* Cattle stealer.

The girl's frank sarcasm delighted Forde, the more so as he knew that what she had said was perfectly true.

"Well, it is a new country, you see, Miss Fraser, and——"

Just then the two horses raised their heads and neighed, and Forde, going to the edge of the bluff, saw a horseman coming along the beach in a direct line for where they were camped.

"We are to have company, Miss Fraser. There is some one riding direct for the bluff."



CHAPTER IX

In less than half-an-hour the new-comer, who was walking his horse, slowly rode up to the bluff, and raised his hat to Miss Fraser and her companion.

"Good-morning!" he said, as he dismounted. "I saw you as I was coming along the beach and so turned off. Am I on the right track for Kaburie, and Fraser's Gully?"

"Yes," replied Forde, "this is the turn off here for both Kaburie and the Gully; the main track goes on to Boorala. Will you have some tea?"

"Thank you, I shall be very glad of a drink." Then again raising his hat to Kate, he said, "My name is Gerrard. Are you Miss Fraser?"

"Yes," replied Kate smiling, "and you are Mr Gerrard of Ocho Rios, I am sure, for I have seen your photograph. But how did you guess I was Kate Fraser?"

"I really could not tell you; but somehow I felt certain that you were the young lady whom Mr Lacey described so admiringly to me a day or two ago."

"Did he? The dear old man! How nice of him," and she laughed merrily. "Mr Gerrard, this is my friend, the Reverend Mr Forde, of Boorala—and hundreds of other towns as well."

The two men shook hands, and in a few minutes Gerrard was conversing with him and his fair companion as if he had known them for years, and both Forde and Kate were much interested in learning the object of his visit to Kaburie.

"I do hope you will buy Kaburie, Mr Gerrard," said Kate; "it is a really splendid station, and I am sure that you will like it better than your place away up on Yorke's Peninsula. Of course," she added, with her usual serene frankness, "I am very, very sorry that Mrs Tallis is not coming back, for we are great friends, and always exchanged visits once a week, and now I shall miss going there very much. And, oh, the garden of which she was so proud! I suppose now——" she stopped, and reddened slightly.

"Go on, please," said Gerrard with assumed gravity, though his eyes were smiling.

"I was about to be rude enough to say that most men don't care much for flowers."

"If I buy Kaburie, Miss Fraser, I will come to you, cap in hand, and humbly beg you to instruct me what to do; and furthermore, I promise that when you say 'do this' it shall be done."

"You are undertaking a big contract, Mr Gerrard," said Forde with a laugh, as he rose to go to his horse; "you will have to send to Sydney for a Scotch gardener."

As soon as the clergyman was out of hearing Gerrard, who had remembered Lacey's remark about "a parson being in the running," said quietly, "I certainly am a most forgetful man, Miss Fraser, and ask your forgiveness. Here is a letter for you, which my friend Aulain asked me to deliver to you."

The girl blushed deeply as she took the letter, for she instinctively divined that Gerrard had purposely deferred giving her the letter whilst Forde was with them. And from that moment she liked him.

"Thank you, Mr Gerrard," she said, as she placed the letter in the pocket of her skirt. "Is Mr Aulain any better?"

"Yes, but he won't be 'fit' for another six weeks or so. He has had a very bad attack of fever this time. Of course you know that he and I are old friends?"

"Oh, yes, indeed! He always writes and speaks of you as 'old Tom-and-Jerry.' And I am so really, really glad to meet you, Mr Gerrard. Randolph says that you are the finest scrub rider in Australia, and he is next."

"Ah, no, he is the first, as I told Lacey a couple of days ago. His own troopers can hardly follow him when——"

"Don't, Mr Gerrard! I know what you were about to say," and she shuddered; "but please do not ever speak to me of Mr Aulain in connection with the Native Police. I loathe and detest them, and would rather he were a working miner or a stockman, than a leader of such fiends."

"Randolph Aulain is a different stamp of a man from the usual Inspector, Miss Fraser. No one has ever accused him of cruelty or unnecessary severity in discharging his duties."

"It is an ignominious duty, I think, to shoot and harass the blacks in the manner the police do," persisted Kate. "When the brig Maria was lost here on the coast some years ago, and some of the crew killed by the blacks, the Government acted most cruelly. The Native Police not only shot the actual murderers, but ruthlessly wiped out whole camps of tribes that were hundreds of miles away from where the vessel was lost."

Gerrard nodded. "So I heard. But I can assure you, Miss Fraser, that the Native Police under men like Aulain, can, and do, good service. The blacks in this part of the colony are bad enough, but on Cape York Peninsula, they are worse—daring and ferocious cannibals. The instinct to slay all strangers is inborn with them. Some of the tribes on the Batavia River district I believe to be absolutely untamable."

"Would you shoot a black-fellow, Mr Gerrard, for spearing a horse or bullock?"

"No, certainly not! But you see, Miss Fraser, we squatters would not mind them killing a beast or two for food occasionally, but they will spear perhaps thirty or forty, and so terrify a large mob of cattle that they will seek refuge in the ranges, and eventually become so wild as to be irrecoverable. I can put down my losses alone from this cause at over a thousand head. Then, again, two of my stockmen were killed and eaten three years ago; and this necessitated inflicting a very severe punishment."

The girl sighed, but said no more on the subject.

"You will stay with us to-night, will you not, Mr Gerrard?" she said as Forde returned. "It will be so pleasant for father and me to have both Mr Forde and you with us for the night."

"Thank you, I will, with pleasure. Perhaps your father—and you too—will come on to, Kaburie with me in the morning, show me the ropes, and tell me something about the country. And then you can see how the garden looks as well."

Kate's eyes brightened. "Indeed, we will I I love Kaburie. When we heard that it was to be sold, father tried to lease it from poor Mrs Tallis, but she wanted to sell outright, so father has to keep 'pegging away' at the claim, and our old rattle-trap of a crushing mill. But some day, perhaps, we shall 'strike it rich' as the miners say."

The horses were again saddled, and the party set out on their way, riding single file along the narrow bush track towards the ranges in which the little mining camp was situated. The sun was well towards the west when they came in sight of the rough, bark-roofed shed with uncovered sides, which contained the battery plant, and Fraser's equally unpretentious dwelling, which, with three or four miners' huts constituted the camp. A bright, brawling little mountain stream, with high banks lined with the graceful whispering she-oaks, gave a pleasant and refreshing appearance to the scene, and the clash and rattle of the heavy stampers as they crushed the golden quartz, echoed and re-echoed among the rugged tree clad range.

A big, broad-shouldered man of about sixty years of age, who was engaged in thrusting a log of ironbark wood into the boiler furnace, turned as he heard Forde's loud coo-e-e! and came towards them. He was bareheaded, and clad in a coarse flannel singlet, and dirty moleskin pants, with knee-boots; and his perspiring face was streaked with oil and grease from the engine. Taking a piece of cotton-waste from his belt, he wiped his hands leisurely as the three travellers dismounted.

"Father," said Kate, "I couldn't find the horses. But I 'found' Mr Forde, and this is Mr Gerrard, who is going to Kaburie, and who has promised to camp here to-night."

"Glad to see you," and the big man shook hands with Gerrard; "how are you, Forde? Get along up to the house, Kate, and I'll follow you soon. Give Forde and Mr Gerrard towels. I daresay they'll be glad of a bathe in the creek before supper. You know where the whisky is, parson. Help yourself and Mr Gerrard."

"How is she going, father?" asked Kate.

"Oh! just the same, about half an ounce or so."

("She", in miners' parlance, was the stone then being crushed—a crushing is always a "she." Sometimes "she" is a "bully-boy with a glass eye; going four ounces to the ton." Sometimes "she" is a "rank duffer." Sometimes "she" is "just paying and no more.")

Simple as was the girl's question, Gerrard noted the grey shadow of disappointment in her dark eyes, as her father replied to it, and a quick sympathy for her sprung up in his heart. And to Fraser himself he had taken an instantaneous liking. Those big, light-grey Scotsman's eyes with their heavy brows of white overshadowing, and the rough, but genial voice reminded him of his brother-in-law Westonley.

"I'll give the old man a lift," he said to himself, as he walked beside Kate to the house.

"What are you thinking of, Mr Fraser?" asked Kate, "I really believe you are talking to yourself."

"Was I?" he laughed, "it is a habit of mine that has grown on me from being so much alone. What a splendid type of a man your father is, Miss Fraser."

The glance of delight which shone in her eyes made Tom Gerrard's heart quicken as it had never before to the voice of any woman.



CHAPTER X

Douglas Fraser was a widower, his wife having died when Kate was only four years of age. She was now nineteen, and had been her father's constant companion and helpmate ever since the death of her mother. Fraser, who to all appearance was only the ordinary type of working miner common to all Australasian gold-fields, was in reality a highly-educated man, who had been not only a successful barrister, but a judge of the District Court of New South Wales. The death of his wife, however, to whom he was passionately devoted, changed the whole course of his existence. Resigning his appointment, he withdrew himself absolutely from all society, sold his house and such other property as he possessed, and then, to the astonishment of his many warm friends, disappeared with his little daughter from Sydney altogether. A year or so later one of these friends came across him riding down the main street of the mining township of Gympie (on the Mary River in Queensland). He was in the ordinary diggers' costume, and the once clean-shaved, legal face was now covered with a rough, strong beard.

"How are you, Favenc?" said his ex-Honour the Judge, quietly, as he pulled up his horse, and dismounted; "have you too, caught the gold-field fever, that I see you in Gympie?"

"No! I'm here on circuit with Judge Blakeney—Crown-Prosecuting. And how are you, Fraser?"

"Oh, very well! I've gone in for mining; always had a hankering that way. So far I have had no brilliant success, but hope to get on to something good in the course of time."

For some years after this he wandered from one gold-field to another, always getting further northward, and always accompanied by his child, to whom he was able to give a good education, though not in a style that would have met with the approbation of the principal of a ladies' school. He had finally settled at Fraser's Gully, where he had discovered a large, but not rich reef, and for the past five years he and some half a dozen miners had worked it, sometimes doing very well, at others their labour yielding them a poor return. On the whole, however, he was making money, and the life suited him. Very often he would urge Kate to go to Sydney for a year or two, and see something of the world, under the care of her mother's people, but she steadfastly refused to leave him.

"It would be simply horrible for me, father. I could not stand it for even a month. I am very, very happy here with you, and only wish I had more to do."

"You have quite enough I think, little woman—keeping house for me, milking and dairy work, and making bread for seven hungry men."

"I like it. And then I am the only woman about here now that Mrs Tallis has gone, and I feel more important than ever. But I do wish I were a man, and could help you more than I do."

Between father and daughter there had ever been the greatest love and confidence, and their existence, though often monotonous, was a happy one. To her father's miners, "Miss Kate" was a fairy goddess, and consternation reigned among them when one day a passing Jewish hawker told them that it was rumoured that Parson Forde was "a stickin' up ter Miss Fraser, and the match was as good as made."

The men had bought a couple of bottles of whisky from the hawker when this portentous announcement was made, and little "Cockney Smith" the youngest man of the party, who was just about to drink off the first grog he had tasted since his semi-annual spree at Boorala, set it down untouched.

"I thought the bloomin' Holy Joe was a comin' 'ere pretty frequent," he said, "but didn't think he was after Miss Kate. Well, all I can say is,"—he raised his glass—"that suthin'll 'appin to 'im. I 'ope 'e may be bloomin' well drownded when 'e's crossin' a creek."

"Shut up, Cockney," growled Sam Young, an old grey-haired miner, "it's only a Boorala yarn, and Boorala is as full of liars as the bottomless pit is full of wood and coal merchants. And it doesn't become you to call the parson a Holy Joe. Maybe you've forgottten that when you busted your last cheque at Hooley's pub in Boorala, and had the dilly trimmings, that it was the parson who brought you back here, you boozy little swine. Didn't he, boys?"

"You bet he did," was the unanimous response.

"And come here and give you four good nips a day outer his own flask until you was rid of the green dogs with red eyes, and flamin' fiery tails that you was screechin' about," went on Sam, relentlessly. "If she's going to hitch up with the parson it can't be helped. Anyways he's the right sort of a sky pilot; a white man all over, and can shoe a horse, and do a bit of bullocking{*} as well as he can preach."

* Hard manual labour.

"Wasn't there some talk about her and the Black Police officer being engaged?" said the hawker, who was a great retailer of bush gossip.

"Wasn't there some talk of you havin' done time for trying to do the fire insurance people?" angrily retorted Young, who was wroth at the hawker's familiar way of speaking of the goddess of Fraser's Gully.

"It vasn't me at all," protested the hawker. "It vas another Isaac Benjamin altogether."

"What did he do?" asked Cockney Smith.

"He had a store in Brisbane," said Young, "and insured the stock for about two thousand quid,{*} and made an awful fuss about his being so careful of fire. He bought about fifty of them round glass bottles full of a sort of stuff called fire exstinker—bottles that you can hang up on a nail with a bit of string, or put on shelves, or anywhere, and if a place catches on fire, they burst, and the exstinker liquid sends out a sort of gas which puts out a fire in no time. One'll do the trick.

* "Quid": L1.

"Well, this chap—of course it isn't your fault, Ikey, that your name is the same as his—was dead set on getting that two thousand quid for his stock, which was only worth about five hundred. But he was such a downy cove—did you ever come acrost him, Ikey?"

"No, never," emphatically replied the hawker, "and he vasn't no relation of mine either."

"Well, as I was saying, he was always making a fearful fuss about a fire, and as he was a member of the Fire Brigade Board, he was always bringing forward ressylutions at the Committee meetings for a better water supply, and all that sort of thing, and he gave a five pound note to the driver of the fire engine because he was a temperance man of fifteen years' standing, and set a noble example to the Brigade. Did you hear about that, Ikey?"

"No, I didn't," answered the hawker uneasily.

"Well, he did. He hated liquor in any shape or form, he said, and wouldn't sell any in his store on no account whatever, and wanted all the Fire Brigade men and other public servants to take the pledge. And the noosepapers said he was a great-hearted phillyanthropist.

"He had two boys in the store to help him—was it two, Ikey?"

"I don't remember, Mr Young. I vas never much interested in reading about rogueries of any kind."

"Just so! Well, one Sunday night one of the boys came back to the store for suthin' or other, and he sees you—I mean the feller as has the same name—emptying out the fire liquid in the exstinkers, and fillin' em up with kerosene. So, being a cute young nipper, he slips away to the Fire Brigade station and says to the Superintendent, 'Give me ten bob an' I'll tell you a secret about Ikey Benjamin and his fire exstinkers.' The Super gave him the money, and the boy tells the yarn, and about two o'clock in the morning the fire bells starts ringin', and Ikey was aroused from a dead sleep with the noos that his store was alight in seventeen places, but that the firemen was puttin' it out vigorously. How many years did you—I mean the other cove—get, Ikey?"

"I don't know," replied the hawker, "but I do know that I must be getting along to Boorala," and hurriedly gathering together his effects, he departed in a bad temper.

Young gave his mates a solemn wink, and then laughed.

"He's the chap, boys; and if he hadn't started gassin' about Miss Kate, I wouldn't have started on him. As for what he said about her and Mr Aulain, there's some truth in it. The Inspector is dead sweet on her, I know, but whether she cares for him is another matter. Anyway she hasn't seen him for nigh on two years, so I think it must be off. And you all know what she thinks of the Nigger Police, don't you?"

The arrival of the Goddess of the Gully with her two companions created quite a little stir at the camp. As soon as Forde and Gerrard had finished their refreshing bathe in the crystal waters of the creek, and returned to the house, they found Kate had supper ready. She had changed her riding dress for a white skirt and blouse, and looked as Forde said, "divinely cool and refreshing."

"Father will be here in a few minutes," she said, as going to a small overmantel she deftly re-coiled her hair, which had a way of becoming loose. "What a nuisance is a woman's hair, isn't it, Mr Gerrard? Now, Mr Forde, why don't you say it is her glory? Don't be shocked at me, Mr Gerrard, but the fact is I am short of hair-pins, and this morning when the filly began bucking, I lost nearly all I had. I think I shall do my hair a la Suisse."

"I wouldn't if I were you," said her father, who just then entered after a hasty "wash down" in a tub placed at the back of the house, "there are a lot of native dogs about, and you might lose it."

Both Forde and Gerrard, and Kate as well, laughed loudly, for they all knew that in the winter time, when the dingoes{*} were hungry they would often bite off the tails of calves not old enough to kick off their assailants.

* The Australian wild dog.

Kate clenched her little sunbrowned hand, and punched her father on his mighty chest. "You rude man! You don't deserve any supper."

Late in the evening, as Forde and his host were walking to and fro outside the house, and Kate was reading Aulain's letter in her room, Gerrard was stretched out upon his bed, smoking his pipe, and talking to himself.

"I wish I had never seen you, Miss Kate Fraser. And I wish Aulain, my boy, that you were safely married to her. And I wish that there were two more like you, Miss Kate—one for me, and one for the parson. And I wish I was not such an idiot as to wish anything at all."



CHAPTER XI

Just as dawn broke, the deep note of a bell-bird awakened Kate from a somewhat restless and troubled slumber; but quickly dressing, she took up a bucket and set off to the milking-yard.

The ground and the branches of the trees above were heavily laden with the night-dew, and in a few minutes her feet were wet through, and then, ere she had walked half the distance to the yard, several long-legged, gaunt kangaroo dogs, who were watching for their mistress, made a silent and sudden rush to welcome her, leaping up and muddying her shoulders with their wet paws, and making determined efforts to lick her hair and face.

Presently a loud whistle sounded from somewhere near, and "Cockney Smith" appeared driving before him two cows, and in an instant the dogs darted off to him, and let the girl enter the yard in peace.

"Why, Miss Kate, them 'ere dorgs will bite the 'ed off'n you if you don't use a whip on 'em when they get prancin' around like that," and he lashed out at them with the whip he carried.

Kate laughed. "Poor doggies! they badly want a day's kangarooing, so I must not mind their roughness. I think, Smith, if we can only find the missing horses this week we'll have at least half-a-day's run with the dogs on Sunday. To-day I am going with my father to Kaburie."

"Right you are, Miss!" said the young miner, who, like his mates, revelled in a kangaroo hunt. "On'y yesterday near the claim, I seed an old man kangaroo as big as a house, but er course, bekos I was on foot, and hadn't got no dorgs with me, 'e took no more notice of me than if I was a bloomin' howl. 'E just stood up on 'is 'ind legs, and looked at me for about five minutes with a whisp o' grass hangin' outer 'is mouth; then 'e goes on feedin' has if 'e didn't mind dorgs or 'orses, or men, and hadn't never heerd o' kangaroo-tail soup in 'is life."

"Perhaps we may get him next Sunday, Smith. Now, bail up, Maggie, and if you try to kick over the bucket you'll feel sorry, I can assure you," and she smacked a jet black little cow on the ribs with her strong, shapely brown hand. The beast put her head through the bail; "Cockney" quickly pinned her in, then secured her "kicking" leg with a green hide leg rope, and the Goddess of the Gully began to milk. "Cockney" stood by watching, pipe in mouth, and waiting till Kate was ready for the second cow to be put in the bail.

"Here's Jackey and 'is missus, as usual, Miss Kate," he said, pointing to the slip rails of the milking yard, on which a large "laughing jackass," and his mate had perched, and were regarding Kate with solemn attention.

"Oh, the poor things! I forgot their bread this morning. I was thinking about something else."

"Don't you worry about 'em, Miss," said Smith, with a grin, "they can take care 'o themselves, Miss Kate."

"Yes, Smith."

"I went to look at that 'ere guinea hen what was sittin' on eleven eggs under that sort o' cotton bush in the 'orse paddock."

"Did you? The chicks will be out in three or four days."

"They are out already, Miss; them two laughin' jackasses 'as heaten up every blessed egg, and on'y the shells is lef. I thought I saw 'em flying about the nest, and went to see."

"Oh, the wretches!" cried Kate in dismay.

"Next ter halligaters, laughin' jackasses his the mischievioustest, and cunnin'est things hin creation," observed Mr Smith; "hif I 'ad my gun 'ere now I could take 'em both hin a line. Look at 'em setting there like two bloomin' cheerybims, who 'adn't never seen a hegg o' any kind but their own."

"Oh, no, don't shoot them, Smith. I feel very mad with them, but wouldn't hurt them for the world. They kill and eat such a lot of snakes—bad snakes, 'bandy-bandies' and 'black necks.'"

"So I believe, Miss. And perhaps that is wot fills 'em with such willianly; they himbibes the snakes' cunning after they 'as digested 'em. I onct heerd a naturalist cove as was getting birds on the Diamantina River say that he was dead certain there wasn't no laughin' jackasses in the Garden o' Eding, which was a smokin' great pity."

"Why?" asked Kate, as she rose, put the milk bucket aside, and let Smith bail up the second cow.

"Oh, he says, says he, as he was skinnin' a jackass which had a two foot whip snake inside him, 'if one o' you fellers 'ad a been in Eding, poor Heve wouldn't 'ave got hinter no trouble, hand we 'uman bein's 'ud go on livin' for hever like Muthusalum. The old serpant,' says he, 'wouldn't a 'ad the ghost of a show hif han Australlyian laughin' jackass 'ad copped him talkin' to Heve, and tellin' 'er it was orlright, and to go ahead an' heat as much as her stomach would accomydate.'"

"Oh, I see!" said Kate gravely, "I must tell that to Mr Forde."

"'E won't mind—'ell on'y larf," said Mr Smith, who was a talkative young man for an Australian bushman, native to the soil. (The nickname of "Cockney" had been bestowed upon him on account of his father being a Londoner, who, like a true patriot, had left his country for his country's good.) He was a good-natured, hard-working man like the rest of the hands at the camp, but was the "bad boy" of the community as far as liquor was concerned. Every three months, when Fraser "squared up" with his miners, and handed them their share of the proceeds from the gold obtained, he gave them all a week's leave to spend in Boorala, or any other township in the district. Not more than two or three would elect to go, but of these Cockney Smith was always one. On such occasions Kate would stand at her father's door on the look-out—to see that Mr Smith did not ride off without being interviewed.

"How much have you this time, Smith?" she would ask.

"Forty-five quid, Miss."

"I'll take ten."

"Thirty-five pound don't go far in Boorala, Miss," he would plead, uneasily.

"It will go far enough for you to see the Police Magistrate, and be fined five pounds, or take fourteen days for disorderly conduct, and also enable you to pay that wicked wretch of a Hooley for the poisonous stuff he gives you to drink, and keep him from taking your horse and saddle. In fact I think you might go with thirty pounds this time."

"Oh, 'Eavens, Miss!" and Cockney's features would display horrified astonishment as he hurriedly handed her ten one-pound notes. "Why it's the winter meetin' of the Boorala Jockey Club, and I'll want an extra ten quid to put on a couple o' 'orses; one is a bay colt that won——"

"That will do, Smith. You are a bad lot. You tell me horrible stories. Instead of going sober to the race-course, you go drunk, and are robbed, or lose your money, or fight the police, and——"

"Didn't I pull it orf, larst Christmas, Miss, with Banjo in the 'urdle race? Didn't I collar a hundred and five quid from that Melbourne bookie?"

"Yes. And what became of it? How much of it did you bring back? Just thirty shillings! And you couldn't do any work for nearly two weeks; and you had delirium tremens. Now, go away, and if you come back as you did last time father won't have any more to do with you—and neither will I."

Smith would ride off with his companions. "She made me ante up ten quid this time," he would observe—expecting sympathy.

"Well, it's ten pound to the good for you, you boozing little owl," would be the reply. For all the men at the camp knew that during two years Kate had placed various sums to the credit of Smith at the Boorala bank, and had extorted a solemn promise from him not to attempt to write a cheque for even one pound without her consent. But, as she felt she could not trust Cockney, she had also taken the bank manager into her confidence, and asked him to refuse to honour any cheque drawn by "the bad lot" unless it had her endorsement.

The bank manager, who was another of Kate's adorers, promised to observe her wishes. "It's not banking etiquette, Miss Fraser, but that doesn't matter in North Queensland. We do many things that we ought not to do, and if Smith draws a cheque you may be sure that I will refuse to pay it as 'signature illegible'—as it is sure to be. But I'll lend him a few pounds if he breaks out again, and is laid up in this abode of sin, so that he may get home again to your protecting care."

The milking was finished, and Smith, taking up the heavy bucket of milk, was just about to carry it to the house, when he set it down again.

"My word, Miss," he said admiringly, "look there; there's that Mr Gerrard a-gallopin' 'is 'orse down to the creek for a swim bareback. My oath, 'e can ride."

Kate turned just in time, and saw Gerrard, who was in his pyjamas with a towel over his shoulders, disappearing over the ridge at a full gallop. She did not know that he had risen long before she had, walked in the grey dawn to the horse paddock through the dew-soaked grass, caught his horse, and had been an interested spectator of her dairy work.

"Yes, Smith, he can ride, as you say. And his horse wanted a swim after such a hot ride from Port Denison."

As they walked back to the house, Kate saw her father coming towards them, and let Smith go on.

"Father," she said, "I am glad to see you before breakfast as I shall not perhaps have a chance to speak to you if we are going to Kaburie to-day with Mr Gerrard."

"What is it?"

"Mr Aulain has written to me. He wants me to marry him."

"So does Forde, who asked me for you last night."

Kate laughed.

"We'll talk about it by and by, my girl," said Fraser gravely, as he stroked her head.

"There will not be much to talk about, father," was the decisive answer. "I am never, never going to leave you for any man—no matter who he is."



CHAPTER XII

Fraser, his daughter and their two guests were on the road to Kaburie, and within a few miles of the turn-off to Boorala. Kate and the clergymen were together, her father and Gerrard some hundreds of yards in advance, and all were walking their horses slowly, for the sun was beating fiercely down upon them through the scantily-foliaged gum trees, and Kaburie was yet twenty miles away. The girl sat in her saddle with bent head, and there were traces of tears on her cheeks.

"I am very, very sorry, Mr Forde, for I do like you very, very much—more than any other man in the world except my father. You have always been so kind to him and to me; but I never thought that you would ask me to be your wife. And it hurts me to——"

Forde placed his hand on hers. "Never mind, Kate. It was a foolish dream of mine, that is all. But you were always the one woman in the world to me ever since I first met you two years ago. And it grieves me that I should have made you shed one single tear."

His calm, steady voice, and the firm pressure of his hand reassured her. Her father had said to her a few hours before that Forde would take her refusal "like a man," and she had replied that she knew it.

She raised her face to his as he bent towards her, and, on the impulse of a moment, born of her sincere liking for the man, kissed him. His bronzed features flushed deeply, and his whole frame thrilled as their lips met; and then he exercised a mighty restraint upon himself.

"Good-bye, little woman, and God bless you," he said softly, as he bent over her.

"But why are you going away, Mr Forde? Father will be so distressed, and so indeed will be everybody—for hundreds of miles about."

Forde had drawn himself together again, and swinging his right foot out of the stirrup sat "side-saddle" and lit his pipe.

"Well, you see, Kate, my mother has left me two thousand pounds or so. It was that that gave me pluck enough to speak to your father last night. I thought I would go to him first. Perhaps I made a mistake?"

"No, indeed! He told me all that you said to him, and—oh! Mr Forde, we shall all miss you so much," and as she spoke her eyes filled with tears again. He looked at the gum tree branches overhead, and went on meditatively, apparently not taking heed of her emotion, though his heart was filled with love for the girl, who with bent head, rode by his side.

"And I shall miss much—much out of my life when I leave this part of the colony, Kate. But I was never intended to be a clergyman. I was driven into the Church by my mother—good, pious soul—who, because my father was in the Church, condemned me to it, instead of letting me follow my own bent—which was either the Army or Navy or Commerce."

"But you made a good clergyman," said the girl artlessly.

He shook his head. "Well, the fact is, Kate, that I was always pretty sick of it, although I must say that I like the free open life of the bush, and the people; especially the working men, diggers, and stockmen. And their frank hospitality and rough good nature I can never forget."

"Where do you think of going?"

"To Sydney first Then I'll decide what to do. I am very much inclined to follow your father's example and go in for mining; either that or cattle-breeding. But, of course, I shall write and let you know."

"Do!" she said, earnestly, and then they quickened their horses' pace, as they saw that Fraser and Gerrard had pulled up at the turn-off to Boorala, and were awaiting them.

"Well, Forde, old man," said the mine-owner, as he bade the clergyman good-bye, "you will leave a big hole in the hearts of the people about here. Kate and I especially will miss you. And I do hope that we shall meet again."

"Nothing is more likely. I like Queensland too much to leave it altogether," and then with another warm grasp of the hand, he said good-bye to them all, and turned along the Boorala track.

"One of the whitest men that ever put foot in stirrup," said Fraser a few minutes later to Gerrard.

"I'm sure of it!" assented Gerrard. And then they began to speak of Kaburie, Fraser giving his visitor every possible information about the country and its cattle-carrying capabilities. It was, he said, one of the best-watered runs in the north, and a drought had never been known.

"See!" he said, pointing to a sandal-wood scrub, "that is one of the mustering camps on the Kaburie boundary, and there are some of Mrs Tallis's cattle down there in the creek. Crack your whip, Kate."

Uncoiling the long stock-whip, the girl cracked it once only, but loudly, and in a few seconds hundreds of cattle appeared from the creek, and through the fringe of she-oaks that lined its banks; they clambered up the steep side and stared at the disturbers, and then at a second loud crack of the whip, trotted off quietly to the camp—bullocks, steers, cows and calves, the latter performing the usual calf antics, curving their bodies, hoisting their tails, and kicking their heels in the air. Once under the cool, grateful shade of the dark green foliage of the sandalwoods, they quietly awaited to be inspected, and Fraser and Gerrard slowly walked their horses about among them. .

"What do you think of them?" asked the mine-owner, who was himself a good judge of cattle.

"Very fair lot indeed, and all as fat as pigs," replied the squatter, scanning them closely. "Now then, Bully boy, what are you staring at?" he said to a sturdy twelve months' old bull calf, who had advanced to him. "Ah! you want to be branded, do you? Quite so! Well, I think it very likely you soon will be."

"There has been no branding at Kaburie for six months, Mr Gerrard," said Kate, who added that there were now only Mrs Tallis's overseer, and one black boy stockman on the station, who did nothing more than muster the cattle occasionally on the various camps.

Gerrard nodded. "Ladies are bad business people as a rule. There will be a terrible amount of branding to be done now."

Kate, unaware of the twinkle in Gerrard's eyes, was indignant. "Indeed, Mrs Tallis was considered a very good business woman, and knew how to manage things as well as Mr Tallis. What are you laughing at, Mr Gerrard?"

"At Mrs Tallis's smartness. She has saved herself some hundreds of pounds by dismissing her stockmen, and leaving the calves un-branded. All the work and expense will fall on whoever buys the station."

"Oh, I see!" and Kate smiled. "But, after all, I suppose——"

"That all is fair in love and war. And buying a cattle or sheep station is war in a sense between seller and buyer. I should have done the same thing myself, I suppose."

"I don't believe you would," said the girl frankly. "Mr Aulain told father and me that you were very Quixotic."

"Aulain doesn't know what a hard nail I am in money matters sometimes, Miss Fraser. I'm a perfect Shylock, and will have my pound o' flesh—especially bullock flesh."

"I know better, and so do you, father, don't you," and her eyes smiled into Gerrard's. "Mr Aulain told us all about your selling a hundred bullocks to the French authorities at New Caledonia, and then, because half of them died on the stormy voyage to Noumea, you returned half the money. Was it your fault that the steamer was nearly wrecked, and the cattle died?"

"Aulain did not think that it might have only been a matter of my setting a sprat to catch a mackerel. You see I was anxious to establish a big cattle trade with the French people."

Kate shook her head decisively, but there was an expressive look in her eyes that gave Gerrard great content.

Towards the afternoon the travellers saw a horseman coming towards them, and Kate recognised him as Tom Knowles, the overseer of Kaburie, for whom Gerrard had a letter from Mrs Tallis. He was a lithe, wiry little man of fifty, and Kate and her father exchanged smiles as, when he drew near, they saw that he was arrayed in his best riding "togs," was riding his best horse, and that his long grey moustache was carefully waxed. He had long been one of Kate's most ardent admirers, and had a strong belief that he was "well placed in the running with Aulain and the parson" for the young lady's affections—and hand.

"Well, this is a pleasure," he cried, as he rode up and shook hands with Fraser and his daughter; "I was coming over to Gully to spend an hour or two with you, Fraser, but, of course, you are coming to me?"

"Yes!" said the mineowner. "This is Mr Gerrard, Knowles. He has come to see you on business, and we came with him."

The overseer, who had at first looked at Gerrard's handsome face with some disapproval, at once became at ease, and in a few minutes, after Gerrard had explained the object of his visit, the party put their horses into a smart canter, and half-an-hour later came to a wide, sandy-bottomed creek, fringed with huge ti-trees. On one of these, which was on the margin of the crossing, was nailed a large black painted board with an ominous inscription in white.

"LOOK OUT FOR ALLIGATORS."

"Mr Tallis had it put up," explained the overseer to Gerrard; "as two men were collared by 'gaters here. But when the water is clear, and the creek low, as it is now, there is no danger. It is when the creek is high after rain, and the water muddy, that the crossing is risky. I suppose you have any amount of the brutes up your way?"

"Thousands! The rivers, creeks, and swamps are full of them, and I have lost a lot of cattle and horses at Ocho Rios by them."

An hour later they arrived at Kaburie, and Kate was, at the request of the admiring Knowles, acting as hostess and preparing supper.



CHAPTER XIII

Two days had passed, and Gerrard was still at Kaburie, though Kate and her father had left the previous day; they were, however, to return, bringing with them three or four stockmen to assist Knowles and Gerrard to muster the cattle, for he had decided to buy the station and leave Knowles there as his manager. Although there were but four thousand head of cattle on the run, they were widely separated in small mobs of a few hundreds each—some high up in the ranges, and some haunting the low-lying littoral, and frequenting the flat marshy land about the mouths of the numerous creeks debouching into the sea, where they eagerly ate the lush, saline grasses and creepers that lined the coast above high-water mark—and to "round up" all these scattered mobs on their various camps, and count every beast, meant very hard work. Then too, Gerrard intended to have a general branding at the same time, and he felt a thrill of pleasure in his veins, when Kate had said to her father: "Father, why cannot we help, too? You can safely leave the battery and claim to Sam Young for a few days. And as you and I know the country so well, I am sure we should be of some use to Mr Gerrard."

Douglas Fraser had never said "No" in his life to any request of Kate's since she was fifteen, and he smiled assent. And then in addition to that he had taken such a strong liking to Gerrard that it gave him pleasure to afford him all the assistance in his power.

"All right, Gerrard!" (men in the Australian bush do not "Mister" each other after a few hour's acquaintance) "we shall be here. And I'll send over to Boorala for three or four good men to help in the mustering."

So Kate and her father had ridden away and left Gerrard and Knowles to themselves for a few days; and Gerrard and the dapper little overseer planned all sorts of improvements that were to be effected in the way of making Kaburie a crack breeding station.

As father and daughter rode side by side along the track back to their home, through the darkening shadows of the coming night, they talked about Forde and Aulain, Fraser resting his big brown hand on her knee, and looking wistfully into her face.

"And you see, my child, that I well know that there will come a time when you and I must part Some man——"

"Never, father, never! I liked Mr Forde very much, but not well enough to marry him, and part from you. And I kissed him, dad, when we said good-bye. Do you mind much? I couldn't help it. I felt that I must kiss him." (Then tears.) "I thought I had better tell you, for I feel so horribly ashamed of myself."

"There is nothing for you to be ashamed of, child," said her father tenderly; "Forde is a man, and, as I told you, he would take your refusal like a white man and a gentleman."

"He did. And I could not help crying over it."

For some minutes they rode on in silence, then Fraser said:

"When is Aulain coming?"

"As soon as he is able to sit a horse, he said," and then her face flushed. "I wish he would not come, father, and yet I do not like the idea of writing to him and telling him so—especially when he is ill."

Fraser nodded. "I understand. Still I think it would be the better course to take. I had imagined, however, Kate, that you thought more of Aulain than you cared to admit, even to me."

"So I did; and so I do now, but I would never marry him, father, no matter how much I cared for him."

Her father looked at her inquiringly.

"I think I am afraid of him, dad, sometimes. He is so dreadfully jealous, and he has no right whatever to be jealous of me, for we were never engaged. And then there is another thing that is an absolute bar to my marrying him, though I fear I am too much of a coward to tell him so; he is a Roman Catholic. And whenever I think of that I remember the awful tragedy of the Wallington family."

"I think you are quite right, Kate," said the mine-owner gravely. "Frankly, whilst I think Aulain is a fine fellow, and would make you a good husband, I must confess that the thought of your marrying a Roman Catholic has often filled me with uneasiness."

"Don't be afraid, dad," she said decisively. "In the first place, I am not going to marry anyone, and shall grow into a pretty old maid; in the second, if I was dying of love, nothing in the world would induce me to marry a Roman Catholic. Whenever I think of poor Mr Wallington as we saw him lying on the grass with the bullet hole through his forehead, I shudder. I loathe the very name of Mrs Wallington, and consider her and Father Corregio the actual murderers of that good old man."

She spoke of an incident that had occurred when she was sixteen. Wallington, a wealthy Brisbane solicitor, had gone to England on a six months' visit When he returned, he found that his wife and only daughter, a girl of five and twenty, had fallen under the influence of a Father Corregio, and had entered the Roman Catholic Church, and his long and happy married life was at an end. A week later he shot himself in his garden.

"I am afraid that poor Aulain will cut up pretty roughly over this, Kate," said her father presently.

"I can't help it, father. And I think, after all, I had better write to him to-morrow. I really do not want him to come to the Gully."

And she did write, and Aulain's face was not pleasant to see as he read her letter.

"By _! if it is the parson fellow, I'll shoot him like a rat," he said, and then he cursed the fever that kept him away from Kate.

He went over to the Clarion office and saw Lacey, who was quick to perceive that something had occurred to upset the dark-faced sub-Inspector.

"How are you, Aulain? Any 'shakes' to-day?" he asked, referring to the recurring attacks of ague from which Aulain suffered.

"Oh! just the usual thing," replied his visitor irritably, as he sat down on a cane lounge, and viciously tugged at his moustache. "I thought I would come over and worry you with my company for a while, and get you to come across to the Queen's and share a bottle of fizz with me. They have some ice there I hear—came up by the Sydney steamer last night."

Lacey's eyes twinkled, "I'm with you, my boy. I've just finished writing a particularly venomous leader upon mine adversary the Planters' Friend, and a nice cool drink, such as you suggest, on a roasting day like this, will tend to assuage the journalistic rage against my vile and hated contemporary."

Arriving at the Queen's Hotel the two men went upstairs and sat down on comfortable cane lounges on the verandah, and in a few minutes the smiling Milly appeared with a large bottle of champagne, and a big lump of the treasured ice, carefully wrapped up in a piece of blanketing. As Lacey attended to the ice, Aulain began to cut the cork string.

"Oh! by the way, Lacey," he said carelessly, "I saw in the Clarion yesterday that Forde, the sky pilot, is leaving the Church. Are you ready with the glasses."

"I am. Faith, doesn't it look lovely. Steady, me boy, these long sleever glasses hold a pint. Here's long life to ye, Aulain. Heavens! but it is good," and he sighed contentedly as he set down his glass again.

"Ye were asking about Forde?" he said as he wiped his red, perspiring face. "Yes, he is giving up parsonifying. I had a letter from him by the mailman yesterday from Fraser's Gully. He was staying there for the night with our friend Gerrard."

Aulain's black brows knit, and his hand clenched under the table, as Lacey went on,

"His mother has died, and left him some money. And very glad it is I am to hear it, for a finer man I don't know."

"Much?"

"He didn't say; but I know that his mother was pretty well off. He merely wrote me asking me to mention in the Clarion that he was leaving the Church, and was going South. Ye see, he has a power of friends all over the country, and he just asked me to write a bit of a paragraph saying he was going away, and regretted that he could not come to Port Denison to preach next Sunday fortnight."

Aulain re-filled Lacey's and his own glass, "Lucky fellow! When is he leaving Fraser's place?"

"He was leaving that morning for Boorala, and Fraser and his daughter and Gerrard were going with him as far as the turn-off. By a bit of good-luck, Gerrard—who also sent me a few lines—met Forde and Miss Fraser on his way to the Gully. Here is his note," and he took a letter from his pocket and handed it to Aulain, who read:

"Fraser's Gully.

"Dear Lacey,—As the Boorala mailman is calling here this morning, I send you a line. I had the good fortune to come across Miss Fraser and Mr Forde at Cape Conway, and we all came on to her father's place together. I like Fraser. He's a fine old cock. The parson, too, is a good sort As for Miss Kate Fraser, she is a modernised Hotspur's Kate—a delightfully frank and charming girl. I envy the lucky man who wins her. I hope the boy has not got into any mischief, and is giving you no trouble. Give Aulain my regards, and tell him I delivered his letter sooner than I anticipated. I leave for Kaburie this morning, and am to have the pleasure of being accompanied by Fraser and his daughter. Tell Jim that if he gets into any mischief whilst I am away, I'll make it hot for him.—Sincerely yours,

"Tom Gerrard."

Aulain handed the letter back to Lacey. He was outwardly calm, but his heart was surging with passion. What business had that d———d parson fellow and Kate to be together at Cape Conway, fifteen miles away from her home? And then his receptive brain conjured up the blackest suspicions. Forde had come into money, and Kate had written to him saying that she could not marry him, "because she would never marry and leave her father." He set his teeth.

"I think we could do another bottle, Aulain," said Lacey presently.

"Right, old man!" replied the sub-Inspector mechanically, and then Lacey noticed that his bronzed face had become pallid.

"'Shakes' coming on?" he asked, sympathetically.

"Just a bit; but the fizz is doing me good."



CHAPTER XIV

Mustering on Kaburie was almost over, much to the satisfaction of every one taking part in it, for the weather had been unpleasantly hot even for North Queensland, and heavy tropical thunderstorms had added to the difficulty of the work by the creeks coming down in flood. All the cattle running in the mountain gullies and on the spurs, had been brought in, the calves and "clean-skins" branded, and now there remained only those which roamed about the coast lands.

Early one morning Gerrard, Fraser, and Kate, with three stockmen, were camped near the mouth of a wide, but shallow creek, whose yellow, muddied waters were rushing swiftly to the sea. The party had arrived there the previous evening, and now, breakfast over, were ready to start to muster the cattle in the vicinity. Heavy rain had fallen during the night, but Kate's little tent, with its covering fly had kept her dry, and the rest of the party had slept under a rough, but efficient shelter of broad strips of ti-tree bark spread upon a quickly-extemporised frame of thin saplings.

Just as they started the sky cleared and the blue dome above was unflecked by a single cloud as they rode in single file along a cattle track leading to the beach, which they reached in half an hour.

"What a glorious sight!" said Gerrard, as he drew rein and pointed to the blue Pacific, shimmering and sparkling under the rays of the morning sun. "Look, there is a brig-rigged steamer quite close in—evidently she must be calling in at Port Denison, or would not be so near the land."

"Yes," said Kate, "that is one of the new China mail boats, the Ching-tu. How beautiful she is—for a steamer, with those sloping masts, with the yards across, and the curved shapely bow like a sailing ship. Oh! I do so wish I were on board. I love ships and the If I were a man I should be a sailor."

"Would you?" said Gerrard, as he looked at the animated, beautiful face. "I, too, am fond of the sea, though it robbed me of father, mother, and a brother-in-law, my twin sister's husband. She died of a broken heart soon after."

Kate's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, how dreadful!" and then as they rode on Gerrard told her the story of the Cassowary.

"What a sweet child your little niece Mary must be," she said, when he had finished, "and I am sure, too, that your protege, Jim Coll, must be a perfect little man. I wish I could see him."

"I can safely promise you that, now that I have bought Kaburie, and I feel pretty sure that you will gain his affections very quickly; especially if you will let him ride that bucking filly. I daresay that I shall be back here within twelve months, and bring Master Jim with me."

"This is where we separate, boss," said a stockman named Trouton, "if you, Mr and Miss Fraser and me take the right bank of this creek, my two mates will work down on the other bank, and we'll get the cattle on both sides at the same time, and drive 'em all on to Wattle Camp, which is between this creek and the next to the south of us." Then turning to the other stockmen, he warned them to be careful of alligators.

"You chaps must keep your eyes skinned if you have to swim any bits of backwater, now the creeks are up. Don't cross anywheres unless you have some cattle to send in fust, and keep clost up to their tails if yous can't get in among 'em. 'Gaters like man and horse meat next best to calf."

The two men nodded, and riding down the bank, crossed the creek and quickly disappeared in the scrub on the other side; then Gerrard's party turned towards the coast, Trouton leading the way with the packhorses along a well-defined cattle-track. A quarter of an hour later they came across a small mob of cows and calves, which as the stockwhips cracked, trotted off in front, to be joined by several more, and in a short time the mob had increased to five hundred head, and Trouton and Gerrard decided to drive them across the creek to join those which were being rounded up by the two stockmen on the left hand bank. In reply to a question by Gerrard, Trouton said that the crossing was a good one even when the creek was as high as it was then, on account of its width—about two hundred yards from bank to bank.

"It is a hard, sandy bottom, boss, and we shall only have about forty yards of swimming to do. If we rush 'em they'll get over in no time."

"Very well. But we will cut out all the cows with calves too young to swim."

This did not take long, and some thirty or forty cows with calves were separated from the mob, and driven some distance back into the scrub by Fraser. Then with the usual yelling and cracking of whips the main mob was rushed down the bank into the water, a wide-horned, stately bullock, plunging into the yellow stream, and taking the lead Close behind the cattle followed the three men and Kate, the latter and Gerrard keeping on the "lee" side of the mob so as to prevent them spreading out and getting too far down-stream, where there was danger from a number of snags of ti-trees, which showed above water in the middle of the creek. The cattle, however, kept well together, and when the deep part was reached, swam safely across, despite the rather strong current.

"They went over splendidly, didn't they?" cried Fraser to Gerrard, as he gave his horse a loose rein and leant forward to let the animal swim easily. "We are lucky to get them over so easily, and——"

His words were interrupted by a cry of terror from Kate, as the colt she was riding gave an agonised snort of terror, and began pawing the water with its fore-feet.

"Help me, father! Mr Gerrard! Oh, it is an alligator!" and as she spoke she was nearly unseated. "It has Cato by the off hind leg."

Gerrard, only ten yards away from her, turned his horse's head, and shouted to her to throw herself off, and then, with a deadly terror in his heart, saw her shaken off; and disappear in the surging stream, but in a few seconds she rose to the surface, panting and choking, but swimming bravely, though she was unable to see. Gerrard, now beside her, leant over, placed his left arm round her waist, and held her tight.

"Don't be afraid," he said, "I have you safe; take a good grip of my horse's mane and hold on; he will take you across in a few minutes," and as the girl obeyed, he slipped out of the saddle, so as to swim beside her. Then his bronzed face went white with horror as the black snout of an alligator thrust itself out of the water between the girl and himself, and the saurian tried to seize her by the shoulder. In an instant Gerrard had clutched the reptile by the throat with his right hand.

"Go on, go on; for God's sake, do not mind me!" he cried to Kate; "I have the brute by its throat," and then, as he and the hideous creature were struggling fiercely, Fraser came to his assistance, and emptied the five chambers of his heavy Colt's pistol into its body, and Gerrard, whose face was cut open by a stroke of one of the reptile's fore-paws, remembered nothing more till he found himself lying upon the bank with Fraser and the stockmen attending to him.

"Is Miss Fraser safe?" was his first question.

"Yes, thanks to God and to your bravery," answered Fraser with deep emotion; "but don't speak any more just now, there's a good fellow. The brute has ripped the left side of your face open from the top of your head to the chin, and we are trying to put in some stitches."

"All right," was the cheerful, but faint response; "but tell me—is my eye gone?"

"No, boss," said Trouton quickly, "your eye is all right, but the eyebrow is mauled pretty badly, and was hanging over it, but we've got it back again now, and tied it up in place. Here, boss, take a sup o' this," and he placed a brandy flask to Gerrard's lips. The liquor stung his lacerated lips like fire, but it revived him.

"Where is Miss Fraser?" he then asked.

"Here, beside you, dear Mr Gerrard," said the girl brokenly, as she pressed his hand, and turned her face away in blinding tears.

"Narrow squeak for both of us, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but please do not try to talk, dear Mr Gerrard."

"Oh, I'm all right, and must gabble a bit, now I know that I haven't lost an eye. You see, Fraser, the beast, although he was only a little fellow——"

"Eight feet he were, boss," interrupted Trouton, "but a young 'un, as you say."

"Well, just after I collared him, he swung his head about and hit me such a tremendous smack on the side of my brain-box that it stunned me. But I didn't let go, did I?"

"No," replied Fraser, "you held on like grim death. I settled the brute by putting five bullets into it."

"There was two 'o 'em, boss," said Trouton, "the one as collared Miss Kate's horse, and the one as you tackled."

"Did Cato get away?" Gerrard asked quickly.

"Yes, yes, he got away," said Kate hurriedly, trying to speak calmly, though the poor colt, which had managed to struggle to the bank with a lacerated and broken leg, was then lying dead with a bullet through its head. Trouton had put it out of its misery.

There was no more mustering that day, for Gerrard's condition was so serious, though he tried to make light of it, that Fraser, leaving the cattle to the care of the two stockmen, first sent off Trouton to Boorala for a doctor, and then he, taking one of the pack-horses, made Gerrard mount his own.

"We'll be at Kaburie as soon as the little German doctor is there," he said, as he, Gerrard, and Kate started.

And when they reached Kaburie they found Doctor Krause, a quiet, spectacled little man, awaiting them with Knowles the overseer.

"Will he lose his eye, Krause?" asked Fraser, after the doctor had attended to Gerrard, and he with Kate met him in the dining-room.

"No, but his face is very much cut about, and the poor fellow may be disfigured for life."

Kate turned away with a bursting heart, and went to her room.



CHAPTER XV

"Poor, dear, old Tommy boy!" said Westonley to his wife, as they sat at their breakfast table some weeks after the mishap to Gerrard. The mail had just arrived at Marumbah, and brought a letter from his brother-in-law, and one from Fraser, His eyes glistened as he laid them down upon the table, and looked at his wife, who, he could see, was also visibly affected, whilst little Mary sobbed unrestrainedly.

"I wish this Mr Fraser had telegraphed to us, Edward. I would have left Marumbah the same day, and gone to poor Tom to nurse him."

"Would you, old girl?" and the big man rose from his seat and kissed her, his thick, heavy beard spreading out over her shoulders.

"Indeed, I would. And now it is no use my going, is it?"

"Not a bit, Lizzie. You hear what Fraser says—'He is getting on splendidly, and the left eye is saved.' Let me read it all over again; shall I?"

"Do," and her pale, clear-cut features flushed; "it makes me feel as if I were there and saw the whole dreadful sight. Don't cry any more, Mary dear. Uncle Tom is getting better."

"If Jim had been with him, it wouldn't have happened," said the child, suppressing her sobs, and wiping her streaming eyes; "Jim would have been sure to have seen the alligator coming before any one else, and done something. I am quite sure that even if he met a bunyip he would not be afraid; but would fight it."

"I'm dead certain of it, Mary," said Westonley, as he put his big hand upon the child's head, and then taking up Fraser's letter, he again read it aloud. It described in simple language Gerrard's desperate struggle with the alligator, then went on about his courage and fortitude under agonising pain, for the wounds caused by alligators' claws invariably set up an intense and poisonous inflammation, and take a long time to heal, and concluded by saying, "as long as life lasts, I shall never forget that only for his heroic conduct I should now be a childless man, and my daughter have died a death too fearful to contemplate."

Gerrard's letter was in his usual laconic style.

"Dear Ted,—I have bought a little station here called Kaburie—good cattle country with about 2500 head on it. In getting a mob across a creek I was mauled by an alligator' and if it had not been for my friend Fraser—in whose house I am now staying for a week or so—shooting the beast, it would have had me. It is nothing serious, so don't worry over me—some deep cuts on my face, that is all, and Mr Fraser and his daughter (a charming girl) are coddling me up. Jim is with me. I left him with your old friend Lacey at Port Denison, but the young beggar wouldn't stay when he heard that I had had an accident. He is making great running with pretty Miss Fraser. Give my love to Lizzie and Mary, and tell the latter that I trust her bear is now thoroughly convalescent Jim will write to Mary by next mail. He went out early this morning fishing with Miss F———, and did not know that the mailman was calling to-day.—Yours ever, Tom."

Mary's face brightened at the prospect of a letter from her dearly-beloved Jim, and Mrs Westonley smiled. Ever since Gerrard's visit to Marumbah Downs, her once icy and austere manner to the child had, bit by bit, relaxed, until at last she had thawed altogether, and had been amply repaid by such a warm response of affection that she now made a companion of the little one, and found herself a much happier woman now that the sweet sunlight of childish love had penetrated and melted her former frigid reserve. Westonley had noted the change with unalloyed delight, but, like a wise man, had pretended not to notice; but one day, soon after Gerrard's letter had arrived, he could not suppress himself. He had been away on a business visit to his squatter neighbour Brooke, to whom he had sold his cattle station in Central Queensland at a very satisfactory figure, and as he rode up to the slip-rails of the home-paddock, he saw the one time "incubus" coming flying towards him, her sun-tanned face wreathed in smiles.

"Oh, Uncle Ted, Uncle Ted!" she panted, as she took down the slip-rails, and let Westonley pass through, "just fancy, Uncle Ted!"—and as she spoke, she lifted the slip-rails in place again and turned to him with a beaming face, out of breath, and so wildly excited that she could scarcely speak.

"What is the matter, young 'un?" and the big man bent down and swooped her up into the saddle in front of him.

"Oh, Uncle Ted, this is the very, very first time in my life that I was glad you were away!"

"How's that?"

"Aunt Lizzie let me sleep with her last NIGHT."

A great joy came into Westonley's heart. "Did she? Really and truly?"

"Really and truly! And oh, Uncle Ted, it was lovely! We talked and talked and talked for such a long time, and she told me such a lot of things about the school she was at in England, and about the girls there—some were very nice, but there were some horrid ones. Oh, she told me heaps of things. It was lovely, and we had Bunny in the room, too"—here she paused to catch her breath—"he tried to get in through the mosquito curtains, and got all tangled up, and tore a most enormous hole in them, and Aunt Lizzie only laughed, and said it didn't matter!"

"You must have had a bully time."

"Splendid! And Aunt Lizzie and I are going to the beach together one day next week to get pippies, and she says she won't mind if she gets sopping wet right up to her face."

When they reached the house they found Mrs Westonley awaiting them on the verandah, and when her husband put his arms around her and kissed her repeatedly, she blushed like a young girl. And as the days went on he saw with delight that she had at last taken the child to her heart.

*****

Breakfast was over, and Westonley in his study was talking to his head stockman when he saw Brooke riding up.

"Lizzie," he called to his wife, "here is Brooke. I expect he will have some breakfast, so tell Mrs Patton."

Brooke, a tall, powerfully-built man, and usually as boisterous as a school-boy in his manner, seemed very quiet as he dismounted, shook hands with Westonley and his wife, and patted Mary's head.

"Just in time for breakfast, Mr Brooke."

"No, thank you, Mrs Westonley. I had mine at five o'clock—I made an early start, as I wanted to get here as soon as possible, thinking that very likely Westonley might be going out on the run somewhere, and that I might miss him. I want to have a talk with you, old man."

Mrs Westonley and Mary at once left the room, both wondering what was the matter with Brooke—he looked so worried and depressed.

"Westonley, old fellow," he said, as he sat down, "give me a big brandy and soda. I've ridden hard all the way from my place." Then he looked at the letters and newspapers still lying upon the breakfast table. The latter, he saw, were unopened. Drinking off the brandy and soda, he said:

"You haven't opened your Argus yet, I see?"

"No, we had some bad news about Tom Gerrard—he's been mauled by an alligator, and we haven't bothered about newspapers this morning."

"Not seriously hurt, I trust?" anxiously asked the squatter, who had a sincere regard for Gerrard.

"No, I am glad to say. I'll show you his letter presently. But what is the matter, Brooke? You look worried."

"I am—most infernally worried. Tell me, old man, what did you do with that cheque of mine for eight thousand?" (The cheque to which he alluded was the price of the station in Central Queensland which he had bought from Westonley a few weeks previously.)

"Paid it into my bank," replied Westonley, instantly surmising that Brooke's financial affairs had gone wrong.

"Dacre's?"

"Yes."

"Westonley, old chap, I have bad news for you. I got a telegram from Melbourne last night—Dacre's Bank has smashed, and smashed badly—hopelessly, in fact."

Westonley's florid face paled.

"Smashed!"

"Utterly smashed. Will it hit you hard?"

"Break me! I had thirty thousand pounds on fixed deposit, a current account of about fifteen thousand—including the eight thousand you paid me, and every penny of my wife's money, little Mary's, and Jim's were in Dacre's," and, man as he was, his voice trembled.

"It won't break you—by heavens, it shall not break you, Westonley! I bought Comet Vale from you for my boys, but I'll give it back to you for three—for five—years to help you to pull up."

"Thanks, Brooke," and the big man grasped his friend's hand mechanically. "This has dazed me a bit. Come outside, and well talk it over."

He rose unsteadily, placing his hand on the edge of the table, and then fell forward upon his face, and lay still—his big, generous heart had ceased to beat.

When Brooke rode away late that night on his way home thinking of his dead friend, he reproached himself for so often having spoken of Elizabeth Westonley as "a pretty automaton, with as much heart in her as a doll." For her silent grief had showed him that she had loved her husband.



CHAPTER XVI

The news of Westonley's sudden death was a great shock to Gerrard. The brief telegram from his half-sister had been forwarded to Port Denison, and Lacey had sent it on to him at Fraser's Gully, by the mailman, together with a copy of the Clarion, containing the telegraphed account of the Dacre's bank failure. Had Gerrard looked at the newspaper, he might perhaps have connected Westonley's sudden end with the financial disaster, which had brought ruin to so many thousands of Australian homes, for he knew that his brother-in-law banked at Dacre's. But Mrs Westonley had said nothing of the cause of her husband's death—"Edward died suddenly yesterday. Am writing you fully to-night to Port Denison" was all that she had said.

"Dear old Ted!" he said as his eyes filled, and he saw before him the great, bearded face with the kindly, mirthful eyes, and heard the deep, gruff voice. "How can I tell Jim—the boy will be heartbroken."

And Jim's grief almost unmanned "Uncle Tom," as the boy now called him. Putting the telegram in his pocket, he went down to the battery, where his protege was being inducted into the mysteries of amalgamation by Fraser.

"Jim," he said quietly, "come along the creek with me for a bit of a stroll."

"Is your face paining you much this morning, Uncle Tom?" said the boy, as they left the battery, and walked towards the creek, "you look quite white."

"No, sonny," and he placed his hand affectionately on the boy's shoulder, "my face isn't paining me, but I have a thundering big pain in my heart, Jim—a pain which you must share with me. I have just had a telegram 'from Marumbah—with very, very sad news."

"Is it about Mary?" and the boy's lips quivered; "is she sick, Uncle?" and then, with a gasp—"is she dead?"

"No, sonny, Mary is all right, but Mr Westonley is dead," and then he told him all that he could tell.

An hour later, when they returned to the house, and Kate Fraser wondered why they looked so quiet and depressed, Gerrard told her of the news he had received.

"Poor Jim!" she said, as she put her arms round the boy, who was trying hard not to again break down.

Then Gerrard went on to say that he would now have to change his plans somewhat.

"I must get back to Port Denison tomorrow, Miss Fraser. I want to send some telegrams as well as letters. But as it will take my sister's letter quite a fortnight to come from Marumbah, I shall put in most of the time at Kaburie, and, if I may, also inflict myself upon your father and yourself occasionally."

"Do. We shall be so glad."

Two days later he and Jim were back in Port Denison, and lunching with Lacey at the Queen's Hotel. Then for the first time Gerrard heard of the Dacre bank failure.

"It must have been a fearful shock to poor Ted," he said to Lacey; "and perhaps it was that that killed him, for, as you say, the bank suspended on Saturday, and he died early on the Monday following. I fear he must have been hit very badly by the smash, for he not only had a lot of money in it, but was a big shareholder in the concern as well."

"That's unfortunate, for yesterday's news gives further revelations of the smash, which is the very worst that has occurred in the Colonies. Every one thought that Dacre's bank was as solid as the rock of Gibraltar."

This intelligence disturbed Gerrard greatly—so much so that after lunch he sent a telegram to Westonley's Melbourne agents—who were also his own—and asked them if they could tell him how his sister would be affected by the collapse of Dacre's. In a few hours he received an answer—"Deeply regret to say everything will be swept away."

"Poor Lizzie!" he said to Lacey after dinner, as they sat on the verandah smoking; "this will be terrible news for her—if she does not already know of it. Thank God, I can help her to some extent," and he meant to "help" her by giving her Kaburie, for which he had only a few days previously sent Mrs Tallis a draft upon his bankers for six thousand pounds.

"You were lucky not to have had anything in Dacre's."

"Very, for Westonley was always cracking it up to me. He urged me strongly only six months ago to buy a hundred shares—a pretty hole I should be in now if I had taken the poor fellow's advice."

"Yes, indeed. But no one ever dreamt of Dacre's being anything but one of the soundest banks in the world It is a blackguardly affair—a cruel, shameless fraud—and I hope that the men who are responsible for it will each get seven years' hard labour."

"They deserve it I suppose that Westonley, with Marumbah Downs, and Comet Vale, and the funds he had in Dacre's was worth a hundred thousand at least; and now my poor sister and little Mary Rayner will be absolutely penniless. Thank heaven, I did not take his advice, but stuck to the Capricornian Pastoralists' Bank."

The editor of the Clarion gasped and dropped his cigar. But he quickly recovered himself, and turning his face away from Gerrard, puffed out volumes of smoke most energetically, considering what he should do. He soon decided. "Better tell him the grim truth at once," he thought.

"Gerrard!"

The change in his voice struck his companion—it was low, grave, and sympathetic.

"What is it, Lacey? Now, out with it. You have something unpleasant to tell me, and don't like doing it. I'll bet you drinks that I can guess what it is. I saw you start when I mentioned the Capricornian Pastoralists' Bank. Has that 'busted' too?"

"Yes. It smashed yesterday as a result of the Dacre collapse. The news was in my rag this morning."

"Was it? I didn't look at the Clarion to-day. Is it a bad case?"

"Very bad; about a shilling in the pound is all that will come out of the wreck. Will you be hard hit?"

"Rather! Curls me up like a corkscrew. To pay Mrs Tallis her six thousand pounds I gave a mortgage on Ocho Rios for five thousand pounds as I only had about three or four thousand pounds in the Capricornian. I'm deuced lucky that it wasn't more."

He rose from his seat and paced angrily to and fro on the verandah for a moment or two, then he stopped suddenly, and a smile lit up his scarred face.

"What an ass I am, Lacey! The thing can't be helped, but only a little while ago I had made up my mind to give Kaburie to my sister; and now I can't pay for Kaburie, for my draft for six thousand pounds is worthless to Mrs Tallis, and all the labouring of mustering and branding has gone for nothing. Poor little woman! I am sorry for her! Isn't it a beastly mess?"

"You think too much of others, Gerrard, and too little of yourself."

"I don't! I'm very fond of being good to myself, I can assure you. But a smack in the face like this is enough to make a saint swear like an Australian Member of Parliament. Now, I bought Kaburie with the idea of making it a breeding station—prize cattle and all that sort of thing—for Ocho Rios. Then when I received this telegram from my agents in Melbourne telling me that my sister would be left penniless, I made up my mind to write to her by the next mail south, and tell her that Kaburie was for her and my niece Mary. And another thing I wanted to do was to give a man I know a good lift." (He meant Fraser.) "And now I'll be as good as stony-broke for the next two years."

"I wish I could help you," began Lacey, earnestly.

"Thanks, old man. It is awfully good of you, but I shall pull through all right in the end, and with a good season or two should easily lift the mortgage on Ocho Rios. All I am scared of now is a drought, but if a drought does come, I can't stop it, and therefore, it is no use my worrying about it." He hoisted his feet upon the table, and touched the bell for the waitress. "Well, thank heavens, Lacey, I still have a thirst, and an iced brandy and soda is very soothing to the nerves. Milly, bring the ice again please, and if you see the boy tell him to come here."

Jim soon appeared, still looking subdued and depressed.

"Sit down here, old son, and have a long drink of ginger ale with a lump of ice in it," and he put his hand on the boy's arm, and made him sit down between himself and Lacey. "Jim, my son, I've just had some beastly bad news. I've lost a lot of money, and you and I will have to work like niggers when we get to Ocho Rios. Savvy?"

"Yes, Uncle Tom. I will work very, very hard for you."

"For us both, Jim, and for Mary and Aunt Lizzie; for we are all in the same boat I'll tell you the whole yarn by and by; but for the present well talk about something else for a change."

Lacey looked at him in silent admiration and wonder. "Nothing can disturb the equanimity of such a serene mind," he thought, "and I like him for taking the youngster into his confidence like that."

"I wonder what made Aulain leave so suddenly," said Gerrard, as Milly appeared with the ice, and the ginger ale for Jim. "It was strange of him not to even leave a note for me."

"Oh! when a man has fever he does very queer things. All he told me was that he was off to Brisbane to tender his resignation in person, and as that is against the regulations he hoped to be dismissed. He has been very strange lately. I think that matters have gone wrong in a certain quarter."

Gerrard nodded. "I know. Well, I'm sorry if it is the case. She is a bonny little lady."

Milly again appeared. "If you please, Mr Gerrard, Sergeant Macpherson would like to see you for a few minutes on important business."

"All right, Milly! Ask him to come up. Jim, I hope you haven't been up to any games while I was away."

The local Sergeant of Police was shown up.

"Good evening, sir," he said. "I have just had a wire from Cardwell from Inspector Sheridan, saying that news had come through by the mail boat from Somerset, that there has been a very bad bush fire up your way, and Ocho Rios station is destroyed."

"Any lives lost?"

"No, sir, but the fire spread all over the run for fifty miles about, and your stockman thinks that there are hardly two hundred head of cattle left I am sorry to bring you such bad news, sir."

"Oh! don't apologise, Sergeant," was the quiet reply, "I'm getting used to bad news. Milly, bring a chair for Mr Macpherson, and another big glass, and some more ice. Now sit down, Sergeant, and tell me all about it. Jim, get off that railing, or you'll fall off into the street, and break your leg. My luck is dead against me. Light your pipe, Sergeant, and make yourself comfy."



CHAPTER XVII

"The saying that misfortunes never come singly seems to be verified in your case, Mr Gerrard," said Kate Fraser, as, a fortnight after he had received the news of Westonley's death, he was relating his disastrous experiences to her and her father.

"Looks like it, doesn't it? But there are lots of fellows who have had worse luck than me, and so I shouldn't 'make a song' over mine. Now, do you know the story of Knowles's life?"

"No, he has never told us."

"Well, he told it to me yesterday" (Gerrard had been to Kaburie to tell the dapper little overseer that he could not pay for the station, and that he, Knowles, must re-take possession as manager for Mrs Tallis), "and I think the poor little chap only related it out of pure sympathy for me when I explained to him how I was fixed, and how sorry I was for him—as well as for myself—for I had doubled the salary he was receiving from Mrs Tallis."

"He told me that," said Kate, and her eyes sparkled with fun.

"Naturally, he would tell you" and Gerrard, with a faint quiver of one eyelid, gave Douglas Fraser a sly glance. "I am sure you must be the recipient of the confidences of all the country side, and would never 'give any one away,' as vulgar persons like myself would say; so please don't 'give me away' to Knowles." Then his voice changed. "Miss Fraser, that little man is both a hero and a martyr. He was in the Naval Brigade at Sebastopol, and was recommended for the V.C. for distinguished bravery in one of the futile attacks on the Redan. Did you know that?"

"No! He only told us that he was with Peel's Naval Brigade and had seen most of the fighting, was severely wounded, and that after he came home he left the Navy through ill-health, and came to Australia."

"Well, he didn't get the Cross after all; that was his first bit of bad luck. Then his father, who was always looked upon as a very wealthy man, went smash for a huge amount, which ruined hundreds of people, and then shot himself; so poor Knowles left the Navy and took a billet as house-master at a boys' college. Six months after, his uncle, Lord Accrington, died, and left Knowles twenty thousand pounds. Of that twenty thousand pounds he kept only five hundred pounds; every penny of the rest he gave to his dead father's creditors."

"How noble of him," said Kate. "It was indeed, 'but you see,' he said to me, 'I didn't want the money. My mother had died years before, and I have no brothers or sisters, and it would have been a disgraceful thing for me to have kept the money after what had occurred. Lord Accrington was my mother's brother, and I was always a favourite of his (he did not like my father, and had not spoken to him for years). I never expected he would leave me a cent, and so it was no sacrifice on my part' And then he said that ten years ago he had saved enough money to buy a small sheep station in the Riverina District, and then came the drought of '72 which broke him."

"Poor fellow!" said Kate, "I shall like him now more than ever."

Gerrard nodded. "One doesn't often come across such men. And, as I was saying, I have no reason to make a song over my affairs when so many other fellows have had worse luck than me."

Douglas Fraser, who for the past few days had been depressed in spirits, said, as he rose from his seat:

"True, Gerrard. It is of no use any one girding at his misfortunes, if they are not caused by himself. Sometimes a man thinks in mining parlance that he has 'struck it rich,' and straightway begins building his Chateaux en Espagne. Then he finds he has bottomed on a rank duffer, and wants to swear, as I do now." He smiled and spread out his chest, "Kate, I'm going up to the claim to see Sam Young."

"And Mr Gerrard and I are going to the creek to catch some fish for supper."

"Very well! I shall come back that way and join you," and the big man strode off to the claim—half a mile away.

"Your father is not in his usual spirits, I think, Miss Fraser," said Gerrard, as he and Kate walked down to the fishing pool through the ever-sighing she-oaks which lined the banks of the creek.

"He is not; the reef has been gradually thinning out, and Sam Young told him yesterday that he is afraid it will pinch out altogether. Last Saturday's cleaning up at the battery only yielded ten ounces of melted gold—worth about forty pounds—and the week's expenses came to one hundred and forty pounds. I am afraid, Mr Gerrard, that father and I and all the men will have to leave Fraser's Gully, and set our faces to the North, and leave the old battery behind us to the native bears and opossums and iguanas and snakes," and her voice faltered, for she dearly loved the place where she had spent so many happy years.

"I am sorry," said Gerrard, musingly. "I suppose your father—if he does leave here—from what he said to me is thinking of going to the newly-opened gold fields on the Gilbert River?"

"Yes, in that direction at any rate, prospecting as we travel. That is the one thing that consoles me; I love the idea of seeing new country."

Gerrard made no answer for some minutes. He was thinking of a certain place on a creek, running into the Batavia River—the place "with a hunking big boulder standing up in the middle of a deep pool," of which he had spoken to Aulain, and he now half-regretted his promise to him to "keep it dark" for six months.

"Of what are you thinking, Mr Gerrard?"

"I was wondering if your father would care to make a prospecting trip up my way instead of going to the Gilbert rush. When I left Ocho Rios there were several prospecting parties on Cape York Peninsula—some of them doing very well—and I myself got seven ounces of gold in a few hours from a creek about sixty miles from my station. Unfortunately, however, another man as well as myself knows of this place, and he asked me not to say anything about it for six months. He means to go there with a prospecting party."

"You mean Mr Aulain," and Kate turned her frank eyes to his.

"How did you know?"

She flushed. "You remember the letter you brought me from him. In that letter he told me that he was leaving the Native Police, and intended going in for mining, as he knew of some very rich auriferous country near your station, and that you, who also knew of it, had promised him to keep it secret from any other prospecting party."

"Yes, I did. I should like to see Aulain 'strike it rich' as your father says, Miss Fraser," and then he smiled. "If only for the sake of my kind, patient nurse of last month."

Again Kate's face flushed. "I know what you mean, Mr Gerrard, but——" she bent her head, and began to tie on a fishhook to the line she was carrying. "But you are mistaken. I like Mr Aulain very, very much, but I do not like any one enough to—to—oh, dear! I've broken the snooding."

"Never mind, I'll fix it for you," and as his hand touched her's, a new hope came into his life. He knew what she meant him to understand—that she was not going to marry Aulain—and then he went on quickly.

"I gabble like an old woman, do I not, Miss Fraser? Oh, this is what I was about to say, I believe that the Batavia River district is full of rich reefs and alluvial gold as well, and from what I hear from Lacey, I don't think the Gilbert will prove a permanent gold-field. Now, I will try to persuade your father to come to my part of the country instead of the Gilbert, which, by the time he reaches it, will probably be played out altogether, and abandoned."

"Ah! do persuade him, Mr Gerrard; I liked the thought of our going to the Gilbert, but I like better—oh, ever so much better—your suggestion of the Batavia River, for there we should be near the sea; and I love the sea and the beaches. I am horribly selfish, I am afraid."

Gerrard stroked his beard meditatively. "Yes, you'll be near the sea, Miss Fraser. But it is an awful country for a lady to live in; the fever is very bad there, and the blacks are a continual source of danger and trouble."

"Anything that my father can go through I can face too," she said proudly; "and besides that I have had fever, am not afraid of blacks or anything—except alligators," and she shuddered, as she smiled.

"Then you will be in a continual state of fear. All the rivers on the Peninsula are alive with them, and I have lost hundreds of cattle by the brutes." Then he laughed. "But they won't get many this year."