ng.

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

NATURE AT HOME.

If Brookes suspected, he made no show, but went about his work watchful
and quiet as could be, Nic noting that he never went to perform the
simplest duty about the station without a gun, and always seeming to be
on the look-out for danger lurking behind bush, tree, or fence.

"He must feel that Leather is somewhere near at hand," thought Nic, "and
he'll betray him if he can."

The convict protested; but, after taking candles and going through the
cavern alone, Nic took him flour, tea, and sugar, and various other
things to make his solitary life more bearable.

"There, I'm very weak," the poor fellow said one day; "but these are the
only happy moments I have had for years, Nic. You have made me like a
boy again, and I feel as if I had begun to live a new life. But it is
too good to last, Nic. There is too much sunshine, and the storm and
flood will come. When does your father return?"

"Don't talk of him as if he were a storm," cried Nic.

"But you will have less liberty then."

"Oh, I don't know; I shall go on taking long rides round after the sheep
and cattle. I say, I never told you: we've lost two sheep during the
past fortnight."

"The blacks."

"That's what we all thought; but Bungarolo and the others are sure that
there have been no blackfellows in the neighbourhood. They went out for
two days afterwards, and came back and declared they had seen none. If
they had, of course I shouldn't be here. I think it's the dingoes,
though we found no skin or bones. Old Sam and I are going to take the
dogs and have a hunt. Let Rumble and Tumble run them to bay, and then
let loose Nibbler at them."

"Try it," said Leather laconically.

That day, in accordance with a promise, the convict took Nic for a long
walk through the open gorge, where the gum trees grew of gigantic size,
and on down the river for some miles, to where it spread out into a wide
lagoon, completely shut in by the forest, and with the borders fringed
by reeds and tall grasses, offering plenty of cover for them to
approach. The ducks were in abundance, and Leather laughingly spoke of
it as his larder where he fished for them, hiding among the reeds, and
sending a small fish sailing among them at the end of a line, with the
result that he often hooked one and drew it ashore for a meal.

But it was not to catch a shoal of ducks that they were come, the
convict cautiously leading the wa