nable stake. But as to economising and arranging details
that would surely be the greatest folly of all.'

I heard Aileen sigh to herself. She said nothing for a while; and then
old Crib began to growl. He got up and walked along the track that
led up the hill. Father stood up, too, and listened. We all did except
Starlight, who appeared to think it was too much trouble, and never
moved or seemed to notice.

Presently the dog came walking slowly back, and coiled himself up again
close to Starlight, as if he had made up his mind it didn't matter.
We could hear a horse coming along at a pretty good bat over the hard,
rocky, gravelly road. We could tell it was a single horse, and more than
that, a barefooted one, coming at a hand-gallop up hill and down dale
in a careless kind of manner. This wasn't likely to be a police trooper.
One man wouldn't come by himself to a place like ours at night; and no
trooper, if he did come, would clatter along a hard track, making row
enough to be heard more than a mile off on a quiet night.

'It's all right,' says father. 'The old dog knowed him; it's Billy the
Boy. There's something up.'

Just as he spoke we saw a horseman come in sight; and he rattled down
the stony track as hard as he could lick. He pulled up just opposite
the house, close by where we were standing. It was a boy about fifteen,
dressed in a ragged pair of moleskin trousers, a good deal too large
for him, but kept straight by a leather strap round the waist. An old
cabbage-tree hat and a blue serge shirt made up the rest of his rig.
Boots he had on, but they didn't seem to be fellows, and one rusty spur.
His hair was like a hay-coloured mop, half-hanging over his eyes, which
looked sharp enough to see through a gum tree and out at the other side.

He jumped down and stood before us, while his horse's flanks heaved up
and down like a pair of bellows.

'Well, what's up?' says father.

'My word, governor, you was all in great luck as I come home last night,
after bein' away with them cattle to pound. Bobby, he don't know a
p'leeceman from a wood-an'-water joey; he'd never have dropped they was
comin' here unless they'd pasted up a notice on the door.'

'How did you find out, Billy?' says father, 'and when'll they be here?'

'Fust thing in the morning,' says the young wit, grinning all over his
face. 'Won't they be jolly well sold when they rides up and plants by
the yard, same as they did last time, when they took