was black now. The edge of the awful
storm-cloud rushed up and under the original darkness like the best
"drop" black-brushed over the cheap "lamp" variety, turning it grey by
contrast. The deluge lasted only a quarter of an hour; but it cleared
the night, and did its work. There was hail before it, too--big as emu
eggs, the boys said--that lay feet deep in the old diggers' holes on
Pipeclay for days afterwards--weeks some said.

The two sweethearts of twenty years ago and to-night watched the retreat
of the storm, and, seeing Mount Buckaroo standing clear, they went to
the back door, which opened opposite the end of the shed, and saw to the
east a glorious arch of steel-blue, starry sky, with the distant peaks
showing clear and blue away back under the far-away stars in the depth
of it.

They lingered awhile--arms round each other's waists--before she called
the boys, just as they had done this time of night twenty years ago,
after the boys' grandmother had called her.

"Awlright, mother!" bawled back the boys, with unfilial independence
of Australian youth. "We're awlright! We'll be in directly! Wasn't it a
pelterer, mother?"

They went in and sat down again. The embarrassment began to wear off.

"We'll get out of this, Mary," said Johnny. "I'll take Mason's offer
for the cattle and things, and take that job of Dawson's, boss or no
boss"--(Johnny's bad luck was due to his inability in the past to "get
on" with any boss for any reasonable length of time)--"I can get the
boys on, too. They're doing no good here, and growing up. It ain't doing
justice to them; and, what's more, this life is killin' you, Mary. That
settles it! I was blind. Let the jumpt-up selection go! It's making a
wall-eyed bullock of me, Mary--a dry-rotted rag of a wall-eyed bullock
like Jimmy Nowlett's old Strawberry. And you'll live in town like a
lady."

"Somebody coming!" yelled the boys.

There was a clatter of sliprails hurriedly thrown down, and clipped by
horses' hoofs.

"Insoide there! Is that you, Johnny?"

"Yes!" ("I knew they'd come for you," said Mrs. Mears to Johnny.)

"You'll have to come, Johnny. There's no get out of it. Here's Jim
Mason with me, and we've got orders to stun you and pack you if you show
fight. The blessed fiddler from Mudgee didn't turn up. Dave Regan burst
his concertina, and they're in a fix."

"But I can't leave the missus."

"That's all right. We've got the school missus's mare and side-saddle.
She