hen I got
pot-o'-mine poisoning, or whatever they call it. I've 'eard they never
wash their saucepans!"

"No wonder you get rummy flavours in what you eat down there, if that's
so," said Dave. "Surprisin' what the digestions of them city people
learn to put up with. Well, I suppose you won't be addin' to their risks
by puttin' up much of a dinner for them to-day, Mrs. Brown." He grinned
wickedly.

"You go on, imperence!" said the lady. "If I let you look into the
larder now (w'ich I won't, along of knowin' you too well), there'd be
no gettin' you out to work to-day. Murty, that turkey weighed
five-and-thirty pound!"

"Sure he looked every ounce of it," said Murty. "I niver see his
aiqual--he was a regular Clydesdale of a bird!"

"I rose him from the aig meself," said Mrs. Brown, "and I don't think
I could 'a' brung meself to 'ave 'im killed for anythink less than them
comin' 'ome. As it was, I feel 'e's died a nobil death. An' 'e'll eat
beautiful, you mark my words."

"Well, it'll be something to think of the Boss at the head of his table,
investigatin' a Billabong turkey again," said Boone, putting down his
empty cup. "And as there's nothing more certain than that they'll all be
out at the stables d'reckly after dinner, wantin' to see the 'orses, you
an' I'd better go an' shine 'em up a bit more, Mick." They tramped out
of the kitchen, while Mrs. Brown waddled to the veranda and cast further
anxious glances at the bank of clouds lying westward.

Norah was watching them, too. She was sitting in the corner of the
compartment, as the swift train bore them northward, with her eyes glued
to the country flying past. Just for once the others did not matter to
her; her father, Jim, and Wally, each in his own corner, as they had
travelled so many times in the past, coming back from school. Then she
had had eyes only for them; to-day her soul was hungry for the dear
country she had not seen for so long. It lay bare enough in the early
winter--long stretches of stone-walled paddocks where the red soil
showed through the sparse, native grass; steep, stony hillsides, with
little sheep grazing on them--pygmies, after the great English sheep;
oases of irrigation, with the deep green of lucerne growing rank among
weed-fringed water-channels; and so on and on, past little towns
and tiny settlements, and now and then a stop at some place of more
importance. But Norah did not want the towns; she was homesick for the
open country,