Part 9 (2/2)

There was more than a suspicion of the latter in her eyes as she turned her head at the sound of the approaching horses and saas Ailleen's co was brief, and she at oncethat there was no tied to arrive As the four rode off towards Barellan, Ailleen, with ave her credit for, tried to keep behind with Bobby; but dickson was in no way anxious to fall in with the arrange Nellie as she cantered ahead, hung back till the others caught hi for?” Ailleen called out as they caood of splitting up?”

dickson answered, as he ca Murray

The latter looked over at him with an expression that showed he at least had a considerable objection to keeping all together He was only a youngster of sixteen, but he was one a thehis sister was that he should have the enjoyment of Ailleen's company all the way to Barellan and back There was little sympathy between him and dickson; but the absent Tony was his ideal of all that a man should be, so that if there was any truth in the rumour that Tony and dickson were rivals, he would notthe one at the expense of the other, being satisfied that with Tony already a clai Ailleen's undivided affections

”It was the arrangement, anyway If you don't like it, why did you hurry out? We didn't ask you,” he said

Nellie, finding herself alone, had turned back and rejoined the others

”Heavens! are you all going to cao to the station, willy? Or perhaps Bobby and I can go back home--is that it? _We_ don't mind”

”Don't we? Well, we do,” Bobby retorted ”It's dickson who keeps loafing round Here, go on,” he added, as, turning his horse round, he hit dickson's with a switch across the flank

The horse plunged forward, and by the time its rider had it checked he ell ahead, with Nellie close at his heels

”I' to stand much of this, I can tell you,” she exclai to play with me as you like, you're mistaken You treat me properly or I'll tell yourI never saw such a girl,” he interrupted

”I'ht you'd trick me, and let Ailleen think I'd never been on the station before Well, you see, you made a mistake I shall tell her all about it You knohat you said and promised If I tell Bobby he'll kill you, see if he won't”

The watery eyes were shi+fting rapidly fros which had occurred between him and Nellie about which he was by no means anxious Ailleen, least of any one, should know

But Nellie had a temper, and was somewhat prone to spiteful retaliations, and, without counting the cost to herself, h to make the immediate future rather unsettled, if not actually painful, to him

”You _are_ jealous,” he irl can cut you out by looking at ot eyes I couldn't help it if I met her when I hurried to ht to the lagoon? You always came by the townshi+p road before I didn't know”

It was a tone and a line of argument that had served him well on previous occasions when Nellie's teh, he was prepared to ad as his latest chance were not jeopardized by a disclosure which he kneould be fatal to hilance at hilance and smiled, just as he did when Ailleen's switch fell across his hand Nellie only looked up at him when she was mollified, and he was satisfied that the stor But he did not attempt to fall back or wait for the others till the slip-rails leading into the home paddock were reached

The station ho, all on a floor, with a roof stretching froalow fashi+on It stood soround on a number of tarred and tin-capped piles, a necessary precaution in the land of the white ant Sos stood--the store, thewhen fully stocked and properly worked But noas languishi+ng for want of an energetic head

Ruoers who for staff fro condition in which once it had been--when the lady who now reigned over it in sad and sightless solitude had been in the heyday of her youth and beauty But that was nearly thirty years ago, and thirty years back reaches into the dark e in many parts of Australia The tales of that period were necessarily so vague, or hopelessly contradictory, as various travelling swagsmen tried to embellish them for the benefit of the listeners in the men's hut, that scant courtesy was paid to theh as far as substantiation was concerned; all save one, and that was a gruesoed branches, sharp at the ends and pointing up a by-track used by the station hands, years ago, as a short cut to the branding yards A high wind had brought that tree down one night, and a new bend had been ed branches reaching out like the hungry prongs of a bundle of gigantic toasting-forks Years afterwards a stranger,for the hastly face and quaking limbs, had dashed into the hut as the men sat at supper, and had told a tale which was scoffed at, till later, one by one, the men learned to ride five ht

Another tale there was of a coach stuck up on the old main road beyond the boundary fence, when theshot, fell with his head in the fire, and lay there till the Lady of Barellan, riding down the road in the , found higed She had ridden back for help, and had fallen on the verandah of the station-house as she gave her news, and the men had ridden off to help those of who where the sun poured down on her in the full force of suht out of her eyes Frohtless, and soon after she was alone, save for the boy she idolized, for her husband had gone to the north to buy store cattle, and had disappeared from the ken of h the ribs, and the re and clothes, identified by sohbourhood whither he had intended to journey

So the station had languished for the want of a guiding hand and head, while the owner passed her days sitting on the verandah, with her sightless eyes fixed where a clurew thickly on the spot where the coach had been stuck up so many years before A slim hand-rail ran from a corner of the verandah to the cluh three-rail fence was built, with a gate where the hand-rail met it, and no one of the station ever went there save the Lady of Barellan; for it was a strange fancy, born of the fever that had followed the loss of her sight, so her way by the hand-rail, and staying there alone and silent,on the verandah as the four rode up, with her eyes, which, save for a fixity of gaze, showed nothing of their affliction, staring away into the distance where the clump of trees stood out, purple-blue in their shade above the buff of the sun-dried grass and against the pure, transparent azure of the sky overhead

dicksonon to the verandah, with Nellie close upon hirown the uneasiness of youth, re the bridles of the other three horses as well as his own

”Here's Nellie,” dickson said abruptly, as he reached the chair where the sightless woman sat