pped out of the hammock.

"There's Dad!" she said. "Come along!"

She was tall for her fourteen years, and very slender--"scraggy," Jim
was wont to say, with the cheerful frankness of brothers. Norah bore
the epithet meekly--she held the view that it was better to be dead than
fat. There was something boyish in the straight, slim figure in the
blue linen frock--perhaps the quality was also to be found in a frank
manner that was the product of years of the Bush and open-air life. The
grey eyes were steady, and met those of others with a straight level
glance; the mouth was a little firm-set for her years, but the child
was revealed when it broke into smiles--and Norah was rarely grave. No
human power had yet been discovered to keep in order the brown curls.
Their distressed owner tied them back firmly with a wide ribbon each
morning; but the ribbon generally was missing early in the day, and
might be replaced with anything that came handy--possibly a fragment of
red tape from the office, or a bit of a New Zealand flax leaf, or haply
even a scrap of green hide. Anything, said Norah, decidedly, was better
than your hair all over your face. For the rest, a nondescript nose,
somewhat freckled, and a square chin, completed a face no one would
have dreamed of calling pretty. In his own mind her father referred to
it as something better. But then there was tremendous friendship
between the master of Billabong and his small daughter.

The stock-whip cracked again, nearer home this time; and Norah crammed
the blue silk sock hastily into a little work-bag, and raced away over
the lawn, her slim black legs making great time across the buffalo
grass. Beside her tore the collie and Puck, each a vision of embodied
delight. They flashed round the corner of the house, scattered the
gravel on the path leading to the back, and came out into the yard as a
big black horse pulled up at the gate, and the tall man on his back
swung himself lightly to the ground. From some unseen region a black
boy appeared silently and led the horse away. Norah, her father, and
the dogs arrived at the gate simultaneously.

"I thought you were never coming, Daddy," said the mistress of
Billabong, incoherently. "Did you have a good trip?--and how did Monarch
go?--and did you buy the cattle?--and have you had any dinner?" She
punctuated each query with a hug, and paused only for lack of breath.

"Steady!" said David Linton, laughing. "I'm not a ready reckoner