mind to break up the home. I want to keep the children together as
much as possible. There's enough of them gone, God knows. But it's a
comfort to know that there's some one to see to them if anythink happens
to me.'

*****

One day--I was on my way home with the team that day--Annie Spicer came
running up the creek in terrible trouble.

'Oh, Mrs Wilson! something terribl's happened at home! A trooper'
(mounted policeman--they called them 'mounted troopers' out there), 'a
trooper's come and took Billy!' Billy was the eldest son at home.

'What?'

'It's true, Mrs Wilson.'

'What for? What did the policeman say?'

'He--he--he said, "I--I'm very sorry, Mrs Spicer; but--I--I want
William."'

It turned out that William was wanted on account of a horse missed from
Wall's station and sold down-country.

'An' mother took on awful,' sobbed Annie; 'an' now she'll only sit
stock-still an' stare in front of her, and won't take no notice of any
of us. Oh! it's awful, Mrs Wilson. The policeman said he'd tell Aunt
Emma' (Mrs Spicer's sister at Cobborah), 'and send her out. But I had to
come to you, an' I've run all the way.'

James put the horse to the cart and drove Mary down.

Mary told me all about it when I came home.

'I found her just as Annie said; but she broke down and cried in my
arms. Oh, Joe! it was awful! She didn't cry like a woman. I heard a man
at Haviland cry at his brother's funeral, and it was just like that. She
came round a bit after a while. Her sister's with her now.... Oh, Joe!
you must take me away from the Bush.'

Later on Mary said--

'How the oaks are sighing to-night, Joe!'

*****

Next morning I rode across to Wall's station and tackled the old man;
but he was a hard man, and wouldn't listen to me--in fact, he ordered
me off the station. I was a selector, and that was enough for him. But
young Billy Wall rode after me.

'Look here, Joe!' he said, 'it's a blanky shame. All for the sake of a
horse! And as if that poor devil of a woman hasn't got enough to put up
with already! I wouldn't do it for twenty horses. I'LL tackle the boss,
and if he won't listen to me, I'll walk off the run for the last time,
if I have to carry my swag.'

Billy Wall managed it. The charge was withdrawn, and we got young Billy
Spicer off up-country.

But poor Mrs Spicer was never the same after that. She seldom came up to
our place unless Mary dragged her, so to speak; and then she would talk
of