As soon as Hugh got his team swinging along at a steady ten miles an hour on the mountain road, Mary Grant opened the conversation.

“Mr. Gordon,” she said, “who is Mr. Blake?”

“He’s the lawyer from Tarrong.”

“Yes, I know. Mrs. Connellan called him the ‘lier.’ But I thought you didn’t seem to like him. Isn’t he nice?”

“I suppose so. His father was a gentleman⁠—the police magistrate up here.”

“Then, why don’t you like him? Is there anything wrong about him?”

Hugh straightened his leaders and steadied the vehicle over a little gully.

“There’s nothing wrong about him,” he said, “only⁠—his mother was one of the Donohoes⁠—not a lady, you know⁠—and he always goes with those people; and, of course, that means he doesn’t go much with us.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you see, they’re selectors, and they look on the station people as⁠—well, rather against them, you know⁠—sort of enemies⁠—and he has never come to the station. But there is no reason why he shouldn’t.”

“He saved my life,” said Mary Grant.

“Certainly he did,” said Hugh. “I’ll say that for Blake, he fears nothing. One of the pluckiest men alive. And how did you feel? Were you much frightened?”

“Yes, horribly. I have often wondered whether I should be brave, you know, and now I don’t think I am. Not the least bit. But Mr. Blake seemed so strong⁠—directly he caught hold of me I felt quite safe, somehow. If you don’t mind, I would like to ask him out to the station.”

“Certainly, Miss Grant. My mother will only be too glad. She was sorry that we did not get down to meet you. The letter was delayed.”

Mary Grant laughed as she looked down at Mrs. Donohoe’s clothes. “What a sight I am!” she said.

“But, after all, it’s Australia, isn’t it? And I have had such adventures already! You know you will have to show me all about the station and the sheep and cattle. Will you do that?”

Hugh thought there was nothing in the world he would like better, but contented himself with a formal offer to teach her the noble art of squatting.

“You must begin at once and tell me things. What estate are we on now?” she asked.

“This is your father’s station. All you can see around belongs to him; but after the next gate we come on some land held by selectors.”

“Who are they?”

“Well,” said Hugh, a little awkwardly, “they are relations of Mr. Blake’s. You’ll see what an Australian farmer’s homestead is like.”

They drove through a rickety wire-and-sapling gate and across about a mile of bush, and suddenly came on a little slab house nestling under the side of a hill. At the back were the stockyards and the killing-pen, where a contrivance for raising dead cattle⁠—called a gallows⁠—waved its arms to the sky. In front of the house there was rather a nice little garden. At the back were a lot of dilapidated sheds, leaning in all directions. A mob of sheep was penned in a yard outside one of the sheds; and in the garden an old woman, white-haired and wrinkled, with a very short dress showing a lot of dirty stocking and slipshod elastic-sided boot, was bending over a spade, digging potatoes.

The old woman straightened herself as they drove up.

“Good daah to you, Misther Gordon,” she said. “Good daah to you, Miss.”

“Good day, Mrs. Doyle,” said Hugh. “Hard work that, this weather. How’s all the family?”

“Mag⁠—Marg’rut, I mane⁠—she’s inside. That’s her playin’ the pianny. She just got it up from Sydney.”

“And where’s Peter?”

“Peter’s shearin’ the sheep. He’s in that shed there beyant. He’s the only shearer we have, so we tell him he’s the ringer of the shed. He works terr’ble hard, does Peter. He’s not⁠—” and the old woman dropped her voice⁠—“he’s not all there in the head, is Peter, you know.”

“And where’s Mick?”

“Mick, bad scran to him! He’s bought a jumpin’ haarse (horse), and he’s gone to hell leppin! Down at one of the shows he is, some place. He has too much sense to work, has Mick. Won’t you come in and have a cup of tay?”

“No, we must get on, thank you,” and Hugh and Mary drove off, watched by the old lady and the lanky-legged, shock-headed youth⁠—Peter himself⁠—who came to the door of the big shed to stare at them.

As they drove off Hugh was silent, wondering what effect the sight of the selectors might have had on Miss Grant.

She seemed to read his thoughts, and after a little while she spoke.

“So those are Mr. Blake’s poor relations, are they? Well, that is not his fault. My father was poor once, just as poor as those people are. And Mr. Blake saved my life.”

Hugh felt that she was half-consciously putting him in the wrong for having more or less disapproved of Mr. Blake; so he kept silence.

As the team bore them along at a flying trot, they climbed higher and higher up the range; at last, as they rounded a shoulder of the hillside, the whole valley of Kiley’s River lay beneath them, stretching away to the far blue foothills. Beyond again was a great mountain, its top streaked with snow. At their feet was a gorgeous scheme of colour, greens and greys of the grass, bright tints of willow and poplar, and the speckled forms of the cattle, so far down that they looked like pygmy stock feeding in fairy paddocks. Across the valley there came now and again, softened by distance, the song of the river; and up in the river-bend, on a spur of the hills, were white walls rising from clustered greenery.

“How beautiful!” said the girl, half standing up in the wagonette, “and is that⁠—”

“That’s Kuryong, Miss Grant. Your home station.”

Miss Grant’s arrival at Kuryong homestead caused great excitement among the inhabitants. Mrs. Gordon received her in a motherly way, trying hard not to feel that a new mistress had come into the house; she was anxious to see whether the girl exhibited any signs of her father’s fiery temper and imperious disposition. The two servant-girls at the homestead⁠—great herculean, good-natured bush-girls, daughters of a boundary-rider, whose highest ideal of style and refinement was Kuryong drawing-room⁠—breathed hard and stared round-eyed, like wild fillies, at the unconscious intruder. The station-hands⁠—Joe, the wood-and-water boy, old Alfred the groom, Bill the horse-team driver, and Harry Warden the married man, who helped with sheep, mended fences, and did station-work in general⁠—all watched for a sight of her. They exchanged opinions about her over their smoke at night by the huge open fireplace in the men’s hut, where they sat in a semicircle, toasting their shins at the blaze till their trousers smoked again, each man with a pipe of black tobacco going full swing from tea till bedtime. But the person who felt the most intense excitement over the arrival of the heiress was Miss Harriott.

For all her nurse’s experience, Ellen Harriott was not a woman of the world. Except for the period of her hospital training, she had passed all her life shut up among the mountains. Her dreamworld was mostly constructed out of high-class novels, and she united a shrewd wit and a clever brain to a dense ignorance of the real world, that left her like a ship without a rudder. She was, like most bush-reared girls, a great visionary⁠—many a castle-in-the-air had she built while taking her daily walk by the river under the drooping willows. The visions, curiously enough, always took the direction of magnificence. She pictured herself as a leader of society, covered with diamonds, standing at the head of a broad marble staircase and receiving Counts by the dozen (vide Ouida’s novels, read by stealth); or else as a rich man’s wife who dispensed hospitality regally, and was presented at Court, and set the fashion in dress and jewels. At the back of all her dreams there was always a man⁠—a girl’s picture is never complete without a man⁠—a strong, masterful man, whose will should crush down opposition, and whose abilities should make his name⁠—and incidentally her name⁠—famous all over the world. She herself, of course, was always the foremost figure, the handsomest woman, the best-dressed, the most admired; for Ellen Harriott, though only a girl, and a friendless governess at Kuryong, was not inclined to put herself second to anyone. Having learnt from her father’s papers that he was of an old family, she considered herself anybody’s equal. Her brain held a crazy enough jumble of ideas, no doubt; but given a strong imagination, no experience, and omnivorous reading, a young girl’s mind is exactly the place where fantastic ideas will breed and multiply. She went about with Mrs. Gordon to the small festivities of the district, and was welcomed everywhere, and deferred to by the local settlers; she had yet to know what a snub meant; so the world to her seemed a very easy sort of place to get along in. The coming of the heiress was as light over a trackless ocean. Here was someone who had seen, known, and done all the things which she herself wished to see, know, and do; someone who had travelled on the Continent, tobogganed in Switzerland, ridden in Rotten Row, voyaged in private yachts, hunted in the shires; here was the world at last come to her door⁠—the world of which she had read so much and knew so little.

On the second morning after Miss Grant’s arrival, that young lady turned up at breakfast in a tailor-made suit with short skirt and heavy boots, and announced her intention of “walking round the estate;” but as Kuryong⁠—though only a small station, as stations go⁠—was, roughly, ten miles square, this project had to be abandoned. Then she asked Hugh if he would have the servants mustered. He told her that the two servants were in the kitchen, but it turned out that she wanted to interview all the station hands, and it had to be explained that the horse-driver was six miles out on the run with his team, drawing in a load of bark to roof the hay shed, and that Harry Warden was down at the drafting yards, putting in a new trough to hold an arsenical solution, through which the sheep had to tramp to cure their feet; and that everybody else was away out on some business or other. But the young lady stuck to her point, and had the groom and the wood-and-water boy paraded, they being the only two available. The groom was an English importation, and earned her approval by standing in a rigid and deferential attitude, and saying “Yes, Miss,” and “No, Miss,” when spoken to; but the wood-and-water boy stood with his arms akimbo and his mouth open, and when she asked him how he liked being on the station he said, “Oh, it’s not too bad,” accompanying his remark with a sickly grin that nearly earned him summary dismissal.

The young lady returned to the house in rather a sharp temper, and found Hugh standing by a cart, which had just got back with her shipwrecked luggage.

“Well, Miss Grant,” he said, “the things are pretty right. The water went down in an hour or so, and the luggage on the top only got a little wetting⁠—just a wave now and again. How have you been getting on?”

“Not at all well,” she laughed. “I don’t understand the people here. I will get you to take me round before I do another thing. It is so different from England. Are you sure my clothes are all right?”

“I can’t be sure, of course, but you can unpack them as soon as you like.”

It was not long before the various boxes were opened. Ellen Harriott was called in to assist, and the two girls had a real good afternoon, looking at and talking over clothes and jewellery. The things had come fairly well out of the coach disaster. When an English firm makes a watertight cover for a bag or box, it is watertight; even the waters of Kiley’s River had swept over the canvas of Miss Grant’s luggage in vain. And when the sacred boxes were opened, what a treasure-trove was unveiled!

The noblest study of mankind is man, but the most fascinating study of womankind is another woman’s wardrobe, and the Australian girl found something to marvel at in the quality of the visitor’s apparel. Dainty shoes, tailor-made jackets, fashionable short riding-habits, mannish-looking riding-boots, silk undergarments, beautiful jewellery, all were taken out of their packages and duly admired. As each successive treasure was produced, Ellen Harriott’s eyes grew rounder with astonishment; and when, out of a travelling bag, there appeared a complete dressing-table outfit of silverware⁠—silver-backed hairbrushes, silver manicure set, silver handglass, and so forth⁠—she drew a long breath of wonder and admiration.

It was her first sight of the vanities of the world, the things that she had only dreamed of. The outfit was not anything extraordinary from an English point of view, but to the bush-bred girl it was a revelation.

“What beautiful things!” she said. “Now, when you go visiting to a country-house in England, do you always take things like these, all these riding-boots and things?”

“Oh, yes. You wouldn’t ride without them.”

“And do you take a maid to look after them?”

“Well, you must have a maid.”

“And when you travel on the Continent, do you take a maid?”

“I always took one.”

“What is Paris like? Isn’t it just a dream? Did you go to the opera?⁠—Have you been on the Riviera?⁠—Oh, do tell me about those places⁠—is it like you read about in books?⁠—all beautiful, well-dressed women and men with nothing to do⁠—and did you go to Monte Carlo?”

This was all poured out in a rush of words; but in Mary’s experience the Continent was merely a place where the Continentals got the better of the English, and she said so.

“Travelling is so mixed up with discomfort, that it loses half its plumage,” she said. “I’ll tell you all I can about Paris some other time. Now you tell me,” she went on, folding carefully a silk blouse and putting it in a drawer, “are there any neighbours here? Will anyone come to call?”

“I’m afraid you’ll find it very dull here,” said Ellen. “There are no neighbours at all except Poss and Binjie, two young fellows on the next station. The people in town are just the publicans and the storekeeper, and all the selectors around us are a very wild lot. Very few strangers come that we can have in the house. They are nearly all cattle and sheep buyers, and they are either too nervous to say a word, or they talk horses. They always come just after mealtime, too, and we have to get everything laid on the table again⁠—sometimes we have ten meals a day in this house. And the swagmen come all day long, and Mrs. Gordon or I have to go and give them something to eat; there’s plenty to do, always. So you see, there are plenty of strangers, but no neighbours.”

“What about Mr. Blake?” said Miss Grant. “Isn’t he a neighbour?”

It would have needed a much quicker eye than Mary’s to catch the half-involuntary movement Ellen Harriott made when Blake’s name was mentioned. She flashed a look of enquiry at the heiress that seemed to say, “What interest do you take in Mr. Blake? What is he to you?”

Then the long eyelashes shut down over the dark eyes again, and with an air of indifference she said⁠—

“Oh Mr. Blake? Of course I know him. I dance with him sometimes at the show balls, and all that. I have been out for a ride with him, too. I think he’s nice, but Hugh and Mrs. Gordon won’t ask him here because he belongs to the selectors, and his mother was a Miss Donohoe. He takes up their cases⁠—and wins them, too. But he never comes here. He always stays down at the hotel when he comes out this way.”

“I intend to ask him here,” said Miss Grant. “He saved my life.”

Again the long eyelashes dropped so as to hide the sparkle of the eyes.

“Of course, if you like to ask him⁠—”

“Do you think he’d come?”

“Yes, I’m sure he would. If you like to write and ask him, Peter could ride down to Donohoe’s today with a note.”

From which it would seem that one, at any rate, of the Kuryong household was not wholly indifferent to Mr. Blake.

After breakfast next morning Mary decided to spend the day in the company of the children, who were having holidays.

“Just as well for you to learn the house first,” said Hugh, “before you tackle the property. The youngsters know where everything is⁠—within four miles, anyhow.”

Two little girls were impressed, and were told to take Miss Grant round and show her the way about the place; and they set off together in the bright morning sunlight, on a trip of exploration.

Now, no true Australian, young or old, ever takes any trouble or undergoes any exertion or goes anywhere without an object in view. So the children considered it the height of stupidity to walk simply for the sake of walking, and kept asking where they were to walk to.

“What shall we see if we go along this road?” asked Miss Grant, pointing with her dainty parasol along the wheel-track that meandered across the open flat and lost itself in the timber.

“Nothing,” said both children together.

“Then, what is there up that way?” she asked, waving her hand up towards the foothills and the blue mountains. “There must be some pretty flowers to look at up there?”

“No, there isn’t,” said the children.

“Well, let us go into the woods and see if we can’t find something,” she said determinedly; and with her reluctant guides she set off, trudging across the open forest through an interminable vista of gum trees.

After a while one of the girls said, “Hello, there’s Poss!”

Miss Grant looked up, and saw through the trees a large and very frightened bay horse, with a white face. On further inspection, a youth of about eighteen or twenty was noticed on the horse’s back, but he seemed so much a part of the animal that one might easily overlook him at a first glance. The horse had stopped at the sight of them, and was visibly affected with terror.

They advanced slowly, and the animal began snorting and sidling away among the timber, its rider meanwhile urging it forward. Then Emily cried,

“Hello, Poss!” and the horse gave a snort, wheeled round, jumped a huge fallen tree, and fled through the timber like a wild thing, with its rider still apparently glued to its back. In half a second they were out of sight.

“Who is it? and why does he go away?” asked Miss Grant.

“That’s Poss,” said Emily carelessly. “He and Binjie live over at Dunderalligo. He often comes here. They and their father live over there That’s a colt he’s breaking in. He’s very nice. So is Binjie.”

“Well, here he comes again,” said Miss Grant, as the horseman reappeared, riding slowly round them in ever-lessening circles; the colt meanwhile eyeing them with every aspect of intense dislike and hatred, and snorting between whiles like a locomotive.

Emily waited till the rider came fairly close, and said, “Poss, this is Miss Grant.”

The rider blushed, and lifted his hand to his hat. Fatal error! For the hundredth-part of a second the horse seemed to cower under him as if about to sink to the ground, then tucked his head in between his front legs, and his tail in between the hind ones, forming himself into a kind of circle, and began a series of gigantic bounds at the rate of about a hundred to the minute; while in the air above him his rider described a catherine wheel before he came to earth, landing on his head at Miss Grant’s feet. The horse was soon out of sight, making bounds that would have cleared a house if one had been in the way. The rider got up, pulled his hat from over his eyes, brushed some mud off his clothes, and came up to shake hands as if nothing had happened; his motto apparently being toujours la politesse.

“My word, can’t he buck, Poss!” said the child. “He chucked you all right, didn’t he?”

“He got a mean advantage,” said the young fellow, in a slow drawl. “Makes me look a fair chump, doesn’t it, getting chucked before a lady? I’ll take it out of him when I get on him again. How d’ you do?”

“I’m very well, thank you,” said Miss Grant. “I hope you are not hurt. What a nasty beast! I wonder you aren’t afraid to ride him.”

“I ain’t afraid of him, the cow! He can’t sling me fair work, not the best day ever he saw. He can’t buck,” he added, in tones of the deepest contempt, “and he won’t try when I’ve got a fair hold of him; only goes at it underhanded. It’s up to me to give him a hidin’ next time I ride him, I promise you.”

“Where will he go to?” said Miss Grant, looking for the vanished steed. “Won’t he run away?”

“He can’t get out of the paddick,” drawled the youth. “Let’s go up to the house, and get one of the boys to run him in. He had a go-in this morning with me⁠—the bit came out of his mouth somehow, and he did get to work proper. He went round and round the paddick at home, with me on him, buckin’ like a brumby. Binjie had to come out with another horse and run me back into the yard. He’s a pretty clever colt, too. The timber is tremendous thick in that paddick, and he never hit me against anything. Binjie reckons any other colt’d have killed me. Come on up to the house, or he’ll have my saddle smashed before I get him.”

As they hurried home, Miss Grant had a good look at the stranger⁠—a pleasant, brown-skinned brown-handed youth, with the down of a black moustache growing on his upper lip. His frank and open face was easy to read. He looked with boyish admiration at Miss Grant, who immediately stooped to conquer, and began an animated conversation about nothing in particular⁠—a conversation which was broken in upon by one of the girls.

“Where is Binjie?” she asked. “Isn’t he coming over?”

“Not he,” said the youth, with an air of great certainty. “We’re busy over at our place, I tell you. The water is all gone in the nine-mile paddick. Binj an me and Andy Kelly had to muster all the sheep and shift ’em across to the home paddick. Binj is musterin’ away there now. I just rode over to see Hugh about some of your sheep that’s in the river paddick.”

“Won’t Binjie be over, then?” persisted Emily.

“No, of course he won’t. Don’t I tell you he’s got three days’ work musterin’ there? I must be off at daylight tomorrow, home again, or the old man’ll know the reason why.”

By this time they had reached the homestead, and Poss went off with the children to the stables. Here he secured the “knockabout” horse, always kept saddled and bridled about the station for generally-useful work, and set off at a swinging canter up the paddock after his own steed. Miss Grant went in and found Mrs. Gordon at her jam-making.

“Well, and have you found anything to amuse you?” asked the old lady in her soft, even voice.

“Oh, I’ve had quite a lot of experiences; and I went for a walk and met Poss. Who is Poss?”

The old lady laughed as she gave the jam a stir. “He’s a young Hunter,” she said. “Was Binjie there?”

“No; and he isn’t coming either; he has work to do. I learnt that much. But who is Poss? and who is Binjie? I’m greatly taken with Poss.”

“He’s a nice-looking young fellow, isn’t he? His father has a small station away among the hills, and Poss and Binjie help him on it. Those are only nicknames, of course. Poss’s name is Arthur, and Binjie’s is George, I think. They’re nice young fellows, but very bushified; they have lived here all their lives. Their father⁠—well, he isn’t very steady; and they like to get over here when they can, and each tries to come without the other knowing it. Binjie will be here before long, I expect. They’re great admirers of Miss Harriott, both of them, and they come over on all sorts of ridiculous pretexts. Poor fellows, it must be very dull for them over there. Fancy, week after week without seeing anyone but their father, the station-hands, and the sheep! Now that you’re here, I expect they’ll come more than ever.”

As she spoke, the tramp of a horse’s hoofs was heard in the yard and, looking out, Miss Grant saw a duplicate of Poss dismounting from a duplicate of Poss’s horse. And Mrs. Gordon, looking over her shoulder, said, “Here’s Binjie. I thought he’d be here before long.”

“Why do they call him Binjie?” asked Miss Grant, watching the new arrival tying up his horse. “What does it mean?”

“It’s a blackfellow’s word, meaning stomach,” said the old lady. “He used to be very fat, and the name stuck to him. Good day, Binjie!”

“Good day, Mrs. Gordon. Hugh at home?”

“No, he won’t be back till dark,” said the old lady. “Won’t you let your horse go?”

“Well, I don’t know if I can,” replied the new arrival thoughtfully. “I’ve left Poss at home clearing the sheep out of that big paddock at the Crossing. There’s five thousand sheep, and no water there; I’ll have to go back and help him. I only came over to tell Hugh there were some of his weaners in the river paddock. I must go straight back, or Poss’ll make a row. We’ve a lot of work to do.”

“I think Poss is here,” said Mrs. Gordon.

“Poss is here, is he? Well, if that don’t beat everything! And when we started to muster that paddock I went to the top, and he went the other way, and he reckoned to be at it all day. He’s a nice fellow, he is! I wonder what the old man’ll say?”

“Oh, I expect he won’t mind very much. This is Mr. George Hunter, Miss Grant.”

Binjie extended much the same greeting as Poss had done; and by dinnertime that evening⁠—or, as it is always called in the bush, teatime⁠—they had all made each other’s acquaintance, and both the youths were worshipping at the new shrine.

At tea the talk flowed freely, and the two bush boys, shy at first, began to expand as Mary Grant talked to them. Put a pretty girl and a young and impressionable bushman together, and in the twinkling of an eye you have a Sir Galahad ready to do anything for the service of his lady.

Lightheartedly they consented to stay the night, in the hope of seeing Hugh, to deliver their message about the weaners⁠—they seemed to have satisfactorily arranged the question of mustering. And when Miss Grant said, “Won’t your sheep be dying of thirst in that paddock, where there is no water?” both brothers replied, “Oh, we’ll be off at crack of dawn in the morning and fix ’em up all right.”

“They always say that,” said the old lady, “and generally stay three days. I expect they’ll make it four, now that you’re here.”