"Such
a kid, too!"

"I guess we were pretty proud," Jim said quietly. "All the people about
made no end of a fuss about her, but Norah never seemed to think a
pennyworth about it. Fact is, her only thought at first was that Dad
would think she had broken her promise to him. She looked up at him in
the first few minutes, with her poor, swollen old eyes. 'I didn't forget
my promise, Dad, dear,' she said. 'I never touched the fire--only chased
your silly old sheep!'"

"Was that the end of the fire?" Harry asked.

"Well, nearly. Of course we had to watch the burning logs and stumps for
a few days, until all danger of more fires was over, and if there'd been
a high wind in that time we might have had trouble. Luckily there wasn't
any wind at all, and three days after there came a heavy fall of rain,
which made everything safe. We lost about two hundred and fifty acres of
grass, but in no time the paddock was green again, and the fire only did
it good in the long run. We reckoned ourselves uncommonly lucky over the
whole thing, though if Norah hadn't saved the Shropshires we'd have had
to sing a different tune. Dad said he'd never shut up so much money in
one small paddock again!"

Jim bobbed his float up and down despairingly.

"This is the most fishless creek!" he said. "Well, the only thing left
to tell you is where the swagman came in."

"Oh, by Jove," Harry said, "I forgot the swaggie."

"Was it his fault the fire started?" inquired Wally.

"Rather! He camped under a bridge on the road that forms our boundary
the night Dad cleared him off the place, and the next morning, very
early, he deliberately lit our grass in three places, and then made off.
He'd have got away, too, and nobody would have known anything about it,
if it hadn't been for Len Morrison. You chaps haven't met Len, have you?
He's a jolly nice fellow, older than me, I guess he's about sixteen
now--perhaps seventeen.

"Len had a favourite cow, a great pet of his. He'd petted her as a calf
and she'd follow him about like a dog. This cow was sick--they found her
down in the paddock and couldn't move her, so they doctored her where
she was. Len was awfully worried about her, and used to go to her late
at night and first thing in the morning.

"He went out to the cow on this particular morning about daylight. She
was dead and so he didn't stay; and he was riding back when he saw the
swag-man lighting our grass. It was most deliberately done. Len didn