"No wonder he looks so bad of a morning," whispered Norman. "Here, go
on a little farther and then we can look through and see."

They went down now on hands and knees, and crept along till they could
look through into the great paddock, just as a flash of lightning
revealed to them a group of horses in the centre of the field all pretty
close together, and quietly cropping the grass.

"Strange, isn't it?" whispered Norman. "Listen! here he comes round
again."

For the beat of hoofs approached from their left, and the next minute a
horse thundered by at full speed.

"Why, it was!" whispered Rifle, "I saw one of those 'possums perched on
its back."

"No," said Norman, excitedly. "I saw something distinctly; but it was
too big to be a 'possum. I think it was one of those big things that
Shanter killed. Father said it was the koala or native bear."

"Let's wait till it comes round again."

The time seemed long, but the horse came thundering past once more,
evidently steadily coursing all round the paddock close to the rails,
while its fellows clustered in the middle out of the way.

"It is one of those things," said Norman, triumphantly.

"It wasn't," said Rifle. "I saw it quite plain, and it was one of those
kangaroos as big as a man. I say, whoever would have thought of their
doing that?"

"What shall we do? Hadn't we better go and rouse up father?"

"No," said Rifle; "let's stop and see the end of it; and to-morrow night
we can all come and catch or shoot the beast. If we went now and
fetched him, it might be gone before we got back, and he would think we
had been dreaming."

"Here it comes again; hish!" whispered Norman; and once more there was
the rapid beat of the horse's feet on the dry ground, and it tore by
just as there was a brighter flash of lightning; then the flying object
had darted by, and Norman uttered a loud ejaculation.

"Did you see?" whispered Rifle.

"Yes; it was a myall black. I saw him quite plainly."

"Not quite plainly," said Rifle. "But I saw him. It was a black on the
poor horse, but it was old Shanter."

"What?"

"It was! I saw his face as plain as possible. Don't you see? He
wanted to mount the horse and father wouldn't let him, so he determined
to have a ride, and he must have come and had one every night, and then
gone off again into the scrub."

"But--"

"Don't say `but.' You know how fond he has been of horses, always
wanting to ride when he wen