N THE COIL 274

XX. THE LAST LOOP 293

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

TO FACE PAGE

THE HORSE AND ITS RIDER DASHED OUT OF THE
SMOKE _Frontispiece_

"THANK YOU," SHE SAID 30

"THEN ROLL THE SWAG AND BLANKET UP, AND LET
US HASTE AWAY" 56

"I AIN'T NO STRANGER, MISS" 100

CAPERED ROUND THE BOULDER 216

THROUGH THE BUSH IT WENT, RACING LIKE MAD 268

COLONIAL BORN

CHAPTER I.

THE ROMANCE OF TAYLOR'S FLAT.

Where the road to the west from Birralong dips down to the valley of
Boulder Creek, a selection stretches out on the left-hand side, well
cleared and fenced, and with the selector's homestead standing back a
couple of hundred yards from the main road. Slip-rails in the fence,
serving as a gateway, open on to the half-worn track which runs from the
roadway to the house; and on either side of it there are cultivation
paddocks, the one verdant with lucerne, and the other picturesque with
the grey sheen of iron-bark pumpkins showing from among the broad leaves
of the still growing vines.

The house, unpretentious and substantial, has long since taken to itself
the nondescript hue to which the Australian sun soon reduces the
unpainted surface of hard-wood slabs and shingles. A square, heavy
chimney, smoke-stained and clumsy at the base, rises above the sloping
roof at one end, and a roughly fashioned verandah runs along the front
of the house, the opposite end to where the chimney is situated being
occupied by an odd collection of water-tanks. By the side of the door,
and under shelter of the verandah, a saddle is standing on end, while a
bridle hangs from a peg in the wall overhead. A heap of two-foot logs is
near the water-tanks, with a short-handled axe stuck in an upturned
stump which does duty for a chopping-block.

Behind the house a few gum trees in the paddocks lead the eye to where
the untouched bush grows thick and sombre in the strength of crowded
timber, the bleached trunks of the dead ring-barked trees, where the
sunlight plays upon them, gleaming white against the dark purple-blue of
the distant foliage. Towards the valley of the creek the land slopes