torms comes, it
might be forty or fifty feet. I have seen it sixty."

Nic glanced at his father.

"Simple truth, my boy," he said. "The river is in a deep trough between
two ranges of hills; and if there have been rains we might be detained
on the bank for days or weeks."

"And whereabouts does home lie?" asked Nic.

"Yonder," said his father, pointing toward the north-east. "The air is
wonderfully clear now, and perhaps you can see what I do--that faint
blue ridge that looks like a layer of cloud low down on the horizon."

"Yes, I can see it," said Nic eagerly; "but surely it won't take us a
week to ride there. It looks quite close."

"Yes, in this clear atmosphere, Nic; but it is a long way off, as you
will find before we get there. Of course if we could canter our thirty
or forty miles a day we should soon be there, but we are an escort only.
We want to take care of the waggon."

"But couldn't the men take care of that?"

"Perhaps; but a good master looks after his valuables himself. Brookes
is a pretty trusty man, but the other is a new hand, whom I have lately
had from my neighbour Mr Dillon, the magistrate, and I have not tried
him yet sufficiently to trust. That load contains things that will be
of great value to me, things Lady O'Hara bought me: seeds and
implements, guns, ammunition, powder, and endless odds and ends wanted
by your mother and sisters, who cannot send into the next street to buy
what they want."

"But surely in this wild, open place no one would interfere with the
waggon?"

"Think not? Why, Nic, we have bushrangers--escaped convicts--beside
plenty of people less desperate but more dishonest, without counting the
blacks."

"Are there any of them about here?" asked Nic, with a glance round.

"Perhaps. We hardly know where they may be. You see they belong to
wandering tribes which roam about in search of food. They are here
to-day and gone to-morrow. We never know when they may come."

"Are they dangerous?"

"Yes and no, my boy. We always have to be on our guard, especially in
such a lonely place as ours."

"But why did you go and live in such a lonely spot, father?" said Nic.

"Because the place suited me, my boy. I rode over hundreds of miles of
country before I pitched upon the Bluffs and took up the land. It was
beautiful, the pasture was good, and there was that more than great
necessary we look for in this droughty country--a good supply of water.
I have kn