one, proffering him a succulent raw turnip. "Me
know. You tellee fine large crammee. Hogg, he tellee crammee, too. So
dly up!" And Jim, finding expostulation useless, "dried up" accordingly
and ate the turnip, which was better than the leek.

To the right of the homestead at Billabong a clump of box trees
sheltered the stables that were the unspoken pride of Mr. Linton's
heart.

Before his time the stables had been a conglomerate mass, bark-roofed,
slab-sided, falling to decay; added to as each successive owner had
thought fit, with a final mixture of old and new that was neither
convenient nor beautiful. Mr. Linton had apologised to his horses during
his first week of occupancy and, in the second, turning them out to
grass with less apology, had pulled down the rickety old sheds,
replacing them with a compact and handsome building of red brick, with
room for half a dozen buggies, men's quarters, harness and feed rooms,
many loose boxes and a loft where a ball could have been held--and
where, indeed, many a one was held, when all the young farmers and
stockmen and shearers from far and near brought each his lass and
tripped it from early night to early dawn, to the strains of old Andy
Ferguson's fiddle and young Dave Boone's concertina. Norah had been
allowed to look on at one or two of these gatherings. She thought them
the height of human bliss, and was only sorry that sheer inability to
dance prevented her from "taking the floor" with Mick Shanahan, the
horse breaker, who had paid her the compliment of asking her first. It
was a great compliment, too, Norah felt, seeing what a man of agility
and splendid accomplishments was Mick--and that she was only nine at the
time.

There was one loose box which was Norah's very own property, and without
her permission no horse was ever put in it except its rightful
occupant--Bobs, whose name was proudly displayed over the door in Jim's
best carving.

Bobs had always belonged to Norah, He had been given to her as a foal,
when Norah used to ride a round little black sheltie, as easy to fall
off as to mount. He was a beauty even then, Norah thought; and her
father had looked approvingly at the long-legged baby, with his fine,
well-bred head. "You will have something worth riding when that fellow
is fit to break in, my girlie," he had said, and his prophecy had been
amply fulfilled. Mick Shanahan said he'd never put a leg over a finer
pony. Norah knew there never had been a fin