The hills, that there rose sharper from the lake than further up the valley, presented a dark line of smooth sward broken by boulders, pines, and oaks, against the glowing sunset sky.
"That valley," cried the old man, stretching his clay pipe towards it, "might sustain its thousands. Look at the depth of the soil, fourteen feet there on that bank of the creek."
"It's very sticky after rain, I know," objected the maiden. "I'd rather drive Peter over a dozen miles of the clean iron-stone in the ranges, than two miles on the plain. Yesterday after that sudden shower it stuck to the wheels of the old buggy till it creaked again. I had to stop at length and try to poke the black soil off with a stick. In a hundred yards it was as bad as ever again. I often wish your black soil further, dad."
"You should not say that, my girl; God is good to give us a country like this."
"But what's the use of it? just to fatten so many more sheep for old Mr. Leicester."
Thirty years before, Mr. Leicester, the adjoining squatter, had camped beside the creek with the few sheep he had brought out into the wilderness. He had climbed to the top of this very knoll and claimed, as he told his black shepherd, "all he could see between the hills." It was a fairly "large order"—some thirty thousand acres—but in a few months, in consideration of some imaginary services rendered to the Government, a land grant made it his. A reserve along the stream had been retained by the State. Ten years before the date of this story, this had been put up to auction.
Mr. Dowling was the purchaser. Leicester was absent in England. Dick Dowling was one of an ill-fated party of English gentlefolk who "migrated" to Adelaide in its
