he girl
seemed to tower above him. Nature, in putting the fresh sympathetic soul
of a child into the grand body of a Minerva, had set a problem that was
too deep for Harry Hardy.

'Beg pardon,' he said, humbly; ''twas my dog started it. Down, Cop! To
heel--!'

He checked himself suddenly on a 'stock term.' There were tones of his
master's that Cop never dared to disobey; he went down at full length and
lay panting, regarding Maori fixedly with a sidelong and malevolent eye.
Harry returned to his cradle, and Chris approached the stepping-stones
and paused there.

'Did Dickie Haddon give you my message?' she asked in a low voice.

Harry nodded.

'It's all right,' he said.

There was another pause, broken at length by Chris.

'You ought not to be angry with me. It isn't fair.'

She was thinking of the day years ago when she was carried, all tattered
and torn, from the midst of that mob of sportive cattle. She was a very
little girl then, but the incident had remained fresh and vivid in her
mind, and ever since Harry Hardy had been a hero in her eyes. He only
remembered the affair casually and without interest.

'I am really very grateful to you for--for going away, because I know you
had good cause for your anger.'

Oh, that's all right,' said Harry again, inaptly.

'But you ought not to be angry with me. It pained me very much--the trial
and your mother's sorrow, and all the rest. It hurt me because it seemed
to set me on the side that was against Mrs. Hardy, and I--I always
admired her. I knew she was a good woman, and it was easy to see the
trouble cut into her heart although she bore it so proudly.'

'Oh, that's all right.' Harry was fumbling with the gravel in the hopper.
He was conscious that his replies were foolish and trivial, but for the
life of him he could do no better.

She waited a few moments, then bade him good morning and went across the
creek and away amongst the trees beyond; and Harry, resting upon the
handle of his cradle, watched her, absorbed, a prey to a set of new
emotions that bewildered him hopelessly. He was still in this position
when Chris looked back from the hill, and half an hour later Dick Haddon
found him day-dreaming amongst the tailings.

Day-dreams were not possible in the vicinity of Richard Haddon. The boy
was an ardent fossicker, and loved to be burrowing amongst old tailings,
or groping in the sludge of an auriferous creek after little patches. He
was soon peering