figures occupied the whole of the seat. Passengers—and women, in a land where white-skinned girls or women were almost non-existent!
In the flurry of greeting, campmaking, and hurried toilettes, Sam met a middle-aged, gloomy woman named Sara Peabody. She was the widow of a celebrated bushranger, who had been hanged with appropriate ceremony eighteen years before. Since that time she had been housekeeper for a rancher, Randall Smith. When his ranch failed. Smith took a place as fence-inspector, and Sara Peabody came with him to care for his motherless daughter, Claire.
Claire, now returning from three years of school at Perth, was a laughing, tomboyish sort, with freckles on her small nose, and ready comradeship in her clear blue eyes. Sam liked her at first sight, but found that there was always a queer constriction in his throat when he tried to talk to her She accepted him without constraint, and soon was jollying him—exactly as she talked with Farrand, or McManus, or Sara Peabody, for that matter.
The third duster girl was a young widow, just discarding mourning for an elderly husband. Her name was Elinor Mathes, and she was a coquettish brunette, friend of Claire, and ready for any new sensation she could find. This trip was an adventure, and on it she secretly meant to turn as many masculine heads as she was able.
Oddly enough, Farrand was entranced by her, and followed her around as though hypnotized. On the other hand. Elinor Mathes immediately showed a partiality for Sam Varney—and he could talk spiritedly to her because he knew much more about girls of her sort than he did about the Claire Smiths of the world. Sam never would be a victim of Elinor Mathes. She sensed the difficulty, and it put her on her mettle. Before that first meal was over, she had decided to add Sam to her string. But the man queerly enough showed only a sort of exasperation when she gave him all the opportunity in the world to fall in love.
Kangaroos
After tucker there was the job for the men of raising the fence—the posts having been uprooted and the wire laid flat to allow the ox-wagon to reach the west side. The two younger women came out and talked, while Sara Peabody went about preparations for the night in the tent McManus pitched for them.
Then early goodnights, for the travellers were tired. McManus sat up smoking and talking to Ferrand and Sam for an hour after this. But the bullockie was not his jovial self. He
