flogged."

He leaped from his horse and threw the rein over its head.

"There!" he cried, patting the soft arched neck, "eat away, old chap.
You needn't be miserable if I am. I can't go and leave poor Leather
like this."

He threw himself down on the grass to think--to try and make out some
plan, while the birds winged their way overhead back to their roosting
places, and here and there the kangaroos and their many little relatives
began to steal out of the woodland shelters they had affected through
the heat of the day, to lope about like huge hares, look around for
danger, and then begin to browse.

At first the only idea that would come to the boy was that he would wait
there till daybreak, and then ride the three or four miles he had come
in his homeward direction back to the Wattles, getting there in good
time; and when the preparations were being made for punishment he would
ride boldly up and make a final appeal to Mr Dillon to either let
Leather off or to defer everything till the doctor returned.

"Poor Leather!" he said to himself: "he'll see that I have not deserted
him."

_Crop_, _crop_, _crop_; the horse went on browsing away upon the rich
grass, but keeping close at hand, as if liking its master's company, and
raising its head now and then to whinny softly.

The sun had gone down, and the glorious tints were dying out on and
beyond the mountains. Then a great planet began to twinkle in the soft
grey of the west, which rapidly grew of a dark purple, lit up again with
a warm glow and grew purple once more, with the planet now blazing like
a dazzling spot of silver hung high in the heavens.

Soon after, it would have been dark but for the glorious display of
golden stars which now encircled the vast arch overhead, far more
beautifully in that clear air than Nic ever remembered to have seen at
home.

And all this splendour of the heavens made him the more miserable, for
it seemed to him as if at such a time everything ought to be dark and
stormy.

The night birds were out, and strange cries, wails, and chuckling noises
reached his ears, mingled with the whirr and whizz of crickets and the
soft pipe and croak of frogs in and about a water-hole not far away.

Once or twice, half startled, Nic thought he saw dusky, shadowy figures
stealing along, and his heart beat fast; but he soon told himself that
it was all fancy, for if any one had approached the horse would have
been alarmed, whereas it was