most deserted. Two or three wolfish cattle-dogs ran from the huts, and
barked at them in a half hearted kind of way; a black boy shouted from
the shed, and two gins came to the kitchen door, watching them. On the
shady side of the same structure a dilapidated, miserable-looking white
man of about fifty lay in a drunken sleep, buzzed over by a swarm of
flies. The dwelling-house was a wandering weather-board structure with
shingle roofs and iron chimneys; a deep veranda, partly latticed, ran
round three sides, and ebullient creepers of many kinds swarmed over the
house at their own wild will. The homestead faced into a big garden
spreading into an orchard, now green and gay with the verdancy and the
blooms of spring.

'Didn't I tell you? Not a white man round but the motherless drunk
there,' said Mike.

One of the cattle-dogs had returned to the side of the sleeper, and
employed himself snapping at the greedy flies, yapping impatiently to
keep them from the man's face.

'No boss sit down there, Mary?' said Mike, addressing the eider of the
gins.

The aborigine grinned cheerfully. 'Boss him bin gone sit down longa
Porkpine,' she said. 'Missus ride by Longabenna. Bill dam drunk, White
feller all gone make it hole, catch plenty gold. Gib it 'bacca!'

Burton threw his half-plug of tobacco to the gin; she caught it deftly,
the second one snatched, and the two set up a shrill yabbering, like
excited monkeys.

'Miss Woodrow?' said Jim interrogatively.

'Teachy missie longa garden,' answered the gin, with illustrative
pantomime.

'Better go and hunt her out,' Mike said. 'I'll find the black boy, and
work him for drinks if possible.'

Done passed through a side-gate into the garden, found his way to the
main walk, and looked about him.

'Well?' called a voice from the veranda.

He turned quickly. Within a few feet of him, in the space between the
vines where the steps led up to the doorway, a little dark-eyed girl of
about seven, the miniature of Mrs. Macdougal, peeped round her skirts at
the stranger. Lucy did not recognise Jim in a moment.

'Lucy!' he said.

'Jim!' Her face crimsoned; she sprang down the steps, extending two
hands.

He took both in his, and looked at her. She had changed and
strengthened--he could see that. Evidently she had lived much in the sun;
the pallor had gone from her face, and it had warmed to a tender
olive-brown, pure and soft, deepening to a ruddier tint on the cheeks.
She was muc