Part 60 (1/2)

They all started up. ”Whose child?” asked the Captain.

”James Grewer's child, sir, at the wattle hut.”

”Oh!” said Alice, turning to Sam, ”it is that pretty little boy up the river that we were admiring so last week.”

”When was he lost?” asked Major Buckley.

”Two days now, sir,” said the lad.

”But the hut is on the plain side of the river,” said the Major; ”he can't be lost on the plains.”

”The river is very low, sir,” said the lad; ”hardly ancle deep just there. He may have crossed.”

”The black fellows may have found him,” suggested Mrs. Buckley.

”They would have been here before now to tell us, if they had, I am afraid,” said Captain Brentwood. ”Let us hope they may have got him; however, we had better start at once. Two of us may search the river between this and the hut, and two may follow it towards the Mayfords'.

Sam, you have the best horse; go down to the hut, and see if you can find any trace across the river, on this side, and follow it up to the ranges. Take some one with you, and, by-thebye, take your dog Rover.”

They were all quickly on the alert. Sam was going to ask Jim to come with him; but as he was putting the saddle on Widderin he felt a hand on his arm, and, turning, saw Cecil Mayford.

”Sam Buckley,” said Cecil, ”let me ride with you; will you?”

”Who sooner, old friend?” answered Sam heartily: ”let us come together by all means, and if we are to go to the ranges, we had better take a blanket a-piece, and a wedge of damper. So if you will get them from the house, I will saddle your horse.”

Chapter x.x.x

HOW THE CHILD WAS LOST, AND HOW HE GOT FOUND AGAIN--WHAT CECIL SAID TO SAM WHEN THEY FOUND HIM--AND HOW IN CASTING LOTS, ALTHOUGH CECIL WON THE LOT, HE LOST THE PRIZE.

Four or five miles up the river from Garoopna stood a solitary hut, snug, sheltered by a lofty bare knoll, round which the great river chafed among the boulders. Across the stream was the forest, sloping down in pleasant glades from the mountain; and behind the hut rose the plain four or five hundred feet over head, seeming to be held aloft by the blue-stone columns which rose from the river side.

In this cottage resided a shepherd, his wife, and one little boy, their son, about eight years old. A strange, wild little bush child, able to speak articulately, but utterly without knowledge or experience of human creatures, save of his father and mother; unable to read a line; without religion of any sort or kind; as entire a little savage, in fact, as you could find in the worst den in your city, morally speaking, and yet beautiful to look on; as active as a roe, and, with regard to natural objects, as fearless as a lion.

As yet unfit to begin labour. All the long summer he would wander about the river bank, up and down the beautiful rock-walled paradise where he was confined, sometimes looking eagerly across the water at the waving forest boughs, and fancying he could see other children far up the vistas beckoning to him to cross and play in that merry land of s.h.i.+fting lights and shadows.

It grew quite into a pa.s.sion with the poor little man to get across and play there; and one day when his mother was s.h.i.+fting the hurdles, and he was handing her the strips of green hide which bound them together, he said to her,--

”Mother, what country is that across the river?”

”The forest, child.”

”There's plenty of quantongs over there, eh, mother, and raspberries?

Why mayn't I get across and play there?”

”The river is too deep, child, and the Bunyip lives in the water under the stones.”

”Who are the children that play across there?”