nd calm as though no stone had ruffled the
mill-pond of her existence.

CHAPTER XIII. THE RIVALS.

For the next couple of weeks, affairs at Kuryong flowed on in usual
station style. A saddle-horse was brought in for Miss Grant, and out of
her numerous boxes that young lady produced a Bond Street outfit that
fairly silenced criticism. She rode well too, having been taught in
England, and she, Poss, Binjie and Hugh had some great scampers after
kangaroos, half-wild horses, or anything else that would get up and run
in front of them. She was always so fresh, cheerful, and ready for any
excitement that the two boys became infatuated in four days, and had to
be hunted home on the fifth, or they would have both proposed. Some days
she spent at the homestead housekeeping, cooking, and giving out rations
to swagmen--the wild, half-crazed travellers who came in at sundown for
the dole of flour, tea and sugar, which was theirs by bush custom. Some
days she spent with the children, and with them learnt a lot of bush
life. It being holiday-time, they practically ran wild all over the
place, spending whole days in long tramps to remote parts in pursuit
of game. They had no "play," as that term is known to English children.
They didn't play at being hunters. They were hunters in real earnest,
and their habits and customs had come to resemble very closely those of
savage tribes that live by the chase.

With them Mary had numberless new experiences. She got accustomed to
seeing the boys climb big trees by cutting steps in the bark with a
tomahawk, going out on the most giddy heights after birds' nests, or
dragging the opossum from his sleeping-place in a hollow limb. She
learned to hold a frenzied fox-terrier at the mouth of a hollow log,
ready to pounce on the kangaroo-rat which had taken refuge there, and
which flashed out as if shot from a catapult on being poked from the
other end with a long stick. She learned to mark the hiding-place of the
young wild-ducks that scuttled and dived, and hid themselves with such
super-natural cunning in the reedy pools. She saw the native companions,
those great, solemn, grey birds, go through their fantastic and
intricate dances, forming squares, pirouetting, advancing, and
retreating with the solemnity of professional dancing-masters. She
lay on the river-bank with the children, gun in hand, breathless with
excitement, waiting for the rising of the duck-billed platypus--that
quaint c