wallabies and mopokes. Then he
would go back and listen again. He was restless, and, somehow, his
heart was n't in the wallabies at all. Dave could n't make him out.

The night wore on. By-and-by there was a sharp rattle of wires, then a
rustling noise, and Sal appeared in the glare of the fire. "DAD!" she
said. That was all. Without a word, Dad bounced up and went back to
the house with her.

"Something's up!" Dave said, and, half-anxious, half-afraid, we gazed
into the fire and thought and thought. Then we stared, nervously, into
the night, and listened for Dad's return, but heard only the wind and
the mopoke.

At dawn he appeared again, with a broad smile on his face, and told us
that mother had got another baby--a fine little chap. Then we knew why
Mrs. Brown had been staying at our place.

Chapter VI.

Good Old Bess.

Supper was over at Shingle Hut, and we were all seated round the
fire--all except Joe. He was mousing. He stood on the sofa with one
ear to the wall in a listening attitude, and brandished a table-fork.
There were mice--mobs of them--between the slabs and the paper--layers
of newspapers that had been pasted one on the other for years until
they were an inch thick; and whenever Joe located a mouse he drove the
fork into the wall and pinned it--or reckoned he did.

Dad sat pensively at one corner of the fire-place--Dave at the other
with his elbows on his knees and his chin resting in his palms.

"Think you could ride a race, Dave?" asked Dad.

"Yairs," answered Dave, without taking his eyes off the fire, or his
chin from his palms--"could, I suppose, if I'd a pair o' lighter boots
'n these."

Again they reflected.

Joe triumphantly held up the mutilated form of a murdered mouse and
invited the household to "Look!" No one heeded him.

"Would your Mother's go on you?"

"Might," and Dave spat into the fire.

"Anyway," Dad went on, "we must have a go at this handicap with the old
mare; it's worth trying for, and, believe me, now! she'll surprise a
few of their flash hacks, will Bess."

"Yairs, she can go all right." And Dave spat again into the fire.

"GO! I've never known anything to keep up with her. Why, bless my
soul, seventeen years ago, when old Redwood owned her, there was n't a
horse in the district could come within coo-ee of her. All she wants
is a few feeds of corn and a gallop or two, and mark my words she'll
show some of them the way."

Some horse