he be? Why don't you lead on, Dick?'

'Won't you get off? It's not altogether safe,' I said, 'though
Lieutenant's all right on his old pins.'

'Safe!' she said, with a bitter sort of laugh. 'What does it matter if a
Marston girl does break her neck, or her heart either?'

She never said another word, but sat upright with a set face on her, as
the old horse picked his way down after ours, and except when he put
his foot on a rolling stone, never made a slip or a stumble all the way
down, though it was like going down the side of a house.

When we got to the valley we put on a spurt to the cave, and found
Warrigal sitting on the log in front of us. He'd got home first, of
course, and there was Aileen's bundle, a biggish one too, alongside
of him. We could hear father raving and screaming out inside dreadful.
Starlight wasn't nigh hand anywhere. He had walked off when Warrigal
came home, and left him to watch the old man.

'He been like that all the time, Warrigal?'

'No! Captain say big one sleep. Him give him medicine like; then wake up
and go on likit that. I believe him bad along a cobra.'

Aileen had jumped off her horse and gone in to the old man the moment we
came up and she heard his voice.

All that long night we could hear him talking to himself, groaning,
cursing, shouting, arguing. It was wonderful how a man who talked so
little as father could have had so many thoughts in his mind. But then
they all are boxed up together in every man's heart. At a time like this
they come racing and tumbling out like a flock of sheep out of a yard
when the hurdle's down. What a dashed queer thing human nature is when
you come to think of it. That a man should be able to keep his tongue
quiet, and shut the door on all the sounds and images and wishes that
goes racing about inside of his mind like wild horses in a paddock!

One day he'll be smiling and sensible, looking so honest all the time.
Next day a knock on the head or a little vein goes crack in the brain
(as the doctor told me); then the rails are down, and everything comes
out with a rush into the light of day--right and wrong, foul and fair,
station brands and clearskins, it don't make no difference.

Father was always one of the closest men that ever lived. He never told
us much about his old life at home or after he came out here. Now he was
letting drop things here and there that helped us to a few secrets he'd
never told to no man. They made poor Aileen a