h part of her luggage, took a seat on the coach behind five of
Donohoe's worst horses, next to a well-dressed, powerfully-built man of
about five-and-twenty. He looked and talked like a gentleman, and she
heard the coachman address him as "Mr. Blake." She and he shared the
box-seat with the driver, and just at the last moment the local priest
hurried up and climbed on the coach. In some unaccountable way he had
missed hearing who the young lady was, and for a time he could only look
at her back-hair and wonder.

It was not long before, in the free and easy Australian style, the
passengers began to talk to each other as the coach bumped along its
monotonous road--up one hill, through an avenue of dusty, tired-looking
gum-trees, down the other side through a similar avenue, up another hill
precisely the same as the last, and so on.

Blake was the first to make advances. "Not much to be seen on this sort
of journey, Miss Grant," he said.

The young lady looked at him with serious eyes. "No," she said, "we've
only seen two houses since we left the town. All the rest of the country
seems to be a wilderness."

Here the priest broke in. He was a broth of a boy from Maynooth, just
the man to handle the Doyle and Donohoe congregation.

"It's the big stations is the roon of the country," he said. "How is
the country to go ahead at all wid all the good land locked up? There's
Kuryong on ahead here would support two hundthred fam'lies, and what
does it employ now? Half a dozen shepherds, widout a rag to their back."

"I am going to Kuryong," said the girl; and the priest was silent.

By four in the afternoon they reached Kiley's River, running yellow and
froth-covered with melting snow. The coachman pulled his horses up on
the bank, and took a good, long look at the bearings. As they waited,
the Kuryong vehicle came down on the other side of the river.

"There's Mr. Gordon," said the coachman. "I don't think he'll try it. I
reckon it's a trifle deep for me. Do you want to get across particular,
Mr. Blake?"

"Yes, very particularly, Pat. I've told Martin Donohoe to meet me down
here with some witnesses in a cattle-stealing case."

"What about you, Father Kelly?"

"I'm go'n on to Tim Murphy's dyin' bed. Put 'em into the wather, they'll
take it aisy."

The driver turned to the third passenger. "It's a bit dangerous-like,
Miss. If you like to get out, it's up to you to say so. The coach might
wash over. There's a settler'