difficulties. He would go over
to the old station, put the whole case before Mary Grant, and induce her
for peace' sake to give Peggy money to withdraw her claim. Out of this
money he himself would keep enough to pay all his pressing debts. He
would be that much to the good whatever happened, and afterwards would
have an added claim on Mary Grant's sympathies for having relieved her
of a vast lawsuit in which her fortune, and even her very name, were
involved.

This plan seemed to him the best for all parties--for himself
especially, which was the most important thing. If he could get a large
sum to settle the case, he could make Peggy give him a big share for his
trouble, and then at last be free from the haunting fear of exposure and
ruin. He felt sure that he was doing quite right in advising Mary Grant
to pay.

Again and again he ran over Peggy's case in his mind, and could see no
flaw in it. In the old days haphazard marriages were rather the rule
than the exception, and such things as registers were never heard of
in far-out parts. His trained mind, going through the various questions
that a cross-examiner would ask, and supplying the requisite answers,
decided that, though it might seem a trifle improbable, there was
nothing contradictory about Peggy's story. A jury would sympathise
with her, and the decisions of the Courts all leaned towards presuming
marriage where certain circumstances existed. By settling the case he
would do Mary Grant a real kindness. And afterwards--well, she would
probably be as grateful as when he had saved her life. He saw himself
the hero of the hour: ever prompt to decide, he saddled a horse, and at
once rode off to Kuryong to put the matter before her.

CHAPTER XXI. NO COMPROMISE.

While Gavan Blake was conferring with his clients, a very different sort
of conference was being held at Kuryong. The return of Charlie Gordon,
accompanied by Carew, had been voted by common consent an occasion for
holiday; and although, according to theory, a bush holiday is invariably
spent in kangaroo-hunting, yet the fact is that men who are in the
saddle from daylight to dark, from week-end to week-end, generally spend
a holiday resting legs that are cramped from the saddle, and arms
that ache from lifting sheep over hurdles or swinging the gates of
drafting-yards.

Thus it was that, on the holiday at Kuryong, the Bachelors'
Quarters--two large dormitory-like rooms that opened into on