g, the lower air quivered as though molten
metal lay cooling in the sand. Moya had long since peeled off her riding
gloves, and already the backs of her hands were dreadfully inflamed. But
the day would be her first and last in the real bush; she would see it
through. She never felt inclined to turn back but once, and that was
when a sheep fell gasping by the way, its eyes glazed and the rattle in
its neck. Moya insisted on the remnant of water being poured down its
throat and the tears were on her cheeks when they rounded up the mob
once more, leaving a carcass behind them after all, and the blue crows
settling on the fence.

Otherwise the seven miles were uneventful travelling; for even Moya's
eyes discerned few more sheep on their side of the wires; and beyond
these, to the left, was the long and ragged edge of a forest so dense
(though low) that Moya, riding with Ives at the tail of the mob, said it
was no wonder there were no sheep at all on the other side.

"Oh, but that's not Eureka over there," explained Ives; "that's the
worst bit of country in the whole of Riverina. No one will take it up;
it's simply fenced in by the fences of the blocks all round."

Moya asked what it was called. The name seemed familiar to her. It was
Blind Man's Block.

"Ah! I know," she said presently, suppressing a sigh. "I heard them
speaking of it on the verandah last night."

"Yes, Spicer was advising your brother to sample it if he wanted an
adventure; but don't you let him, Miss Bethune. I wouldn't lose sight
of the fence in Blind Man's Block for all I'm ever likely to be worth:
there was a man's skeleton found there just before I came, and goodness
knows how many there are that never will be found. Aha! there's the whim
at last. I'm jolly glad!"

"So am I," said Moya, with a little shudder; and she fixed her eyes upon
some bold black timbers that cut the sky like a scaffold a mile or two
ahead; yet more than once her eyes returned to the line of dingy scrub
across the fence to the left, as if fascinated by its sinister repute.

"We must bustle them along, by Jove!" exclaimed Ives, and he yelped and
barked with immediate effect. "You can't do more than a couple of miles
an hour with sheep; and at that rate we shan't be at the gate much
before three o'clock; for I see that it's already close upon one."

"But how do you see it?" asked Moya curiously. "I've never seen you look
at a watch."

Ives smiled, for he had led up to t