he lifted her hands to her head in a startled way, and it was some time
before she went on again. There was no need to tell me about the lost
children. I could see it all. She and the half-caste rushing towards
where the children were seen last, with Old Peter after them. The
hurried search in the nearer scrub. The mother calling all the time
for Maggie and Wally, and growing wilder as the minutes flew past. Old
Peter's ride to the musterers' camp. Horsemen seeming to turn up in no
time and from nowhere, as they do in a case like this, and no matter
how lonely the district. Bushmen galloping through the scrub in all
directions. The hurried search the first day, and the mother mad with
anxiety as night came on. Her long, hopeless, wild-eyed watch through
the night; starting up at every sound of a horse's hoof, and reading
the worst in one glance at the rider's face. The systematic work of the
search-parties next day and the days following. How those days do fly
past. The women from the next run or selection, and some from the town,
driving from ten or twenty miles, perhaps, to stay with and try to
comfort the mother. ('Put the horse to the cart, Jim: I must go to that
poor woman!') Comforting her with improbable stories of children who had
been lost for days, and were none the worse for it when they were
found. The mounted policemen out with the black trackers. Search-parties
cooeeing to each other about the Bush, and lighting signal-fires. The
reckless break-neck rides for news or more help. And the Boss himself,
wild-eyed and haggard, riding about the Bush with Andy and one or two
others perhaps, and searching hopelessly, days after the rest had given
up all hope of finding the children alive. All this passed before me as
Mrs Head talked, her voice sounding the while as if she were in another
room; and when I roused myself to listen, she was on to the fairies
again.

'It was very foolish of me, Mr Ellis. Weeks after--months after, I
think--I'd insist on going out on the verandah at dusk and calling for
the children. I'd stand there and call "Maggie!" and "Wally!" until
Walter took me inside; sometimes he had to force me inside. Poor Walter!
But of course I didn't know about the fairies then, Mr Ellis. I was
really out of my mind for a time.'

'No wonder you were, Mrs Head,' I said. 'It was terrible trouble.'

'Yes, and I made it worse. I was so selfish in my trouble. But it's all
right now, Walter,' she said, rumplin