richest treasures unre- vealed. That is, with love unawakened; because the voice of the true heart-mate was never heard. It was a strange thought, perhaps, to flash across his mind as he, Bright Hartley, bachelor, led bare- footed Dorna Stoneham to her chamber, with all the deference he might have paid a queen. But it was this : " What if he, fully twice her age, should be able to learn the secret which might awaken this girl's love ? " It's strange how young some men's hearts keep, and how natural it seems for them, after they have learnt and tasted of all life's sweets and bitters, to wish to associate themselves with women, who, like their own hearts, are yet young and fresh. Possibly it's a blind instinct of the soul yearning for immor- tality, which is ever young. ( 79 ) CHAPTER VIII. MORE ABOUT DORNA STONEHAM. Wherever Hartley got them from, Dorna found a handsome riding-habit of dark cloth, and a pair of number five shoes, and also stockings, on a chair just within her room when she awoke. Gloves and a handkerchief were also there; and Hartley's thoughtfulness was shown in an assortment of cuffs and collars, and other knick-knacks for ladies' attire. Some one was evidently listening for her foot- steps, for she was no sooner up than a female servant tapped at the door and asked if there was anything further she could bring her. Dinner, she said, would be served in half an hour. " No, thank you," said Dorna. " I shall do very well." She had slept for nearly twelve hours. Dorna made full use of Hartley's thoughtfulness. The riding-habit fitted her very well, and with neat collar and cuffs, and her hair gracefully arranged, she would scarcely have been known for the same, except for her voice and bearing. 8o AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. On meeting Hartley, Dorna inquired after Bu- chanan, but not with any marked anxiety. She had done her duty, and he was safe, and there, so far as she was concerned, was an end of it. Hartley told her that the captain might be a week or two getting round, but that the doctor said he was, thanks to the skilful hands of his first nurse, in no danger. " Would you like to see him ? " said Hartley, as they went into dinner. " No, thank you, Mr. Hartley ; he wants to be kept quiet." " But I think that he would like to thank you." " That can easily be left for another time," said Dorna. Sir Charles had heard a good bit about the Stoneham girls from Hartley during the day, and had anticipated the meeting at dinner with some curiosity. He had seen enough of the girl in the morning, however, to know that it was useless anticipating either her manner or conversation. The change which her altered dress made, cer- tainly took him by surprise ; while Dorna had such an utter contempt for mankind generally that she did not feel the least confused when Hartley placed her at his right hand, and she found that she was to dine in his company, with Sir Charles Dawson as a vis-a-vis. Sir Charles had made one or two remarks about MORE ABOUT DORNA STONE HAM. 81 Dorna and the Stonehanis to Hartley of a by no means complimentary character, and the latter had made up his mind that the representative of Smoke Island should, at any rate, have every opportunity of appearing to best advantage. He was certainly pleased with her improved appearance. Some women look their best in a close-fitting, well-cut riding-habit — possibly Dorna was one of them. She had certainly scored a point for a start. Hartley commenced to talk about the bay and yachting, as he ladled out the soup. He knew Dorna could talk about that, and had no other thought but to furnish a common topic for interest- ing conversation. But Dorna imagined that she scented danger. They would be twisting it around to the previous night's adventure, so she partook of her soup in cautious silence, simply responding Yes or No. " The girl can't talk," thought Sir Charles ; but what could be expected ? Hartley, however, guessed the cause of her reti- cence, and saw that he had made a false start. He was annoyed with Sir Charles, too, who was condescendingly polite to Dorna. AVhile she anus thinking to herself " what stupid creatures men are." And yet she seemed to know that Hartley was beseeching her to save the credit of Smoke Island and the rumoured cleverness of the Stoneham girls. G 82 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. Dorna looked at Sir Charles after the first course, and mentally concluded that being an English baronet had not done any great things for hirn. " He puts on airs," she thought. " I'd like to see him on a flighty horse, or in a stiff gale of wind on board the Gadfly." And then all at once Dorna determined to put her best foot forward for the honour of Smoke Island. One of Dorna's strong points was botany. She guessed, by certain plants she had noticed about the house, that it was a subject which Hartley was not wholly unfamiliar with. So after a rather awkward pause (for Hartley was losing heart at his want of success) she asked Dawson what he thought of the Australian bush flowers. " Not a great deal, Miss Stoneham ; they are really so few and scentless that they don't call for much thought." It was not a polite answer, and Hartley felt inclined to kick him beneath the table, but there was no necessity, he had met his match. " Ah ! You must have seen them when they were asleep," said Dorna, quietly. " In the morning, when they are wide awake and fresh from a bath of dew, they perfectly fill the bush with perfume. I think there is nothing more fragrant in the world than the Australian bush an hour before sunrise on limn id's morning. Now, do not you agree with me, Mr. Hartley?" MORE ABOUT DORNA STONEHAM. 83 Hartley hastened to do so most emphatically, for he was delighted to find Dorna coming out of her shell. " You see, you have not been here in our spring- time, when the wattles are in bloom, and the bush everywhere rich with beauty and fragrance. You know, your wild flowers in England are all more or less unintentionally cultivated. England is such a little place, you cannot help it ; but here you see Nature left entirely to herself. Now I think, Sir Charles, that I am the best judge of the beauty and fragrance of our Australian flowers, because I love them, and they only tell their secrets to their friends." Sir Charles was dmnfounded at such talk as this from a Stoneham girl, and replied, cautiously, "I think that you have the best of the argument." " Thank you," she replied, smiling. " Now let me ask you, have you seen a good collection of our Australian orchids ? " Sir Charles acknowledged that he had not. " Ah, I thought not. You know, your European orchids ar eof the earth, earthy — terrestrial plants ; but ours are epiphytes — they lift themselves above our heads and flutter in masses of snow-white beauty in the air, and rain down fragrance. But then, you know," she continued, with an arch smile, " they only do it for women, because they love flowers and nature, while men " 84 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. " Don't stop, Miss Stoneham," said Dawson, who almost gasped for breath. " Well, if I must finish, men regard such things as unworthy of a thought." Dorna said this with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. At the witty reference to the baronet's unhappy speech, Hartley laughed until he almost choked. By the time dinner was over, the Englishman, to Hartley's great delight, addressed Dorna with far more deference, while that lady pinned him down to botany, and led him on and argued with him in a bantering tone, which, alas ! bordered very closely upon polite contempt. " Were you able to get a horse up for me, Mr. Hartley ? " asked Dorna, after dinner. " It is impossible for you to go home to-night," exclaimed Hartley. " You will really be doing me such a favour," ] tleaded Dorna. " But it's dark," said Sir Charles. "No, it is a clear, starlight night," retorted Dorna; "and I really wish to go home," she said, I inning around again to Hartley. " But it's a ride of at least twenty miles to your mainland paddock, and then there is the three-mile cow across to Smoke Island; and whatever would yoni friends Bay at your returning so late?" said her host. MORE ABOUT DORNA STONEHAM. 85 " What time is it now, please ? " " Eight o'clock," said Hartley. " Then, if you can lend me a good horse, I can be safely home before midnight." " But you cannot surely ride home alone by wild bush roads at this hour ? " ejaculated Sir Charles, as he looked at the determined girl in amazement. Dorna faced round to the baronet as though thoroughly amused. " Did you look at me when I arrived here with your friend this morning ? " she asked. " Y — es," he stammered out ; " that is, I observed you, of course." "Of course you did, for I came here without shoes or stockings, or gloves, and with untidy hair, after carrying your friend ankle-deep in mud and slime off of a sandbank in Moreton Bay. Now, did I look like a girl that would be afraid of the night, or the bush, or the bay, or anybody, or anything ? " " Certainly not," said Sir Charles, smiling as he recalled her appearance. " Well, then, although Mr. Hartley has lent me this riding-habit, I'm just the same Dorna Stoneham, and I really wish to ride home to-night." Hartley laughed heartily at this, and said, " We are no match for you, Miss Stoneham, you will evidently have your own way. But I must confess to what is troubling me. I have two ladies' saddles, but they are both up in town." £6 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. "Oh, that doesn't matter," said Dorna. "You can spare a man's saddle, I suppose? " Sir Charles looked at the tall, graceful, animated girl before him — for they were standing together in the drawing-room — astounded. "You don't ride— h'm ! "— he stammered, and then stopped abruptly. " No, I don't ! " she said, with a tinge of amused annoyance in the tone of her voice. "Have you never heard," she continued, " that all the best Australian girl-riders learn to ride sideways on men's saddles ? " " Don't say another word to him," said Hartley, laughing. " You see, he is quite a new chum. I will come with you myself, and then I can bring the horse back with me. I have the horses in the stable, and by the time you are ready the man will have brought them round, and we will be off." " That's a most extraordinary girl," said Dawson to Hartley, when Dorna had gone to her room. "Yes, she is a bit out of the common," said Hartley, dryly. "Only that you must stay with Buchanan, I'd like you to come with us for a few miles, and see how an Australian girl can ride a mettlesome horse on a man's saddle. I'm going to put her on Beauty, and ride Sultan myself, for I would hardly care to ride the mare to-night; but she'll manage her, I'll bet." \'>y this lime the horses were fidgeting about MORE ABOUT DORNA STONEHAM. 87 restlessly in front of the house in charge of a groom, Beauty snorting at the gleams of light which flashed into the garden from the drawing-room. The mare was not really vicious, but she had not been ridden for several days, and was high-spirited and nervous. Both horses had strong double-rein bridles and men's saddles complete. Dorna had borrowed a saddle-strap, and came out upon the verandah, where the gentlemen were waiting, with a small parcel in her hand. " I am afraid the mare will be a bit fidgety," said Hartley. " It is six months since she had a lady on her back." "She will be all right," said Dorna. "What is her name ? " " Beauty." " Just detach the off-side stirrup, please," she said to Hartley, " and I will fasten this bit of a parcel upon the pommel, and put the stirrup to my length." The mare snorted as Dorna stepped toward her, and suddenly sprang back, pulling the groom round with her. " Give me the reins," said Dorna. There's a soothing effect in the very way some people touch a horse ; and by the time Hartley had unfastened the stirrup, Beauty had become better acquainted with Dorna, and stood still while she strapped the parcel on in such a way that it would 88 AN AUSTRALIAN RUSH TRACK. make a comfortable leg-rest for her when in the saddle. Beauty had unintentionally in wheeling about luu deed right up to a bit of rising ground, of which Dorna quickly took advantage, and sprang into the saddle without assistance. She was barely seated, however, when Beauty noticed the skirt hanging at her side, and made a little kick at it, and then tried to shy off from it, and reared. Both Hartley and Sir Charles watched the animal's performance in some alarm. But Dorna's hands were down with a firm but gentle pressure on the bit, and her confident, calm voice was soothing the nervous animal. " Jump up, Mr. Hartley," she cried ; " you see she won't wait." As this was said, Beauty reared again, so Dorna slackened the tightness of her rein, and touched her with her heel. The mare immediately sprang forward at a canter. "Bun!" cried Hartley to the man, who still held his horse for him to mount; "the drive gate is not open." But Beauty reached the gate almost before the man had started to run, and Dorna, feeling that it was useless to attempt to pull her up, put her to it, and cleared it with a bound. Sir Charles Dawson's last glimpse that night of Dorna Stoneham was as she cleared that gate, and he stood for several minutes afterwards, overwhelmed MORE ABOUT DORNA STONEHAM. 89 with astonishment, looking away into the darkness, and listening to the sharp clatter of the horses' feet upon the hard roadway. Hartley knew too much to race closely after her. He was sure that in a quarter of an hour, or less, if no accident occurred, Dorna would have the mare well in hand. But it was much faster riding than he was accustomed to, and he was a bit suspicious that the girl was not over anxious to pull the mare in. " That girl is something like the horse she is riding," he said to himself, as he heard her racing across a wooden bridge fully half a mile ahead of him. But Sir Charles Dawson was saying much stronger things about her to Buchanan. " If she's a specimen of Australian bush girls, they're simply wonders. Why, she came in without shoes or stockings, talked botany like a member of the Linnean Society, and went out over the summit of a five-barred gate. I shall certainly have to put her into my book." But Sir Charles Dawson was mistaken, for Dorna was in most things above the average of Australian bush girls. Her bringing-up had made her a speciality ; and even Bright Hartley thought that in Dorna Stone- ham he had made the acquaintance of something entirely new in the way of girls. 9 d AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. They bad covered nearly five miles before Hartley caught up with her. "I hope that you were not frightened, Miss Stonehani ? " " Indeed I was, Mr. Hartley. I was afraid that your horse might attempt to jump that gate." " Could you not pull up before ? " said Hartley, somewhat rebuffed, but ignoring Dorna's insinuation. "I really don't know," said Dorna; "but I thought it safest not to try, it spoils a horse's mouth, you know, to saw on it; and, besides, you only waste your strength, which, when a horse is running away, ought to be kept for more serious extremities. I suppose your friend, the baronet, almost went into hysterics when I jumped that gate ? " " I really had not time to wait and see," said I Iartley, laughing. "Now, which is the best way?" said Dorna, pulling up her horse at the junction of two roads. " They both lead your way ; but one is longer than the other," replied her companion. " Dy all means let us take the shortest, then," said Dorna. " That's the one, then, to the right ; but it's rough." " Oh, that does not matter," said Dorna. " You should sec some of the cattle tracks we girls gallop over on Smoke Island." MORE ABOUT DORNA STONEHAM. 91 Hartley was by no means deficient in pluck, and, for a fairly stout man, was a good rider. The night was clear, and the stars shone brightly, and he felt inclined to show this wilful Stoneham girl that he was not the milksop she seemed to take him for. He knew a road across the bush which might save them a good two miles, or rather, it should be said, he knew it partially, and believed that Sultan knew it well, so he suggested that they should take it. Dorna agreed at once, and a few minutes afterward they were riding single file along a narrow track upon the turf, Hartley in front. " Now, Mr. Hartley, you may go as fast as you like, only don't get lost." Sultan snorted when Hartley, thus encouraged, gave him his head, and touched him lightly with his spur ; and then, reckless of fallen timber or water-washed gullies, and the darkness caused by the foliage of the trees, he bounded off, with Dorna, riding Beauty well in hand, close behind him. The mettlesome horses soon grew excited, and it became a gallop — two up and two down ; but Sultan was familiar with the track, and kept to it, and all went well, until suddenly they came upon a mob of cattle camped near the path, and one lazy bullock, lying in the way, unfortunately rose upon his feet just as Hartley's horse was in mid-air leaping over him. The rest may be imagined. 92 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. Dorna just saved herself, and Hartley had rather a bad spill. They rode along after this more soberly, and Bright Hartley was a sadder, and, perhaps, wiser man ; do what he would, the Smoke Island girl always seemed to have the advantage of him. All the night he had been trying to make a good impression, but seemingly without the slightest success. And now, to wind up, he thought, he had actually been thrown from his horse. It was but little after ten o'clock when the heated horses reached the shores of the bay, and in the distance there loomed before them the dark outline of Smoke Island. " Do you see those two lights ? " said Dorna. " They're candles in two windows of the girls' rooms. That means that the old man is away at Stradbroke Island. We can turn the horses into the paddock, and bring the saddles across with us in the boat, lest some one should steal them. I'll row you over ; you'll want something to eat and a few hours' rest before yon ride back again to the Bungalow; and then, too, you can take this riding-habit back, which il was really very good of you to lend me." Hartley thought it his duty to see Dorna safely home ; and Slonehani being away, he willingly con- ited to the proposal. He wanted to see more of I >orna, too ; he was fairly fascinated with the girl — and all the more so because he could not make her out. ( 93 ) CHAPTER IX. HARTLEY HAS THE WORST OP IT. The landing-place at Stoneham's paddock was a freak of nature. Two sheer rocks, about eighteen feet high, arose perpendicularly from deep water, and attached themselves roughly, like the capital letter C, to the land, forming within, a basin of about half an acre of perfectly still water, with an entrance between the rocks fully twenty feet across. A more secure or convenient place for embarkation it would be difficult to imagine. The only drawback was the descent ; but this was not nearly so precipitous as might have been expected, the path having been made more acces- sible by a few rough steps cut in places out of the rock. Here, under a Moreton Bay fig-tree, a boat was sometimes to be found, with oars and sails placed ready for the use of some member of the Stoneham family who might have business upon the main- land. Down this pathway Dorna and Hartley, each 94 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. carrying their saddles, made their way to where a boat was in waiting, the former going forward to unfasten it. "Here's luck, now," called out Dorna, as she jumped into the boat, and pushing it toward the steps, fastened the painter to a handy tree. " Some of the girls have been across with supper — and actually there is enough for two. I am certainly hungry, and I am sure that you must be after that very awkward tumble you had." " Bother that tumble ! " thought Hartley. He sat down in the boat opposite to Dorna, at her invita- tion, with a fair-sized basket between them. En- closed in a snow-white cloth were sandwiches and sweet buttered scones, and also a basin of cream and fruit, and a jug of new milk. "It was a supper," said Hartley, "fit for an epicure." " They must have known that you were coming," said Dorna, looking at him and laughing mis- chievously ; " they would know that I could not possibly eat all this, unless, perhaps, they thought J would have been fasting since last night." Hartley praised everything, and cat with great relish. He had ridden nearly twenty miles. "It is the most romantic picnic I have ever had the good fortune to attend," he said. •• A riding-habit is a very awkward thing in a boat," said Dorna, presently, kicking at her skirt HARTLEY HAS THE WORST OF IT. 95 the while with her number five boots, until they peeped out from beneath the obnoxious garment. " But you are dying to have a smoke," she con- tinued, " so I will go up and get a parcel from the stables, and then we can start." To Hartley's amazement, Dorna presently returned barefooted, and attired exactly as on the previous night, when she took rank as first officer of the Gadfly. He gazed at her in the semi-darkness in astonish- ment, while Dorna busied herself about the boat, but said nothing. " How long will it take to pull over ? " asked Hartley, as she completed her arrangements. " I'll take the oars, you know." " Oh ! there's a good wind," said Dorna. " I'm going to sail across. If it keeps blowing as fresh as now, we ought to run over to the beach in twenty- five minutes. You can swim, I suppose, if we should happen to get capsized ? " " What the Dickens is she going to be up to now ? " thought Hartley. " I've a great mind not to go across at all." But Dorna was pushing off by this time, and he was so fascinated with the girl that he would have gone anywhere almost, and almost have run any risk, to have continued in her company. He was speculating, too, as to whether he was not a great deal too shy and deferential to take her fancy. 96 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. " I dare say," he thought to himself, " she'd think a lot more of me if I put my arm round her waist, and gave her a kiss." He offered to help step the mast, but Dorna thanked him, and said she preferred to do it herself. She had the sail up in no time, and as they caught the breeze, held the halyard in one hand, while she steered with the other. They were soon bowling along at a great pace toward the island, with a wake of phosphorescent light behind them. Dorna managed the boat as easily as a smart coachman would a carriage and pair. " You're very quiet, Mr. Hartley," said Dorna, at length. "I hope that tumble off your horse has not hurt you." " Shall I tell you what I was thinking of ? " said Hartley, ignoring the sarcastic reference to his un- fortunate mishap. " Yes, if you like." " Well, I was thinking what a splendid girl you are, and how clever, and how much I should like to kiss you." Both I Ionia's hands were, of course, occupied, so, as she said nothing, Hartley took her silence for i Bent, and slipped his arm around her waist, and wis about to steal the coveted kiss. But at that momenl Dorna took her hand off the tiller, and suddenly pulled hard upon the sail, the effect of which was that the boat swung round and heeled HARTLEY HAS THE WORST OF IT. 97 over on Hartley's side, and was in a fair way to capsize. Dorna, being prepared, braced herself with her feet; but Hartley, who was quite unprepared, rolled over, at which Dorna gave him a vigorous little push, at the same time letting go the halyard, when she had the satisfaction of seeing Hartley tumble into the bay, and the boat, relieved of the pressure of the sail and Hartley's weight, right itself. As Dorna brought the boat round again, and heard Hartley puffing away like a porpoise in the distance, and occasionally calling to her, she laughed until she almost cried. " He's too fat to sink," she said to herself ; " and it will teach him to keep his hands off Smoke Island girls in the future. But fancy, how wet he'll be ; we shall have to rig him out in some of the old man's clothes ! " As Hartley scrambled on board, soppiug wet, and with all the lover's ardour washed out of him, Dorna was full of apologies. " You see, it was your own fault ! " she exclaimed reprovingly. " If I had not been very quick, the boat would have capsized ; you should never try to kiss any one in a boat without getting permission. Supposing that we had both of us been drowned ! " Hartley naturally felt a little sulky after this ; but his respect and admiration for Dorna were increased rather than otherwise. She never lost her H 98 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. temper, and was even kinder to him, he thought, than before. He was completely puzzled; but when afterward, rigged out in some of Aaron Stoneham's things, which were about twice too long for him, Dorna gravely gave an account to her mother and sisters of how kind Hartley had been, and how he unfortunately had a spill from his horse, and then tumbled out of the boat into the bay, he looked at her with a comical expression, which, if caught, would have made the fortune of a humorous artist ; while the girls, who had hurriedly attired themselves to receive the late but welcome visitors, looked at Dorna from the corner of their eyes, and wondered whatever she had been up to. Dorna, however, made no reference to the events of the previous night, except to casually remark that she had been accidentally left ashore near Mr. I Lurtley's house early that morning, and was much indebted to him for lending her a horse and seeing her home — and the family were too wise to ask any (juestions. Next morning Dorna was awakened soon after it was light by one of her sisters. " Dorna ! Dorna ! " " Oh, bother the cows ! " exclaimed Dorna, half awake. " ( Jet Mr. Hartley to go down and milk for me; lie knows how to do most things ; and he will 110 doubt strip Ihem dry, and then capsize the bucket and spill the milk." HARTLEY HAS THE WORST OF IT. 99 " Dorna, wake up ! the old man's back." " You don't say so ! " cried Dorna, at once arousing herself. " Where is he ? " " That's what we can't find out ; but the Gadfly is at the wharf, so he is somewhere about." " All right, I'll come ; but mind, you may look out for squalls." With strong shoes on, and neat print dress, Dorna was soon with her sisters at the yards. The saddle- horses had been run in as usual, and the cows were in the bails, the dairy fire alight, and everything well forward. " Molly, put the bridle on Brownie, and I'll have a ride round and see how things are," said Dorna. A few minutes afterwards she was cantering through the long grass, saturated with morning dew, down toward the wharf. It wanted fully a quarter to six, so Hartley was not likely to be about for another hour or more. She was anxious to see her father, and have it out with him before he could meet their visitor. There was no sign of any one about the wharf, however, so she rode on to the black fellows' humpy, to see if Tom or Jackey had returned ; but her call awakened no response, so she turned and rode more slowly back to the wharf again, and dismounting, threw the bridle rein over the broken bough of a bush tree. " He may be asleep in the sheds, or on board," she ioo A N AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. said as she cautiously looked around ; but finding no sign of any one about the wharf or sheds, she stepped on to the Gadfly. Everything there was in fair order ; the dock wanted washing down, but the tar- paulin covers were on the brass-work and other fittings. On looking into the 'tween decks, Dorna started, however, for stretched upon the bottom of the yacht was a tall aboriginal, with a gash across his forehead, stiff and dead. The yacht was fully decked with sliding hatches to the hold and cabin. These Dorna hurriedly closed, and then hastily mounted her horse and cantered across to the shingled cove, where she and 1 lartley had landed on the previous night. To do this she had to pass the house and yards, but no one took any particular notice of her — she might have been going after a stray cow, or some of the calves. One boat only was kept here — that in which Dorna had brought Hartley on the previous night over from the mainland. As she got out of sight of the house she urged her horse along at a gallop, and in a few minutes was at the wooden jetty which run out into the sheltered water of the bay. The boat was gone ! " We must get that boat back somehow before Mr. Hartley is about," said Dorna to herself. " The old man is evidently off, and something dreadful has happened. I must get mother to keep Mr. J lartley without his clothes until we are ready for HARTLEY HAS THE WORST OF IT. 101 hirn ; and Nettie and Alice will have to go across with me for the boat." Dorna rode hurriedly back, and sent Alice and Nettie down to get the boat ready at the wharf, while she went up to speak to her mother. A few minutes after she was sitting in the stern sheets of the boat steering, while her sisters, each pulling a pair of sculls, sent the light craft rapidly through the water. There is no need to describe the trip across ; they were back again before Hartley got his clothes. Mrs. Stoneham apologized ; she had asked the servant to press them for him, she said, so he could not well complain of having been kept an extra half-hour in his room. By the time he had had his breakfast the girls were away at their work, except Alice and Nettie, who were ready to take him across to the mainland. He saw no more of Dorna, and before ten o'clock was on his way back to the Bungalow, riding one horse and leading another, and, if the truth must be told, by no means satisfied either with himself or his adventures. " What a girl she is though ! " he exclaimed to himself. "I shall have to keep quiet about that spill, and the capsize into the bay. Dawson and Buchanan would plague the life out of me. I don't think Dorna is a girl to talk much, and 'pon my honour, with all her tricks, I believe she likes me. Pity they have such a brute of a father ; he leads io2 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. them a dog's life, I know. But what does it matter to me; to think that at my age, and with my position, I should take on in this way over a bit of a barefooted girl like that ; but she is a wonderful creature, when you come to think of it. I wonder what there is that she cannot do ? " If Hartley could have seen Dorna Stoneham at that moment he would have been still more sur- prised, and perhaps horrified. She was removing, as well as she could, single-handed, the evidences of a crime. That the black had been killed by her father she was certain, and in her own mind she had decided that the best thing was to bury the body and say nothing about it. She determined that she would tell no one, not even her mother, and had, for this purpose, sent both her sisters across to the mainland, the two others she had set to work husking maize at the barn, and with a single steady old draught mare she was down alone at the Gadfly. " When shall we be done with the trouble that 1 1 1 is man brings upon his family ? " she said. " Crime upon crime ! Crime upon crime!" she [repeated to herself. " He seems to have settled upon this island in order that he may indulge his evil passions without let or hindrance, and we are compelled to screen him. What wretched mystery, I wonder, is there at the back of the death of this native ? Then, too, he has taken four horses and the buggy from HARTLEY HAS THE WORST OF IT. 103 the mainland paddock. It's evident that he has not gone alone. Probably he has Tom and Jackey with him ; but where has he gone, and why has he killed this black?" The girl was evidently greatly agitated, but she nevertheless proceeded with her self-imposed task. She had fastened the body up in a piece of sail- cloth, and dragged it on shore, and then hitched a spare chain, used for hauling logs, around the corpse, and hooked the other end to the swingletree, and with a spade on her shoulder, led the mare, pulling the body behind her, toward a piece of marshy ground a short distance away, among some ti-trees near the bank of the creek. Here, in the soft soil, after cutting the turf off in sods, she dug a shallow grave and buried the body, and replaced the turf, flattening it down with the spade. Only the crows, which cawed upon a neigh- bouring tree, witnessed the weird and ghastly funeral. By the time her sisters had returned, the mare had been turned loose in the paddock, and Dorna had gone up to the house. " I shall lie down for a bit, mother," she said. " I feel tired and upset." " Very good," said Mrs. Stoneham, utterly uncon- scious of anything very unusual having happened. " I wonder when he will be back ? " said Dorna to herself. " I cannot meet him again after this. I must leave this miserable island ! Marjory will be 104 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. glad enough to have me. I'll go at once, before the old man comes back, or anything more comes out about these latest troubles. Heaven only knows what will be the end of it ; but it is no use telling mother or the girls, it would do no good that I can see. If he was not my father I would go and give information to the police. I am sure that he has committed crimes enough to be hung." Hartley, like other people, may have guessed that Stoneham's life was a long way from being law-abiding, but he little dreamt of the dark deeds which some of the Stoneham girls were acquainted with, or what they had borne and suffered in their efforts to shield him from the law — not for his own sake, but for the sake of the family pride. ( io5 ) CHAPTER X. THE BUNGALOW STUCK UP. It was afternoon before Hartley reached the Bungalow. One of the horses cast a shoe on the road, and there was no blacksmith's forge nearer than Broadmeadow, which was four miles off the road. "Hang it all," grumbled Hartley, "my luck seems to have deserted me. This comes of having a special liking for a woman. I first narrowly escaped a broken neck, then drowning, and now Beauty must cast a shoe ; and yet somehow I feel as though I could chance a lot of bad luck for the sake of Dorna Stoneham. I can't think how it is the girl attracts me so. I wonder when I shall see her again ? But there's the family, and the father. My goodness ! it would be the devil's own luck to have to call Aaron Stoneham ' father-in-law.' I wouldn't do it for the brightest eyes, or sweetest lips, or daintiest foot, or warmest heart that ever was. No, sir, there's no necessity ; the mere mention of the father would settle the matter. I could not think of it. I might if he were dead," io5 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. He rode along for some time after this in silence, keeping a sharp eye upon cattle, and fences, and undergrowth, and other matters which seemed to have special interest for him. " Great fools, these people," he said. " Old Humphrey gave twenty pounds an acre for that land, and I wouldn't give him twenty shillings for it ; and then, too, instead of making something out of it for himself in rental, there it lies, and he lets these clever ones run their cattle over it. I wonder how many thousand acres of high-priced land in this district are now lying open, with half the fences down ? Bush fires, of course, are blamed for it; they are extremely con- venient for those who own big herds of cattle, but no land. And what cattle they are, too ! " he exclaimed, as he came upon a mob of young heifers with a big ugly cross-bred bull among them. " It would be a benefit to the colony if every one of these scrub bulls were shot, and left to feed the crows. Just look at those heifers, with their coarse heads and horns, and thick tails and Ions: leers." And Hartley looked as though he could wish for nothing better than to put a bullet between the eyes of the whole herd of them. It was a hard, gritty, " made " road that Hartley was travelling upon, and he trotted quietly along so ns not to distress the mare. He was generous to a fault to both his servants and his animals. \ boob as lie got off the highway, however, and THE BUNGALOW STUCK UP. 107 struck a cross-country black-soil road, lie urged the horses into a canter. They wanted little urging, and Hartley found that Beauty led well at any pace. Walking, trotting, cantering, or galloping, she never hung back, but kept head to head with her companion. " These would make a splendid pair for that trip of ours to the path of Zoo-zoo," he thought. " They're worth a hundred sovs., though — rather too valuable for the far west — and, besides, one of them is a mare. I'll send a wire through to Martin to get half a dozen staunch horses handled a bit by the time we reach the Barcoo. I wonder, by the way, what Stoneham's up to ? " It was after two o'clock when he threw the reins to his groom, and went into the house. He thought the man had a queer look about his face, but Hartley went past without speaking to him, except to say " Good day, Jim," and in the front room was met by Sir Charles Dawson. " I am glad that you are back again, Hartley," he said excitedly ; " we have had a queer thing happen last night after you left. The house has been stuck up." " Stuck up ! Nonsense ! What do you mean ? " queried Hartley, in a breath. "Just' what I say," replied Sir Charles. "About two o'clock this morning a couple of men appear to have walked through the French lights. I was 10S AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. sleeping in the same room with Buchanan, as he seemed restless, and wanted me to do so. When I awoke two men were in the room ; one, a tall fellow with a bull's-eye lantern, had covered me with a revolver, and his companion seemed to be doing the same for Buchanan. "'Don't move or speak,' said a muffled voice — it was like a man talking with a stone in his mouth, and was doubtless done so that his speech should not be recognized. ' I'd shoot either of you just as I would a dog, and there are enough outside to take care of your men-servants.' " ' So you escaped me, then, you cursed dingo ! ' he continued, addressing Buchanan. ' Only for the trouble it would make, I'd put a bullet through your carcase, just where you lie — and I will, too, if I catch you out west.' He said this," said Sir Charles, " accompanied by some of the foulest oaths I ever listened to. Buchanan lay still and said nothing, and I have not been able to get anything nut of him since. In fact, he is not fit to be worried; mid the shock of this adventure was only likely to prove bad, in his wounded condition." Hartley, on hearing the story, strongly advised Sir ( 'harles to say nothing further at present to his friend. "Let him get better first," he said, "then we will question him; there is evidently something more at the back of all this which be can explain, if lie will." THE BUNGALOW STUCK UP. ico Hartley knew well enough, however, who the tall man was, and he guessed who the others were that he had with him. " Out west," he repeated to him- self as he sat alone at his lunch ; " is he going out west by himself? There's something very strange about his connection with this captain ; but I am going west myself now, whatever may be the consequences." Having business to attend to, Hartley drove up to town that evening, and stayed the night. " You won't have another visit," he said to his friends ; "they don't do that sort of thing two nights running." He questioned his man, however, closely as to anything he had heard or seen, and found that he had got out of his room and hidden by a hedge in the garden. There were three men, he said, with a buggy and pair, and two saddle-horses. The two men he saw on foot were both unusually tall, the third remained with the horses. " Did they steal anything ? " asked the man. " No," said Hartley, shortly. " A very strange thing, sir, begging your pardon ; it's not often that armed bushrangers stick a place up, to pass you the time of day ! " " That's very true," said Hartley ; " but there's no use you talking about it, or me either. Those chaps were no bushrangers or common thieves, and, between ourselves, I would sooner that you kept your tongue quiet about it up iu Brisbane." no AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. " Very good, sir," said the man, who from this knew perfectly that his master had some reason for wishing nothing more to be said about the matter. It annoyed both Sir Charles and Hartley, how- ever, to find that, as Buchanan slowly recovered, he remained thoroughly reticent as to the cause of his accident, and the personality of the midnight house- breaker who had threatened to do for him if he caught him out west. " Let us go through with our undertaking," said Buchanan, grimly, " and when the right time comes, I will tell you all that you will care to know." So it was settled that they should start as soon as Buchanan was strong enough, and in the mean time Hartley had made a trip to Sydney, and was evidently putting his house in order before he ;id ventured upon what he felt convinced was a very risky enterprise. It was curious to note the temperament of these three men in prospect of the expedition. Hartley had possessed himself of the documents, and might have been seen in his library poring over maps, and reading somewhat dreary narratives of early explora- tions in the interior. He was smitten with a malady "illy known in new lands — the desire to exploit a new and unknown territory, and, if possible, discover undreamt-of sources of wealth. The legend of the path <>f Zoo-zoo hud laid a spell upon him, and he THE BUNGALOW STUCK UP. in pondered over the possibilities suggested by the mysterious inscription of the boomerang by day, and dreamt about it by night. The thirst for adventure and treasure, and the desire to know, had come back upon him as strongly as in the days of his first colonial experience, and he prepared his equipment, and forecast the probable wants of his party, even to the enumeration of a spade, in case Buchanan or Dawson should die on the road, and therefore need to be buried. When he, with some little hesitation, explained to his friends why a spade was to be taken, they laughed somewhat uncomfortably. " Hang it, Hartley ! you should have let us down more gently than that ; you might have said it was to dig for treasure with. It's enough to make a man sick, to think that a spade forms part of his equipment in case he may die." " Ah ! " said Hartley, " you don't know how awkward it is to have a man die on your hands in the bush, and be without proper tools to make a decent grave for him. I was once in that fix, and had to leave an acquaintance to be worried out of all recognition by the crows." " Oh, take your spade, then, by all means," said Buchanan ; " but it's my opinion, before you have gone two hundred miles, you will have to drop half the things you propose taking by the road- side." ii2 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. Hartley was no doubt methodical and cautious, too much so in regard to the matter they had in hand ; but he did not want to lose a chance. He felt persuaded that there was treasure at the end of the path of Zoo-zoo, and commercial instincts were just then abnormal with him ; he was going there to stay until he had found something worth taking up. He even arranged a code so that he might be able to telegraph his instructions secretly to an agent in South Australia about making application for land. He was not called Bright Hartley for nothing. As for Buchanan, he was going under the impulses of a still more powerful incentive. He was going westward hoping for revenge. Sir Charles Dawson went, Englishman-like, be- cause just then he had nothing better to do, and the others were going. It's astonishing how far Englishmen have travelled, and astounding to know what they have gone through, simply because they were at a loose end, and the other fellow was going. A Scotch- man, an American, an Australian, or a Jew, would want to know whether there was money in it. A Frenchman would look for honour and glory ; but an Englishman will go through the whole racket of an hazardous adventure on the strength of some other fellow going, and his having nothing else particular on hand. So, at the set time — several weeks later than was THE BUNGALOW STUCK UP. 113 at first intended — the three adventurers, impelled by their respective motives, started westward to explore the path of Zoo-zoo, first heard of in 1770 by that heroic navigator and enthusiastic explorer, Captain Cook. ii4 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. CHAPTEE XI. dorna's account of her adventures. The following are extracts from a voluminous package of letters which reached Smoke Island some short time after the incidents referred to in the previous chapter. They were written from a jil ace called Western Plains, and were indited by 1 >orna to Alice ; but they became to be regarded as family property — so much so that Alice thought it wise not to make any personal claim in regard to them. " After telling Marjory and her good man the story of my remarkable adventures," said the letter, " they insist that, for the sake of the family, and especially of my mother, I should write them down in full. I objected to this, not being very much of a letter- writer ; but John, who I suppose you know is Marjory's husband, has just fixed mo up a scat and table under a shady willow-tree, which grows at the margin of the great lake that flows for miles and miles on these lonely western plains in the direction of the White Mountains, so I must, of course, do my best. D ORNA'S A CCO UNT OF HER A D VENTURES. 1 1 5 "I used to think Smoke Island and the bay grand and wonderful; but oh, girls, if you could only see this place ! It iis most wonderful, marvel- lous ! I don't think that there can be such another spot in the world. They say it's over a thousand miles from the eastern coast ; and a vile, wearying road it is to travel by, but it's a perfect Beulah Land when you get here. "However, I must begin my story at the beginning. "The old mare Blossom is the only creature that knows why I left Smoke Island so suddenly, and until she tells you, I don't think any one else will. I may say, however, that on the morning upon which Mr. Stoneham brought back the Gadfly, and then took his very sudden departure, I was made aware of a matter which decided me to go at once. With the help of Blossom, for all our sakes, I removed the tokens of what seemed to me to be another crime ; but I made a big vow that it should, God helping me, be the last time. " You know where the money lies buried in the mainland paddock, in case any of us should have to run away to Marjory. I found more there than I expected. Nettie makes a good treasurer. You will have found out by this time that I took fifty pounds — I thought it would spare that. " I did not hurry after I had crossed over in the boat to the mainland, for it was quite dark, and I 1:6 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. guessed that the old man would not return for a day or two. I sat on the rocks looking over to the old island feeling sorry, and yet glad, as I waited for the dawn. It looks a sweet place from the mainland, does the island, and I tried to forget everything, and carry away only the vision which I saw when the dawnlight at last came streaming across the farther islands from the eastern sea. " I could hear the cocks crowing, and some of the dogs barking, and I knew that you would all be getting up. Smoke Island, with its red cliffs and white beaches and green, cool foliage, made me think of the ' Summer Isles of Eden,' that that daft old schoolmaster of ours — him with the wig — used to grow so sentimental about. "Well, I was glad that we had agreed that if any of us did run away there should be no good- byes. It's a bit rough on a girl, when it comes to the pinch, to turn her back on the home of her childhood, no matter how cranky a father she may have ; so I choked down a lump in my throat, and whisked a tear out of my eye, and turned round and whistled for Popsey. He came trotting up to me like a collie, and rubbed his nose against my arm, and; followed me down to the stable for a feed of corn. I did not understand it at first, and it seemed quite a Providence, for the grass would have wet me up to the knees with the heavy dew upon it if I had had to run Popsey in ; but I remembered DORNA'S ACCOUNT OF HER ADVENTURES. 1 17 he was alone, for the old man had taken the other four horses. " As I was about to feed Popsey I had another surprise; you know I brought my brown riding- skirt with me, and my dark felt hat, and my own saddle. What should I find on the top of the corn-bin, but the parcel with the riding-habit and all the rest of the things which I told you Mr. Hartley had lent me. I felt certain that he had left them on purpose, intending that I should find them, so I just took him at his wish and put them on. The boots fitted me most comfortably, and when I looked at myself in that old bit of glass which Nettie nailed up in the buggy-shed, I really felt quite flattered with my appearance. I made up a fair-sized parcel with the things I wanted to take, and wrapped them up in the brown skirt, and strapped it well on to the saddle. Popsey was a bit fresh and fidgety, but I had not very much trouble to mount. " On getting outside the paddock, I wheeled him round to take a last look at you all and the island. You know that wattle which grows near the gate, where the magpie's nest is : I pulled a bough of it down and kissed it (it's the bottom branch but one on the right-hand side), and told it to pass it on to the first Smoke Island girl that came to hand ; then I pulled a sprig off and stuck it into the bosom of my habit, and gave Popsey his head, and we were gone. ii8 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. " I always loved a canter along that bit of turfy track by the paddock. You see, too, it was trouble- some to think ; and one of those cheeky magpies followed me along, and snapped his beak close by my ear, as much as to say, ' Dorna, are you going off without one word of good-bye ? ' I believe I should have cried, only that I just then noticed that a big blue gum-tree had fallen right across the track, and that I must either pull up and scramble through the top branches or jump it near the roots. Of course I did the latter, and as we landed on the other side Steve Molesberry made his appearance, which immediately stopped any tendency I may have had to tears. " ' Good morning, miss,' said he ; ' that's a purty horse you are riding, and it's an early start you have. Are you for town ? ' " ' Good morning, Steve,' I said, for I thought it best under the circumstances to speak him fair. But he looked so artfully at me, as much as to say, ' there's something up,' that I thought I'd give him one, so I said, * Only to the cross-roads for a constable, to show him a couple of faked heifers of ours which we have found on the mainland.' I looked him in the eyes, and rode on, and he never said another word. I'd keep my eyes on those Molesberrys if I were you ; they don't keep that big punt at the mouth of Wynyard Creek for picnic parties. DORNA^S A CCO UNT OF HER AD VENTURES, i i 9 " Having started, I wanted to get right away as quickly as possible, so I took the top road until I crossed the big creek, and then turned in by the near track for Ipswich. You see, I intended to avoid Brisbane. I knew that I could buy all I wanted at the ' Modern Athens,' as Mr. Hartley styled the picturesque little town which I after- wards found nestling amid the hills at the ' head of navigation.' " After the first fifteen miles I pulled Popsey in a bit, and inquired the way to Peachey's orchard, and stopped there for some lunch. The old fellow made quite a fuss, and wanted me to tell him the whole history of the Stoneham family since he sold mother that pair of prize Aylesbury ducks ; but you may guess that it was not very much he learnt from me. " I got into Ipswich as the clocks were striking four. Popsey had hardly turned a hair, and no one would have dreamt that we had come forty miles. I rode straight up to the best hotel and ordered a room and dinner, and then sauntered round to the stable to tip the groom and see that he fed Popsey well. He was not a bad sort of a boy, but like most Queensland youths, a bit too familiar to a girl without an escort. But perhaps it was excusable, he had had no experience with Smoke Island girls. " However, after enjoying a good dinner, I went into a big shop where they seemed to sell almost 120 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. everything, and laid out fifteen shillings on the heaviest ladies' riding-whip they had in stock. The shopman stared at rne after I had rejected several as not being heavy enough. I expect he thought I must have been stuck up coming into town by some obstinate mule of a horse with no go in him ; but you may guess I did not want the whip for Popsey. Then I picked out one of the latest improved hammerless revolvers, and bought half a hundred cartridges and a small silver watch. That shopman stared at me as though I were one of the New Women that people are talking about, when all at once I heard a voice at my elbow — " ' How do you do, Miss Dorna ? ' " I was that startled, I almost dropped on the floor, and, turning round, who should confront me but old Weston, the schoolmaster. You remember him ; he was the one that the old man sent to the right-about for being too sweet with , you know who. I felt that mad at being discovered in this free-and-easy fashion that I felt as though I would have liked to have broken in my new riding- whip a bit across his shoulders. But his next observation was a staggerer. ' I suppose,' said he, ' you have come to Ipswich witli your pa ? ' " ' What the goodness do you mean, Weston ? ' I ejaculated, catching hold of him by the wrist. ' Is my father in Ipswich ? ' D ORNA'S A CCO UNT OF HER A D VENTURES. 1 2 1 " He looked at me very funnily for a minute, just as he used to in the old days when the old man was on the cross, and said — " ' I'm married, Miss Dorna, and live in Ipswich. I saw your father with Tom and Jackey about half an hour ago in the main street, near the post-office. Come out by this side door ; we live across the river. Let me have the pleasure of introducing you to my wife.' "I smacked my skirt with my riding-whip, and said, with a shake in my voice, ' I thank you, Mr. Weston, I think I will.' " I would not let the old chap see it, but I may say it was the biggest knock-down blow I ever had in my life. I felt worse than when the old man thrashed me that time in the big stockyard. " All the way over to Weston's cottage I am con- fident that I did not speak half a dozen words. " I should say that Weston has reformed from the drink, and lias a school. His wife proved to be a bonnie, motherly little body, and has a couple of nice children, so I made up my mind at first sight to take them into my confidence, for I would not for all I possessed just then have met with the old man. I was very kindly invited to stay for a day or two with the Westons, until the coast was clear ; and I set the schoolmaster to find out as much as he could about the old man. Mrs. Weston seemed to be horrified with the little she heard about the 122 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. state of affairs ; but her husband said, ' Ah ! ray dear, you don't understand the remarkable character of Aaron Stoneham.' " Well, ray adventures began that very evening, for, of course, I had to go down to the hotel and bring over Popsey — you know Weston was always a frightful coward about a horse. " < I'll shadow you down, Miss Dorna,' said he, * if you prefer to go for the horse after dark.' " I told him I thought that I'd as soon go alone, but he persisted, so when it was quite dark we went together, and he waited at the corner while I went in for the horse. There was some delay in paying up the score, and saddling up, and so on, and just as I was about to get on Popsey, who should I see at the gate, staring at me as I stood full in the light of the big yard-lamp, but Jackey. " The groom had gone into the stable for some- thing, so I whipped the revolver out of my pocket — it wasn't loaded — and walked straight up to him ; lie was grinning like a ring-tailed monkey — I never liked the wretch. " ' Misse Dorna,' he began. I aimed that revolver straight between his eyes, and just said, ' One word more, Jackey, and I'll shoot.' I saw that the revolver had put the fear of death into him, so I hissed rather than spoke, 'Jackey, turn round and walk slowly up to the corner ; if you run, or if you stop, or if you cry out, I'll shoot.' DORNA 'S A CCO UNT OF HER AD VENTURES. 1 23 " I did not know what on earth I was going to do, but it gave me a minute to think. I kept close up to him, and at the corner gave the reins of the horse to Weston, and said, ' Lead him home, and then come for me to the railway station.' I had formed a plan, as I thought, to get rid of Jackey without his meeting my father. " The position of the railway station, I should say, had caught my attention in the afternoon, and I guessed that Jackey knew where it was too, so I muttered in great excitement, ' Walk to the railway station, Jackey ; if you stop, or call out, I'll shoot, if I'm hung for it.' " ' Misse Dorna, don't shoot Jackey,' said he, evidently in mortal terror. Well, I followed the wretch on to the platform, took a second-class ticket for him to Brisbane, and then watched him for twenty minutes, until the train came in. I saw him into a carriage, and watched the train off, and then walked down to Weston's cottage, thinking what a stupid I was to take so much trouble. Jackey would, of course, get out at the first stop- ping-place, and in an hour or so would be back in Ipswich. This I learnt afterwards was actually the case, for by the morning train Aaron Stoneham, with four saddle-horses and swags, and two blacks, were booked for D . I was both puzzled and alarmed when Weston told me of this. It was the very direction I had to travel in myself. ' What- 124 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. ever could they be after out west ? ' I thought ; any- how, I determined to give them a fair start, so I stayed for a couple of days longer, partaking of the hospitality of the Westons. 125 CHAPTER XII. doena's adventures continued. " When I knew that the party in front would leave the train at D , I determined, on the advice of the schoolmaster, to go on south to the end of the railway line, and then take the coach as far as I could west. I cannot explain to you the dread I had of attain meeting with the old man. I felt somehow that he was bound on a journey which might upset all my plans. What he was travelling westward for I then had no idea, except that I thought it might be convenient for him to get out of reach of law and civilization for a time ; but I was puzzled as to why he had the blacks with him. However, I felt sure that he would not dream of my going beyond Ipswich, so two days after he had left I determined to continue my journey. " Weston wanted to accompany me a bit of the way, but, of course, I would not hear of it. " I could not obtain exactly the information I wanted, but I hoped to be able to coach it for at least two hundred and fifty miles after leaving 126 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. \V , then I should have to trust to my wits. Well, I determined to travel in my riding-habit, and take my bridle and saddle with me, and packed up my belongings in a pair of saddle-bags. I said farewell to my good friends— kissed Mrs. Weston and the bairns, and squeezed old Weston's hand, and told him he had a splendid little wife, which seemed to please him greatly, and so I started. " It was, of course, the first time I had been in a train, and I was a bit puzzled about things ; but I tried not to betray a sign that anything was strange, although I got a bit of a shock at the first tunnel. There were three other people in the carriage, and on the opposite seat was a young squatter, who evi- dently thought me very innocent, for he caught hold of my hand in another tunnel further on ; but I drew it back, and then pushed it rapidly forward again so that it knocked against something. " When we got into the light there were tears in his eyes, through a spark or something having got into one of them from the engine — at least, that was his explanation of the matter ; but he did not feel about for my hand in any more tunnels. I talked a little to them all, and made myself gene- rally agreeable. One was a rough-looking old chap, who, they said, owned half one of the towns some- where, and several big stations. He was very civil — and so was the young squatter, after the spark from the engine got into his eye. DORNA'S ADVENTURES CONTINUED. 127 "Presently I got tired of looking out at the interminable bush scenery, and shut my eyes and commenced to think, and what with the motion and rumbling noise of the wheels, I found the train a great place to think in. I thought over everything that had happened to Captain Buchanan that night, and of other things you don't know about ; and then I began to think about my father, and Jackey, and Tom ; and the more I thought of them the more puzzled I was, until the desire to know what those three were up to at D became irresistible, and I there and then determined that, whatever might be the consequences, somehow or other I would find out. " I went in with the rest of them and had some lunch at a railway station, and after that the train slowly climbed up the magnificent range of moun- tains to the table-land. I cannot tell you how I gazed across that wonderful landscape as we darted in and out through innumerable little tunnels. They told me that as the crow flies it was only sixty miles to the sea ; but it was the thought that Smoke Island was just across there that affected me most. " I went straight on that night to D , and slept at a big wooden hotel in the centre of a small, dried-up sort of a little town, which had sprung up mushroom-like in the middle of a big black-soil plain. The young squatter had left; but the old one was most pleasant and attentive, and I had a I2S AN AUSTRALIAN RUSH TRACK. real good time with him, although I little guesse d what was coming. " We were oft* at half-past five the next morning — ■ Mr. Jeremiah Crumbs, the squatter, and myself on the box-seat, and three Chinamen inside. I suppose I looked really nice, for Mr. Crumbs had got me some flowers from somewhere, and Jim, the driver (a long individual, who told no end of unconscion- able yarns for my special benefit), looked quite smart. We had not a bad team, and he made them travel, for we did eighteen miles before breakfast. " I found Mr. Crumbs to be held in great respect ; and the attention which they paid me all along the road was simply overwhelming. I could not make it out ; the landlady would be waiting at the elbow of her husband as the coach dashed up to the end of a stage — fur Jim always made a point of shaking up his horses, and going in at a swinging trot. " I said very innocently to Jim on the second day, ' You have wonderfully nice clean hotels along this mail route ; and the landlord and landlady are so smart and tidy, and the servants so clean. And we have had roast turkey twice, as well as lovely joints.' At this Jim smiled and winked and shook his head in a most extraordinary fashion, and said it was the best road to travel he had ever worked. " ' Yes,' chimed in Mr. Crumbs, ' it has occurred to me, Jim, as being very fortunate that everything DORNA'S ADVENTURES CONTINUED. 129 should be so pleasant. Some one must have told them that we had a strange young lady with us, on whom we wished to make a favourable im- pression. I never saw Mrs. Blakewell so clean and well-dressed in my life before, and certainly never ate such a dinner in the house. It was very creditable ; and as for old Blakewell, he looked to me a bit screwed — a most extraordinary thing — and he congratulated me on my company, and wished me luck ! ' " I found out the next day that that horrid driver had passed the word along by two stockmen, who were in front of us, that Mr. Crumbs had been married in Brisbane, and that I was his wife. He did it, of course, for a joke; but that day Mr. Crumbs must have heard some whisper of it, for he became uncommonly attentive, and seemed to have made up his mind to turn the joke into a fact. I felt a bit uncomfortable, but we had a very startling incident which determined me to take temporary advantage of Mr. Crumbs' evident admiration. " His buggy, it seems, was waiting for him at the next township, which place, in the ordinary course of events, we should reach at four o'clock that evening ; so I suppose he thought there was no time to lose. I had been very pleasant with him all the previous day, for he really was very nice to me ; and the way in which I allowed him to assist me on and off the coach must have led him to K i3o AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. think that he had a chance— as though I would marry any of the vain, selfish creatures ! "Anyhow, at breakfast, I found that he had persuaded Jim to ride inside with the Chinamen, who, he said, he was afraid were drinking too much, and he would ' tool ' the team along the next stage. So he and I were alone on the box. He certainly drove in great style, probably he was showing off a bit; but I feel sure they did something to the team we started with after breakfast. The men would not hitch on the outside traces of the leaders until Mr. Crumbs had the reins gathered up for a start and everything was right, and the moment those traces were hitched on, the man holding the leaders jumped clear away, as though there was going to be an earthquake, and the whole team made a jump which you would have expected to jerk the body of the coach straight off the wheels. The two front horses, it transpired, belonged to a doctor, who was having them quietened in the coach. " There was a creek about two hundred yards in front of us, and the mad things went down and through it at a gallop. I thought once or twice tli at we should have struck a tree or stump, the coach swayed about so; but Mr. Crumbs coolly smoked a cigar all the time, and kept the horses well in hand. I knew Jim was a bit scared, for I siiw his face peering out from the coach quite DORNA'S ADVENTURES CONTINUED. 131 whitish, as he saw one of the leaders kick up, and put his head down and ears back, as though he meant mischief. Jeremiah Crumbs, however, caught him a flick with the whip just at the moment, which let him know that the man holding the reins was his master. We raced up a hill, and he then pulled them up, and we swung along splendidly for half an hour, only occasionally breaking into a canter. " A few minutes afterwards we mounted a ridge, and saw a long downhill in front of us, with a bridge crossing a gully, and beyond that a long rise, and to my horror, halfway up the rise, I saw three horsemen jogging along at a regular bush- man's pace, and one of them leading a pack-horse. " I knew the whole crowd of them at once : it was the old man, with Tom and Jackey ! And at that very minute Mr. Crumbs began to talk quite confidentially, and I felt sure, from the tone of his voice and the general look of him, that he was about to propose to me. " I shall never forget the events which followed, as long as I live. 'Miss Stoneham,' said Mr. Crumbs, clearing his throat, ' have you noticed how well horses run in double harness? Those two leaders are really proud to be together, and they pull splendidly, although they were so skittish at starting; but this off-side horse is the younger of the two by several years, and yet they are a perfect match.' 132 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. " We were trotting along very steadily downhill with the brake on, and I kept my eye on the J3arty in front, who I reckoned in a few minutes would disappear over the crest of the hill. " ' Whatever shall I do ? ' I thought. " ' Do you know, Miss Stoneham,' continued Mr. Crumbs, ' we seem to get along really well together — pull in harness, you know. I wish,' he said, ' we were hitched together for life; I'd love you and take care of you, as I am sure a younger man never would. You know I've plenty of money, and you are just the woman I have been dreaming about all my life.' " We were now nearing the end of the hill, and I looked up into his glowing old face, and felt quite ashamed at deceiving him ; but there was no help for it, so I said, 'Are you quite sure that those t wo horses pull well together, Mr. Crumbs ? ' " ' Yes,' he said ; ' but if you would marry me, I would not ask you to pull a bit — I would do all the pulling.' "He was terribly in earnest. But I wanted to get hold of those reins, so I said, ' It's your splendid driving, Mr. Crumbs ; let me drive them up the hill myself, and then I shall be better able to tell whether they are really a well-matched pair.' He seemed to hesitate, so I smiled, and reached out my hand to take the reins. "'Wait until we are over the bridge,' he said. DORNA'S ADVENTURES CONTINUED. 133 "After we crossed he handed me the reins. * But,' I said, ' I must sit on the driver's seat, or I cannot drive properly,' and I gave him another smile. I believe that he would have given me my own way after that if he had known that I was going to wreck the coach right away, and kill the three Chinamen, and I quite melted towards him. " He leaned forward for me to pass him without another word, and as I dropped down in the driver's seat I grasped the reins firmly, and then lifted the whip out of the socket and dropped it back again — I wanted to be sure that everything was clear. We were on a bit of sideling, so I got the horses well in hand, and put them on the lower side of the road. I saw him gather confidence as he watched me handle the ribbons ; he little guessed that I had helped break in more than one four-in-hand on Smoke Island, with only rope reins. " ' You know how to handle a four-in-hand, Miss Stoneham,' he remarked. " I chirruped the horses into a smart trot, and then said, 'They go splendidly, Mr. Crumbs; now you must let me drive them for half an hour.' " ' But, Miss Stoneham ! ' " ' Now do,' I said. " ' Perhaps I'll let you call me Dorna,' I gasped, for I was desperate. 'If you don't, I think I'll hardly ever speak to you again.' " He at once, without a word, moved right over to 134 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. the other side of the seat, so as to have his foot handy for the brake on his side, and then said, ' Dorna, you shall drive just as far as you please.' It was delicious to hear how he said ' Dorna.' I knew that I was safe then. " ' All right,' I said, ' that's a bargain,' and with that we came to the top of the hill, and there in front of us was the party of three. " My heart beat wildly ; but I shortened my grip of the reins, and chirruped again to the horses. It was level ground, and we went along at a swinging pace, and were quickly overtaking them. I put both feet down on the splash-board, and cracked the whip, and the horses broke into a canter. " ' Steady ! Miss Stoneham,' exclaimed Mr. ( 'rumbs, and with that he called out ' Coo-ee-ee ' to the men in front. " The old man and the two blacks turned their heads around, and pulled their horses off the road to make way for the coach. " ' My golly ! ' I heard Jackey exclaim ; ' no gammon, that's Miss Dorna ! ' " When the old man saw me he turned perfectly livid. I just caught a glimpse of his face, and then, terrified lest he should call out to me, I lifted the whip and brought it straight down across the backs of the loaders, then caught up the lash, and put the thong end smartly on to the pole-horses. "The whole four of them leaped into a gallop, DORNA'S ADVENTURES CONTINUED. 135 and I saw my admirer reach, across to grab the reins. " « Don't you touch ! ' I screamed. ' Do you hear those men galloping after us? They are three bushrangers.' " At that very moment there was the report of a revolver, and a bullet whizzed above our heads. The old man had evidently gone mad ! " I shook the horses up again, for we were on a splendid bit of black-soil level country. My word, how they did travel ! But we could hear the party of three shouting behind us, as they galloped madly after the coach. " ' Haven't you any firearms ? ' I said. " ' No,' said he. " ' Here,' I said, « is a revolver,' and I pulled out the one I had bought at Ipswich from my pocket, with my left hand. He took it and fired three shots behind him without looking, and then said, ' They're pulling up, I think ; I must have hit one of them.' " ' It would not carry so far,' I said ; ' and you had better save the other shots, if we are leaving them behind.' " It never occurred to me before that there should be so much difference between four horses galloping because they are whipped, and the same horses galloping in fright. They were corn-fed, and every vein in their beautifully sleek bodies swelled out, 156 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. and every nerve seemed intensely strained. They were that scared that they snorted at the very pebbles on the road ; but the old coach rattled along after thern like a whirlwind, and as Mr. Crumbs said afterwards (very poetically, I thought), ' I sat on the box-seat driving like a queen of the storm.' " I had my foot on the brake on my side for a while, but not hard down, for I was afraid of tho machine catching fire ; and I guessed that by the time that we were clear of that party of three, we might want all the leather on it in some awkward pinch or other. There were no fences just here, and Jim had made a bit of a track for the coach here and there off the main road to clear a hole or some- thing. I took every one of these without a moment's hesitation. I had noticed that the old man behind was riding a colt of Lucifer's — almost as good as his sire — and I guessed that with no wheels, and mad Stoneham on his back, he'd take a lot of shaking off. " We were perfectly flying now, and the under- growth on each side of the road swept past us like a long piece of green ribbon. " All at once I called out, ' Don't put the brake down too hard, Mr. Crumbs,' and with that I showed them that trick with the whip I taught Alice in Smoke Island stockyard. The old man must have heard it (for it cracked like a pistol-shot), DORNA'S ADVENTURES CONTINUED. 137 and probably saw it too, and knew that under the circumstances it spelled ' Defiance ! ' in big capitals. " Really, I can't think what possessed me to do it, but I felt as though I had the strength of three men for the time being, and that those mad horses were like kittens under my hands. I took my foot right off my side of the brake, and just said to Mr. Crumbs, ' You steady her a bit on your side over the ruts ; ' and then, just to show off a bit, as the off- leader's rein had got twisted, I straightened it, and did so as deliberately as though we were waiting to start. You should have seen the look Mr. Crumbs gave me ! " But without doubt it was the grandest, maddest, coach ride I ever had, or heard of, or ever hope to have again ; and the only thing I regretted was that I hadn't Bright Hartley sitting alongside of Jeremiah Crumbs on the box-seat. " But it took some driving, though, for I had to steer that mad team clear of holes and ruts, and also keep as far out as possible from overhanging boughs, and avoid jerking the harness ; this, how- ever, was thoroughly strong — what there was of it ; the pole-horses were running without breeching — just bridles, collars, hames, and traces. These coaches, which carry her Majesty's mails out west, are, however, enormous affairs, hung on great leather springs, with very powerful brakes — so you may imagine, with four spirited horses running away 138 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSRt TRACR\ with the affair, it was something like driving an avalanche. " All this time there was fearful shouting from inside the coach. The Chinamen were frantic with terror, and Big Jim had to hold one of them in. " After the shooting he called out, ' What's the matter ? What's the matter ? ' and then started to climb out through the window. " ' Jim,' I said, leaning over to him, ' for Heaven's sake stay where you are, or there'll be bones broken. Some of those Chinamen may jump out. We arc all right. That was a bit of a brush we have just had with bushrangers.' " You should have seen his face. I heard him swear to the Chinamen that there were no burning bushrangers within five hundred miles. " All this had happened in a few minutes, and the horses were still tearing along at a mad gallop, and we were just on the brow of a long hill. Mr. Crumbs leaned forward again to take the reins. " ' Put the brake hard down on your side,' I said , ' ^\ r e cannot change seats now, and I can drive them just as well as you, or Jim either.' It was astonishing how cool I kept. "It was lucky that we did not meet with a team or anything on that hill, for it was half a mile long, with a wide shallow creek at the foot of it. There were several pretty sharp curves, too, but the coach swung round without capsizing, although I more DORNA'S ADVENTURES CONTINUED. 139 than once felt that we turned corners on two wheels, but the other two came down again all right, or I probably would not be writing this. " As we neared the creek, however, rny hair began to fairly rise on my scalp. Some fools had fallen a tree that morning fair across the roadway ! " I saw Mr. Crumbs turn as white as a sheet, and he gave me a look as much as to say ' Good-bye, sweetheart, we shall soon be at the end of our journey.' But I ejaculated, ' Keep your foot on that brake ! ' " Then I put mine hard down, and pulled those horses in with both hands, and, just before we reached the tree, turned them straight in among the undergrowth. They never flinched one bit, and the saplings went down before the weight of the coach with a swishing noise, some of them breaking off like cabbage-stalks, but most of them springing up behind the coach again half-broken and bent. " On we flew downhill, crashing into a lot of young pine saplings like a mad bull into a maize paddock. AVe barked several trees with the wheels, but, of course, where the horses and swingle-bars could pass the coach followed, and we luckily escaped hitting any heavy timber or old stumps. In a few minutes, after jolts and bumps which nearly sent Mr. Crumbs and myself flying off the box, and which battered the heads of the frantic inside passengers against the roof of the coach, we landed i4o AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. bodily into the creek, on the top of a lot of loose shingles. " As they splashed into the water, the horses at once commenced to pull up. " ' Put the whip on to them,' shouted Mr. Crumbs, ' and head them for the bank.' "In a few minutes the coach was on the road again, and by the time we were fifty yards up the hill those horses had had enough of it, and at the top I pulled them up and handed over the reins to Jim, who climbed on to the box looking as solemn as a grave-digger. " ' I reckon, Miss Stoneham,' said he, ' you have quietened these here horses a bit during the last quarter of an hour. But what the Jerusalem (only that was not exactly the word he said) do you mean by all this shooting ? ' " No one answered him. Mr. Crumbs looked at me with a wonderfully mixed expression on his face. I was no doubt a bit red and ruffled, and I had split both my gloves. "'Miss Stoneham,' he said, 'wherever did you learn to drive? My word, Jim, I'll stand cham- pagne and a dinner all round when we get into Cattle Creek township! Miss Stoneham, you're a daisy ! ' " ' But how in thunder did that black fellow come to know that your name was Dorna Stoneham ? ' queried Jim. DORNA'S ADVENTURES CONTINUED. 141 "'Perhaps your two friends, the stockmen, told him,' I said. "Jim was regularly bowled over, for he did not want Mr. Crumbs to know any further particulars of that little incident, so he gathered up his reins and drove on without another word. " < What's that ? ' said Mr. Crumbs. 142 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. CHAPTER XIII. FROM JEST TO EARNEST. " I saw that Jim was a bit afraid of the squatter, for he was a little god in the district we were approaching ; and if I had shown myself displeased on account of the foolish practical joke that Jim had started, Mr. Crumbs was so infatuated with me that it might have caused him to lose his billet. So I smoothed things over as well as I could, and as there was not a strap broken, and no one hurt, not much more was said, and we drove up to the next stage just as usual, only about three-quarters of an hour before the regulation time. I wanted to caution them not to say anything about the bush- rangers, but I felt too nervous, so decided to let things take their chance. " ' You're early, Jim ! ' said the hotel-keeper, as we pulled up. ' Horses been running away ? ' " ' Noo— o,' drawled out the driver ; < it's these horses of the doctor's that knowed a nearer road through the bush.' " ' None of your gammon, Jim.' FROM JEST TO EARNEST. 143 a 1 Beg pardon, mam,' he continued, looking the while across from me to Mr. Crumbs. ' Fine day, Mr. Crumbs.' " Jim was pulling sundry parcels out of the boot of the coach during these remarks, so Mr. Crumbs helped me down the while, and I was shown into a beautifully iclean bedroom by the robust lady of the house, who informed me very respectfully that dinner would be served in half an hour. " The champagne was there all right at dinner, for Mr. Crumbs decided not to wait until we reached the township, so Jim was invited in to eat with us. No doubt the expensive wine helped to deepen the general impression that Mr. Crumbs was no longer a bachelor. I inquired of the girl, who I noticed scanning my fingers — no doubt for a wedding-ring — whether any stockmen had passed the previous day. She answered in the affirmative, which quito explained everything to me. " ' Dorna,' commenced Mr. Crumbs, as we stood alone near the coach just before they brought the fresh horses up. " ' Mr. Crumbs, I only allowed you to call me by my Christian name while I was driving.' " He looked greatly abashed, and corrected him- self. ' I beg your pardon, Miss Stoneham, but you said neither Yes nor No.' " It was a critical moment. I dared not fall out with him, so I said, ' Mr. Crumbs, you are very kind, 144 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. and I really have a good deal to thank you for ; but I must have time to think, and we have twenty-five more miles to ride together before we come to Cattle Creek township; you may ask me again then.' " The old chap became quite radiant at this, and, as the champagne had gone all round the coach, we started off again the best of friends. I was only troubled at the recollection of the length of Jim's conversation with Mr. Bruce, the landlord ; there were some ominous gesticulations, and I overheard the word ' bushrangers.' However, Mr. Crumbs told Jim to keep his horses moving, and we did more than the regulation six miles an hour. We drove down the main street of Cattle Creek township shortly before four o'clock. "The whole town was decked out with green bushes, and here and there a bit of bunting was flying. " ' Bless me ! ' said Mr. Crumbs, ' these good people must have entirely lost their reckoning, and think that it's Christmas Day ! ' " Jim looked mighty solemn, and I heard him swear under his breath that those benighted stock- men had carried the joke too far. I gave him one look, at which he hung his head in pretended re- pentance, but I could hear him half choking with suppressed laughter. "As we drove up to the principal hotel, we saw FROM JEST TO EARNEST. 1^5 that they had big gum-bushes tied to each of the verandah-posts, and a little crowd, in which I after- wards heard were the police magistrate, and clerk of petty sessions, the telegraph master, and pound- keeper, and other officials, raised quite a little cheer. " Mr. Crumbs handed me off the coach, lookimr quite confused, and called the landlady forward to take charge of me, and then led the way into the bar to shout for the general public. It was a dreadful sell ! " The landlady, who was decked out most gorgeously, showed me into the best parlour, which was simply smothered in antimacassars, and asked me to take a seat while the girl took some water and my luggage up into my room. " ' You'll not think of going out to the station to-night, marm, of course,' said she ; ' we have the big bedroom specially done up for you. Mr. Crumbs does not usually care for it — says it's too hi"-; but excuse me a minute, that chambermaid takes a lot of looking after,' and with that, before I could get out a word, she had bustled out of the room. " It was a dreadful position to be in, and I be<»an to positively hate old Mr. Crumbs ! " Just then who should come in, as red as a turkey- cock, but the gentleman himself. I at once rose, full of offended dignity, feeling that I did not care twopence if I walked all the rest of the way to the Western Plains. I'd stop this farce. And vet I 1 46 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. knew that Mr. Crumbs was just as much the victim of this horrid practical joke as myself, although from my standpoint I felt that I had a perfect right to blame him for it all. "'Miss Stonekam,' he said, in evident distress, ' these people have made such a great mistake that I am almost ashamed to look at you. A report has somehow preceded us that we are married, and the news is all over the district, and there's a congratulatory address being prepared for us down at the Court-house by the C.P.S., to be signed by the leading townspeople.' " ' But of course you have told them that it is all a foolish mistake,' I said, almost crying in my indignation. " ' No, I couldn't bring myself to do it,' he said, almost crying himself in his nervous excitement and perplexity, and alternate hope and fear. " ' You see, Dorna,' he continued, hurriedly, ' the parson just happens to be visiting the township, and you told me that I might ask you again when we reached here ; and, my dear Dorna, you might marry me at once, and I'll love you, and by Jingo ! my dear, I'll prove it, for I'll have old Blake, the lawyer, up before we're married, and I'll settle fifty thousand pounds upon you, and Marraroo Plains station into the bargain, and you'll be the richest and happiest little woman in the whole district.' "This really splendid offer completely took my FROM JEST TO EARNEST. H7 breath away, and I was that puzzled I did not know what to say. " ' Dorna,' he pleaded, as I was silent, ' say it's a bargain, and I'll send round for the lawyer and parsou straight away.' " ' Mr. Crumbs ' I commenced. " ' Don't call me that,' he said ; ' say Jeremiah — that's what Bella always calls me.' " ' Who is Bella ? ' I asked, partly out of curiosity and partly to gain time. " ' My sister. But, Dorna, don't you trouble about her, or any one else. Now, what do you say, my dear sweet lass, shall I send for lawyer and parson, and have the job fixed up to-night ? ' " You know I never was much of a fool, and I wasn't going to throw away a chance like this without carefully weighing it, so I said — " Jeremiah, I feel nattered and honoured by your very generous proposal, but it Avould not be fair to either of us for me to take advantage of it to-night. You are excited through the singular events of to-day's journey, and by the absurd practical joke which has been played upon us. If I consented to marry you in haste, you might repent at leisure all the rest of your lifetime — you know so little about me ' " ' I know that you're a perfect jewel,' he pro- tested, stopping me ; ' you're the grandest, bravest, sweetest girl that was ever born ! I couldn't repent 143 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. it, and if any one else objected they would have to go. You would be my wife.' " ' Good gracious, Dorna ! call me Jeremiah ouce again,' he exclaimed ; ' I feel as though I am half crazy with joy,' and at that the foolish old chap picked up the soft felt hat he had been wearing, whirled it round his head, and threw it with a loud thump up against the ceiling. " ' Jeremiah,' I said, ' have you been drinking any more champagne ? ' " He quietened down in a moment, and became as calm and placid as a judge. "'No,' he said, 'it wasn't champagne, it was feelings.' " ' Sit down,' I said. " He did as he was told, and waited patiently for me to speak. It did seem ridiculous, and I thought what fools men make of themselves when they first take a fancy for a woman. Here was this rich squatter throwing his hat againt the ceiling, and dancing around half cracked, because a bit of a girl like me had called him Jeremiah, while all the time there probably wasn't another person in the whole of Cattle Creek township who would have dared to call hiin anything less nor more than Mr. Crumbs. However, I did not love him a bit, and for the time being, at any rate, I had no intention of marrying liim, for I had set my heart on going out to Marjory at Western Plains ; besides, I did think once about FROM JEST TO EARNEST. 149 Mr. Hartley ; he certainly had taken a fancy to ine, or he would not have stood so much of my nonsense. But there ! I did not want to think, or know, or say, or do anything, except get out of Cattle Creek township as quickly as possible. " ' Jeremiah,' I said, ' how far is it to your station ? ' " ' Fourteen and a half miles.' " ' Is your sister at home ? ' "'Yes.' " ' Then you drive me out there at once, and don't say anything at all to these people ; and you might tell the parson you'll be pleased to see him out at your station to conduct divine service some day early next week.' " ' May I kiss you, Dorna ? ' said he, with a beam- ing face. " ' No,' I said, ' certainly not. I have not promised to marry you yet.' " ' But you'll call me Jeremiah, and let me call you Dorna ? ' lie pleaded. " ' By the way, there is a dinner laid for us in the big room,' he continued ; ' and I see the police magistrate and a few others hanging round, waiting to be asked in.' " ' Tell them that we are going on to Clifton Plains to-night, and that I prefer for us to dine alone. And hurry them around with that buggy.' " A handsome single-seated buggy, with a man- servant on horseback, waited for us after dinner, and 150 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. hats were lifted and curtseys dropped and smiles given us as the pair of grand blood horses rattled our buggy out of the township. I bore my blushing honours, I should say, with becoming modesty, knowing that -a hundred women in that township would have leaped at the chance of signing them- selves ' Mrs. Jeremiah Crumbs ; ' but I said very little on the journey, for I felt tired, and also uncom- fortable at this most awkward fix in which I found myself. I was really only about three hundred miles west of D , and I had at least another five hundred to travel to get to Marjory, and my only friend in all the district was this wealthy squatter. It was a funny fix to be in — even for a Stoneham girl ; and I wondered whether Jeremiah would prove as ardent towards me in his sister's presence, and in his own house, as upon a coach. Men are queer creatures, and often take sudden changes. 'Bella Crumbs ! Bella Crumbs ! ' I kept saying to myself. " ' Sisters are apt to boss their brothers,' I thought, and I wondered how Jeremiah got along with Bella. I knew from the first that she was bound to hate and despise me — it was in the natural order of things. " The stars were shining brightly overhead as we crossed a stony ridge, and then drove through a pair of heavy gallows gates which the man had opened for us, and rattled up to the white front entrance gates of Clifton Plains head station. ( i5i ) CHAPTER XIV. MISS BELLA CRUMBS. " You will be getting terribly tired of reading this long letter, but the strangeness of my story must be my apology for its length. I want you to know it all, and somehow, although it seems to me an astonishing amount of writing, probably it will appear less to you. I would sit up all night to read about your goings on at Smoke Island since I left you, although I expect you have got on all right enough without me ; and as for the old man — but there, I must try and tell my story without anticipating. " I don't think anything can be more exasperating than having to wait by yourself, as I had to do, in a strange house. But you know men have not a bit of thought ! " Mr. Crumbs, on our arrival, called out for ' Bella,' and showed me into a sort of best parlour off the hall, and then went back to the buggy, and that was the last of him I saw for the night. " Now, fancy that, for a man who had just before 152 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. thrown his hat up against the ceiling, and urged me to marry him that very night ! I sat there expect- ing every moment that Miss Bella Crumbs would bustle in to greet and welcome me, if only in deference to her brother. But I saw no Miss Bella Crumbs ! " I must have sat alone for nearly half an hour, when an ancient, sour-looking, middle-aged woman came in. " ' Tea is ready, inarm,' she said. " ' May I go to my room and take off my hat first ? ' I said. "'Yes, inarm, certainly. Miss Crumbs is away visiting a sick woman, the wife of a stockman, across the creek,' — (there is always some place across the creek about a station). ' Mr. Crumbs has gone over to Woolshed Paddock to see a valuable horse that lias been taken ill,' she continued. "You may guess how glad I felt that I still retained the appellation of Dorna Stoneham. It would have been just the same if I had been Mrs. Jeremiah Crumbs ! He would have gone off after that wretched horse and left me. "However, I told Betty, the servant, that I was tired and would not wait, so I hurried with my tea. It was a good, plain meal, laid in a bachelor and spinster sort of room, with stiff, straight-backed chairs covered in hair cloth. I sat up as proper as you please, and the aforesaid elderly individual MISS BELLA CRUMBS. 133 told me to please make myself at home, and ring if I wanted anything. 'Miss Crumbs,' she said, * may be in at any moment.' " I heartily wished that Miss Crumbs and Mr. Crumbs might both delay their coming until I had finished with the steak and tomatoes and apple-pie. I got Betty to take my things to my room, and I finished my tea and announced that I should retire for the night. " It was not a bad room they had given me — indeed, it was both comfortably furnished and com- modious. There was a kind of bay-window, in addition to a square one, and big cupboards. I found in the morning that the bay-window looked on to a flower and fruit garden, which sloped down to the creek. There was no key to lock the door, however, so I propped a chair up against it, and was soon asleep. " When I awoke in the morning there was a pleasant-faced woman of about five and thirty standing smiling at the foot of the bed, with a cup of tea in her hand. "'I'm Bella,' she said with a smile, 'and I've brought you a cup of tea. I am so sorry that you had such an unfortunate reception last night. Jeremiah has been up this two hours, worrying around, and he would have me come right in with the tea, to apologize the very moment you woke up.' " It was nice tea. with sweet, rich cream, and 154 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. lovely thin bread and butter, and I found Bella Crumbs almost as nice as the tea, so we were soon good friends. Jeremiah had told her, she said, that he was going to marry me, and, looking at me with an approving smile, Bella said that she liked me at first sight, and was very glad. And really, when I heard from her the story of their early life, I was not so much surprised that she wanted Jeremiah married. " However, I made a great fuss, for I wished to continue my journey at once ; but they would not hear of it, and, to induce me to stay for a few days, Mr. Crumbs promised that, as I would not have him to accompany me, Bella should go with me several days' journey, and that Ave should have two trust- worthy stockmen to travel with us, and see after the horses, etc. They would ride and drive spare horses in front of them, while Bella and myself drove together in a buggy. " I should like to tell you all about the house and gardens and station, but it will never do to begin, for I don't know where it would end. I learnt from Bella that their father, Thomas Crumbs, had been 'sent out' as a boy for some ridiculous thing. He was a baker's lad, and went home to his master fourpence short in his cash one night, so an enlightened English judge of those strange days had him deported with others to Botany Bay. Well, -when their mother died, she left Thomas MISS BEILA CRUMBS. 155 Crumbs with two boys, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and one girl, Bella, and money and property to the value of over a quarter of a million. There were four stations well stocked, and a heap of money invested and in the bank; but her father swore that if one of them attempted to get married during his lifetime he would not leave them a cent. "They all three of them had any quantity of opportunities of marriage ; but they worked on and waited, hoping that their father would change his mind, or, as Ezekiel said, 'do some other thing.' But they worked and saved and grew richer and richer in vain, the old man keeping everything under his thumb, and would neither change his mind nor die. So at last Ezekiel, who had been in love with a girl for nearly ten years, told him he was not going to wait any longer, and one day marched out with only a five-pound note in his pocket, and got married, and forfeited his share ; but Jeremiah, who was the eldest, and Bella, the next, went on in the old round, day by day, and year by year, until the old man at last died, when they found out that Jeremiah had been left two-thirds and Bella one- third of the property, but on condition that not a penny of it was given to Ezekiel. " ' You marry Jeremiah, dear,' said Bella. ' I don't want him to marry any of the women-folk in the neighbourhood. He is wonderfully struck with you, and he has been a good son and a good brother ; 156 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. and although he is a little old, he is not as old as he looks, and I am sure he will make a pattern husband.' " She was only a little woman, but really I found her that good and kind that I almost said Yes to her brother so as to please her ; but almost was not quite; and I couldn't properly forgive him for leaving me by myself that first evening. I told him that it would have been just the same if I had been his wife, and that if he wanted to marry me he would have to fetch me from the Western Plains. " ' All right, Dorna,' he said, ' you shall go, and I will be at Western Plains with a parson within a month after you arrive there.' So it was settled, and after three weeks' travelling, and a lot of hair- breadth escapes and wonderful adventures, here I am at last at Western Plains, writing about my travels, and in the daily expectation of finding myself face to face with Jeremiah Crumbs. " What I shall say to him when he comes — which I am afraid he will — I cannot tell. I am sure that I don't want to marry him — nor any one else. It's my belief that one-half the married women have been bothered into it by the men. " I ought to tell you that the last hundred odd miles I travelled by myself. I expected that Marjory's husband would be waiting for me at Yarrabong station, so I sent Ealph and Jansen, the two stockmen, back when we reached the MISS BELLA CRUMBS. 157 supposed border-line between South and West Australia — no one here knows exactly where they are. I travelled on to Yarrabong alone. You see, it was a great plain country, and when they left me to return, Yarrabong was actually in sight, so that it seemed all right enough. But it is very difficult to gauge distances correctly on these plains. It looked about five miles, but proved to be nearer five and twenty. " However, I must not let myself run on with any details of what I saw that hot afternoon on those great far-reaching prairies, where the grass was on an average five feet high, for I have to tell you of my next two days' adventures, which will bring my story to a close for the present. "I scared the people at Yarrabong, as well as myself, however, that afternoon over a mirage 1 saw, which I took for a fearful grass fire, and rode up to the station at a gallop to let them know about it. " I found Yarrabong a queer place. The people are named Twining, and they are the nearest neigh- bours but one to Marjory and John. They don't rent or own the place, but just squat on the land, and scarcely see a visitor from one year's end to another. There are three brothers of the Twinings, all bachelors, and really not nearly as rough as you might expect. Their father was a shepherd, and the boys managed to save a hundred pounds or so 158 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. shearing, and bought a hundred head of cattle, and pushed out into the Never Never country. They have an arrangement by which they get mails once a quarter ; but they own allegiance to no govern- ment, and pay no rent. For years they carried their lives in their hands with hostile natives. " John's run is just the same, and is divided from the Twinings by a strip of desert ; but the few sheep they have are shepherded by blacks, and the cattle look after themselves. There is, of course, nothing in the shape of overstocking out here, so the absence of boundaries and fences makes no difference. "I found, on making myself known, that my telegram, which was supposed to have caught their quarterly mail, had not passed through, so John was not there to meet me. It was seventy miles on from there to Western Plains, and I intended to ride that distance by myself. I could, of course, have waited at Yarrabong. Two of the Twinings were at home, and when they knew I was Marjory's sister, and that my brother-in-law, John Holdfast, of AVestern Plains, was to have met me, they pressed me, in their rough way, to stop for a day or two, and then one of them would ride over with me ; but as I learnt that I could have a fresh horse, I per- sisted in going on the next day, for I had a spell at another place that week. "There was another thing, too. Although the Twinings were kind, and all that, I found out that MISS BELLA CRUMBS. 159 they Lad 110 white woman about the place, and I could not feel at home there. The station home- stead was just a number of rough slab shanties, with covered ways between them. I guessed, too, that I had turned the elder of the two brothers out of his sleeping quarters ; and although they were hospitality itself, and, in a rough way, did every possible thiug to make me feel at home, I could not bear the place. " After an hour or so a black gin, who could talk English very well, was brought in to wait upon me ; she had shoes and stockings on, and a neat print gown, and coloured handkerchief fantastically twined around her woolly head. But the simple creature, in her vanity at being so dressed, let it out at once that she was got up for the occasion, and soon made me know that she thought herself so fine a lady that she could not be expected to do any work. I stumbled over her on one of the verandahs afterward, smoking a short pipe and playing cards with three other blacks. It is a wild, rough life on these interior stations, I can tell you, although I believe the Twinings are better than most. " I determined, therefore, to go on, especially as I learnt that a couple of teams had been through the previous month, and that there had been no rains to destroy their tracks. You see, there are no proper roads out here— just bridle-paths from :6o AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. place to place, and these are so little used, and so cut up by cattle and other tracks, that travelling is done by the sun, and compass, and watercourses, and the lay of the country, as much as anything else. Wild horses (brumbies) and wild cattle are occasionally met with, and, when you camp out, it is wise to keep a look-out for dingoes, so you may imagine that the Twinings regarded me as a very daring and extraordinary sort of woman ; but I gave them to understand that I was a regular bush girl, and had not had an ordinary bringing-up. " You will wonder, perhaps, how I managed to get along from station to station in this wild country after parting with Bella Crumbs ; but you must remember that I had the two stockmen with me until now, and we got introductions from one owner or manager to another, and the sight of a young girl on horseback out in these wild parts put them all in a nutter, so that we had no trouble to borrow horses, or anything we wanted. Then, too, both Mr. Crumbs and John Holdfast were known by name ; and it is wonderful how hospitable and neighbourly these far western squatters are. " Jim, the elder of the three Twinings, said at last, with great gravity, that he would not think of my going all the way alone, and announced at supper that he should ride with me the next morning as far as his out-station, which Mas thirty miles on the road, and then he would get his man MISS BELLA CRUMBS. i6t to put me well upon the road the next day, unless I would prefer for him to come on with me. He said that he had not seen John Holdfast for seven months, and would not at all mind the ride over. " So it was arranged, and we left Yarrabong soon after sunrise the next morning, riding regular wiry bush horses. Mr. Twining's was a brumbie they had broken in, and the horse would look round at me every now and then for the first few miles, and snort at me like a wild thing. I suppose I was the first woman he had ever seen on horseback. Mr. Twining had put me upon a splendid blood-horse, which he said had won several races, but was as quiet as a lamb, except when ridden fast in company with other horses. "I don't know why that morning ride was so specially impressed upon me, unless that I now, for the first time, began to feel that I was nearing my long and weary journey's end. There was a heavy dew on everything as we passed out of the slip-rails of the station paddock by the side of a stockyard, and were at once upon the wild, trackless, fenceless bush. " We rode through a belt of she-oaks, and there was neither road nor track, for the teams previously referred to had left by another set of slip-rails. "We picked them up later on, and then kept to a bit of a track, for I found that the people here do their best to keep a track marked for general convenience; M t62 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. but I soon saw that I could never have found my way here alone. " ' I would like to reach the Eock Wells, if possible, by about eight o'clock,' said Twining ; but ' we must not knock the horses up at the start, if you are to get into Western Plains fairly early to-morrow. There is some good sweet grass at the Wells, and there is water still there, so we can give the horses a feed and drink, and have some tea and damper for ourselves.' " He talked away, and gave me all sorts of information as to what to do if I was lost, and how to distinguish between cattle tracks which led to and away from water. The out-station we were going to was known as Salt Bush Hollow, where he had a German superintendent and his wife stopping, with a couple of black boys as stockmen. It was a bit of country by a small lagoon — a sort of oasis in a desert — and he had two or three hundred head of cattle there. He said that the chief work of his people was to see that none of the stock were speared by the blacks; there was no fear of their leaving the out-station, as there was always plenty of water and grass. " The country we were now riding over was mostly black and chocolate soil ; but there was no water, except in floods ; and then, he said, the whole place in a few hours was turned into a groat sea. " ' How do people escape them ? ' I asked. MISS BELLA CRUMBS. 163 " ' I will sliow you,' he said. ' Just ou the other side of this flat I was caught in a flood-storm once, and had to camp for three days before the water went down ; and the old camp is still there.' " It proved to be a sort of platform about three feet high, made by pulling logs together and piling them up in a square, one on top of the other, and then putting boughs over them for a support. " ' I was for nearly three days,' he said, ' camped on the top of that affair, with my horse tied to a tree, standing in about two feet of water. As soon as it began to fall I started, and had to swim in several of the hollows ; and I rode ten miles by the sun, without once seeing the colour of the ground until I reached the station fence. That was the worst flood I have known.' The flies were very bad here and for an hour or so after we had camped at the Bock Wells, where we found good water, and had something to eat. The flies are little black wretches such as arc unknown on the coast, and they are terribly troublesome, especially in well-grassed country. All the men wear veils. When we got on to the desert, with nothing but a few spinifex bushes about, they entirely left us; but they came back again when we reached the grass country, which for many square miles surrounds Salt Bush Hollow out -station. They are specially bad for about two or three 164 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. months during the hot weather — and then look out for sandy-blight ! "However, we rode into the out-station about midday, and found not a creature at home except a couple of dogs. It was just a rough shanty made of strips of bark, with a lean-to ; three rooms in all. The woman was down at the lagoon with her two children, as Mr. Twining guessed, doing the family washing, and he rode down to bring her up. The poor creature kissed my hands and cried when she saw me ; she hadn't seen a white woman for over eighteen months. "Imagine the sort of lives these people must live out here ; and yet it was a pretty situation, for the house was erected upon a rise overlooking a great grassy hollow plain, with the lagoon, which seemed to run itself out into a big swamp at one end, sparkling in the clear atmosphere under the summer sun. ( 165 ) CHAPTER XV. THE WESTERN PLAINS. " The superintendent's wife had me to herself that afternoon, for Mr. Twining and her husband went off looking up some cattle. The good woman really made one wonderfully at home and comfortable, and told me all about her past life. She had been a German servant-girl, and had moved from one station to another farther and farther westward, until meeting with a countryman of her own, she fell in love, and rode sixty miles to be married, and then came straight out to this terribly lonely place. " She told me that they had once been for five months without flour in the house ; but this was one of the least of her troubles. She was so pleased to have one of her own sex to talk to again that she did not know how to do enough for me. "The next morning Mr. Twining accompanied me with the intention of riding through to Western Plains. He explained that there was some rou^h hilly country, with stony barren ridges, and a strip 166 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. of yellow sandy clay desert for about five arid twenty miles, through which we should have to pass ; and that afterwards it was a pretty smart descent to Western Plains. " ' Jack Holdfast has a wonderful bit of country out there,' he said, ' and the grandest water-hole in the interior — a regular big lake.' " Somehow that morning I could not help think- ing about the old man and Tom and Jackey, and I wondered whether by this time they would have returned to Smoke Island. " A little before midday we come upon a mob of wild horses. The stallion with them snorted and pranced towards us with his long waving tail and great flowing mane and splendid paces ; he looked a really grand creature. But Mr. Twining unslung his rifle, and looked suspiciously around. " ' Those horses ought not to be so far up on the ranges as this,' he said ; ' they must have been dis- turbed by some one ; there are likely enough some blacks about.' " ' Are the blacks here dangerous ? ' I asked. " ' No, I don't think so,' he replied. ' We always treat them fairly, and they are learning that it is best policy to leave us and our cattle alone; but wait for a minute, there's a track here, I see, which is fresh.' "He jumped off his horse, and examined the ground carefully. THE WESTERN PLAINS. 167 " ' Why,' he said at last, ' there's some one on in front of us leading- a pack-horse; a most extra- ordinary thing that he should have passed the station unknown to any one. But he cannot be alone.' "After a long and patient examination of the bush in several directions he came back to me and said — " ' I have found the tracks of at least two more horsemen. They must have been camped somewhere near the lagoon at Salt Bush Hollow last night, for there is no water within six miles, unless they have come from the Wild Horse Lagoon ; but it's queer that they did not call at the out-station. Looking out, I suppose, for land. Confound it ! we shall soon get such a population out here that one of these wretched Governments will be sending us a notice to pay them rent.' " ' Why do you think there is a pack-horse ? ' I asked. '"Oh, that's easily seen by the tracks,' he answered ; ' no two riders would keep together as two of these tracks do. One must be a led horse. "We'll push on, however, and find out about them from themselves. It is most extraordinary! unless, like you, they should be making for Western Plains. I generally credit myself with knowing all about any one travelling in these parts ; but I am puzzled, I confess. Two of them are riding shod horses, too.' i6S AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. " We were now riding over thickly treed ranges, and there was no chance of seeing any distance ahead. " My companion was seemingly travelling almost entirely by the sun and the lay of the country. " ' If these people are strangers, how is it that they can make their way so confidently through such wild and trackless bush as this ? ' I asked. " ' They have a black with them,' replied my companion, ' and he is evidently a good tracker. They are now following the tracks of the teams ; we have only just struck them again, and on these stony ridges it is not so easy to make them out, as they are getting fairly old ; but we shall be on to the plains soon, and then you will see them distinctly. Here is a bit of good road, suppose we canter for a while, and see if we cannot catch them up.' " Just as he spoke we heard two reports of a repeating rifle, quickly following each other. " The sound seemed to come from our right, and yet it was evidently some distance ahead. " ' They're shooting scrub turkeys for supper, or they would scarcely have fired twice like that ; they might have saved themselves the trouble, however, for there are plenty of them and other game near the water which they seem to be making tracks for. They are leaving the Western Plains to the left, and are now riding tow aids the Blind Stockman's THE WESTERN PLAINS. 169 Water-holes 011 the margin of the Big Desert ; but what they want there is a puzzler ! ' " ' Yes, it's a queer name for the water-holes,' he said, in reply to a remark of mine. ' There's a story slung on to it ; but let's ride along this spur, and I'll perhaps get some information about these people, and, if I am not mistaken, show you a pretty bit of landscape into the bargain.' "After a quarter of an hour's rough riding we turned around a big projecting rock and came on to the brow of a precipice. A tiny rock platform, which seemed to project right out from the side of the mountainous range into space, afforded just room enough for the horses to stand. " We were above the tops of the highest trees which grew upon the steep hillside below us, and far as the eye could reach there stretched an immense area of rolling downs, almost treeless, and in the far distance, right upon the horizon, at least thirty miles away, was what seemed to me the ocean. " I was so overwhelmed with astonishment that fur a few minutes I could not say a word. You may laugh, but you cannot possibly imagine the sensation. " To look down upon that wonderful panorama, after having been boxed up, as it were, among monotonous honeysuckles and gum-trees, with dry, hot winds and a limited horizon for nearly a i7o AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. month, was as though the mind had been suddenly released from a sort of prison, and was once more permitted to look out upon the world. I suppose the fact was, I missed the bay and the ocean ! " Twining was not looking at the landscape, however, but carefully scanned the bush at the base of the range, where he evidently saw something Avhich interested him. " ' It will take nearly an hour for me to overtake them,' he said at last ; ' but I must find out who they are. I will put you on a spur which you can follow right on to the plain, and then you can easily pick up the teamsters' tracks and jog along, and I will overtake you before you have gone half a dozen miles.' " ' Call the dogs,' he said, referring to two fine animals which he had brought with him, 'and I will tell them that they must go with you until I come.' " ' Here, Hector ! Castor ! ' and as he called their names he made a gesture to them in my direction, which they evidently perfectly understood, and in a moment he had touched his horse with the spur, and I heard him cantering off through the trees. " I called the dogs, and they came trotting after me as though I was a mob of young cattle they had been left in charge of. They were a queer- looking couple— a sort of cross between a kangaroo THE WESTERN PLAINS. 171 and cattle dog — but they were wonderfully intelli- gent — invaluable for working cattle in wild country. " I have explained that Mr. Twining was making a short cut through the bush instead of tracking the party in front of him. He no doubt knew just where he would pick them up. But I was on their tracks, and through a most remarkable incident I found out just where they had turned off to the right, and tvho they were. " I was walking my horse along, talking to the dogs, when I happened to notice a freshly broken branch to the right of me, and near to it there lay something white — it appeared to be a piece of paper, and I was riding up to see, when one of the dogs leaped forward and brought it to me in his mouth. " It was evidently something which the travellers in front of us had accidentally dropped, for you don't find pieces of paper lying about promiscuously in the bush at this distance from civilization. I slid out of the saddle and took it from the dog. " It was an envelope, and I may say that Robin- son Crusoe's astonishment was a very trifling thing, when he saw the footprints in the sand, compared with mine. " It was an empty envelope addressed to ' Aaron Stoneham, Esq., Smoke Island, Moreton Bay.' " I almost fainted at the thought of the narrow escape I had had. The party which Mr. Twining 172 AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH TRACK. had ridden after was none other than the old man, Long Tom, and Jackey. " You may imagine my feelings ! I was that upset that it was with the utmost difficulty I mounted my horse again. " To know that those three were within a mile or two of me was terrible. For the time being I was downright sorry that I had not married Mr. Crumbs ! " I seemed to lose sight of all other considera- tions in my desire to get as far away from them as possible. Mr. Twining never crossed my mind. I determined to push on to Marjory at any risk. Following the spur, the timber became less dense, and opened out as we struck the slope leading on to the plain. Then I zigzagged to and fro until I hit the team tracks. They were quite distinct, and I urged my horse into a smart canter in the direction which they took. I soon had to pull up, however, for the grass grew in big tussocks, and my nag was several times very near falling, so I pushed on as fast as I dared, turning now and then an anxious glance behind me, expecting every minute to find myself followed by Mr. Twining and the party of three. " ' AVhat on earth,' I ejaculated, ' do they want out here ? Why have they turned off in the direction of the Blind Stockman's Water-holes ? ' I rode on hour after hour in a state of feverish excitement^ followed closely by the two faithful THE WESTERN PLAINS. 173 dogs, until the mountainous range behind me seemed to drop nearer to the plain, and the trees in front grew more distinguishable. " I was getting terribly tired, and my horse flinched a bit under the saddle, telling me very plainly that the side-saddle was chafing him. How thankful I was that the teamsters' tracks continued to be fairly well marked. They were like company in that lonely place. " I watched the sun sinking, seemingly more rapidly, toward the horizon, and wondered when I should see the waters of the lake burning beneath its rays. Trees now began to be sprinkled here and there around me, and shut out the distant view ; but far as I could see behind me, there was no sii