nd the child was attending to the roasting of the pippies, he
was boiling a billy of tea on the other, and laying out some cold salt
beef and damper from his saddle-bags.

"Come, chick, you and I are going to have a great time to-night, as
I told you, pippies and wild duck, and tea and damper, and after that is
over you shall be tucked up in my blankets, and sleep until we hear the
bell-birds calling to us in the morning."

"Aunt Elizabeth----"

"That's all right, chick. Aunt Elizabeth will have nothing to say about
it. _I'll_ settle with _her_. Now, sit down on that blanket--I daresay
you're hungry, _eh?_"

"Please, Uncle Tom, let me go home, Aunt Elizabeth----"

"We'll go home, chick, when the bell-birds and the crockets begin to
sing. And Aunt Elizabeth won't say a word to you." He smiled somewhat
grimly to himself, "don't be afraid of that. You and I are camping
out tonight--like two old mates. By-the-way, where do you sleep at
Marumbah?"

"In the little room, just off the saddle-room."

"And Jim?"

"Oh, Aunt Elizabeth doesn't like him to sleep in the house, so he sleeps
in the stockman's spare room."

"How old is he, chick?"

The child bent her head in thought for a moment or two. "About ten,
I think, Uncle Tom. He is really and truly such a good boy--Uncle
Westonley says so, but Aunt Elizabeth says he is godless and an
'incubus.' What _does_ incubus mean? I am one too."

"Nothing, nothing very much, little one," said Gerrard, as he held the
breast of the wild duck he had plucked over the glowing coals of
his fire; "you see, your Aunt Elizabeth doesn't mean to be unkind to
you--it's only her way of saying that you and Jim are troublesome at
times. And I don't think she will call you or Jim 'incubuses,' any more
after to-morrow. Now, let us have something to eat. See, it is nearly
dark."

They ate their supper to the murmur of the ever-sounding surf upon the
beach, and then Gerrard spreading out his blankets under the shelter
of a spreading wild honeysuckle, covered the child over with a sheet of
waterproof cloth to keep off the dew.

"I must say my prayers, Uncle Tom." "Yes, dear," he said softly, "but
you needn't get up. Can't you say them lying down?"

"Oh, no, Uncle Tom. That would be very wrong, and denotes laziness, Aunt
Elizabeth says. Do you say _your_ prayers lying down?"

"Yes, chick," was the prompt response, "generally when I'm lying down
at night in the bush, looking up at the stars.