ing doe along a stockyard this morning;
close by, along a fent, you see!"

"That'll do," says Jim. "We'll be up round the old stockyard after
breakfast to-morrow. You, Jerry, come with us."

It was a fresh breezy autumn morning in April, when the four sallied
forth, about nine o'clock, for their hunt. The old stockyard stood in
the bush, a hundred yards from the corner of the big paddock fence, and
among low rolling ranges and gullies, thickly timbered with gum,
cherry, and sheoak: a thousand parrots flew swiftly in flocks,
whistling and screaming from tree to tree, while wattled-birds and
numerous other honeyeaters clustered on the flowering basksias. The
spurwinged plover and the curlew ran swiftly among the grass, and on a
tall dead tree white cockatoos and blue cranes watched the intruders
curiously.

Alice and Sam rode together soberly, and before them were Halbert and
Jim, just up, ready for the chase. Before them, again, was the active
blackfellow, holding the dogs in a leash,--two tall hounds, bred of
foxhound and greyhound, with a dash of colley.

A mob of kangaroos crosses their path, but they are all small; so the
dogs, though struggling fiercely, are still held tight by Jerry: now he
crosses a little ridge before them and looks down into the gully
beyond, holding up his hand.

The two young men gather up their reins and settle themselves in their
seats. "Now, Halbert," says Jim, "sit fast and mind the trees."

They ride up to the blackfellow; through the low wattles, they can see
what is in the gully before them, though the dogs cannot.

"Baal, flying doe this one," says Jerry in a whisper. "Old man this
fellow, cobbon matong, mine think it."

A great six-foot kangaroo was standing about two hundred yards from
them, staring stupidly about him.

"Let go, Jerry," said Jim. The dogs released; sprang forward, and, in
an instant, saw their quarry, which, with a loud puff of alarm, bounded
away up the opposite slope at full speed, taking twenty feet at each
spring.

Halbert and Jim dashed off after the dogs, who had got a good start of
them, and were laying themselves out to their work right gallantly;
Sam's dog, Fly, slightly leading. Both dogs were close on the game, and
Halbert said,--

"We are going to have a short run, I'm afraid."

"Talk about that twenty minutes hence," said Jim, settling to his work.

Over range after range they hold their headlong course. Now a bandicoot
scuttles away fro