"The rescue of Dick and Bobby." (Page [74].)

DICK LESTER
OF
KURRAJONG

BY

MARY GRANT BRUCE

WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND MELBOURNE

Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I.—[HOW HOLIDAYS CAME SUDDENLY]
II.—[DICK GOES WEST]
III.—[DICK GOES TO SEA]
IV.—[ABOARD THE "MOONDARRA"]
V.—[HOW DICK PRACTISED HIGH DIVING]
VI.—[WESTRALIA]
VII.—[THE "OHIO" COMES IN]
VIII.—[THE JOURNEY NORTH]
IX.—[NARRUNG HOMESTEAD]
X.—[THE NARRUNG TRIBE]
XI.—[SOMETHING OLD AND QUIET]
XII.—[THE TEN-MILE HUT]
XIII.—[HOW CONQUEROR BOLTED]
XIV.—["BUCK UP, SCHOOL!"]
XV.—[UNDER SENTENCE]
XVI.—[THE LONG TRAIL]
XVII.—[HOW MERLE JUMPED FROM A TRAM]
XVIII.—[HOW DICK LESTER TOOK HIS CHANCE]
XIX.—[WHEN THE WORLD CAME RIGHT AGAIN]

DICK LESTER OF KURRAJONG

CHAPTER I.
HOW HOLIDAYS CAME SUDDENLY.

"Lester!"

A small boy, red-faced and puffing after a hard run with his message, paused at the wicket gate of the playground of a great school. He wore an anxious look, for he had been bidden to hurry; and to pick out one boy from two or three hundred seems a rather overwhelming task, especially with most of the number vigorously kicking practice footballs. He gave up the idea of plunging into the throng, sighed, drew a long breath, opened his mouth to its fullest extent, and shrilled again:

"Lester! Hi, Lester!"

There was no response, except from two youngsters near, who kindly advised him to call loudly, adding that there was no sense in whispering. The injured messenger turned a shade redder, glared, and renewed his shriek.

"Lester! You're wanted!"

"Why not telephone?" asked one of his tormentors, lazily. "It's much easier."

"Besides you'll hurt yourself if you make awful noises like that," commented the other. "The last chap who did it busted. And nobody wants to gather up your pieces."

"Beasts!" said the small boy; and again, desperately: "Lester!"

"He's somewhere over in that corner," said a senior boy, who was standing against a tree, sheltering from the nipping wind while he knitted his brows over a Virgil—unpleasantly conscious that the Doctor would demand heart-to-heart intercourse concerning it within half an hour. "Clear out, for goodness' sake, and stop behaving like a motor siren."

The small boy trotted away in the direction indicated, dodging the footballing groups as best he could, and keeping a sharp look out for the object of his search. Presently his anxious face lightened, and he hurled himself against a boy who, being just about to kick at a spinning ball, turned upon him, justly indignant.

"Can't you look out where you're going, you silly young ass!"

"Lester, you're wanted!" said the messenger breathlessly.

"Who by?" demanded Dick Lester, ungrammatically.

"The doctor. And he said you were to hurry."

"Now, I wonder what I've been doing." Lester knitted his brows. "Was he in a wax?"

"Oh, much the same as usual," returned the messenger—to whom the doctor, even in his most benevolent moments, was a being of terror and thunderbolts. "You'd better hurry up, or you'll know all about it."

Dick trotted off across the playground, meeting friendly salutations on the way from some who desired to know what had been his latest iniquity, and from others who counselled a pillow beneath the jacket as an aid to the coming interview. He hoped—rather faintly—that his face was clean, knowing for certain that his hands were not. It seemed prudent not to waste time in going to clean up, so he ran on, and presently tapped at the door of the doctor's study, having as yet been unable to guess why he should be sent for. There was a little matter of a highly-unauthorised ride on a pony belonging to a milkman near the school; another item of a sketch on the blackboard, which had proved very diverting to his form, but had not been effaced quite quickly enough to escape the eagle eye of the science master. It had represented the doctor, full-fledged in cap and gown, careering along St. Kilda beach on a donkey. Without any doubt, one might prophesy that the doctor would not find in it the undiluted delight it had given to the form.

"All the same, old Stinks potted me himself for it," Dick pondered, referring to the science master aforesaid. "I don't believe he's beast enough to have me carpeted as well. And nobody knew about the pony except Bottles. At least I hope not!" He shrugged his shoulders, and renewed his delicate tap at the study door.

"Come in!" said a deep voice, and Dick entered. Dr. Gurdon glanced round from his writing table.

"Oh, you, Lester. Go into the room across the hall."

Wondering greatly, Dick withdrew, closing the door behind him. The opposite door belonged to Mrs. Gurdon's drawing-room; presumably he was merely to wait there until the doctor had time to attend to his case. He went in, still lost in conjecture.

"Dickie!"

Someone little and slight and dainty sprang to meet him, and with an inarticulate cry Dick fled to her.

"Mother! Oh, you blessed old darling!"

"I couldn't resist taking you by surprise," Mrs. Lester said, still holding him closely. "It was only yesterday that I knew that I was coming. Oh, Dick, you've grown ever so!"

"Have I?" he said, laughing. "Yes, I believe I have—my trousers are a mile shorter. Oh, and I thought it meant a licking when the old doc. sent for me; and it was—you!"

"What have you been doing to deserve a licking, you bad boy?" said his mother, smiling.

"Oh, lots. Tell you all about it afterwards." Dick said cheerfully. "Nothing very awful, though, Mother-est, how long are you going to be down?"

"Two days. And you're coming away with me until to-night, because we've got lots to talk about. Run and change your clothes—yes, and you might wash your face, too, my son."

"Right-oh! Back in two jiffs."

He went upstairs three steps at a time, unbuttoning as he went. In the room which he shared with three other boys a very fat youth was laboriously endeavouring to remove sundry stains from an Eton collar.

"My last collar," grumbled he. "I guess the laundry eats 'em. And I've got to go to the dentist, and matron'll eat me if she sees me in this. Wish you had a decent neck, Skinny, and I'd borrow one from you."

"Seventeens, isn't it, that you take?" queried Dick, grinning. "Never mind, Bottles, you're the pride of the school."

"Oh, am I?" rejoined his plump friend sourly. "I don't know about the pride of the school, but I'm a fortune to the man who makes my clothes—I bust out of 'em once a fortnight. Why on earth anyone wanted to be fat beats me."

"Did anyone?" Dick grinned—and dodged a hair-brush, hurled by Bottles with an agility that was surprising, considering his bulk. "Steady, you playful old elephant—I'm busy."

"You seem a bit rushed," remarked Bottles, observing his friend's movements with some amazement, as Dick flung off his school suit hurriedly, dived at the wash-stand, emerged from the basin, dripping, and after a brief towelling plunged at his locker for his Sunday clothes. "Going to have lunch at Government House, by any chance?"

"No—something better," Dick knotted a blue tie carefully. "Mother's turned up suddenly, and I'm off for the day."

"Some people have all the luck," Bottles said, enviously. "Things don't get sorted out equally at all—some get mothers and some get dentists. Jolly glad, all the same, Lester. You didn't expect her down, did you?"

"No, and when the old doc. sent for me I made sure it was the milkman's pony," Dick said, grinning.

"That's what it is to have a guilty conscience," laughed Bottles, whose name, by the way, happened to be Glass. "Great Scott, you're dressed; and I'm still pounding at this beastly collar, and it only gets worse. What on earth am I going to do?"

"Dodge matron, and buy some new ones at the stores when you get in," counselled Dick, giving his hair a furious brushing. He dived into his locker for a new cap. "So long, old man; hope the dentist won't be very beastly. See you to-night." He clattered down the corridor, leaving Mr. Glass gazing ruefully at his murky collar.

Mrs. Lester was standing at the window of the drawing-room, looking out upon the rather dismal shrubs of the school garden. She turned to meet Dick, with the delightful smile that made her look only old enough to be his sister.

"Ready? and so spruce!" she said. "Did you bring your overcoat, Dick?"

"It's outside," Dick answered. His eyes dwelt upon her lovingly. "I say, mother, you do look stunning!"

Other people had had the same thought that morning, looking at the dainty figure in the plain suit of dark brown. Her little face, with its wild-rose colouring, looked out from a great collar of brown furs, under a big hat; and pinned in her muff was a knot of violets and boronia that lent their fragrance to her sweetness. Dick could not have told you what she wore, only he knew that everything about her, from the curly hair under her brown hat to the dainty feet in the brown suede shoes, was perfection.

"Not one of the chaps has a mother like you," he told her, stumbling over the eager words. "Some of 'em have awful old squaws of mothers——"

She put a hand over his mouth, smiling into his eyes.

"And if I were the most awful old squaw alive you wouldn't think it, and neither do they," she said. "You'd be just as glad to see me if I were ugly and dowdy, Dickie-boy."

"I would, but I'm jolly glad you're not," returned her son. "I'm just frightfully proud when you come to school, and you should hear what the fellows say about you. So there!" He tucked her hand into his arm—she had blushed like a girl at his words—and half pulled her out of the room. "Come along, or someone'll come and talk to you, and that would waste an awful lot of precious time."

There were a thousand questions to ask as the train whisked them towards Melbourne. Dick's father had been for a year in England; there was a letter from him, Mrs. Lester said, rather vaguely. Dick could read it presently. Apart from father there was home—the big station up north, with its myriad interests; dogs and horses—all old friends—cattle, and the prospects of the season ahead; Dick's pet wallaby and rabbits and pigeons, and all the station people who made up the little circle in which his life had been spent until school claimed him; overseer, stockman, boundary riders; cook, with her big heart and her amazing capacity for sending wonderful hampers; old nurse, who had a somewhat disconcerting way of still regarding him as her baby, but who came very close in his affections for all that. Dick had not found out half that he wanted to know when the short journey came to an end, and they found themselves at the familiar hotel.

"We'll have lunch," said Mrs. Lester. "It must be nearly one o'clock. Then we'll go up to my room and talk before we go out."

Dick shot a quick glance at her. They were very close friends, these two; during all his thirteen years they had never been apart for more than a few days until he went to school, and he knew every intonation of her voice, every changing shade of expression on her face. Now he suddenly understood that something new was to be manifested in that talk; and therefore he ate his lunch with some impatience, though without anxiety, seeing that his mother was far too cheerful for any trouble to be hovering near. This was as well, since the lunch was something of an event to a small boy at the end of a long term of the "plain and wholesome" food of boarding school; and as his mother was very merry, and the rooms crowded with people all more or less interesting, and a good string band was playing lively music in a palm-fringed gallery at the end of the room, the moment was sufficiently enthralling to keep Dick from much speculation as to the mystery.

"Nothing more, sonnie?"

"No thanks." Dick regarded with affection a dish that had held trifle. "That was a topping lunch, mother. Have you finished?"

His mother nodded, gathering up her furs.

"Come upstairs—I want to consult you about something."

The lift flashed them up several storeys, and presently they found themselves in Mrs. Lester's room, overlooking the calm stateliness of the eastern end of Collins Street. Mrs. Lester took off her hat and tossed it upon the bed.

"Sit down, Dickie. I want to read you father's letter."

Dick gave a sudden little shiver.

"Do you remember last time you said that?" he asked.

She met his eyes. "Before you went to school?"

"Yes. You read me father's letter, saying I ought to go. And it was awful, 'cause he left it to us, and I felt such a sweep, 'cause I couldn't make myself say I would."

"But you did say it, Dick."

"Yes—but it took me a bit to make up my mind."

"Well, it isn't always easy to swallow a nasty dose off-hand," said the little mother philosophically.

"And now you've got another dose. Is it as bad, mother?"

"Ah, you must judge that for yourself," she said. "Listen—and, first of all, remember that we have evidently missed a letter. There is quite a gap between this and the last one we had from him, and he speaks of a letter he posted us from Edinburgh—but it hasn't come. However, I don't know that it matters much."

"Not matter? Why, we may never get it!" cried Dick, wide-eyed. English mail day was the chief day of all to them. To miss one of father's letters was a calamity not lightly to be borne. Yet here was this mother smiling over it.

"No—nothing matters much," she said, and rumpled his hair suddenly. "Listen, old son."

"... So it's nearly over, the long, hard separation from you two dear ones, and I needn't worry that this time I've only a moment to send a note. I've booked my berth in the Ohio, and have none too much time now to attend to all sorts of odds and ends before I sail——"

"Mother!" exploded Dick. "When?"

"Be quiet!" said his mother, laughing. "There's more yet."

"——and fix up business finally. I can't realise that I'll see you and the boy so soon; it's too good to be true. And I don't mean to wait for it one day longer than I have to. We're due at Fremantle on 27th August. I think you said Dick's term ended about the end of August, and then he'll have three weeks' holiday for me to make his acquaintance. (Snort from Dick.) Well, it would mean cutting into school a bit, but the boy is only a youngster after all, and I don't think it would matter"—here the little mother suddenly began to read very fast, and the words tumbled out of her mouth so quickly that Dick could hardly have caught them if he had not been listening with all his ears and his eyes as well, listening, kneeling at her feet, with his gaze fixed on her face, with its rose-flush, and its dancing eyes and lips that trembled ever so little—"if he missed a few classes; what do you say to hurrying off to town, kidnapping him from Dr. Gurdon, and bringing both my belongings across to Fremantle to meet me?"

"Ow!" said Dick faintly, his mouth and eyes round circles of amazement and delight. "Fremantle! Oh, mother-est, are we going?"

His mother rumpled his hair all over again.

"Going!" said she. "Do you think we could refuse an invitation like that, Dickie?"

She found herself suddenly hugged with a vehemence that left her breathless.

"Oh, isn't he just the very best person ever!" gasped Dick. "Mother—when?"

"To-morrow," said his mother calmly. "And even so, we'll have to go overland to Adelaide. The boat that will get us to Western Australia in time to meet the Ohio leaves Melbourne to-day. I knew I couldn't catch it in Melbourne; but it doesn't matter."

Dick sat down on the floor, looking at her with a kind of solemn bewilderment.

"Do you mean to tell me," he asked, "that to-morrow you and I go to Adelaide and catch a steamer to meet father at Fremantle?"

"To-morrow as ever is," said his mother as solemnly.

"And that in less than a week we'll see father?"

She nodded. Her sweet mouth quivered suddenly and her eyes dimmed. Dick, suddenly flinging his arms round her, felt her trembling.

"Oh, Dickie, it's been so long," she whispered brokenly. "And I've been so lonely." She put her face against his smooth, sunburnt cheek, and he patted her very hard. Presently she sat up and smiled at him again.

"It was almost a relief when they met a 'sundowner' slouching along."

"Now, isn't that ridiculous, when we're going to get him back so soon! And there's more letter yet, Dick."

"It would be a little change for you—you've been alone on the place so many months now. Dick won't refuse, I know; and as for me—well, the voyage will be long enough, even if I do shorten it by a week. I'll leave the Ohio at Fremantle and we'll come back together on an inter-State boat. The Ohio is packed, and there might be a difficulty about getting berths for us all. Besides, we shan't be hurried then, and we can show Dick a glimpse of the West. I want to get home badly enough; but, after all, that can wait. I just feel that when I once get you two back I shall never want to hurry again."

The low voice paused and they looked at each other.

"Mother, is it all fixed?" Dick demanded. "Did you square the doc.?"

"I represented the case to Dr. Gurdon," said his mother, with a dignity that was belied by the twinkle in her eyes. "And he kindly agreed to excuse you, in the special circumstances. Anticipating this courtesy on his part, I——"

"Oh, mother," said Dick reproachfully.

"——went to the shipping office and bought tickets before going out to the school," finished his mother, laughing. "If you think, Master Richard Lester, that I'm going to let any head master, or any other old thing, stand in our way when we're going to meet father after he has been away a year, you are sadly mistaken."

She sprang up suddenly and began to dance—a quaint, elfish dance of quick, swaying movements like a brown leaf fluttering before the breeze. Dick watched her, laughing, until presently her steps changed to something more definite, and she swooped and caught him by the hands and pulled him up, and together they pranced up and down the big room like a pair of young horses, too full of joy of living to keep still. Dick's mother had taught him to dance when he was little more than a baby, so that he was not quite as stiff-legged as you might expect from a muscular schoolboy of thirteen. It was not the first time he had suddenly been called upon to take part in what he called "one of his mother's war dances." So they pranced together until a crusty old gentleman in the room below found his chandelier rattling, and was on the point of ringing for the waiter to demand angrily the reason, when Mrs. Lester ceased for lack of breath and fell into an arm-chair.

"Dear me, and I an old married woman," she gasped, fanning herself and looking far more like a flushed child. "Whatever would father say? I must think more of my dignity."

"He'd say you were just a kid, like he always does," said Dick, who had collapsed upon the hearth-rug. "It would be an awful shock to father if he found that you'd got prim and grown up."

"I misdoubt he'll never find that, the poor man," said his mother tragically. "Dickie, I'll never forget how terrible it was when I first found myself married and settled down at Kurrajong, with a house and several servants. You see, I was only seventeen when I married, and though seventeen may seem a lot to you, it isn't so much of an age when you come to it. And I had always been at boarding school and I didn't know a thing about keeping house. I used to like stock very much as a child, but I remember that for a while after I was married I used to look at a bullock or a sheep with horror, as unpleasant beasts that got cut up into a number of joints, of which I never could remember the names."

"Poor old mummie!" said Dick, laughing. "How did you manage to learn things?"

"Cook pulled me through; I found her six months after my marriage. Before that there was a terrible cook who scorned me and my ignorance, and gave me a very bad time, and father very bad meals. Of course, he never grumbled."

"No, he never would," said Dick.

"It was only one day when he found me crying in my room that he discovered that I was really unhappy—and you should have seen how angry he was. He sent away the terrible cook, and we went to Melbourne and hunted for a really nice one—and got her. And dear old cookie taught me all the things I ought to have learned before I got married. But I made up my mind that if ever any daughters came to me I would have them taught very thoroughly at school how to run their houses. But they never did come—only one little ragamuffin of a son!"

She rumpled his hair, and leaning forward, dropped a butterfly kiss on his nose.

"Now you look like a golliwog," she said, "and we have no time to spare, because we must go and buy deck shoes, and cures for sea sickness, and other interesting things. We have got to look our very smartest when we board that big mail-boat to get father. Tidy yourself, beloved, and we'll go out."

Dick brushed his hair with her long-tailed hairbrush, which he despised very much; and after his mother had pulled his coat here and there and settled his tie with deft fingers, she pronounced him fit to accompany her, and they fared forth into the busy streets. Shopping with his mother generally resolved itself, for Dick, into waiting at the doors of big drapery houses, where she was swallowed up into mysterious regions that had no charms for her son. He preferred to stand in the doorway, tucked into a corner out of the way of the hurrying throng of eager women passing in and out—there was fun in watching the crowd, the clanging tram-cars, the beautiful horses—it was before the days of many motors, and good carriage horses were still to be seen in the city streets. Like most bush-bred boys—and girls, for that matter—Dick thought there was no sight to equal that of a good horse. He was staring at a big, taking chestnut, driven by a man in a light buggy, when a voice said, "Hullo, young Lester!" and he turned to greet Master Glass, resplendent in a new collar, and no longer melancholy in appearance.

"Hullo, Bottles!" Dick rejoined. "How did the dentist treat you?"

"Oh, not too badly," Bottles answered. "Finished me up in pretty quick time, too, so I've got the rest of the afternoon to play in. What are you up to?"

"Mother's shopping," said Dick. "Oh, I say, Bottles, such a lark! I'm off to Western Australia to-morrow!"

"Whew-w!" whistled Bottles. "What for?"

Dick unfolded his news.

"Well, of all the lucky young kids," was Bottles' comment. "So you'll be gone until after the holidays? Anyhow, you'll have your father at home to keep you in order, so it's to be hoped that you'll come back well licked."

"I hope you don't think I have failed in my duty in that respect, Bottles," said a laughing voice; and the abashed Master Glass turned quickly to greet Mrs. Lester, blushing to the roots of his close-cropped hair.

"You don't give him half enough, Mrs. Lester," he mumbled. "I have to attend to him myself, or he'd get too bumptious."

"You!" said Dick, with huge scorn. "I'd like to see you, old fatty!" Which loathed insult caused the irate Bottles to vow to take deep vengeance no later than that very night.

Mrs. Lester restored tranquillity.

"Leave him to me, Bottles; I'll keep him severely in order," she laughed. "Meanwhile, come and have some tea with us; I'm sure you need some."

The boys followed her into a big restaurant, so crowded that they found some difficulty in finding a table. A band was playing softly, and somewhere near them a little fountain plashed gently under a clump of tree-ferns, catching rays of rosy light from some concealed source overhead. A waitress brought them tea and muffins, with a dish of cakes so attractive that the only problem was which to choose; and their satisfaction was heightened presently by the spectacle of three senior boys from their own school wandering helplessly about in a vain attempt to find a resting place. Bottles and Dick nodded kindly to them, and felt intensely superior, selecting cakes with a calm enjoyment that brought murderous feelings to the three prefects, who propped themselves against a pillar and waited dismally for someone to vacate a table, which no one seemed inclined to do. Indeed, they were still standing when Mrs. Lester called for her bill.

"We might as well give those three boys this table," she said. "I suppose you know them, Dick?"

Dick knew them as the cabin boy may be expected to know the captain and chief officer of his ship, as superior and mighty beings, too far above him to dream of more than the curtest recognition. One of them had cuffed him for getting in his way in the playground no later than yesterday. It was therefore somewhat soothing to have the opportunity of sauntering across to these lords of creation and remarking; "Care to have our table, Landon?" And soothing, too, to see how meekly the famished ones accepted the invitation, and how the lordliness of demeanour that seemed part of them at school fell from them when Mrs. Lester spoke to them. Landon, indeed, blushed like any junior, and stammered in his answer, which gave unmitigated joy to Bottles and Dick, and formed the subject of much merry jest in the dormitory that night.

Bottles said good-bye after tea, and took himself back to school, while Dick and his mother, their shopping finished, boarded a tram that landed them near the Fitzroy Gardens, where the flowers were beginning to show promise of their spring blaze of glory, and the splendid stretches of turf under the great trees made a haven of refuge to tired city dwellers. They found a quiet seat in a sheltered corner—there was still something of winter in the breeze—and talked, filling in all the gaps that even the longest letters must leave when the smallest detail is eagerly treasured. Dick heaved a great sigh when at length they rose and strolled slowly across the lawns towards the street.

"I feel almost as if I'd been home again," he said. "My word, mother, won't it be gorgeous to go back to Kurrajong—and to take father!"

CHAPTER II.
DICK GOES WEST.

Spencer Street Station, and the long line of the Adelaide express glittering beside the long grey platform, the great carriages brave with polished and shining glass and nickel. People were hurrying to and fro, looking for seats, hurrying porters with trucks of luggage, raiding the bookstall for bundles of magazines and papers, and the fruit stall for oranges and bananas and baskets of early Queensland strawberries. The express conductors, who are chosen for their good manners, among other qualifications, stood near the entrance to the saloon carriages, good to look on in their blue and silver uniforms; quick to render aid to real passengers, or gently to head off idle folk who merely wished to stroll through the train and look curiously at the travellers. Boys, laden with bundles of evening papers, rent the air with shouts of "'Erald—Penny 'Erald!" snatched at coppers held towards them through the windows, or impatiently sought for change for anxious ladies who insisted on tendering half a crown for a paper, and craned their necks anxiously after the boys as they rushed to the bookstall for the money. People hurried along outside the carriages, peering in through the wide, nickel-barred windows for friends whom they wished to farewell. A theatrical company occupied several compartments, and occasioned a solid block of people outside their windows, through which their admirers thrust offerings of sweets and flowers. There were snatches of song from this section of the train, shouts of "Good-bye!" "Good luck!" and "Come back again!"—and many of the newly-arrived bouquets were pulled to pieces by their owners in response to the clamorous demand for souvenirs.

Dick Lester and his mother arrived in the wake of a porter laden with hand-baggage, and fought their way through the throng until they reached one of the blue and silver conductors. He glanced at the number of Mrs. Lester's ticket, and then, ushering them into the carriage, led them along a wide corridor until he came to an empty compartment.

"This is yours, madam." He offered any other assistance, while the porter placed their possessions in the rack and departed to see to their heavy baggage.

"All this ours!" Dick queried, looking round the compartment. It was fitted with a seat on one side only—a wide, comfortable seat, upholstered in grey. A folding nickel wash-basin was near the window, with towels overhead. Everything was solid and comfortable and compact.

"Yes, it's ours," smiled his mother.

"But you said it was a sleeper?"

"Yes; the conductor will wave his magic wand and produce your bed out of that wall later on."

"Oh!" said Dick, and fell to examining the wall, to find out its mechanism. Meanwhile the clamour about them redoubled; people hurried along the corridor, peeping in, and withdrawing again impatiently at sight of the occupied compartment. Others peered from the platform through their windows, and a heated lady asked anxiously, "Is that you, Willie dear?" and then fled without waiting for an answer. Bells rang, somewhere afar the engine gave a furious whistle, and slowly the great train slid out of the station, while the theatrical people and their friends sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" with immense enthusiasm. Gathering speed, they whisked through the packed streets of North Melbourne and Newmarket, and out beyond to the wide Keilor Plains.

"Off at last, Dickie!" said his mother.

"Yes." They looked at each other, very content.

Daylight held until they had flashed past Bacchus Marsh, with its deep green of fertile farms, where the willows were beginning to wave their long feathery arms; and soon after came dinner, which in itself was an event to Dick. A white-jacketed waiter summoned them, and they followed the long corridor, which seemed to swing under their feet, until they came to a carriage fitted as a dining-room, with little tables for two or four people, sparkling with polished glass and silver-plated fittings on snow-white linen. The theatrical people filled many of the tables; they were very merry, and rather loud-voiced, calling to each other across the car. Dick privately thought them rather entertaining, but he saw his mother wrinkle her pretty nose two or three times in a way he knew meant disapproval.

One of the actresses came in a few minutes later, and, disregarding shouted invitations to "come and sit here," finally paused by Mrs. Lester's table, where there were two vacant seats. She hesitated. "May I?"

"Of course," Mrs. Lester answered, making room. The woman sat down in a tired way. She was tall and rather pretty, but her face, seen closely, was lined and worn. She gave her order to the waiter listlessly, and when her dinner came she only toyed with it. But she stared at Dick in a way that would have embarrassed that young man had he not been too hungry to pay attention to anything until the meal was half over. Then he met her eyes so many times when he glanced up that he became quite uncomfortable, and wished heartily that she had chosen to sit at any other table.

"I sure do beg your pardon for looking at you," said the actress suddenly. "It's vurry rude of me, I know. But the fact is, I sat at this table just so's I could look at you!" She turned to Mrs. Lester. "I've a boy in the States just about his size, ma'am; I've not seen him for two years."

"Oh, you poor soul," said Mrs. Lester.

"Fact. He's at boarding school, and he writes every mail—never misses. But that don't make up for wanting him. There's times when I've just to get close to a boy and make believe he's my Jimmy."

"Are you going back to him soon?"

"Not for a good piece yet," said Jimmy's mother with a sigh. "We're tourin' round a lot; business is good, and we keep extending our dates. It's a long time—Jimmy's fourteen, and he'll be 'most grown up when I get him again. Boys in Amurrica grow up terrible quick."

"We haven't seen my father for a year, and I thought that was pretty bad," Dick said. "We're going to meet him now."

"That's real nice, isn't it?" The actress's big dark eyes lit with quick interest. "I guess your father's wonderin' what sort of a boy his son's grown into, same's I am."

"And I guess your Jimmy will be as glad to see you as we shall be to see father," said Mrs. Lester, smiling. "What is he going to be?"

"Wa-al, of course he thinks he's going to be a sailor—all boys do, don't they?" said the actress. "But he's got bitten with motors now, so I shouldn't wonder if it's something engineering, after all. Jimmy's got plenty of brains. That's one thing. Not that you care much, when he's your only boy, whether he's got brains or not, do you, ma'am?"

"I hope she doesn't, 'cause I'm her only boy, and goodness knows I've got none!" said Dick, grinning.

Mrs. Lester laughed, rising.

"Brains aren't everything, certainly," she said. "We're slowing down. I think this must be Ballarat. Come on, Dick, and stretch your legs on the platform—we wait here for awhile." She nodded kindly to the American, and Dick followed her out of the car.

It was Ballarat. They ran into a big, crowded platform, with a domed, lofty roof, that glimmered mysteriously far above them. They went outside and strolled up a quiet street, but were too nervous about their tram to go far, since an Adelaide express waits for no man.

"Some day," Mrs. Lester said, "we'll come here and hear the bands play."

"Have they got many?" asked Dick.

"They collect them from all over Australia once a year, and they play all the time for big prizes. That is, when they are not playing for prizes, they are practising. So it goes on all day; you wake in the morning to band music and you go to sleep at night to the tune of a quickstep; and when you go out during the day you generally find yourself keeping in step with a band marching beside you, playing for dear life. Then each instrument has its own tune. I was once inveigled into a hall where I heard forty-nine euphoniums play 'There's a Flower that Bloometh.'"

"Forty-nine!" said Dick, laughing. "It sounds a bit tall. Did you like it, mother?"

"I think it is necessary to be a specialist to enjoy that sort of thing thoroughly," his mother said. "I fled at the nineteenth, and that weary old tune beat in my brain for a week. But the other music is lovely. We'll go some day, Dickie."

They came back to the station, and, finding the crowd too dense for comfort, sought their own compartment, where a transformation awaited them. The bare wall opposite the seat had been let down and now a comfortable bed with snowy sheets was ready on each side of the aisle. The conductor hovered near.

"Will you require anything further, madam?"

"No, thank you," Mrs. Lester said. "But we shall want morning tea, conductor."

"The coffee and rolls at Murray Bridge are excellent, madam," murmured the conductor.

"I remember them of old," said Mrs. Lester laughing. "Very well. Good night, conductor."

"Now I'm going to bed, Dick," Mrs. Lester remarked, as the tall, uniformed figure disappeared. "So you can run and get a wash and brush up, and come back in twenty minutes, when I should recommend you to go to bed too."

Dick thought the idea a good one, especially when he returned, to find his mother comfortably tucked up, reading by a shaded electric light. He slipped into bed quickly, and enjoyed a magazine, while the train roared on its way, stopping occasionally with a great grinding of brakes, and then gathering way again slowly as it left a wayside station behind, and went swinging on through the night. The swinging motion made him sleepy; he put down the magazine and lay drowsily listening to the roar of the train. Once his mother glanced across and smiled at him; later, he had a drowsy fancy, half a dream, that she was bending over him, tucking him in. But he did not see the tired face of the American actress later on. She tapped gently at the door, looking apologetic when Mrs. Lester, in a hastily-donned dressing gown, opened it.

"Were you in bed?" she asked contritely. "Well, now, I'm real sorry—it's early, and I thought you'd be up still." She hesitated, and a dull flush came into her cheeks. "Is the boy asleep?"

"Yes." Something in Mrs. Lester responded to the hunger in the other mother's eyes. "Would you care to look at him?"

"I came to ask if I could. You see—it's two years since I had the chance of tucking up Jimmy."

She came in noiselessly, and looked down at the sleeping Dick. He lay with one arm flung up above his head; a very ordinary, healthy boy, sunburnt and clear skinned, with just a hint in his close cropped hair of the curls of his boyhood, and only a baby still to the two women who watched him. The American stooped suddenly, and brushed his forehead with her lips. Dick stirred, and said, sleepily, "Mother."

"I sort of had to," said the actress, turning in the corridor to say good night. "You—you get kinder desperate for them after two years. Thanks, ma'am, ever so." She glided away, leaving Mrs. Lester with tears in her eyes.

All night long the train, with its sleeping freight, rushed and roared through the desert country, passing over dreary leagues of sand and sparse scrub. Sometimes the unfamiliarity of his surroundings woke Dick, to lie drowsily for a moment in the dim light that filtered through the fanlight from the corridor; then to float back lazily through the gates of sleep. He woke in earnest about six o'clock and, slipping out of bed, peeped through the window. The train was standing in a wayside station.

"Tailem Bend," read Dick. "What a rummy name. I say, we must be in South Australia. Great Scot! there's a camel!"

"'Great Scot! There's a camel!'"

There was a string of camels tied to the station fence, all scientifically packed with bales and bundles, their heads drooping sleepily. The unfamiliar sight made the morning more than ever like a dream. A tall, weather-beaten man in moleskins and a red shirt was knotting the halter of the leading camel; his mate was wrangling with the station-master about some parcel that should have been awaiting him, but had failed to turn up. Dick heard the official say angrily, "Well, you'll have to wait till the express goes out, anyhow. I'm busy."

"And ain't I busy?" demanded the man. "Ain't I got the camels waiting, an' high time we was on the track? Blow yer old express."

But the railway man had fled, and the man of camels could only glare after his retreating back and mutter what he felt.

The conductor came past as the train gathered way, and nodded a civil "Good morning" to Dick, who had ventured into the corridor in his pyjamas to see if any other queer sights awaited him on that side of the line.

"Sleep well?"

"Yes, thanks," Dick answered. "Why do they call it Tailem Bend?"

"Lots of people ask me that," remarked the conductor. "Some folks say it's a shot at an old native name, but more believe it's because cattle used to be tailed at the bend in the river here in the overlanding days."

"Pity they don't stick to native names when they go christening places in Australia," remarked a man close by. "Murray Bridge used to be Mobilong, and it would have been more sense if they had left it at that. Murray Bridge, indeed. What's the good of a name like that? Here's the Murray, of course, and there's a bridge; so they stick them together and cut out the pretty native name."

"There's some people," said the conductor, nodding assent, "who'd sooner see their own silly names on a signboard than the best native name you could get. That's why you get names like Harrisville and Smithtown, and Wilkins's View all over the map of Australia. Take Belalie now—that's a pretty-sounding native name for you, and it was the name of a town all right. Then comes along some jolly old Governor or something with swelled head and calls it after himself."

"What's that?" queried the other man.

"Jamestown," said the conductor with deep disgust; "Jamestown. And it might have been Belalie. Right, sir, I'm coming." He fled in answer to a fierce call from a sleeping bunk.

Dick realised that he was a little chilly, and peeped into the compartment. His mother was still asleep, and he slipped into his clothes as noiselessly as possible and then went in search of soap and water. Returning presently, he found her sitting up, with a dressing-jacket round her pretty shoulders.

"What, dressed, old man?" she said.

"Rather." Dick seized his brush and made an onslaught upon his wet hair. "We're getting near Murray Bridge, mother—aren't you going to have a look at the Murray?"

"I've seen the Murray before," said Mrs. Lester severely. "It's a nice, wide river, but I'm very comfy, Dick."

"Lazy old thing!" said her son. "Well, I haven't, so I'm going out to look at it." He dived for a clean collar, and presently hurried back to the corridor.

The train was skirting a wide flat, across which he could see the line of a river. They swung round soon to run over a very long bridge, beneath which the big river ran sluggishly—wide and yellow, with low banks. Below the bridge was moored one of the Murray steamers, a white paddle boat with two decks; he could see no one on her, but a faint curl of blue smoke was lazily rising from the funnel that marked the cook's galley. There were fishing boats against the banks, and a bare-legged boy of his own size was pulling a heavy rowing boat slowly down stream. Then the train swung round from the bridge, and in a few moments slowed into a station.

Dick hopped out on the platform. Very few people were in sight; a few passengers left the train and hurried towards the refreshment room. The conductor appeared presently, bearing, in a mysterious manner, many trays.

"Coffee and rolls?" he said. "Is your mother awake?"

"Yes. I'll take her tray," Dick said.

"I'll see you to the door," said the conductor grimly. "You don't realise how people dart out and cannon with you in the corridor until you've carried trays round. Nearly turns your hair grey."

This Dick found to be true, for a very stout gentleman dashed from his sleeper without warning, and would certainly have demolished all the trays had not the conductor avoided him with a dexterity born of long practice. Dick left his mother to her coffee, and went off to explore the platform, nibbling his roll as he trotted along.

It was early, and a chill wind blew from the river. There was not much to look at, so Dick found his way along the train to the huge engine, and stood looking at her and admiring her. The engine driver was also eating his breakfast, which consisted of chops, fried scientifically on a red-hot coal shovel. He nodded in a friendly way to the small boy, and they chatted until Dick's roll was finished, and a craving for coffee took him back to the sleeper.

"I was beginning to wonder where you were," said his mother, who was up and brushing her hair energetically. "Take the tray out, Dickie. I want to get as much dressing done as possible before we start again."

She joined him presently in the corridor, fresh and dainty. They were rushing along again between miles of grey fencing. Ploughs were already busy in the paddocks, where flocks of white cockatoos settled on the newly-turned brown earth in search of grubs. Past trim dairy farms, with the herds slowly stringing away from the sheds after milking; by little townships, where the air was blue with the smoke of a hundred breakfast fires; by creek and gully, towering hill and stretching plain, the express roared. People in the carriages were beginning to wake up; heads, more or less in undress appearance, peeped from the doors of the sleepers, and voices were heard demanding the conductor and hot water. The summons to breakfast came presently, to Dick's great joy, for the keen air had made him hungry, and when they came back from the meal they found that their beds had disappeared, and the sleepers once more bore the air of an ordinary compartment.

"We're in the hills now," Mrs. Lester said, glancing out. "Come to the doorway, Dickie; this is the loveliest bit of any railway journey I know."

They went along the corridor to the big doorway. The door was open, and through it they could see that the train was rushing through hills, steadily mounting all the time. The gum trees that clothed everything with green waved feathery heads quite close to them, and, far as the eye could see, golden wattle blazed through the scrub. Up and up they went. White roads led away through the hill slopes; now and then could be seen an early motorist spinning along in the joy of their perfect surface. Then came the very summit of the climb, and the train ran into a trim little station, gay with flowers, perched on top of the highest hill.

"Mount Lofty," said Mrs. Lester.

"My word, what jolly houses!" was Dick's comment.

They looked from the doorway down into the green heart of the scrub. Here and there, half buried in the trees, were the homes to which happy people of Adelaide fly when the summer heat lies scorching on the plains; red houses, with terraced lawns and gardens ablaze with blossoms; grey houses, with roses climbing over high trellises. They perched on terraces cut out of the sides of the hills, or nestled in nooks in the gullies, their gardens gleaming like jewels in the dull green of the eucalyptus. The curve of a road showed here and there, white level, diving down into some unseen hollow. Dew yet hung on the gum trees, and little wreaths of mist floated upwards from the gullies; the bush scents filled the air. Everywhere birds sang and twittered in the branches; everywhere the gold of the wattle gleamed through the dull green of the scrub. Then the train moved on, slipping quietly down, each moment revealing some new turn of beauty; until at last the plains opened out below, and they could see Adelaide lying just where the land seemed to end, and the blue rim of the sea widened, with the smoke of the steamer making a long trail across the water.

"Wonder if that's our boat?" Dick said. "No, it can't be, because it's coming the wrong way—amn't I stupid! Oh, mother, isn't it all jolly!" He pranced gaily back to the sleeper, to lend a hand in collecting their hand baggage. They were running now through trim, flat suburbs, and presently, with a grinding of the brakes, they stopped in a big station—Adelaide at last.

A helpful porter—brought them, as a kind of offering, by their friend the conductor—collected their luggage and put them on a train bound for Port Adelaide; a place of grimy wharfs and dusty streets, where, after some search, they discovered their boat, the Moondarra, spic and span in her dingy surroundings. Dick's heart bounded as he followed his mother up the gangway. He had never before been on anything but a Bay paddle steamer; to him, even the seven-thousand ton inter-State boat seemed a mighty ship, and he longed to explore her from stem to stern. It was with a feeling of disappointment that he learned they were not to sail until the evening.

"It's really hardly worth your while to remain on board," an officer told Mrs. Lester. "We've a rush lot of cargo coming at the last moment, and the ship won't be comfortable before six o'clock—nothing but noise and dust. I should advise you to go up to Adelaide for the day. Why not have a run in the hills? Is your luggage on board?"

"It is on the wharf," Mrs. Lester said, glancing towards a laden truck in charge of a porter.

"Give me the number of your cabin and I'll see that your steward takes charge of it." He took them down the gangway, probably relieved, in his heart, that they were going, since passengers are not beloved of sailor folk when loading cargo is in progress. "Glorious day—too good to spend down in this place," he said, wistfully, looking at the dark masses of the hills.

They found a train about to start, and were soon back in Adelaide itself; little city of wide streets, girdled with a four-square belt of park lands. Wandering, somewhat aimlessly, up King William Street, a tall man suddenly detached himself from a group at a corner and came quickly to meet them.

"Why, Mrs. Lester—what luck?" He shook hands vigorously. "And the kid—he's grown up!"

"Oh, Billy, how nice to see you!" said Mrs. Lester. Billy Cathcart had gained "colonial experience" on the Lesters' station for two years before his father, a rich Englishman, had bought him a property of his own in South Australia. They were very fond of him; he had made himself a kind of big son of the house, and when he went away they missed him sorely.

"But what are you doing here? And is the Boss back?"

Mrs. Lester explained.

"And you never told me you were going through!" said Billy reproachfully.

"My dear boy, I knew you were nearly two hundred miles from Adelaide—and I had about two minutes' warning that I was coming. I never dreamed of any possibility of seeing you. Why aren't you in the wilds, earning your living?"

Billy Cathcart laughed.

"I've been earning it at a great rate lately," he said. "Made a lucky deal in cattle, and cleared quite a lot—so I came down to buy a car. I've been driving one a good bit, and it made me keen to have one of my own. I say—-if you've got the day to do nothing in, do let me take you out. She's a beauty, really."

"Why, it would be lovely!" Mrs. Lester said. "But are you doing nothing yourself?"

"Only killing time. It would be ripping to take you; and there are first-rate runs about Adelaide. As for roads—well, they can teach road-making to any other State I've been in. Like to come, Dick?"

"Rather!" Dick was hopping on one foot. "I say, Mr. Cathcart, how's old Danny?"

"Oh, fitter than ever!" Danny, as a pup, son of a noted cattle dog, had been a farewell present to the departing jackeroo on leaving the Lesters' station. "He's an absolute wonder with cattle. I believe if I sat in a buggy and cracked my whip and told old Danny to go ahead, he'd muster my roughest paddock and not leave a beast behind."

"Father will be jolly glad to hear that," said Dick, solemnly. "He always said Danny would turn out a clinker."

"So you're going to school?" Mr. Cathcart said, glancing at his hat-band and badge. "You'll have to tell me about it presently. Well, Mrs. Lester, may I get the car now?—or, wait a minute, you look a bit tired; how about a cup of tea first? Yes, come along." He led them to a café across the street, and plied them energetically with food.

"Not like the cakes you used to make us at Kurrajong—still, they're better than nothing," he remarked. "Finished already, Dick? Well, shall we go and get the car, and come back here for your mother?"

That seemed a good plan to Dick. He followed the tall figure out into the street, where they dodged precariously round two of Adelaide's flying electric trams, which hurtle down King William Street in fevered haste, and presently found themselves in Rundle Street, a thread-like thoroughfare where the footpath is so narrow that people are forced to walk in large numbers in the roadway.

"Looks as if they'd used all the land for that big street we were in, and found they hadn't left themselves enough over for this," commented Dick.

"It does; and they put all their biggest shops in this tiny lane, so that it's always packed with people. Quaint system," Billy Cathcart said. "Rundle Street generally looks like a sheep race to me—and you fight your way out of it into a street like a hundred-acre paddock."

"Rummy," remarked Dick. "I say—what jolly fruit carts!"

"Oh, they're the pride of Adelaide—amongst other things," laughed his companion. "They take some beating, don't they?"

They were drawn up in line along the kerbstone, in the shade of the buildings; carts as spic and span as shining paint and gleaming brass and spotless cleanliness could make them, each in charge of a boy in a white jacket. Their gay little awnings fluttered in the breeze over piles of many-coloured fruit—oranges, red and yellow apples, dark masses of passion fruit, bunches of bananas, strawberries gleaming redly in little baskets lined with leaves. A boy near them was polishing his apples, and the cloth he used was as clean as the apples themselves.

"Well, I'm blessed!" Dick ejaculated. "They don't have carts like that in Melbourne."

"No, you have awful men with barrows that look only fit for pig food, and they tip about fifteen cases of fruit out in a heap, and wheel it about in the sun with the flies sitting on it. Seems a pity," said the Englishman, reflectively. He stopped at a barrow and bought fruit largely, piling up bags in Dick's arms. "Can you manage all those? Come along."

The garage was not far off; a great shed-like building full of odours of petrol and lubricating oil, which are heartsome smells to any boy. Dick poked about among motors big and little while his friend's car was being prepared; and soon they were in it, and worming their way through the crowd in Rundle Street.

"Can you really take a car along here?"

"Oh, it's possible," said Billy. "I'll admit it doesn't look probable. You push people out of the way gently and politely with the bonnet. But it pays to dodge up a side street, if you can, and get into something wider." He slewed round as he spoke, and presently they were running along the broad pavement of North Terrace, and so into King William Street again and to where Mrs. Lester stood awaiting them under a verandah near the café. They slipped away from the city, along well-kept streets, lined with blossoming gardens, until, after a few miles of a dusty road, the hills drew suddenly near, and they turned into a gully where the road ran by the bed of a little creek, following all its windings. The hills towered above them, and they climbed up and up. Here and there came an open stretch, where orchards laden with blossom fell away below them. Now and then the creek made a sudden, sharp bend, enclosing a little flat, gay with tall bulbs. Indeed, all the banks of that little creek were bright with flowers, because when it ran rapidly in the winter it washed down a freight of seeds and roots from the gardens of the houses on the summit. Sometimes tall poplars stood, with their feet in the gurgling water; sometimes a little cottage by the wayside displayed a sign asking wayfarers in for tea, and you could cross the creek by a rustic bridge and sit in a cool summer-house hung with creepers, and eat strawberries and cream in the midst of a delightful garden. The road was steep, and yet so well graded that the car took it without an effort. Even stray cyclists whom they overtook seemed to be climbing its twists and turns without undue exertions. So they came to the top of a long rise called Montacute, where a lonely little tin church perches among the gum trees; and there they sat in its shade, with a myriad birds twittering about them, looking down over the tree-clad slopes to the plains beyond, where Adelaide lay like a chess-board, a network of regular lines and squares. They ate fruit and talked. Billy Cathcart had to learn of a hundred happenings at Kurrajong, and to tell of more than a thousand that had befallen him in his first attempts at running a station unaided. He was a light-hearted person; it afforded him huge amusement to tell of his own mistakes. "Goodness knows, there would have been plenty more of them," he added, "if it hadn't been for the gruelling Mr. Lester gave me on Kurrajong."

"Was it very bad, Billy?" Mrs. Lester laughed.

"Oh, he never meant it to be bad. But the first six months were pretty awful, because I felt such a perfect fool all the time. The trouble was," he grinned, "that I came out from home with an idea that I knew quite a good bit. After I realised that I was mistaken I got on better. But I never thought I would arrive at being a full-blown squatter myself. It seemed to me I'd never get any higher than keeping goats."

"That also has its difficulties, I believe," said Mrs. Lester smiling.

"I believe it has—a chap near me has a flock of Angoras, and they seem to worry him more than his babies." He got up lazily. "Shall we go on? There are so many places in these hills I want to show you that I mustn't let you stay too long anywhere."

They came down from the hills at the end of a run that had been a long succession of beauties, on such smooth roads, winding among the tree-clad crests, plunging into deep gullies, finding little townships hidden here and there, and coming out upon summits where, below the ridges, the plains swept for miles before them, pink and pearly-white with great stretches of almond orchards. Evening was drawing near as the big car purred smoothly alongside the wharf. Billy Cathcart had insisted on bringing them back to the boat at Port Adelaide.

"Well," he said, "it's been glorious to have you. And you'll let me know when you're coming through?"

"Indeed, yes," said Mrs. Lester. "But you'll be two hundred miles away then, earning your living."

"I'll let the station run itself and come down again," he said. "Do you think I'd miss a chance of seeing you and the Boss again—to say nothing of the nipper?" He gave Dick's ear a friendly tweak. "Just you make your father stay here for a while, and I'll teach you to drive the car, old son"—a promise that left Dick no words but a gasp of delight. They stood watching as the car swung round, threading its way between lorries, laden with beer barrels, and cabs, hurrying down with passengers. Billy turned once to wave his cap to them, and narrowly escaped collision with a huge coal waggon, the driver of which loudly expressed the lowest possible estimate of his powers as a chauffeur. Then he passed out of sight, and Dick and his mother turned towards their ship.

CHAPTER III.
DICK GOES TO SEA.

All was bustle and hurry aboard the steamer. Cargo was still being loaded; the creak and rattle of the great crane, as it swung back and forth, the crash of cases, dumped into the yawning mouth of the hold, mingled with the confusion of arriving passengers and the shouts of sailors and dock hands. On the decks people were hurrying about, seeking stewards and cabins, and the doorways were blocked with little groups saying good-bye. Overhead a harsh whistle shrilled out—so suddenly that everyone jumped, and horses on the wharf danced nervously. Someone in uniform shouted:

"Everyone for the shore!"

Good-byes filled the air. Women hurried towards the gangway, as if fearful of being carried off to the "wild and woolly West," followed more slowly by those more experienced. Passengers hastened up from the wharf; cab drivers, trotting in leisurely, whipped up their horses in response to nervous appeals from their anxious fares. The big crane went on, creaking and swinging, dumping in its cases as though there were no such item on the ship's programme as starting.

Dick watched the late arrivals curiously. Men formed the greater number; there were smart and brisk commercial travellers, and others, less prosperous, evidently off to seek their fortune in that West which, to much of the rest of Australia, is still an unknown land. Tearful wives and children hung about the necks of some of these, saying the last hard good-byes; but in some cases the wives and children were coming too, and they trooped on board, shabby little flocks, with the tired mothers trying to keep the stragglers together.

The whistle sounded again, and there was a second summons, a peremptory one this time, for strangers to leave the ship. They hurried down the gangway, and then the great ladder was hauled up the ship's side, the deck-railing swung in across the gap, and in a few moments the Moondarra began to back slowly from the wharf. The people below grew smaller, their upturned faces white dots in the evening gloom. From everywhere came shouts of "Good-bye." A young bride, off to the West with a huge, bronzed bushman, leaned over the side, holding the ends of long streamers of ribbon, of which the other ends were held by her friends on shore. Her face was happy and yet tearful; she looked wistfully towards Adelaide. The ribbons lengthened out, gradually tightened as the ship drew further away, and finally, released by the people on the wharf, sprang in the air. The girl gathered them up to her quickly, a gay, fluttering bundle, and Dick heard her give a little sob.

Just as the ship gathered way, they saw a motor suddenly turn in to the wharf from the street, hooting as it came. Mrs. Lester peered at it through the gloom.

"Isn't that Billy's car?" she said.

"My word, yes!" Dick cried. "He's standing up and trying to see us. I wonder what he wants."

"Oh—he has remembered something he didn't tell us; and of course, it's just like Billy to come racing back," Mrs. Lester said, laughing. "At all events, he is too late." She waved her handkerchief towards the car, though she knew that it would be impossible to distinguish anyone in the long row of passengers crowding to look over the ship's rail. "There—he has given it up as a bad job."

They saw Billy sit down again, after waving his hat in a kind of general salutation towards the ship. Then the car turned slowly, and slipped away. The dusk swallowed it up.

Somewhere near them a bugle blared, so suddenly, that everyone jumped. The bugler, a very fat steward, finished a long trill carefully, and then moved off to repeat the performance elsewhere. Someone hailed him.

"What's that for, steward?"

"Dressing bugle, sir," responded the fat player, stolidly. "Dinner in half an hour, sir."

There was a general move from the deck. Dick and his mother found themselves in a crowd going down the first staircase. Dick was too much of a landsman yet to call it a companion. At the foot they encountered another steward, who directed them to their cabins, along an alley-way; Dick's was opposite his mother's. It was a two-berth cabin, and he found that he was not the only occupant—-indeed, so big was his fellow passenger that it seemed unlikely that there would be any room for Dick at all. He paused uncertainly, just inside the doorway.

An enormous man, who was unstrapping a leather suit-case, swung round suddenly.

"Hullo, youngster," he said. "Do you belong in here?"

"Well—the steward said so," Dick answered with some uncertainty.

"Then you probably do," said the big man. "What's your number, sonny? Thirty-seven? Yes, that's your bunk. Got anyone with you?"

"My mother," Dick nodded. "She's in the opposite cabin."

"I see. And I've a wife and small son and daughter somewhere about. Well, there's not a whole heap of room in these cabins, so it's luck for me that I haven't struck a mate of my own size. But I expect you don't look at it in that way."

Dick grinned. He rather liked this big, friendly person, but was much too shy to talk. Indeed, it was rather dreadful to think of sharing a cabin with him—with any stranger, for that matter.

"We won't worry each other very much," said his companion, as if guessing his thoughts. "You'll be asleep long before I come to bed, and I'm not as early as I might be in the mornings." He was unpacking swiftly, distributing his belongings in shelves and on hooks. "I'll leave space for you—those drawers are handy for your height, so I'll take the upper ones. I see you've got the berth with the porthole—lucky kid."

"I'll change, if you like," Dick said. It seemed the only thing to say, but he didn't feel a cheerful giver. The little round window just over his bed looked very inviting.

The big man laughed.

"Oh, not much!" he said. "Thanks, all the same, sonny, but I wouldn't take it from you. Now, I'm pretty straight, so I'll clear out, for it's quite evident that we can't move about together. So long." Dick squeezed himself against his bunk to leave room for the great form as he moved to the door.

His mother was a little inclined to be sympathetic on the subject a little later.

"Oh, he might be worse," Dick said. "He's really quite a good sort. And we shan't see so much of each other in the cabin, 'cause I'm going to get up awfully early. You see, I don't want to waste a single minute of my time on board ship."

"Well, you could nearly always take refuge in here if you were very crowded," Mrs. Lester said.

"Thanks very much, mummie." Dick glanced round her cabin; it was the same size as his own, but looked, somehow, immeasurably larger. The second bunk was not made up, and looked inviting as a sofa. Already his mother had unpacked, and her dainty belongings made the tiny place homelike. "It is jolly, isn't it?" the small boy said.

"Yes, it's quite comfy. We'll use it together as a sitting-room, Dickie. There's the bugle for dinner—come along."

There were many people in the long alley-way, hurrying towards the dining saloon. Smooth water was certain for the first few hours of the journey while they steamed down the Gulf. What sort of weather might await them when they turned into the Bight—that place of many storms—no one could say. Therefore, there was a general determination to have at least one meal in comfort. People trooped up from their cabins and down from the deck, crowding into the big saloon. The stewards were busy directing all to their places, and delicately shepherding new-comers from seats already reserved.

Mrs. Lester and Dick found themselves at a table presided over by the ship's doctor, who promptly made himself known to all the passengers, found out their names and saw to it that all under his wing felt at home. He was a plump, cheery man, full of anecdotes and chatter. Dick felt that it would be jolly to sit at his table. Opposite the Lesters were four vacant places. Already at the table were a thin and angular lady, whose name they found out was Miss Simpson; a very pretty girl of eighteen, with her mother, a Mrs. Merritt, and a tall, silent man, Mr. Dunstan, who looked as though he hailed from the bush, and made but the briefest of responses to the doctor's jokes.

Close at hand was the captain's table, where, as the doctor remarked, "Emperors and pontiffs" might be found. There were no emperors aboard this time; the nearest approach to a pontiff was an English bishop, who, with his wife, was touring Australia. He was a pink and pleasant person, who rather gave the impression that he was curate to his wife—a very tall woman, stout, dignified and extremely English. Dick rejoiced inwardly that he did not sit near this dignitary. He went as far as to feel sympathy for the captain himself, who made heavy weather in his efforts to entertain her, and used to look slightly exhausted towards the close of a meal. A famous singer—a tall, handsome woman—was also at his table; and a noted actor, whom the bishop's wife snubbed whenever possible. There was a chief justice from an eastern state, he had a keen, clever face, at which Dick liked to look when he spoke. The other people included a ship's captain going to take command of a vessel at Fremantle; a member of Parliament and his wife, a Riverina squatter, a German wool buyer and one or two others less distinguished. Dick eyed them with awe, and was glad that he sat at another table.

Just as the soup appeared, a quiet-looking young man slipped into one of the vacant seats at the doctor's left; and presently a party of three arrived to complete the table—Dick's enormous cabin mate, with his wife and little girl. They sat down opposite, and immediately the little girl made a face at Dick.

Now, Dick did not know much of the ways of girls, little or big. He was thirteen, and at thirteen girls are the last things a boy worries about. Therefore, this pleasantry on the part of the new-comer merely puzzled him slightly. He wrinkled his nose a little and went on with his soup.

The doctor was greeting them boisterously.

"Good evening, Mrs. Warner. Had a good run round Adelaide?"

"Oh, delightful," said the lady vaguely. Her husband laughed.

"Much she knows of Adelaide," he said. "She's been to a tea-party at the club, and Merle and I have been running round like good tourists. Haven't we, Merle?"

The little girl muttered something that sounded like "Horrid place!" and again Mr. Warner laughed.

"Merle is in the stage of disliking everything outside her own boundary fence," he said, attacking his dinner. "I've shown her all the beauties of Eastern Australia, and she still says there's no place like the sandy west, so we'll go back for another ten years or so before coming this side again." His eye fell on Dick, and he nodded in a friendly way. "Why, there's my cabin mate," he said. "I say, doctor, don't you think it's a trifle hard on a boy of that size to find he has drawn me in the lucky bag?"

"Distinctly," agreed the doctor, "but great luck for you." He made the Warners and Lesters known to each other, and the elders chatted through dinner. Merle, after another grimace at Dick, did not look his way again, for which he was mildly thankful. He decided that she was a cheeky kid, and thought no more about her—save that whenever he chanced to look across he saw the square little face, surrounded by a shock of dark hair and crowned with an enormous butterfly bow of black ribbon.