Now, you youngsters, where are your 'possum dogs? I think they ought to
get some in the garden."

Everyone seemed to welcome the idea. There had been a sort of stiffness
in the talk, and Gavan Blake felt that a walk in the moonlight might
give him a chance to make himself a little more at home with Mary Grant,
while Ellen Harriott had her own reasons for wanting to get him outside.
With laughter and haste they all put on hats and coats, for it had
turned bitterly cold; then with ear-piercing whistles the children
summoned their 'possuming dogs, who were dreaming happy hours away
in all sorts of odd nooks, in chimney-corners, under the table in
the kitchen, under the bunks in the men's hut, anywhere warm and
undisturbed. But at the whistles each dog dashed out from his nook,
tearing over everything in front of him in his haste not to be left
behind; and in three seconds half a dozen of them were whining and
jumping round the children, waiting for orders which way to go.

A majestic wave of the hand, and the order "Go and find him!" from the
eldest of the children, sent a hurricane of dogs yapping with excitement
off to the creek, and the hunters followed at a brisk run. Gavan Blake
and Mary Grant trotted along together in the bright moonlight. Just in
front were Ellen and Hugh, he laughing at the excitement of the dogs and
children, she looking over her shoulder and hoping to hear what Blake
was saying to the heiress. As a matter of fact, he was making the most
of his chances, and before long they were getting on capitally. Mary
found herself laying aside her slow English way, and laughing and joking
with the rest. There is something intoxicating in moonlight at any time;
and what with the moon and the climate, and the breeze whistling through
the gum-boughs, it was no wonder that even the staidly-reared English
girl felt a thrill of excitement, a stirring of the primeval instincts
that civilization and cultivation had not quite been able to choke.

"When you go back to England, Miss Grant," said Blake, "you will be able
to tell them that you have hunted 'possums, anyhow. That will sound like
the real bush, won't it?"

"Yes. And I can say I have been upset in a river and nearly drowned,
too. I'm becoming quite an experienced person. But what makes you think
I shall go back to England?"

"I thought you would be sure to go back."

"Oh, no. We have no friends in England at all. My mother's people are
nearly all living