although his salary
was, I suspect, not very considerable. He was evidently not cut out for
an Australian settler, for though he could manage to stick on horseback,
as Hector observed, "he preferred a walk to a gallop;" while he
persisted in wearing a stove-pipe hat and a swallow-tail coat, which he
evidently considered a more dignified costume than the straw hat and red
shirt generally worn by all ranks in the bush. He was amusing from the
simplicity of his remarks, and as he was honest and well-informed, Mr
Strong was really glad to retain him.

We had been expecting a visit from Bracewell, as Guy had written to him
to tell him that we were still remaining with our relative, who did not
appear to have any idea of leaving his station, but he had received no
answer.

Mr Kimber gave two days of the week to the family of a Captain Mason,
who owned the station next to Mr Strong's. His plan was to ride over
early in the morning of one day and to return late in the evening of the
next.

After we had become tolerably intimate he invited me to accompany him,
and to assist in teaching two of the younger boys. As I wished to
become acquainted with Captain Mason, and to see his station, I readily
accepted his invitation. I found a family very similar to that of Mr
Strong, and quite as numerous; the girls and boys tall and lithe, but as
active as crickets. The girls told me to tell my cousins that they
would ride over some day to see them, as soon as those abominable
bushrangers had been captured.

We started somewhat later than usual from Captain Mason's, but the
"Dominie," as the boys called him, had frequently traversed the road,
and assured me that he knew it perfectly. We pushed on, however, as
fast as we could go, wishing to get in before dark, as my companion
confided to me the fact that he felt not a little nervous about the
bushrangers, of whose atrocious deeds the young Masons had been telling
him--the murders they had committed, the huts they had attacked, and the
number of people they had stuck up. I could not disprove the
statements, though I believe the accounts greatly exaggerated, and I
described to him the way we had driven the fellows off by the exhibition
of firmness and courage.

"All very well in daylight," he observed; "but suppose the villains were
to pop up from behind the bushes on the other side of the road, and
order us to stand and deliver, and to threaten to shoot us if we
attempted to