mation that Gaynor's
Station was a collection of weather-board huts, a homestead put together
by five lads from England who were trying to make a fortune each. They
had not yet made a living between them. Loose End was owned by an
elderly squatter with many children. Five big gums, which could be seen
for miles, stood sentinel over the homestead on a rising knoll of
ground.

"But if yous ain't lucky, don't hit up Loose End. Old Twist has lots o'
luck, but it's mostly bad luck. A kid every year, an' eether a bush fire
or a flood or something to make up for it. His eldest is going on for
ten, I think--an' how's he to pay for labour to clear his land?"

Neither of them knew, but they decided to make for Loose End and see
what was going on under the five gums.

That day was the strangest experience to them both. Louis had tramped
before in the cooler New Zealand summer; Marcella had walked miles on
Lashnagar. But this walking through the dry, sun-scorched scrub, on
which their feet slipped and slid was an experience quite unique. The
heat rose from the ground to meet that blazing down from the sky of
Prussian blue. At eight o'clock they were both tired, but Marcella, who
plodded on, calm and unworried, was not nearly so tired as Louis who
made himself hot and dissipated much energy in wondering when they would
get there--wherever "there" might be. He had started the day whistling
and gay; by ten o'clock he was in the depths of despair and took
Marcella's attempts to chaff him as insults and injuries. As soon as
they reached a patch of stunted bushes she decreed a halt and a rest.
They filled the billy from their water-bottles and, making a fire with
the scorched scrub, had it boiling in a few moments. Louis, though he
was revived to interest by the pannikin of tea and a cigarette and
biscuits, sank back into deep depression after a few minutes, saying
that their coming into the Bush had been the act of lunatics, that they
would die of starvation and thirst--until she made him take out his map
and find out where they were.

Together they pored over it. After much wrangling they located Loose End
beside a small lake and decided that they would reach there to-morrow
with considerable effort.

"Anyway, we'll have to, because of our water," said Louis. "Otherwise
we'll die." But Marcella found that, by going a few miles west, they
would catch up the creek that drained into the little lake.

"It'll only be a dried water-co