e the road had dwindled to a grassy track,
and as they were now on the northern side of the Murrumbidgee River the
country grew very wild and mountainous, the track cut through forests
which the doctor told Nealie had only been half-explored, and the
hilltops were so solitary that it did not seem as if there were any
people in the world at all.

But it was a well-watered country, and on every side there were brawling
little streams rushing down precipitous heights or scurrying away
through woody valleys, as if anxious to find the very nearest way to the
sea.

By the time the hottest part of the day had arrived Rockefeller had done
half the journey to Mostyn, and driving up to a lone house the doctor
was so fortunate as to find a woman living there, to whose care he
confided Nealie for a few hours' rest and refreshment while he took a
siesta lying on the ground under the cart, which had been drawn close
under the shade of the willows fringing the river at this part.

It was sundown before they reached Mostyn, and then it was only to be
met with disappointment, for the doctor had been sent for to cope with
an outbreak of smallpox at Latimer.

"That settles it!" exclaimed the doctor. "I shall drive you back to
Hammerville to-morrow morning, for certainly I cannot take you to a
disease-stricken town, and equally I cannot leave you here."

"I shall not go back until I have found Father," said Nealie, smiling up
at him in a way that somehow robbed her words of their mutinous flavour.
"And there is no need to worry about the danger of taking me to a
smallpox place, because I had the complaint when I was a little girl,
before I was old enough to remember, so there is no danger for me."

The doctor was very hard to convince on this score, and was even
inclined to throw doubt on her statement, and to declare that she must
be mistaken, as it was so extremely unlikely that a child in her
position would contract the disease.

Nealie met all his arguments in silence until he came to his doubts
about her really having had the disease, and then she quietly rolled up
the left sleeve of her thin blouse and showed him two distinct marks on
the soft flesh above the elbow, which any doctor must know were pock
marks.

"I must go until I find my father, and if you will not take me I must go
alone," she said, when he left off arguing because he had no more to
say; but her gaze was very wistful, for Mostyn was so much rougher than
Ham