Wilderness Trek

by

Zane Grey

CHAPTER I

Across the blue Tasman Sea, smooth and heaving on that last day, the American adventurers eagerly watched the Australian horizon line grow bold and rugged.

"Red, it's land--land," said Sterl, his gray eyes dim from watching and remembrance of other land like that, from which he must forever be an exile. "The mate told me that was Sydney Heads over there."

"Shore, pard, I seen it long ago," replied Red. "This heah sea gettin' level an' that sight just about saved my life...Sterl, no more ridin' ships for Red Krehl."

"But Red, I begged you not to come," replied Hazelton.

"What kind of talk is thet? Do you think I'd ever let you go to hell alone? Pard, this heah Australia begins to loom up kinda big, at thet. But it's English--an' whoever heerd of an English gurl lookin' at a cowboy?"

"Red, someday you'll get enough girl to do you for good and all, as I got."

"Shore I can stand a lot, Sterl...Say, if I'd had a bottle on this ship I wouldn't be near daid now...Sterl, let's have one orful drunk before we hunt for jobs."

"Sounds good, but it's no sense."

"But we never had no sense nohow," protested Red. "You takin' the blame for thet gunplay! An' me fool enough to let you!"

This time Sterling Hazelton did not reprove his friend.--The pang was still there in his breast.--Nan Halbert had loved him as well as his cousin, Ross Haight--Ross, lovable and sweet-tempered except in his cups, the only child of an ailing father with lands and herds to bequeath--Ross, who had shot a man who certainly deserved it. Sterl had taken upon himself that guilt, which to him was not guilt. His family had been gone so long that he hardly remembered them, except his schoolteacher mother who had loved and taught him. There had been only Nan. And what could he have done for her, compared with what Ross could do? It all rolled back in poignant memory to the scene where Ross had confronted him and Red that last night.

"But Sterl!" he had rung out, "Nan will believe you killed this man!...And everybody else. How can I stand that?"

"For her sake! She loves you best...Go straight, Ross...Good-by!"

And Sterl had raced away into the blackness of the Arizona night, followed by the loyal Red.

"Red, you remember the package that Ross forced upon you to give me?" Hazelton said suddenly.

"Shore I remember," replied Red, looking up with interest. "I had a hunch it was money..."

"Yes--money. Ten thousand dollars!"

"Holy mavericks!" ejaculated Red, astounded. "Where'd Ross get it?"

"Must have told his father. Red, I'm asking you to take half of this money and go back home."

"Yeah! The hell you air?" retorted Red.

"Yes, pard, I'm begging you."

"An' why for?" queried Red. "'Cause you don't want me with you?"

"No--no. It'd be grand to have you--but for your sake!"

"Wal, if it's for my sake don't insult me no more. Would you leave me if you was me an' I you? Honest Injun, Sterl? Wal, what's eatin' you then?"

"All right, I apologize. Stay with me, Red. God knows I'll need you...Boy, we're getting somewhere. Look. There's a big ship steaming along under the left wall, from the west."

"Gosh, they shore look grand. I never seen ships atall till we got to Frisco...This Sydney must be a real man-sized burg, huh?"

"Big city, Red, and I'm going to take you out of it 'muy pronto.'"

"Suits me, pard. But what air we gonna do? We don't know nuthin' but hosses, guns an' cattle."

"I read that Australia is going to be a big cattle country."

"If thet's a fact we're ridin' pretty," returned Red, with satisfaction.

They lapsed into one of their frequent silences while the ship sailed on, her yards and booms creaking. Soon the mile-wide gateway to Australia offered the sailing ship a lonely entrance. Australia's far-famed harbor opened up to Sterl's sight, a long curving bay with many arms cutting into the land. Miles inland, around a broad turn where ships rode at anchor, the city of Sydney stood revealed, foreign and stately, gray-walled, red-roofed.

While Sterl and Red packed their bags, the ship eased alongside a dock, and tied up. From the dock, they were led into a shed, and after a brief examination were free. One of the stevedores directed them to an inn, where soon they had a room.

It was early in the afternoon. Krehl voted for seeing the sights. But Sterl disapproved, for that meant looking upon drink.

"Pard, we must get our bearings and rustle for the open range," he said.

Whereupon they set out to ask two cardinally important questions--where was the cattle country and how could they get there?

"Outback," replied more than one person, waving a hand, that like an Indian's gesture signified vague and remote distance. At last a big man looked them up and down and smiled when he asked, "Yankees?"

"Yes. It must be written all over us," admitted Sterl, with an answering smile. "Are you drovers?"

"Drovers?" echoed Sterl.

"Horsemen--drivers of cattle."

"Oh! You bet. Plain Arizona and Texas cowboys. We eat up hard work. Where can we get jobs?"

"Any station owner will hire you. But I advise you to go to Queensland. Big cattle mustering there."

"Where and how far?" queried Sterl, eagerly.

"Five hundred miles up the coast and inland three or four hundred more. Board the freighter 'Merrvvale' down at the dock. Sails at six today. Brisbane is your stop. Good luck, cowboys."

Sterl led his comrade down the waterfront to where the big freighter was tied up in the center of busy shipping activities and bought passage to Brisbane. Next morning they awoke to find the sea calm, with the steamer tearing along not five miles out from a picturesque shoreline. And as the partners leaned over the rail of this steamer to gaze at a white-wreathed shoreline, extending for leagues on leagues to north and south, at the rolling green ridges rising on and upward to the high ranges, Sterl felt that beyond these calling, dim mountains there might await him the greatest adventure of his life.

"Dog-gone-it!" Red was drawling. "I wanta be mad as hell, but I jest cain't. Gosh, pard, it's grand country! I hate to knuckle to it, but even Texas cain't beat thet!"

The sailors were friendly and talkative. On the second afternoon, the skipper, a fine old seadog, invited them to come up on the bridge. Sterl took advantage of the opportunity to tell him their plans.

"Boys, you've a fine opening, if you can stand the heat, the dust, the drought, the blacks, the floods, the fires, besides harder work than galley slaves," he said.

"Captain, driving cattle on the Texas plain wasn't just a picnic," replied Sterl.

"You'll think so after droving upcountry here."

"Boss, I reckon we've been up agin' all you said 'cept the blacks. Jest what air these blacks?" inquired Red, deeply interested.

"The natives of Australia. Aborigines."

"You mean niggers?"

"Some people call them niggers. They're not Negroes. But they are black as coal."

"Bad medicine, mebbe?" inquired Red.

"Cannibals. They eat you."

"Boss," said Red, "I've had my fill of fightin' greasers, rustlers, robbers an' redskins on the Texas trails, but gosh! all of them put together cain't be as wuss as black men--cannibals who eat you."

"Captain," said Sterl, "you're sure putting the wind up us, as you Australians say. But tell us a little about cattle, and ranches--you call them stations."

"I've only a general bit of knowledge," returned the skipper. "There are stations up and down New South Wales, and eastern and central Queensland. Gradually cattlemen are working outback. I've heard of the terrible times they had. No drovers have yet gone into the unknown interior--called the Never-never Land by the few explorers who did not leave their bones to be picked by the black men."

"Pard, thet's kind hard to believe," said Red, shaking his head. "No places I ever heard about was as bad as they was painted."

"You are in for an adventure at any rate," went on the skipper. "There's some big movement on from Brisbane. We have consignments of flour, harness, wagons, on board that prove it."

The "Merryvale" docked at dawn. After breakfast Sterl and Red labored ashore, dragging their burdens of baggage, curious and eager as boys half their age. Brisbane did not impress them with its bigness, but it sparkled under a bright sun, and appeared alive and bustling.

They found a hotel, and sallied forth on the second lap of their adventure. They were directed to a merchandise store which was filling orders for a company of drovers making ready to leave Downsville in Central Queensland for points unknown.

Sterl got hold of the manager, a weather-beaten man who had seen service in the open.

"Is there any chance for jobs outback?" he said.

"Chance? Young man, they'll welcome you with open arms. Report is that the drovers can't find men enough to start. Bing Slyter is here with his teamsters. He's one of the drovers and he's buying supplies for the Danns. I'll find him for you."

In a moment they faced a big man whose wide shoulders made his height appear moderate. If he was an Australian cattleman, Sterl thought, he surely liked the type. Slyter had a strong face cast in bronze, a square chin, and eyes that pierced like daggers.

"Good day, young men," he said, in a voice that matched his size. "Watson here tells me you're American cowboys looking for jobs."

"Yes, sir. I'm Sterling Hazelton, from Arizona, and this is Red Krehl, from Texas. I'm twenty-five, and he's a year younger. We were born to the saddle and have driven cattle all our lives. We rode the Chisholm Trail for three years. That's our recommendation."

"It's enough, after looking you over," returned Slyter, in booming gladness. "We Australians have heard of the Chisholm Trail. You drove mobs of cattle across Texas north to new markets in Kansas?"

"Yes, sir. Five hundred miles of hard going. Sand, bad rivers, buffalo stampedes, electric storms, hailstones, Indians and rustlers."

"Rustlers? We call them bushrangers. Cattle thieves just beginning to make themselves felt. I'll give you jobs. What wages do you ask?"

"Whatever you want to pay will satisfy us," replied Sterl. "We want hard riding in a new country."

"Settled. If it's hard riding you want you'll get it. We drovers are undertaking the greatest trek in Australian history. Seven or eight thousand cattle three thousand miles across the Never-never!"

"Mr. Slyter," burst out Sterl, "such a drive is unheard of. Three thousand Texas longhorns made hell on earth for a dozen cowboys. But this herd--this mob, as you call it--across that Never-never Land, if it's unknown and as terrible as they say...Why, man, the drive is impossible."

"Hazelton, we can do it, and you're going to be a great help. I was discouraged before I left home. But my daughter Leslie said: 'Dad, don't give up. You'll find men!' Leslie's a grand kid."

"You're taking your family on this trek?" queried Sterl, aghast.

"Yes. And there'll be at least one other family."

"You Australians don't lack nerve," smiled Sterl.

"Do you need money to outfit?"

"No, sir. But we need to know what to buy."

"Buy rifles, and all the ammunition you can afford. Tents, blankets, and mosquito nets, clothes, extra boots, socks, some tools, a medicine kit, bandages, gloves--a dozen pair, some bottles of whisky, and about a ton, more or less, of tobacco. That goes furthest with the blacks. You needn't stint on account of room. We'll have wagons and drays."

"But, Mr. Slyter," exclaimed Sterl in amaze, "we don't want to stock a store!"

"Boys," laughed the drover, "this great trek will take two years. Two years droving across the Never-never Land to the Kimberleys!"

"It will be never!" cried Sterl, staggered at the import.

"Whoopee!" yelled Red.

CHAPTER 2

The remainder of that stimulating day Sterl and Red spent in the big merchandise store, making purchases for a two-year's trip beyond the frontier. Investment in English saddles, two fine English rifles to supplement Sterl's Winchester .44 and thousands of cartridges broke the ice of old accustomed frugality, and introduced an orgy of spending.

It took a dray to transport their outfit to the yard on the outskirts of town, to which they had been directed. Late in the afternoon they had all their purchases stowed away in the front of one of the big new wagons, with their baggage on top, and the woolen blankets spread. Before that, however, they had changed their traveling clothes to the worn and comfortable garb of cowboys. Sterl had not felt so good for weeks. It was all settled. No turning back! That time of contending tides of trouble was past. He would be happy, presently, and forget.

They had scraped acquaintance with one of Slyter's teamsters, a hulking, craggy-visaged chap some years their senior, who announced that his name was Roland Tewksbury Jones. Red's reaction to that cognomen was characteristic.

"Yeah? Have a cigar," he said, producing one with a grand flourish. "My handle is Red. Seein' as how I couldn't remember yore turrible name I'll call you Rol, for short. On the Texas trails I knowed a lot of Joneses, in particular Buffalo Jones, Dirty Face Jones and Wrong-Wheel Jones."

Roland evinced a calm speculation as to what manner of man this Yankee cowboy was. He accepted Sterl's invitation to have dinner with them, and invited them to go to a pub for a drink. Returning to their wagon, they found a fire blazing and the other teamsters busily loading the supplies. Spreading their canvas and blankets under the wagon, as they had done thousands of times, the cowboys turned in. Sterl slept infinitely sounder out in the open, on the hard ground, than he had for two months, on soft beds. Indeed, the sun was shining brightly when the cowboys awoke. Teamsters were leading horses out of the paddock; others were tying tarpaulins over the wagons. Jones addressed Red: "You have time for breakfast if you move as fast as you said you did in Texas."

Returning to the outfit, Sterl saw that they were about ready to start, two teams to a wagon. He had an appreciative eye for the powerful horses. He found a seat beside the driver, while Red propped himself up behind. Inquiry about Mr. Slyster elicited the information that the head drover had left at daylight in his light two-horse rig. Jones took up the reins and led the procession of drays and wagons out into the road.

Soon the town was left behind. A few farms and gardens lined the road for several miles. Then the yellow grass-centered road led into a jungle of green and gold and bronze. They had ten days or more to drive, mostly on a level road, said Jones, with good camp sites, plenty of water and grass, meat for the killing, mosquitoes in millions, and bad snakes.

"Bad snakes?" echoed Sterl, in dismay. He happened to be not over-afraid of snakes, and he had stepped on too many a rattler to jump out of his. boots, but the information was not welcome.

"Say, Rol, I heahed you," interposed Red, who feared neither man nor beast nor savage, but was in mortal terror of snakes. "Thet's orful bad news. What kind of snakes?"

Sterl sensed Jones's rising to the occasion. "Black and brown snakes most common, and grow to eight feet. Hit you hard and are not too poisonous. Tiger snakes mean and aggressive. If you hear a sharp hiss turn to stone right where you are. Death adders are the most dangerous. They are short, thick, sluggish beggers and rank poison. The pythons and boas are not so plentiful. But you meet them. They grow to twenty feet and can give you quite a hug."

"Aw, is thet all?" queried Red, who evidently was impressively scared, despite his natural skepticism.

The thick golden-green grass grew as high as the flanks of a horse; cabbage trees and a stunted brushy palm stood up conspicuously; and the gum trees, or eucalyptus, grew in profusion. Shell-barked and smooth, some of them resembled the bronze and opal sycamores of America, and others beeches and laurels. Here and there stood up a lofty spotted gum, branchless for a hundred feet, and then spreading great, curved limbs above the other trees to terminate in fine, thin-leaved, steely-green foliage.

As they penetrated inland, birds began to attract Sterl. A crow with a dismal and guttural caw took him back to the creek bottoms of Texas. Another crow, black with white spotted wings, Jones called Australia's commonest bird, the magpie. It appeared curious and friendly, and had a melodious note that grew upon Sterl. It was deep and rich--a lovely sound--cur-ra-wong--cur-ra-wong.

"See you like birds. So do I," said Jones to Sterl. "Australians ought to, for we have hundreds of wonderful kinds. The lyrebird in the bush can imitate any song or sound he hears. Leslie Slyter loves them. She knows where they stay, too. Perhaps she'll take you at daybreak to hear them."

Here Red Krehl pricked up his ears to attention. Anything in the world that could be relegated in the slightest to femininity, Red clasped to his breast.

Presently the road led out of the jungle into a big area of ground cleared of all except the largest trees. On a knoll stood a house made of corrugated iron. Jones called it a cattle station. Sterl looked for cattle in vain. Red said. "Shines out like a dollar in a fog."

Grass and brush densely covered the undulating hills. Sterl concluded that Australian cattle were equally browsers and grazers. The road wound to and fro between the hills, keeping to a level, eventually to enter thick bush again. Sterl made the acquaintance of flocks of colored parrots--galahs the driver called them--that flew swiftly as bullets across the road; and then a flock of white cockatoos that squawked in loud protest at the invasion of their domain. When they sailed above the wagon, wide wings spread, Sterl caught a faint tinge of yellow. When they crossed the first brook, a clear swift little stream that passed on gleaming and glancing under the wide-spreading foliage, a blue heron and a white crane took lumbering flight.

They came into a wide valley, rich in wavy grass, and studded with bunches of cattle and horses. "Ha! Some hosses," quoth Red. As Jones slowed up along a bank higher than the wagon bed, Sterl heard solid thumping thuds, then a swish of grass, and Red's stentorian, "WHOOPEE!"

He wheeled in time to see three great, strange, furry animals leaping clear over the wagon. They had long ears and enormous tails. He recognized them in the middle of their prodigious leap, but could not remember their names. They cleared the road, to bound away as if on springs.

"Whoa!" yelled Red. "What'n'll was thet?...Did you see what I see? Lord! there ain't no such critters!"

"Kangaroos," said the teamster. "And that biggest one is an old man roo all right."

"Oh, what a sight!" exclaimed Sterl. "Kangaroos--of course...One of them almost red. Jones, it struck me they sprang off their tails."

"Kangaroos do use their tails. Wait till you get smacked with one."

The trio of queer beasts stopped some hundred rods off and sat up to gaze at the wagon.

"Air they good to eat?" queried the practical Red.

"We like kangaroo meat when we can't get beef or turkey or fowl. But that isn't often."

"What's that?" shouted Sterl, suddenly, espying a small gray animal hopping across the road.

"Wallaby. A small species of kangaroo."

More interesting miles, that seemed swift, brought them to an open flat crossed by a stream bordered with full-foliaged yellow-blossoming trees, which Jones called wattles. Jones made a halt there to rest and water the horses, and to let the other wagons catch up. Red began to make friends with the other teamsters, always an easy task for the friendly, loquacious cowboy. They appeared to belong to a larger, brawnier type than the American outdoor men, and certainly were different from the lean, lithe, narrow-hipped cowboy. They build a fire and set about making tea, "boiling the billy," Jones called it. Sterl sampled the beverage and being strange even to American tea he said: "Now I savvy why you English are so strong."

"I should smile," drawled Red, making a wry face. "I shore could ride days on thet drink."

Under a huge gum tree, in another green valley, on the bank of a creek, Jones drove into a cleared space and called a halt for camp.

"Wal, Rol, what air there for me an' my pard to do?" queried the genial Red.

"That depends. What can you Yankees do?" replied Jones, simply, as if really asking for information.

Red cocked a blazing blue eye at the teamster and drawled: "Wal, it'd take a lot less time if you'd ask what we cain't do. Outside of possessin' all the cowboy traits such as ridin', ropin', shootin', we can hunt, butcher, cook, bake sourdough biscuits an' cake, shoe hosses, mend saddle cinches, plait ropes, chop wood, build fires in wet weather, bandage wounds an' mend broken bones, smoke, drink, play poker, an' fight."

"You forgot one thing, I've observed, Red, and that is--you can talk," replied Jones, still sober-faced as a judge.

"Yeah?...But fun aside, what ought we do?"

"Anything you can lay a hand to," answered the driver, cheerily.

One by one the other wagons rolled up. These teamsters were efficient and long used to camp tasks. The one who evidently was cook knew his business. "Easy when you have everything," he said to Sterl. "But when we get out on trek, with nothing but meat and tea, and damper, then no cook is good."

After supper Sterl got out his rifle and, loading it, strolled away from camp along the edge of the creek. The sun was setting gold, lighting the shiny-barked gums and burnishing the long green leaves. He came upon a giant tree fern where high over his head the graceful lacy leaves dropped down. The great gum was by far the most magnificent tree Sterl had ever seen. It stood over two hundred feet high, with no branches for half that distance; then they spread wide, as large in themselves as ordinary trees. The color was a pale green--with round pieces of red-brown bark sloughing off.

All at once Sterl's keen eye caught the movement of something. It was a small, round, furry animal, gray in color, with blunt head and tiny ears. It was clinging to a branch, peering comically down at him, afraid. Then Sterl espied another one, farther up, another far out on the same branch, and at last a fourth, swinging upon a swaying tip. Sterl yelled lustily for Red and Jones.

"Look, Red! Jones, what are those queer little animals?"

"Koala bears," said the teamster, "Queensland bush is alive with them."

"Pard, pass me yore gun," said Red.

"Ump-umm, you bloodthirsty cowboy!...They look tame."

"They are tame," rejoined Jones. "Friendly little fellows. Leslie has some for pets."

Night made the campfire pleasant. The teamsters, through for the day, sat around smoking and talking. Campfires in Australia seemed to have the same cheer, the same opal hearts and flying sparks, the same drawing together of kindred spirits, that they had on the ranges of America. But the great Southern Cross, an aloof and marvelous constellation, proved to Sterl that he was an exile. A dismal chorus of wild barks sounded from the darkness.

"Dingoes," said a teamster.

"Dingoes. Haw! Haw!" laughed Red, "Another funny one."

"Wild dogs. They overrun Australia. Hunt in packs. When hungry, which is often, they're dangerous."

"Listen," said Sterl. "Isn't that a dismal sound? Not a yelp in it. Nor any of that long, wailing sharp cry of the coyote which we range riders love so well."

"A little too cool tonight to be bothered with mosquitoes," remarked Jones. "We'll run into some farther outback. They can bite through two pair of socks."

"Gee!" said Red. "But thet's nothin' atall, Rol. We have muskeeters in Texas--wal, I heahed about one cowboy who was alone when a flock of em' flew down on him. Smoke an' fire didn't help none. By golly, he had to crawl under a copper kettle thet the cook had. Wal, the sons-of-guns bored through the kettle. The cowboy took his gun an' rivited their bills on the inside. An' damn me if them skeeters didn't fly away with the kettle!"

Red's listeners remained mute under the onslaught of that story, no doubt beginning a reversal of serious acceptance of all the cowboy said. Sterl followed Red toward their tent.

The crackling of fire without awoke him. Dark, moving shadows on the yellow tent wall told that the teamsters were stirring.

He parted the tent flaps and went out to find it dark as pitch beyond the blazing fires, air cold, stars like great white lanterns through the branches, active teamsters whistling as they hitched up the teams, fragrance of ham and tea wafting strong.

"Morning, Hazelton," was Jones's cheery greeting. "Was just going to yell that cowboy call, 'Come and get it!'...We'll have a good early start." Sterl could not recall when he had faced a day with such exuberance.

A long gradual ascent through thick bush offered no view, but the melodious carol of magpies, the squall of the cockatoos, the sweet songs of thrush, were worth the early rising. Topping a long ascent Jones drove out of the bush into the open. "Kangaroo Flat," said the teamster. "Thirty miles. Good road. We'll camp at the other end tonight."

"Aw, thet's fine...Holy Mackeli, pard, air you seein' what I see?" exclaimed Red.

Sterl was indeed, and quite speechless. A soft hazed valley, so long that the far end appeared lost in purple vagueness, stretched out beneath them, like a sea burnished with golden fire. It was so fresh, so pure, so marvelously vivid in sunrise tones! The enchanted distances struck Sterl anew. Australia was prodigal with its endless leagues. As the sun came up above the low bushland a wave of flame stirred the long grass and spread on and on. The cool air blew sweet and odorous into his face, reminding him of the purple sage uplands of Utah.

Down on a level again their view was restricted to space near at hand. A band of dingoes gave them a parting chorus where the bush met the flat. Rabbits began to scurry through the short gray-green grass and run ahead along the road, and they increased in numbers until there appeared to be thousands.

"One of Australia's great pests," said Jones.

"Yeah? Wal, in thet case I gotta take some pegs," replied Red, and he proceeded to raise the small caliber rifle and to shoot at running targets. This little rifle and full store of cartridges had been gifts from Sterl. Red did not hit any of the rabbits. Deadly with a handgun, as were so many cowboys, he shot only indifferently well with a rifle. Sterl's unerring aim, however, applied to both weapons.

Kangaroos made their appearance, sticking their heads out of the grass, long ears erect, standing at gaze watching the wagon go by, or hopping along ahead with their awkward yet easy gait. In some places they slowed the trotting team to a walk.

The sky was dotted with waterfowl. Jones explained there were watercourses through the flat, and a small lake in the center, where birds congregated by the thousands. Sterl's quick eye caught a broken' column of smoke rising from the bushland in the rear.

"By golly! Red, look at that!"

"Shore I was wonderin'. How about it, Rol?"

"Black men signaling across the flat. Look over here. They know all about us twenty miles ahead. The aborigines talk with smoke."

"All the same Indian stuff," ejaculated Red.

"Stanley Dann, who's mustering this big trek, says the abo's will be our worst obstacle," volunteered Jones.

"Has Dann made a trek before?"

"No. This will be new to all the drovers."

"Do they believe there's safety in numbers?"

"That is one reason for the large muster of men and cattle."

"Like our wagon trains crossing the Great Plains. But driving cattle is a different thing. The Texas trail drivers found out that ten or twelve cowboys and up to three thousand head of longhorns moved faster, had fewer stampedes and lost fewer cattle than a greater number."

After a short rest the cavalcade proceeded onward across the rippling sea of colored grass. Herons were not new to Sterl, but white ibis, spoonbills, egrets, jabiru, and other wading fowl afforded him lasting wonder and appreciation. The storks particularly caught his eye. Their number seemed incredible. They were mostly gray in color, huge cranelike birds, tall as a man; they had red on their heads, and huge bills. Sterl exchanged places with Red, and drowsy from excessive looking, went to sleep.

He was awakened by yells. Sitting up he found Red waving wildly.

"Ostriches!...Black ostriches!" yelled Red, beside himself..."Whoever'd thunk it?...Dog-gone my pictures!...Sterl, wake up. You're missin' somethin'."

Sterl did not need Red's extended arm to sight a line of huge black bird creatures, long-necked and long-legged, racing across the road.

"Emu," said the teamster, laconically. "You run over them outback."

"As I'm a born sinner heah comes a bunch of hosses!" exclaimed Red, pointing. On the range Red had been noted, even among hawk-eyed riders and vanqueros, for his keen sight.

"Brumbies," declared Tones.

"What?--What you say?" shouted Red. "If they're not wild horses. I'll eat 'em."

"Wild, surely. But they're brumbies," said the Australian.

Red emitted a disgusted snort. "Brumbies! Who in the hell ever heahed of callin' wild hosses such an orful name?"

"Red, it is a silly name," responded Jones, with his rare grin. "I suggest we have an interchange and understanding of names, so you won't have to lick me."

"Wal, I reckon I couldn't lick you, at thet," retorted Red, quick as a flash to meet friendliness. "You're an orful big chap, Rol, an' could probably beat hell out of me pronto. So I'll take you up."

"What does pronto mean?"

"Quick. Right now...I heahed you say 'pad.' In my country a pad is what you put under a saddle. What is it heah?"

"A pad is a path through the bush. A narrow single track."

"Ahuh. But thet's a trail, Rol. Say, you're gonna have fun ediccatin' us. Sterl heah had a mother who was a schoolteacher, an' he's one smart hombre."

The sun slanted toward the far horizon, the brightness changed to gold and rose. It was some time short of twilight when Jones hauled up at the edge of the bush, which had beckoned for so many hours. A bare spot on the bank of a narrow slow-moving stream attested to many campfires.

"Look!" interposed Sterl, pointing at forms across the stream. They were natives, of course, but a first actual sight was disconcerting.

"Black man, with gin and lubra, and some kids," said Jones.

"Holy Mackeli!" ejaculated Red. "They look human--but--"

Sterl's comrade, with his usual perspicuity, had hit it. The group of natives stood just at the edge of the bush. Sterl saw six figures out in the open, but he had a glimpse of others. The man was exceedingly tall, thin, black as coal, almost naked. He held a spear, upright, and it stood far above his shaggy head. A scant beard fuzzed the lower part of his face. His big, bold, somber eyes glared a moment, then with a long stride he went back into the bush. The women lingered curiously. The older, the "gin," was hideous to behold. The lubra, a young girl, appeared sturdy and voluptuous. Both were naked except for short grass skirts. The children were wholly nude. A harsh voice sent them scurrying into the bush.

"Gosh! I'd hate to meet thet long-laiged hombre in the dark," said Red.

"Hope some of them come around our campfire," added Sterl, with zest.

He had his wish. After supper, about dusk, the black man appeared, a towering unreal figure. He did not have the long spear. The cook gave him something to eat; and the native, making quick despatch of that, accosted Jones in a low voice.

"Him sit down alonga fire," replied Jones, pointing to Sterl.

The black man slowly approached the fire, then stood motionless on the edge of the circle of light. Presently he came up to Sterl.

"Tobac?" he asked, in a low deep voice.

"Yes," replied Sterl, and offered what he had taken the precaution to get from his pack. At the exchange Sterl caught a good look at the native's hands, to find them surprisingly supple and shapely. He next caught a strong body odor, which was unpleasant.

"Sit down, chief," said Sterl, making appropriate signs. The black man, folding his long legs under him, appeared to sit on them. A cigar Sterl had given him was evidently a new one on the native. But as Sterl was smoking one, he quickly caught on. Sterl, adopting the method cowboys always used when plains Indians visited the campfires, manifested a silent dignity. The black man was old--no one could have told how old. There was gray in his shaggy locks, and his visage was a map of lines that portrayed the havoc of elemental strife. Sterl divined thought and feeling in this savage, and he felt intensely curious.

Jones left the other teamsters, to come over and speak to the native.

"Any black fella close us?" he asked.

"Might be," was the terse reply.

"Me watchem smokes all alonga bush."

But the aborigine returned silence to that remark. Presently he arose and stalked away in the gloom.

"Queer duck," said Red, reflectively.

"He sure interested me," replied Sterl. "All except the smell of him. Rol, do all these blacks smell that bad?"

"Some worse, some not at all. It's something they grease themselves with."

On the fifth day, they reached the blue hills that had beckoned to Sterl. The wagon road wound into a region of numerous creeks and fertile valleys where parrots and parakeets abounded. They passed by one station that day and through one little sleepy hamlet of a few houses and a store, with outlying paddocks where Sterl espied some fine horses. Camp that night offered a new experience to the cowboys. The cook was out of beef, and Jones took them hunting. They did not have to go far to find kangaroo, or shoot often. The meat had a flavour that Sterl thought would grow on him, and Red avowed it was equal to porterhouse steak or buffalo rump.

Two noons later Jones drove out of the jungle to the edge of a long slope that afforded a view of Slyter's valley.

"That road goes on to Downsville," said Jones, pointing, "a good few miles. This road leads to Slyter's station. Water and grass for a reasonable sized mob of cattle. But Bing has big ideas."

Presently Slyter's gray-walled, tin-roofed house came into sight, picturesquely located on a green bench with a background of huge eucalyptus trees, and half hidden in a bower of golden wattle. The hills on each side spread wider and wider, to where the valley opened into the range, and numberless cattle dotted the grassy land.

Along the brook, farther down, bare-poled fences of corrals came into sight, and then a long, low, log barn, with a roof of earth and green grass and yellow flowers, instead of the ugly galvanized iron.

"Home!" sang out Jones. "Eight days' drive! Not so bad. If we just didn't have that impossible trek to face!"

"Wal, Rollie Tewkesbury Jones!" declared Red, gayly. "You air human after all. Fust time I've heahed you croak."

Sterl leaped down to stretch his cramped legs. Red called for him to pick out a camp site up from the low ground a little, while he helped the teamsters unhitch. Sterl walked on, intending to find a place for the tent under those yellow-blooming wattles. He heard rapid footfalls coming from somewhere. As he passed the corner of the barn, his face turned the other way, trying to locate whoever was running, someone collided violently with him, almost upsetting him.

He turned to see that this individual had been knocked almost flat. He thought that it was a boy because of the boots and blue pants. But a cloud of chestnut hair, tossed aside, disclosed the tanned face and flashing, hazel eyes of a girl. She raised herself, hands propped on the ground, to lean back and look up at him. Spots of red came into her clear cheeks. Lips of the same hue curled in a smile, disclosing even, white teeth.

"Oh, miss! I'm sorry," burst out Sterl, in dismay. "I wasn't looking...You ran plump into me."

"Rath-thur!" she replied. "Dad always said I'd run into something someday. I did...I'm Leslie."

CHAPTER 3

The girl leaped erect, showing herself to be above medium height, lithe and strong, yet with a rounded form no boy's garb could hide.

"You're Dad's Yankee cowboy--not the redheaded one?"

"I'm Sterl Hazelton," returned Sterl. "Glad to meet you, Miss Leslie."

"Thanks, I'm glad, too. Dad has been home four days, and I could hardly wait." She looked up at him with wonderful clear eyes that took him in from head to foot.

"I came up here to find a place for our tent. All right to put it there, under this tree?"

"Of course. But we have a spare room in the house."

"No, thank you. whisky and I couldn't sleep indoors."

"Let us go down. I want to meet whisky. Did you have a good trek outback?"

"It was simply great. I never looked so hard and long before."

"Oh, now nice! You're going to like Australia?"

"I do already. And whisky can't hide from me how he likes it, too."

It chanced that they came upon whisky when his back was turned, as he was lifting bags out of the wagons.

"Red, a lady to meet you." Sterl saw him start, grow rigid, then slowly turn, to disclose a flushing, amazed face. "Miss Slyter, this is my pard, Red Krehl...Red, our boss's daughter, Miss Leslie."

At this juncture Slyter, stalwart and vital in his range garb, stamped down upon them. "Roland, you made a fine drive. So, cowboys, here you are. Welcome to Australia's outback! We saw you coming, and I sent Leslie to meet you. How are you, and did you like the short ride out?"

"Mr. Slyter, I never had a finer ride in my life," averred Sterl.

"Boss, it shore was grand," addwhisky. "But short? Ump-umm. It was orful long. I see right heah we gotta get so we can savvy each other's lingo."

"That will come in time, Krehl. I'm just back from Downsville. Allan Hathaway leaves tomorrow with six drovers and a mob of fifteen hundred cattle. Woolcott has mustered twelve hundred and will follow. Stanley and Eric Dann go next day with ten drovers and thirty-five hundred head. We are to catch up with them. Ormiston has three drovers and eight hundred head. He wants to drove with us. I don't know Ormiston and I'm not keen about joining him. But what can I do? Stanley Dann is our leader. Our own mob is about mustered. Now all that's left to do it pack and start."

"Oh, Dad! I'm on pins and needles!" cried Leslie, jumping up and down, and clapping her hands.

"Slyter, how many riders--drovers have you?" queried Sterl.

"Four, not counting you cowboys. Here's Leslie, who's as good as any drover. I'll drive our covered wagon and Bill Williams, our cook, will drive one dray. Roland, you'll have the other."

"Seven riders, counting Miss Leslie," pondered Sterl.

"I see you think that's not enough," spoke up Slyster. "Hazelton, it'll have to do. I can't hire any more in this country."

"Boss, how about yore remuda?" interposwhisky, anxiously.

"Remuda?"

"Excoose me, boss. Thet's Texas lingo for hosses. How many hosses will you take?"

"We've mustered the best of my stock. About a hundred. The rest I've sold in Downville."

"Dad has the finest horses in Queensland," interrupted Leslie.

"Well, men, I'm glad to get that off my mind," concluded Slyter, with a laugh. "Roland, send Bill up to get supper. Hazelton, you boys come up when you've unpacked. Leslie, let's go back to Mum."

Sterl labored up the grassy bench, conscious of a queer little sensation of pleasure, the origin of which he thought he had better not analyze. He dropped the heavy canvas roll in the likeliest spot, and sat down in the golden glow from the wattle. The adventure he had fallen upon seemed unbelievable. But here was this golden-green valley, with purple sunset-gilded ranges in the distance; there was bowleggwhisky staggering up the gentle slope with his burdens. He reached Sterl, wiped the sweat from his red face, and said:

"Queer deal, eh pard?"

"I should snicker to snort, as you say sometimes."

"Pard, I've a hunch these fine Australian men have no idee what they're up agin'. They're takin' their familees. Leastways Slyter is, an' this Stanley Dann. One fine hombre, accordin' to Jones. Takin' his only daughter, too. Beryl Dann. Wal, it'd be hard enough an' tough enough for us without a couple of girls...This Leslie kid. About sixteen, I'd say. But a woman, an' full of all a woman has to make men trouble."

Just before dusk, they were called to supper. They entered a big plain living room, where a fire burned in a rude stone fireplace, and a long table with steaming, savory foods invited keen relish. Mrs. Slyter was a buxom, pleasant woman. Leslie inherited her fine physique. However, when the girl came in, Sterl hardly recognized her in a dress. Her frank, winning gaiety offset the mother's silence. Red brought a smile to Mrs. Slyter's face, however, by saying that such a supper would be something to remember when he was hungry way out on the Never-never.

"Boys, in the morning first thing I want you to look over the horses," said Slyter. "After that we'll ride over to town. Dann is keen to talk with you."

"Miss Leslie, what was thet you said about yore Dad's horses?" askwhisky.

"Dad breeds the finest stock in Australia," she replied. "That's where his heart is. And mine, too. The chief reason Dad wants to cross the Never-never is because he has learned that in the far northwest, in the country of the Kimberley's there is a perfect climate, grass and water beyond a drover's dreams."

"Sounds sweet. What air the Kimberleys?"

"Mountain ranges. Stanley Dann's brother Eric has seen them. He says they are paradise. He trekked to the Kimberleys several years ago. But that trek did not cross the Never-never."

"I savvy. Then thet three thousand mile drive we're undertakin' is jest a short cut?"

"It is, really. The whole idea thrills me through and through."

"Shore. I can see why for a boy. But for a girl--"

"I'm tired of that Downsville school. Then I couldn't let Mum and Dad go without me."

"Yeah? But can you ride, Miss Leslie?" went on Red, drawling, quizzically.

"Please don't call me miss...Ride? I'll give you a go any day, Mister Cowboy."

"Please don't call me mister...'Course I wouldn't race you. No girl in the world could beat a Texas cowboy."

"I wouldn't risk any guesses or wagers," said Sterl.

"You'd better not. My horses are the finest in Queensland. We'll miss the races this fall. I'm sorry about that. All the fun we ever have here is racing."

"Yore hosses. You mean yore Dad's?" inquired Red.

"No, my own. I have ten. I'm just waiting to show you!"

When the cowboys said good night and walked toward their camp, Red inquired: "Pard, did you look Leslie over tonight?"

"I saw her, but I didn't look twice."

"Shore a fine looker in thet blue dress. She was born on a hoss all right. Did you notice she was a little less free with you than with me?"

"No, pard, I didn't."

"Wal, she was. But thet isn't goin' to keep me from takin' my chance. Aw, I don't entertain no big hope of cuttin' you out. I never could win any girl when you was around."

"Red, you can have them all," declared Sterl.

At day-break they were off for the paddock, laden with saddles, bridles and blankets. Another barn marked the opening of the level valley. Cattle were bawling, horses whistling, thrushes singing. A heavy dew glistened upon grass and brush. Down the lane, riders mounted bareback were driving a string of horses into a corral.

Presently Sterl and Red were perched upon the top bar of the corral fence, as they had been perhaps thousands of times on western ranches, directing keen and experienced eyes at the drove of dusty, shaggy horses. They proved to be fat, full of fire and dash, superb in every requirement. They came of a rangier, heavier, more powerful stock than the ordinary western horses, and in these particulars were markedly superior to the plains cayuse.

"Gosh-durn-it! I never seen their beat. Did we have to come way out heah to see English stock beat the socks off ours?" said Red.

"But, Red, good horses have to have speed and stamina," returned Sterl, weakly.

"Hell, you can see thet in every line. Hosses gotta be the same all over. We never knowed any but ornery-eyed, kickin', bitin' cayuses."

"Red, I remember a few that you couldn't call that. Baldy, Whiteface, Spot--and you couldn't forget Dusty--that broke his heart and died on his feet for you."

"Shet up! I wasn't meanin' a hoss in at thousand. Lord, could I forget the day Dusty outrun them Comanches?"

Jones sauntered over, accompanied by a brawny young man whom he introduced as Larry. "Boss's orders are for you each to pick out five horses. Hurry now!"

"Wal, Rol, they look so darn good I don't see any sense in pickin' atall. But it's fun...Sterl, toss you for first pick."

Red won, and his choice was the very black that Sterl had set his heart on. Still in a moment, he burst out with enthusiasm, "There's a chestnut. Gosh, what a hoss! I pick him..."

"Here's a sorrel for me. I'll name him after you, Red. But I don't see a black like that one you beat me to."

Leslie's rich contralto rang out from behind. "What's that about a black?"

"Hello. I wondered about you," replied Sterl.

"Mawnin', Leslie," drawled Red. "I kinda like you better in them ridin' togs. Not so dangerous lookin' to a pore cowboy...Looks like you been ridin' some, at thet."

Indeed she did, thought Sterl, and could not recall any ranch girl who equaled her. Leather worn thin, shiny metal spurs that showed bits of horsehair, ragged trousers stuffed in high boots, gray blouse and colorful scarf, her chestnut hair in a braid down her back--these charmed Sterl, entirely aside from her gold-tan cheeks with their spots of red, her curved lips, like cherries, and her flashing eyes.

"Red got first pick on me," explained Sterl. "Snitched that black."

"Not too bad, you cowboys," returned Leslie, her glance taking in their choice.

"You Yankees are the queerest talking people!" said Leslie when the cowboys had finished their horse-choosing contest. "But I believe you'll be good cobbers. Come now, I'll show you some real Australian horses."

Sterl had prepared himself for a treat to a horse lover's eyes, but when he looked through the fence of a corral adjoining the shed he could hardly credit his sight. He beheld the finest horses he had ever seen in one bunch in his whole range experience. These were not shaggy, dusty, range-free animals, but well-groomed, sleek and shiny thoroughbreds in the pink of condition.

"Leslie--who takes such grand care of these horses?" gasped Sterl.

"I do--a little. But Friday does most of it. He's my black man. Dad sent him uptown...You might say something."

"I can't, child," returned Sterl, feelingly. "Horses have been the most important things in my life. And these of yours! But are they really yours, Leslie?"

"Indeed they are. Mine! I haven't anything else. Hardly a new dress to my name. A few books."

"Leslie, haven't you any beaus?" asked Sterl lightly.

"I had. But Dad shut down on them lately," replied the girl, seriously. "Not that I cared much. Only I've been lonesome."

"Wal, young lady," drawled Red, "you ain't gonna be so lonesome from now on, if my hunch is correct."

"That black horse--" spoke up Sterl, pointing to a noble, rangy beast.

"That's King. He's five years old. Bred from Dad's great dam. King has won all his races the last two years. Oh, he's swift! He threw me last race. But we won."

"So you were up on him? Well!" rejoined Sterl, in wonder and admiration.

"Yes, I can ride him. But Dad says no more. At least not in races. He's too strong. Has a mouth like iron. And once running against other horses, he's terrific."

"I'll have to put my hands on him," said Sterl.

"You're going to ride him, cowboy," replied the girl. "Let's go inside the paddock."

Red had straddled the top bar of the fence, and his silence was eloquent. Leslie led the way inside. She called and whistled. All the horses threw up their heads, and some of them started for her. Then they trooped forward, fine heads up, manes flying. Still they halted some yards from the fence, eager, whinnying, but not trustful of the strangers.

"Come up heah, pard," called Red. "They're skeered of you. Instinct! They know you're a hard-ridin' hombre from Arizonie."

Leslie walked away from the fence somewhat, and coaxed. A spotted iron-gray animal, clean-cut in build, was the first to come to the girl.

"Jester," she called to him, and got hold of his mane to lead him back to the fence. "One of my best. He's tricky--full of the devil, but fast, tireless...Red, would you like to have him on the trek? It would please me. I think you'd be clever enough to match him."

"Would I?--Aw, Leslie, that's too good of you. Why, he took my eye fust thing. But I oughtn't take him!"

"Done! He's yours. Get down and make friends with him."

Red complied with alacrity. Sterl watched as he saw the cowboy's lean brown hand, slow and sure, creep out to touch the arching, glossy neck. "Jester, you dog-done lucky hoss! Why, I'm the kindest rider that ever threw his laig over a saddle."

"King, come here," called Leslie to the magnificent black. But it was a beautiful bay that approached at the girl's bidding. "Lady Jane, you know I'm going to ride you this morning, now don't you?" She petted the sniffing muzzle, and laid her cheek against the trim black mane. Then most of the others except King came begging for her favor. She introduced them to the cowboys as if they were persons of rank--Duke, a great rangy sorrel, almost red, pride and power in every line; Duchess, a long-tailed white mare, an aristocrat whose name was felicitous; Lord Chester, a trim gray stallion, hard to overlook even in that band.

The black still hung behind; Leslie had to go for him.

Closer at hand, his magnificent physical qualities appeared more striking.

"King," said Leslie, impressively, "this is an American cowboy, Sterl Hazelton, who is going to ride you--ride you, I said, you big devil--on our great trek."

Sterl had feared this very thing. "Leslie, don't ask me to take him--your favorite!" he protested.

"But he's not my favorite! I don't love him--well, not so much--since he threw me. Please, Sterl!"

"I only wanted to be coaxed," rejoined Sterl, lamely. "Thanks, Leslie. It's just too good to be true...I had a horse once..."

"Lead him out," said Leslie, then with surprising ease she leaped upon the bare back of Lady Jane. Red followed with Jester, and Sterl gently urged the black to join them.

"King, let's look each other over," said Sterl, as he let go of the mane and squared away in front of the horse. King threw up his noble head, and his black eyes had a piercing curiosity. But he was not in the least afraid. Sterl put out a confident hand to rub his nose.

"Saddle up, boys," said Leslie, slipping off. "Let's get this trip to town over. I don't mind showing you to the girls, because they'll be left behind, except Beryl Dann. And I just hate to present you to her."

Sterl did not voice his surprise, but Red blurted out. "An' 'cause why, Leslie?"

"I'll be jealous," laughed the girl, frankly. "I'd like you both for my cavaliers. Oh, Beryl is lovely, even if she is spoiled and proud. Her father is lord of the manor, so to speak."

In short order they were mounted in the unfamiliar English saddles, and ready to ride away. King pranced a little. Sterl sensed his tremendous, latent power.

One branch of the road turned back past the house; the other, which Leslie took, crossed the creek and wound up the slope into the bush. Wattle trees sent a golden shade down upon them, singing cur-ra-wongs followed them.

"Bell magpies," said Leslie. "I love them almost as well as the kookaburras. That reminds me. Dad won't let me take all my pets."

They rode on. Thick bush began to thin out; another mile brought open country, green rolling hills and vales that looked overgrazed. Presently Sterl saw horses and cattle, and columns of smoke, and at length a big white house with great tin water tanks under the eaves. He had not observed this around Slyter's house, but he had grasped that most of these Australian station owners had to catch their water in the dry season. This was the Dann station, just outside of town.

"There she is--Beryl," said Leslie, and waving a gauntleted hand she called. Sterl saw a fair-faced, fair-haired girl, distinguished by grace even in what was evidently the workaday dress of the moment.

"Pard, don't you reckon I oughta pull leather oot of heah?" said Red, in perturbation.

"I should smile you should," returned Sterl. "And me too!"

"Stand to your colors, men," retorted Leslie. Presently Sterl was doffing his sombrero, and gallantly bowing to a handsome girl, some years Leslie's senior, whose poise permitted graciousness, yet hid curiosity.

Sterl made a pleasant little speech and Red cut in with his southern drawn, "Wal, Miss Dann, I shore am glad to meet another Australian girl. My pard heah, Sterl an' me, have been sorta worried over this long trek an' thought of backin' out. But not no more."

Beryl Dann was neither too dignified nor too grown up not to be pleased and flattered by what Sterl divined was an extraordinary speech to her.

As Sterl rode on with Leslie, he observed without looking back that Red did not accompany them.

"Did you like her?" queried Leslie, a dark flash of her hazel eyes on Sterl. She was a woman; still Sterl could not react to the situation with playful duplicity, as one impulse prompted him to.

"Yes, of course," he said, frankly. "Pretty and gracious, if a little haughty. I wonder--has she lived out here long?"

"Yes. The Danns have been here all of five years. But Beryl went to school in Sydney. She visits there often. She's lovely! All the young men court her...Didn't you fall in love with her at first sight?"

"My child, I did not."

"Don't call me child," she flashed, quickly. "I'm grown up. Old enough to get married!"

"You don't say. I wouldn't have thought it," replied Sterl teasingly.

"Yes. Dad thought so. He wanted to give me to a station man over here. But I wouldn't...Red has not escaped Beryl--that's obvious. Look back."

Sterl did so, to see the cowboy still leaning over his saddle gazing down upon the fair-haired girl.

"Sterl, I like Red," went on Leslie, confidentially. "But I'd never let him see it. I don't know cowboys, of course. But I know young men who are devils after women. And he's one. I could feel it...But I guess you're different. Sterl, I'm crazy to take this trek. But I'm frightened. There will be twenty young men with us. I know how they can be, even trekking in to Brisbane. Eight days! My mother, Stanley Dann's sister, Beryl and I the only women!..."

"Leslie, your fathers never should take you."

"But I want to go. Beryl does, too. It means new homes, new friends, new lives...Sterl, I hope you'll be a big brother to me. Will you?"

"Thank you. I'll try," responded Sterl, sincerely. The girl's frank wistfulness touched him deeply. "But I'm a stranger. I might be what Red calls no good atall."

"You might be, but I don't believe it...I like you, Sterl. I'm not afraid of you. Mum says I'm a hoyden. But I'm sensitive. These outback men court you on sight--hug and kiss you--or try to. Outback it's a fight for love, women, cattle--for life itself."

"Leslie, it's much like that on the western ranges where I come from. I understand a little how a young girl feels."

"You are going to be a comfort, Sterl," she said, happily. "Here we are, right in town. And there comes Red, putting Jester to a canter...There's where I went to school...Oh, I forgot something I wanted to tell you. Do you remember Dad mentioning a drover, Ashley Ormiston?"

"Yes. He is the man Mr. Dann wants your Dad to throw in with."

"Sterl, I don't like the idea at all. Mr. Ormiston is new to Downsville. You'll meet him today, so I don't need to describe him. But he has been very much in evidence since the races. I met him that day, and to be honest I was fascinated. Sterl; he--he insulted me that very first night. I've tried to avoid him ever since."

"Have you told your father?" queried Sterl.

"I dare not," she replied, simply.

At that moment Red caught up with them.

"Let's tie up here," Leslie said, halting. "Now boys, you hunt up Dad. He'll be somewhere, waiting for you. Stanley Dann wants to meet you. Be good. Don't drink--or forget you're my cowboys."

They turned a corner to reach a point opposite a large store, in front of which had collected a crowd, mostly men, all trying to get out of the way of a conflict of some kind. Then Sterl saw a white man kick an aborigine into the street. He heard a woman cry out that it was Slyter's black man, Friday.

Sterl stepped out of the crowd and off from the pavement. Then a white man, agile and powerful, leaped into the street to kick the black viciously, knocking him flat.

Striding over, Sterl placed a hard hand against the aggressor and shoved him back, far from gently.

The man straightened up. He was a dark-browed, handsome fellow of about thirty, garbed as a drover.

"What business--of yours?" he panted, hoarsely.

"I just thought you'd kicked that black enough," declared Sterl, deliberately.

"Who are--you?" demanded the other, his dark eyes burning. Sterl caught a strong odor of whisky.

"No matter. I'm a newcomer."

"Damned, meddling, Yankee blighter," shouted the Australian, and with a backhanded sweep he struck Sterl a blow across the mouth that staggered him.

Recovering his balance, Sterl leaped forward, and gave his antagonist a sudden blow low down, then swung his right fist hard and fierce at those malignant eyes, and felled him like a bullock under the ax.

Red lined up alongside his comrade. The buzzing circle crowded into the street. Sterl, to his dismay, espied Leslie's pale face. Then her father dragged her back and strode out, accompanied by a tawny-haired giant, leonine in build and mien.

Slyter gazed at the prostrate man, who was stirring, and from him to the black. "Friday! Who hit you?"

"Boss, that one fella," replied the black, and pointed to his brutal attacker.

"Dann, it's Ash Ormiston!" ejaculated Slyter.

"I see. Looks as if a horse kicked him...Here you, what does this mean?" boomed the giant, wheeling upon Sterl.

Red intervened, cool and wary. "Watch thet hombre, pard. He might have a gun."

"Krehl!" exclaimed Slyter. "Did you slug, Ormiston?"

"No, Sterl did thet. But I'd have liked to."

"Stanley, these are my two American cowboys, Krehl and Hazelton."

"Drunk and rowing, eh?" queried Dann. Sterl confronted Dann, and he was not in a humor to be conciliatory.

"No, I'm not drunk," he rang out. "It's your country-man who is that. I came upon him kicking this black man, Friday. Kicking him in the face and chest! I interfered. He called me a damned, meddling Yankee blighter and hit me. Then I soaked him."

"Friday, what you do alonga Ormiston?" asked Slyter, gruffly.

"Black fella tellum bimeby," replied Friday, and stalked into the crowd, where Sterl saw Leslie try to stop him and fail.

Meanwhile Ormiston staggered to his unsteady feet, one of his eyes beginning to puff.

"Where's that ---- Yankee who hit me?" he bit out.

Dann laid a restraining hand on him. "Man, you're drunk."

Sterl confronted him. "Go for your gun if you've got one."

Ormiston violently threw Dann off.

Dann waved the crowd back. "Get off the street!" he roared.

CHAPTER 4

If Ormiston had a gun concealed on his person, he made no move to draw it. Sterl's hand dropped back to his side.

"I'll not exchange shots--with a Yankee tramp," panted Ormiston.

"No. But you're not above kicking a poor black when he's down," replied Sterl.

Red again slouched over to Sterl's side. "Haw! Haw!" His hard, mirthless laugh rang with scorn. "Orful particular, ain't you, Mr. Ormiston, about who you throw a gun on? Wal, you got some sense, at thet."

"Dann, you're magistrate here!" shouted Ormiston. "Order these Yankees out of town."

"You're drunk, I told you," replied Dann. "You started a fight, then failed to go through with it."

"No, I didn't. I only kicked that snooping black. This Yankee started it...I'll not engage in a gun fight with a foreign adventurer," replied Ormiston in hoarse haste.

"Mister, why don't you pull thet gun I see inside yore coat?" drawled Red.

"Dann, order these Yankees to leave," repeated Ormiston, stridently.

"No. You're making a fool of yourself," declared Dann. "Slyter has hired these cowboys to help him on the trek."

"Slyter, is that true--you're taking these cowboys?"

"Yes, I've hired them."

"Will you discharge them?"

"No, I certainly will not."

"Then I refuse to take my drovers and my mob of cattle on Dann's trek."

"Ormiston, I don't care a damn what you do," said Slyter.

Ormiston made a forceful and passionate gesture, then shouldered his way through the crowd to disappear.

Slyter lost no time in getting to Sterl and Red and dragged them with him across the pavement into a store. Dann strode after them. And there the four men faced each other.

"Gentlemen, I'm terribly sorry," began Sterl. "It's just too bad that I had to mess up your plans at the last moment. But I couldn't stand for such dirty, low-down brutality."

"Pard," drawled Red, coolly rolling a cigarette. "If you hadn't been so damn quick I'd have busted Ormiston myself."

Dann stroked his golden beard with a massive hand, and his penetrating eyes studied the cowboys.

"It was unfortunate," he began, "Ormiston had been drinking. But I'll swear the black absolutely did not deserve that kicking. Friday is the best native I ever knew. He's honest, loyal, devoted to Leslie, who was good to his gin when she lay dying."

Red eased forward a step, in his slow way. "Mr. Dann, I'd like to ask you, without meanin' offense, if there ain't Englishmen heah an' there who's jest no good atall?"

Dann let out a deep laugh that was convincing. "There are, cowboy, and you can lay to that."

"Wal, I'm glad to heah you admit it. If I ever met a low-down hombre thet Ormiston is one. Mebbe it wouldn't have been so easy to see through--him but for the drink. No, Ormiston is jest no good atall--an' he come damn near bein' a daid one."

"Tell me, Hazelton," spoke up Dann, his amber eyes full of little, dancing glints, "if Ormiston had moved to draw his revolver--what would you have done?"

"I'd have killed the fool," declared Sterl.

"Indeed!--Did you see that Ormiston was armed?"

"No. But I knew it...Now, Slyter, I think the thing for Red and me to do is to leave town at once."

"You will do nothing of the kind," rejoined Slyter, stoutly.

"Boys, it's not to be thought of," added Dann. "Ormiston was bluffing. He won't quit us. Like all of us he sees a way to wealth. And we need him with us. The more drovers, the more cattle, the better our chances for success."

"Mr. Dann, I see the necessity for you. But if Red and I go--we'll clash with Ormiston."

"Listen, you young gamecocks," went on Dann, persuasively. "Outback there will be too much clash with the elements and the blacks for us drovers to fight among ourselves. We'll all be brothers before we reach the Never-never. Isn't that so, Bing?"

"It has been proved by other treks," replied Slyter, earnestly. "If you boys are concerned about me or Leslie--just forget that and take the risk."

"Boss, we'll never throw you down," said Red.

"We will go," added Sterl, and his tone was a pledge. "But have you ever driven cattle into a hard wilderness, months on end, against all the hard knocks a desolate country can deal you?"

"No, Hazelton, we have never been on a real trek," Dann replied. "But my brother Eric has. He slights the hardships either because he is callous, unfeeling, or because he doesn't want me to know. In fact, Eric has failed after several starts in Queensland."

"Do you want my advice?"

Dann nodded his leonine head. "Indeed yes! It's too late now, even if I would back out. Hazelton, perhaps Providence sent you rangemen to help us. To get down to fundamentals, tell us just what kind of range you have driven mobs of cattle over--how far--what kind of obstacles--how you worked."

"That's easy, gentlemen, and you can believe what I tell you," replied Sterl. "Some years ago, just after the Civil War, Texas was overrun with millions of longhorn cattle. The ranchers had no home market. A rancher named Chisholm conceived the idea of driving herds of cattle from southern Texas across the plains to Kansas. Chisholm started out with over three thousand head of cattle and twelve riders. He made it--five hundred miles--in something over ninety days, losing four cowboys and two thousand head of cattle. But he sold what was left at a huge profit. His Chisholm Trail inaugurated trail driving in Texas.

"As for hardships--in that early day fifty million buffalo ranged from the Gulf to the Dakotas. For years stampedes of buffalo were the worst obstacles the trail drivers had to overcome. Next to that were the attacks and raids of savage Indians. There were rivers to ford, some of them big and wide, often in flood. In dry years there were long drives from water to water. Thunderstorms often stampeded herds. Dust storms, sandstorms were terrible to drive against. In the fall and winter, the Del Notre, the freezing gale that blew out of a clear sky, was something the riders hated and feared. Lastly there came rustling--the era of the cattle thieves, which is in its heyday right now."

"Wonderful! Wonderful!" exclaimed Dann, his eyes shining. "Jesse Chisholm was a man after my heart. A savior of Texas, yes?"

"Indeed he saved Texas and built the cattle empire."

Red emitted a cloud of smoke, and drawled: "Boss, I rode for Jesse once. He was a great hombre. Harder than the hinges on the gates of hell! Sometime I'll tell you stories about him, one thing special, his jingle-bob brand, thet was so famous."

"Boys, I'll enjoy your stories, when time permits," boomed the drover. "I thank the good Lord for sending you to Australia! Hazelton, one thing more. How did you drive your mobs?"

"We rounded them up into a great triangle, with the apex pointing in the direction we had to go. 'Pointing the herd,' that was called. Two of the nerviest cowboys had the lead at the point. The mass of cattle would follow the leads. Two cowboys on each side at the center of the herd, the rest at the broad base where stragglers and deserters--'drags' we called them--had to be watched and driven."

"Were you one of those cowboys who rode at the head?" queried Dann.

"No, but Red was, always. I was a good hand after the drags."

"Shake hands with me, cowboys," bellowed Dann. "Slyter, I'll order my drovers to start my mob tomorrow, positively. I'll tell Ormiston to go or stay, as he chooses...Meet us soon out on the trek. Good-by."

Sterl became aware that the store was full of inquisitive people. He and Red were the cynosure of all eyes. Red enjoyed such attention, but Sterl hated it, especially, as had happened so often, when he had just engaged in a fight. He shivered when he thought how closely he had come to shooting Ormiston. He had hoped Australia had not bred the type of bad man among whom he had been compelled to work.

Leslie met him outside with her arms full of packages. Sterl and Red promptly relieved her of them. After one look at Leslie's white face and eyes blazing almost black, Sterl felt too dismayed to speak. She had witnessed his encounter with Ormiston. As she walked along between him and Red, she had a hand on Sterl's arm. They came to a point opposite the horses.

"Heah we air, Jester, agonna make a pack hoss out of you fust thing," spoke up Red, and Sterl knew that the cowboy was talking to ease the situation.

"Leslie, have you finished your buying?" asked Sterl.

"Not quite. But I'll not stay longer--in town," she replied in thick unsteady tone. She mounted her horse as Sterl remembered seeing Comanches mount. "Let me have some of the parcels."

Handing these to her, Sterl looked up into her face.

"Leslie--you were there?" he asked.

"Yes. I saw it--all."

"I'm sorry. Bad luck like that always hounds me."

"Who said it was bad luck?" she retorted. "But Sterl--you jumped at that chance to hit Ormiston--on my account?"

"Well--Friday's first--and then yours. Still I'd have interfered if I'd never heard of either of you. I'm built that way, Leslie."

"You're built greatly, then...A thrill hardly does justice to what I felt--when you hit him...But, afterward--when it looked like shooting--I nearly fainted."

"So that's why you're so pale?" rejoined Sterl, endeavoring to speak lightly, as he mounted. Red rode a tactful distance ahead.

"Am I pale?" she asked.

"Not so much now. But a few minutes back you were white as a sheet."

"Sterl, I ran into Ormiston."

"And what did he say?"

"I don't remember everything. One thing, though, was what you called him."

"That's not calculated to make Ormiston love me any better."

"Do you think he'll make good his threat not to go on the trek?"

"I do not," said the girl, positively. "Ash Ormiston couldn't be kept from going. I wouldn't say wholly because he's so keen after Beryl Dann and me."

"Beryl too? Well!...He's what Red would call an enterprising agent."

"He's deep, Sterl. I distrust his attitude toward the trek."

"Leslie, what had he against your black man?"

"He had enough. I should have told you that...Once when Mum and Dad were in town, Ormiston found me in my hammock. He made violent love to me. I was scared, Sterl. He...I...I fought him--and Friday ran up with his spear. It was all I could do to keep him from killing Ormiston."

"Is Friday going on the trek?"

"Dad wants him. To track lost horses. The blacks are marvelous trackers. But Friday says no. Maybe you can persuade him, Sterl. A black never forgets a wrong or fails to return a service."

"I sure will try. What a lot I could learn!"

They rode on at a canter and halted at the paddock. "Come up later for tea--oh, yes, and to see my pets," said Leslie, as they dismounted and gathered up her bundles.

Left to his own devices, Sterl went among his string of horses, which Roland had tethered in the shed, and while he set about the slow and pleasing task of making friends with them, he mused over the momentous journey from Brisbane. He could no more keep things from happening to him than he could stop breathing. But he recalled only one man, out of the many rustlers and hard characters who had crossed his trail, who had incited as quick a hatred in him, as had this man Ormiston. If possible, he must keep out of the man's way. Offsetting that was the inspiring personality of Stanley Dann. Here was a man. And Sterl did not pass by the fair-haired Beryl, with her dark-blue eyes and the proud poise of her head. Leslie was appealing in many ways, but the charm she had, which he found vaguely sweet and disquieting, was the fact of his apparent appeal of her, of which she was wholly unconscious. Well, he was in the open again, already in contact with raw nature, about to ride out on this incredible trek. That was all left him in life--this strenuous action of the natural man. Sterl discounted any lasting relation with these good white folk who needed him.

When he returned to the tent, Sterl found Red sitting before the flap, profoundly thoughtful and solemn. He had not even heard Sterl's approach.

"Pard, did you heah anythin'?" he asked, almost in a whisper.

"Hear?--When?"

"Jest about a minnit ago--mebbe longer. I don't know. I'm dotty...Did I have any drinks uptown?"

"You sure didn't."

"Gosh, I'm shore I've got the willies...Sterl, I was in the tent heah, when somebody busted out in a laugh--snortinest hosslaugh you ever heahed. 'Who'n hell's laughin' at me'?' I said, an' I was mad. Wal, pard, you never in yore life heahed such a loud brayin'-ass laugh. When the smart alec got through I come out to bust him. Seen nobody. Then I seen a big brown an' white bird, sittin' right there on thet branch. Stuck his haid on one side an' looked out of his devilish black eyes at me, as if to say, 'Heah's one of them Yankee blighters.'...If thet bird didn't give me thet hosslaugh, then yore pard has gone plumb stark ravin' crazy."

"Let's go up and ask Leslie."

On the way up the path under the wattles they met her. Red burst into the narrative of his perplexing experience. Leslie burst into uncontrollable mirth.

"Oh--Oh! It was--Jack," she choked out. "Jack who?"

"My pet kookaburra--Oh, Red!--my laughing jackass!"

"Wal, I figgered he was a laughin' hyena, all right! But thet pet kooka somethin'--thet has me beat."

"Jack is our most famous bird. He is a kind of giant kingfisher. I'm taking him on the trek, but I can't take my little bears. It breaks my heart--Come in to tea." At the door Leslie whispered to Sterl. "I didn't tell Mum about what happened uptown."

Slyter had not returned, nor did his wife expect him. "I'm too terribly busy to chat," she said, after serving them, and drinking a cup of tea. "Les, I wanted Friday to carry things down to the wagon. Have you seen him?"

"I'll find him, Mum."

"Mrs. Slyter," said Sterl when the party settled down. "I'd like a look at your wagon while it's empty. We must make a boat out of it, so that it can be floated across the rivers."

"How thoughtful of you! That had not occurred to Bingham."

"We'll fix up a little room in the front of your wagon, behind the seat," went on Sterl. "I've done that before. A wagon can be made really comfortable, considering all your baggage..."

Suddenly they were interrupted by a discordant, concatenated, rollicking laugh from outside.

"Jack saucing other kookaburras," declared Leslie. "Come and see him."

They went outdoors. The black man Friday stood under one of the gum trees, looking up into the branches, and holding out a queer stick with a white oval end. In his other hand he held out a long spear.

"Friday has his wommera--the stick he uses to throw his spear," said Leslie, gravely. "That doesn't look so good for Ormiston."

Just then a large brown and white bird fluttered down from the tree to alight on the black's spear. "There's Jack," cried Leslie. He was a rather short bird, built heavily forward, with a big head and strong bill.

Sterl's attention shifted to the black man. He was well over six feet tall, slender, muscular, black as ebony. He wore a crude garment around his loins. His dark visage held an inscrutable dignity.

Sterl went up to Friday, tapped him on his deep breast and asked, "Friday no hurt bad?" The native understood, for he grinned and shook his head.

"Leslie, you ask him to go with us on the trek."

"Friday, white man wantum you go with him, far, far that way," said Leslie, making a slow gesture which indicated immeasurable distance toward the outback. Friday fastened great, black unfathomable eyes upon Sterl.

"White man come from far country, away cross big water," said Sterl, pointing toward the east, and speaking as if to an Indian. "He need Friday--track horse--kill meat--fight--tell where pads go."

"Black fella go alonga you," replied Friday.

Leslie clapped her hands. "Good-o! I was sure he'd go, if you asked him," she cried. "Dad will be happy!"

Red slouched over to Friday and handed him a cigar.

"You close up boss?" asked the black, looking from one to the other.

"Shore, Friday," replied Red.

"You um fadder?"

"Fadder? Hell no!...Gosh, do I look thet old? Him my brudder, Friday.

"Black fella im brudder your brudder," declared Friday, loftily, and stalked away.

CHAPTER 5

It turned out that Leslie's freeing of her native bear pets was merely a matter of saying good-by to them, for they were not confined. They lived in the trees of a small eucalyptus grove back of the house. Sterl enjoyed the sensation of holding some of them, of feeling their sharp, strong, abnormally large claws cling to his coat. The one that pleased Sterl most was a mother that carried her baby in a pouch. The little one had his head stuck out, and his bright black eyes said that he wanted to see all there was to see.

Gently but firmly Leslie drew the little bear from the pouch and placed it on the mother's back, where it stuck like a burr and appeared perfectly comfortable. Sterl never saw a prettier animal sight, and said so emphatically.

"Marsupials!" said Leslie. "All sorts of them down under, from kangaroos to a little blind mole no longer than my finger."

"Well I'm a son of a gun!" exclaimed Red. "What's a marsupial?"

This started Leslie on a lecture concerning Australian mammals and birds. When she finished with marsupials, which carry their babies in a pouch, and came to the unbelievable platypus which wears fur, suckles its young, lays eggs and has a bill like a duck and web feet fastened on backward, she stretched Red's credulity to the breaking point.

"How can you stand there, a sweet pictoor of honest girlhood, and be such an orful liar? How about thet liar bird Jones said you could show us?--the wonderfulest bird in Australia!"

"Rightho! Boys, if you'll get up early, I'll promise you shall hear a lyrebird, and maybe see one."

"It's a date, Leslie, tomorrow mawnin'. Right heah. Hey, pard?"

"You bet." said Sterl, "And now let's get to work making that wagon."

The wagon, which Slyter intended for his womenfolk and all their personal effects, was big and sturdy, with wide-tired wheels, high sides, and a roomy canvas top stretched over hoops. Sterl examined it carefully.

"How about in water an' sand?" queried Red, dubiously.

"In deep water she'll float--when we fix her. Red, dig up a couple of chisels and hammers while I get something to calk these seams."

In short order they had the wagon bed so that it would not leak. Then, while Red began the same job on the other wagon, Sterl devoted himself to fixing up some approach to a prairie-schooner tent dwelling. Sterl had Leslie designate the bags and trunks which would be needed en route; with these he packed the forward half of the wagon bed two feet deep. Then he transformed the rear half into a bedroom.

Slyter arrived with the dray, and climbed off the driver's seat to begin unhitching. His face was dark, his brow lined and pondering.

"Roland, pack all the flour on top of this load and tie on a cover," said Slyter. "Hazelton, how's the work progressing?"

"We're about done. Hope nothing more came off uptown?"

"Testy day. Just my personal business...You'll be interested in this. Ormiston sobered up and tried to get back into our good graces. Stanley Dann accepted his apologies."

"Then Ormiston will go on the trek?"

"Yes. He said to tell you he had been half drunk, and would speak to you when opportunity afforded. But he asked me if you cowboys had any references!"

"I was surprised that you did not ask for any."

"I didn't need any. Nor did Stanley Dann. Ormiston was trying to sow seeds of discord."

"Thank you, Slyter. I'm sure you'll never regret your kindness."

"Hathaway and Woolcott left about midday," went on Slyter. "Some of their drovers were drunk. The Danns are all ready to leave at dawn. We'll start tomorrow sometime."

"How about waterholes?"

"No fear. We've had a few good rains lately. There'll be plenty of water--maybe too much--and grass all the way out of Queensland. Stanley Dann and his brother Eric had another hot argument. Eric was one of the drovers who made that Gulf trek. He wants to stick to that route. But Stanley argues we should leave it beyond the Diamantina River and head northwest more directly across the Never-never. I agree with him."

It was dim gray morning when, keeping their engagement with Leslie, the Americans mounted the shadowy aisle leading up to the house.

They found her waiting with Friday. "Aren't you ashamed? You're late...Come. Don't talk. Don't make the slightest sound."

They followed Friday, a shadow in the gray gloom. The east was brightening. Presently, Friday glided noiselessly into the bush. Gradually it grew lighter. Soft mist hung low under the pale-trunked trees. They came to a glade that led down into a ravine where water tinkled. It opened out wide upon a scene of veiled enchantment. Small trees, pyramid shape, pointed up to the brightening sky, and shone as white as if covered by frost. Great fern trees spread long, lacy, exquisite leaves from a symmetrical head almost to the ground. Huge eucalyptus sent marble-like pillars aloft. Their fragrance attacked Sterl's nostrils with an acute, strangling sensation. A bell-like note struck lingeringly upon his ear. Friday halted. As he lifted his hand with the gesture of an Indian, Sterl heard the lovely call of a thrush near at hand. Leslie put her lips right on Sterl's ear. "It is the lyrebird!" Then it seemed to Sterl that his tingling ears caught the songs of other birds, intermingled with that of the thrush. Suddenly a bursting cur-ra-wong, cur-ra-wong shot through Sterl.

Could that, too be the lyrebird? The note was repeated again and again, so full of wild melody that it made Sterl ache. It was followed by caw, caw, caw, the most dismal and raucous note of a crow.

"Don't you understand, boys?" whispered Leslie, bending her head between them. "The lyrebird is a mocker. He can imitate any sound."

That sweet concatenation of various bird notes was disrupted by what seemed to be the bawling of a cow.

From off in the woods sounded a mournful, rich note, like the dong of a bell.

"Another! Oh, but we're lucky!" whispered Leslie.

Across a little leafy glade, Sterl noticed low foliage move and part to admit a dark brown bird, half the size of a hen turkey. It had a sleek, delicate head. As it stepped daintily out from under the foliage, its tail, erect and exquisite, described the perfect shape of a lyre. Long, slender, fernlike feathers rose and spread from the two central feathers--broad, dark velvety brown, barred in shiny white or gray, with graceful curling tips that bowed and dipped as it passed out of sight into the bush.

"Wal," said Red, "yore lyrebird has our mockers skinned to a frazzle."

"That must mean something!" returned Leslie, giggling. "Come. We'll be late and Dad will row. Let's run."

When they went in to breakfast, Roland and Larry were leaving, sober as judges. Bill Williams, the cook, was banging pots and pans with unnecessary force. Slyter looked as if he were going to a funeral, and his wife was weeping. Leslie's smile vanished. She served the cowboys, who made short work of that meal.

"Boss, what's the order for today?" queried Sterl, shortly.

"Drake's mustering for the trek," replied Slyter, gruffly.

Leslie followed them out. "I'll catch up somewhere. I'd go with you now, but Mum...Ride King and Jester, won't you?"

Sterl found difficulty in expressing his sympathy. The girl was brave, though deeply affected by her mother's grief. It really was a terrible thing to do--this forsaking a comfortable home in a beautiful valley, to ride out into the unknown and forbidding wilderness.

King surprised Sterl with his willingness to be saddled and bridled. He knew he was leaving the paddock, and liked it. Sterl tied on the slicker and canteen, and slipped into his worn leather chaps, conscious of a quickening of his pulse. He took up his rifle and walked around in front of the horse. "Are you gun shy, King?" The black apparently knew a rifle, and showing no fear, stood without a quiver while Sterl shoved it into the saddle sheath.

"Say, air you a mud hen, thet you go duckin' jest 'cause I've got a gun?" Red was complaining to his horse.

In another moment they were in the unfamiliar English saddles. Joining Larry, they rode out into the open valley. Ahead of them, about a mile out of the widening valley, a herd of grazing horses, and beyond them Slyter's cattle, added the last link to the certainty of the trek.

Waiting this side of the horses were three riders, superbly mounted. Their garb, and the trappings of the horses, appeared markedly different from those of the Americans. Sterl had made up his mind about these riders of Slyter's; still he gave each a keen scrutiny. Drake was middle-aged, honest and forcible of aspect, strong of build. The other two, Benson and Heald, were sturdy young men not out of their teens, and sat their saddles as if used to them.

"Drake, we have Slyter's orders to report to you," added Sterl, after the introductions.

"I've sent Monkton on ahead to let down the bars," replied Drake. "We fenced the valley ahead there where it narrows. I'll join him. You men bring up the rear."

"No particular formation?"

"Just let the mob graze along at a walk. We'll keep right on till Slyter halts us, probably at Blue Gum."

Drake said no more, and rode away to the left, accompanied by Heald, while Benson trotted off to the right.

"Huh! Short an' sweet. All in the day's work," complained Red.

"Red, you ought to be in front," said Sterl, "but, no doubt, that'll come in time."

In another moment Sterl was alone. He lighted a cigarette. King pranced a little and wanted to go. Sterl patted the arched neck, and fell at once into his old habit of talking to his horse. "King, we don't know each other yet. But if you're as good as you look, we'll be pards. Take it easy. I see you're too well trained to graze with a bridle on. You can unlearn that, King."

He was to ride across a whole unknown continent, from which journey, even it he survived it, he would never return. Sterl faced the east. And he could not keep back a farewell whisper: "Good-by, Nan...Good-by!" which seemed final and irrevocable.

When he turned again, prompted by the keen King, the long line of cattle was on the move. The great trek had begun. The valley was filled with a rich, thick, amber light. Fleecy white clouds sailed above the green line of bush. The gold of wattles and the scarlet of eucalyptus stood out vividly even in the brilliance of the sun-drenched foliage. A faint and failing column of smoke rose above the forsaken farmhouse, that seemed to have gone to sleep among the wattles. A glancing gleam of tranquil, reed-bordered pond caught Sterl's sight. All this pastoral beauty, this land of flowers and grass and blossoming trees, this land of milk and honey, was being abandoned for the chimera of the pioneer!

CHAPTER 6

First camp! A huge dead gum tree, bleached and gnarled, marking a sunset-flushed stream; outcropping rock and jungle beyond; to the right lanes of open country opening into the bush. Cattle and horses made for the creek and spread along its low bank for a mile. When they had drunk their fill some of the cattle fell to grazing, while many or them lay down to rest. The horses, which had fed all day behind the cattle, trooped back to their grazing. In Sterl's judgment both would require little night guarding on such pasture as that.

He watered King, then rode down the creek into camp. Pungent wood smoke brought back other camp scenes. But no other camp site he could remember had possessed such an imposing landmark as the great dead blue gum tree. On its spreading branches Sterl identified herons, parrots, a hawk perched on a topmost tip, kookaburras low down. The wagons were spaced conveniently, though not close together. Locating his own, Sterl dismounted to strip King and let him go. He was unrolling his tent when Leslie approached.

"Well, so here you are? I wondered if you'd ever catch up," said Sterl.

"I hadn't the heart to leave Mum today. I...I...I would have been all right, but for her."

"Why you're all right anyhow, Leslie. Don't look back--don't think back!...Our first camp's dandy...Where're Friday and your Dad?"

"Friday walked all the way. I rode a little. Mum came out of it all at once. Dad is all fit. He and Drake just had a drop from a bottle...And here come Red and Larry."

Sterl with Leslie crossed over to the center of camp, where Friday was carrying water. Slyter, after rummaging under seat of his wagon, brought a book to Leslie.

"Les, one of your jobs is keeping our journal. Record date, distance trekked, weather, incident, everything."

"Whew! what a job!" exclaimed Leslie. "But I'll love it...How far today?"

"A long trek. Sixteen miles?" asked Slyter, dubiously.

"And then some," interposed Sterl. "Ask Red. He's a wonderful judge of distance...Now, boss, how about night guard?"

"Three changes. Two men on for three hours each. Eight to eleven, eleven to two, two till five. Which watch would you and Krehl like?"

"The late one, boss. We're used to the wee small hours."

"You'll have our black man, Friday. Hazelton, you'll find him a tower of help."

The thud of horses hoofs awoke Sterl before Larry called into the tent: "Two o'clock, boys. Roll out."

Ready to go, the cowboys repaired to the fire for the tea Larry had poured for them. It was scalding hot and strong as acid. The band of horses was huddled between camps and the mob of cattle. They were quiet, only a few grazing. The cattle had bedded down.

"What'll we do, Sterl? Circle or stand guard?"

"Circle, Red, till we get the lay of the herd."

Red rode on into the bright starlight, and the cold wind brought back the smoke of his cigarette. Sterl turned to walk his horse in the other direction. Old sensorial habits reasserted themselves--the keen ear, the keen eye, the keen nose and the feel of air, wind, cold. The cattle and the horses were quiet. Strange, discordant barks of dingoes lent unreality to the wild. Wide-winged birds or flying foxes passed over his head with silky swish.

In half an hour Sterl heard Red's horse before he sighted it, a moving, ghostly white in the brilliant gloom.

"Fine setup, pard," said Red. "A lazy cowboy job!"

"All well on my side. Go halfway round and stand watch."

"Air kinda penetratin', pard. I reckon I'll mosey to an' fro," returned Red, and rode on.

When Sterl reached the end of a half circle, came the voice of Friday, "Cheeky black fella close up," he said, and vanished.

Sterl swept his gaze in wary half circles. Further outback, this night watch might be a perilous duty. But nothing happened. Friday did not return, although Sterl had a feeling that the black was close. Slowly, mysteriously, the dreaming darkest hour passed.

At the first faint lighting in the east the cattle began to stir. Sterl circled around to meet Red. "Mawnin'," said that worthy. "J'ever see such a tame bunch of cattle? How'd you make out?"

"Just killed time. This sort of work will spoil us. It's after five. Let's ride in."

Breakfast was awaiting them. Two of the wagons were already hitched up. Leslie stood by the fire, drinking tea. Larry came riding up, leading three saddled horses, one of which was Duchess, Leslie's favorite.

Red saw the girl swing up into her saddle with one hand, and said, "Pard, I gotta hand it to thet kid. If Beryl is like her, wal, it's all day with me."

When they rode out on fresh horses the sun had just burst over the eastern bush, and the downs were as if aflame. Drake had the mob ready. Leslie and Larry were driving the straggling horses. Red loped across the wide flank to take up his position on the far right. Friday came along with giant strides, carrying his spears and wommera in his left hand and a boomerang in the other. Leslie rode loping back to turn on the line even with Sterl. Then the four rear riders, pressing forward, drove the horses upon the heels of the cattle, and the day's drive was on. The bustle and hurry before the start seemed to come to an abrupt end in the slow, natural walk of grazing cattle and horses.

Three times before afternoon, Leslie rode over to Sterl on some pretext or other, the last of which was an offer to share a bit of lunch she had brought.

"No thanks, Leslie. A cowboy learns to go without. And on this trek in particular, I'm going to emulate your black men."

"I suppose you cowboys live without fun, food or--love?" she queried, flippantly.

"We do indeed."

"Like hob you do," she flashed. "Oh, well maybe you do. This is the third time you've snubbed me so far today. You're an old crosspatch."

Sterl laughed, though he felt a little nettled. The girl interrupted the even, almost unconscious ebb and flow of his sensorial perceptions.

"I've been called worse than that, by sentimental young ladies," replied Sterl, satirically. "Would you expect me to babble poetry to you or listen to your silly chatter?"

"Oh-h!" cried Leslie, outraged, reddening from neck to brow. And she wheeled her horse to lope far along the line toward Red. "That should hold her awhile," murmured Sterl, regretfully. "Too bad I've got to be mean to her! But..."

Slyter halted for camp at the foot of a ridge running out like a spur from the rougher bushland. Manifestly a stream came from around that ridge. It was no later than midafternoon with the sun still warm. A short trek, Sterl thought. Cattle and horses made for the stream, which turned out to be a river that could not be forded with wagons at this point.

Sterl was pitching his tent when Red and Leslie rode in. The girl rode by him as if he had not been there.

Red slid out of his saddle in his old inimitable way, and with slap on flank, sent his horse scampering.

"About ten miles, I'd say," he drawled. "Slick camp an' a hefty river...Say, pard, what'n'll did you do to the kid? Leslie was all broke up."

"She bothers me, Red."

"Ahuh. I savvy. I'm feared she likes you an' hasn't no idee at all about it."

Sterl remained silent, revolving in his mind a realization prompted by Red's talk--that he had felt a distinct throb of pleasure. This would never do!

The cowboys finished their chores, then strolled over to Slyter. Leslie sat near, writing in her journal.

On impulse, Sterl turned to the girl. "Leslie, where is Friday?" As she did not appear to hear, he asked her again. Then she looked up. "Please do not annoy me, Mr. Hazelton. I'm composing poetry," she said coldly.

CHAPTER 7

The late afternoon hour arrived at length when Slyter caught up with the Dann brothers and their partners. From here the drovers would push on together to the end.

Slyter led his mob to the left and hauled up on the wide curve of a stream. In the center, half a mile from Slyter, the Dann encampment, with its ten wagons, and drays, its canvas tents bright against the green, its blue smokes and active figures, made an imposing sight, to Sterl's eyes like a plains caravan. Farther to the right showed the camp of Hathaway and Woolcott. Hundreds of horses grazed in between. Across the river flamed the enormous mob of cattle which the drovers had evidently thrown together--twice as much stock as Sterl had ever seen at one time.

With Slyter's mob and remuda placed to rest and graze, the drivers made toward camp by divers routes. Sterl arrived first. The black horse, King, had completed his conquest over the cowboy. They had taken to each other. King recognized a gentle, firm and expert master; Sterl reluctantly crowned the black for spirit, tirelessness and speed, and for remarkable power in the water. After a first ford over slippery rocks Sterl had iron shoes put on him, and that made him invincible.

While Sterl was unrolling the tent, Red and Leslie rode in. Exposure and sun had given the girl a golden tan, which magnified her charm. After that tiff the second day out, she had persistently ignored Sterl.

"Pile off, Red, and go through the motions," called Sterl, and soon his comrade was helping, markedly reticent for him.

"Well, what's on your chest?" queried Sterl.

"Wal, this nice long easy drive is over. It'll be hell from now on. Sterl, what you think?--Leslie has commissioned me to beg you to forgive her for being catty."

"Yeah?--Red, you can tell Leslie to ask me herself. I was deliberately rude to her. And I'm sorry. She's worried, now that we've caught up with the big outfit."

"Shore is. An' so'm I. But once I get mad, I'll be good-o, as Leslie says."

"Rightho, as Leslie says."

Before sundown of that important day, supper had been disposed of, and Slyter had stridden off to visit Dann, accompanied by Drake, and calling upon Sterl and Red to follow.

"Boss, take Red, and let me stay in camp," suggested Sterl.

"No. I may need you. Stanley will ask for you. As for Ormiston--the sooner you meet him the better. I ask you to meet him."

"Thanks, Slyter. I'll come."

"Dad, please let me come with the boys? I want to see Beryl," entreated Leslie.

"Of course, my dear. I'd forgotten you."

"Red, you run along with Leslie," put in Sterl. "I want to shave. Be with you in a jiffy."

Beside the grandest monarch of all these eucalyptus trees, he came upon the wagon and camp of Dann's sister and his daughter Beryl. Leslie was talking excitedly with the girl, while Red stood, sombrero in hand, listening. Sterl was introduced and greeted cordially. Beryl wore boy's garb, more attractive and not so worn as Leslie's.

"Doesn't it seem long since we all met, way back there in Downsville?" she asked. "I nearly died of homesickness for days. But now it's not too bad. I intend to be a drover, like Leslie."

"Wal," interposed Red, "we shore need another trail driver."

"How queerly you cowboys carry your pistols!" exclaimed Beryl, indicating the low-hanging sheaths, well down the right thighs. "Dad's drovers stick them in their hip pockets, or under a belt."

"Wal, Miss Dann," drawled Red, "you see us cowboys gotta throw a gun quick sometimes, an' it needs to be handy."

"Where do you throw it?" she asked, curiously.

"Aw, at jack rabbits, or any ole varmint thet happens along."

"Miss Beryl, Red is teasing you," chimed in Sterl. "To throw a gun means to jerk it out, quickly--like this."

"How strange!...Oh, so you can shoot quickly at your antagonists?"

"Exactly. And the cowboy who throws his quickest has the best chance to survive. Please excuse us, Miss Beryl. Our boss wants us in on the conference over there."

A little group of men stood in a half circle back of Stanley Dann, who sat before a box doing duty as a table. Here the cowboys met the leader's partners. Eric Dann, the younger of the two brothers, was short and strongly built, but rather stern, dark features. Hathaway was tall and florid, apparently under fifty years. Woolcott appeared fully sixty, a bearded man, with deep-set eyes and gloomy mien.

"All of you have a look at this map," spoke up Dann, indicating a paper on the box. "Eric drew it from memory. And of course it isn't accurate as to distance or points. Still, it will give you a general idea of the country at the headwaters of the rivers that run into the Gulf of Carpentaria...This line marks the road we're on, and which we can trek fairly well. This dark line, way up in Queensland, is the Diamantina River, an important obstacle. This open space represents the Never-never--some two thousand miles across, perhaps. Beyond to the northwest, are the Kimberleys, our destination--please God! You observe that they run northwest...Hello, Ormiston, you're just in time to give your opinion...Well, my brother wants to follow this old wagon trek beyond the headwaters of the Diamantina River and the Warburton, on north across the Gulf rivers, and then west to Wyndham and the Kimberleys. There's no telling how much farther this route will be, probably a thousand miles. Too far! And just as hard; its only good feature is that it has been traveled. Striking west beyond the Diamantina to the Warburton, following that to its headwaters, and then striking straight west again, will be a short cut and save us, Lord only knows how much! I call for a vote from each man present except Drake. And I include these American cowboys, with your permission, because they have had extensive experience in droving cattle."

The vote ended in a deadlock, Slyter, Sterl and Red arraying themselves upon Stanley Dann's side; the others standing by Eric. The leader showed no feeling whatsoever, but Eric Dann and Ormiston argued vigorously for the longer and once-traveled route.

Sterl listened and bent piercing eyes upon this quartet, and at length his deductions were clear-cut, and he would have sworn by them. Eric Dann feared to take the great trek into the unknown. Ormiston had some personal reason for standing by Eric Dann, and he had influenced Hathaway and Woolcott.

"Very well. It hangs fire for the present," concluded Stanley Dann. "Perhaps the months to come will bring at least one of you gentlemen to reason."

If Ormiston tried to conceal his satisfaction he failed to hide it from Sterl.

"Hazelton," said Stanley Dann, "I'm curious to know what you think, if you'll commit yourself."

"Are there black men all over this Never-never Land?" countered Sterl.

"Yes, according to our few explorers."

"If they can be propitiated, perhaps we could learn from them, as the pathfinders in my country have learned from the Indians."

"Good idea!" boomed the leader.

"These niggers are a mean, lying, unscrupulous race," put in Ormiston, contemptuously.

"Perhaps because of the treatment white men have given them," spoke up Slyter.

Ormiston for the moment let well enough alone. Sterl espied Leslie and Beryl, accompanied by a frank-featured blond young giant, nearing the group. He accosted Red.

"Krehl, good day. Glad to see you again," he said, agreeably, as he extended a hand.

"Howdy yoreself," drawled Red, with guile meeting guile. And he shook hands.

"Sorry you are on the wrong side of the fence. But you're a stranger in Australia. I venture to predict you're too experienced an outdoor man to be long deceived by mirages."

"Hell no. I cain't be deceived forever. But this heah country is so grand, I jest don't believe in your Never-never."

"It's a fact, however, and I hope you don't learn from bitter experience."

"Yeah? Wal, you're orful kind."

At this juncture, Leslie with her companions came up to Slyter and Dann. Sterl knew absolutely that Ormiston had timed for their benefit whatever he meant to do, and he burned under his cool exterior.

"Hello, Hazelton," called the drover, in pleasant and resounding tones. "I've wanted to meet you again, to tell you I regret the unpleasantness of our meeting at Downsville."

"I'm sure you regret it, Ormiston," replied Sterl, ignoring the proffered hand, and his piercing gaze met the drover's dark, veiled eyes.

"I didn't regret it because I booted that black," rejoined Ormiston, slowly withdrawing his hand.

"That was perfectly obvious," retorted Sterl, not without contempt.

"Why do you think I regret it?" flashed the drover.

"Because you ran into the wrong man and got shown up," flashed Sterl, just as quickly.

"No. I regretted it because I was drunk."

"Drunk or sober you'd be about the same, Ormiston."

Slyter had approached to within a few steps, and Dann, with the girls hanging to him, started and dismayed, halted beside him, while the others stood back.

"Nonsense," burst out Ormiston. "No man is responsible when he's drunk."

"Righto. That's why you gave yourself away," retorted Sterl.

Ormiston threw up his hands with a gesture indicating the hopelessness of placating this hard headed American. But under the surface was a mastered fury.

"Cowboy, I approached you to express my regret--to apologize--to prevent discord!"

"If you're so keen on preventing discord, why did you excite it and foment it between our leader and his other partner?" Sterling's tone was contemptuous. As he ended he completed his few slow steps to one side. To any westerner it would have been plain that Sterl wanted to get Ormiston out of line with the others. But the drover did not show that he realized that.

"I'm not exciting discord," returned Ormiston, hotly. "I come from North Queensland. I know something of the Gulf country. Eric Dann is right and Stanley Dann is wrong. It's the safer route."

"Ormiston, how do you know it's safer?" queried Sterl, sharply.

"Eric Dann knows. Hathaway and Woolcott are convinced of it. That's enough."

"Not by a damn sight! Not enough for you to split this outfit," declared Sterl deliberately.

"You insolent, cocksure Yankee..."

"Careful!" interrupted Sterl. "Ormiston, you're not on the level. You've got something up your sleeve. You'll never get away with it."

Ormiston wheeled to the other men. "Dann, you heard him. This intolerable riffraff--this Yankee..."

"Ormiston, you started this," boomed the leader, as the drover choked. "It's between you and him."

"Miss Dann--I appeal to you," went on Ormiston, his voice shaking. "Your father has been--taken in by this--this interloper. Won't you speak up for me?"

"Dad! It's an outrage," cried Beryl, white of face and angry of eye. "Will you permit this crude, lowbred American to insult Ashley so vilely--to threaten him?"

"Girl, go to your tent," ordered Dann, sternly. "If you must take sides you should take mine. Go--it's no place for you!"

"But Dad!" cried the spirited girl. "It is. We're all in it!"

"Yes, and it appears I shouldn't have brought you. At least try not to make it harder."

Beryl bent a withering glance upon Sterl. "Mr. Cowboy, do not speak to me again."

"Suits me fine, Miss Dann," replied Sterl curtly. "I'm bound to help and defend your father. Certainly not to concern myself with a girl who's been made a fool of by a coward and a cheat!"

Miss Dann gave Sterl a stinging slap on his cheek. Then she drew back, gasping, as if realizing to what limit her temper had led her. With red burning out the white of her face, she ran toward her wagon. Ormiston wheeled to three waiting men, evidently his drovers, and stormed away with them, violently gesticulating.

Sterl watched them intently for a moment, then turned away toward Slyter's camp. Stanley Dann called him to wait, but Sterl hurried on. Red did not catch up with him until he had almost reached the tent. Then both discovered that Stanley Dann, Slyter and Leslie had followed them.

"Hazelton, don't run away from me when I call you," complained Dann, as he caught up.

"I'm sorry, boss. I lost my temper."

"Then you fooled me, because I thought you deliberately invited a quarrel with Ormiston."

"Oh, he couldn't rouse my temper. It was Miss Beryl. I shouldn't have spoken as I did to her."

They found seats on a log; except Leslie, who significantly stood close to Sterl, her youthful face grave, her hazel eyes, darkly dilated, fastened upon him.

"Les, you better run over to Mum," said Slyter.

"Not much, Dad. If Beryl is going to share the fights, and everything else, I am too."

"Good-o, Leslie," declared Dann, heartily.

"You stay here. I'm going to need all the championship possible...Hazelton, you spoke right from the shoulder. Man to man! I can't understand why Ormiston stood it. What concerns me is this. Have you any justification for the serious insinuations and open accusations you visited upon Ormiston?"

"Boss, they're all a matter of instinct. I've been years on the frontier. I have met hundreds of bad men. I have had to suspect some of them, outguess them, be too quick for them--or get shot myself. Ormiston might have fooled me for awhile, if it had not been for the accident of his kicking Friday. But not for long! He's playing a deep game--what, I can't figure out--yet."

"Hazelton, you impress me," pondered the leader. "I had only one feeling. You were opposing him in my interest. It seems incredible--what you insinuated about him. Yet you might possess some insight denied to me and my partners. This trek looms appallingly. That does not change me--frighten me in the least. But now I begin to see opposition, intrigue, perhaps treachery, blood and death."

"Boss, you can be sure of all of them," rejoined Sterl, earnestly. "And you can be as sure that my opposition to Ormiston is on your behalf."

Dann nodded his shaggy golden mane like a sleepy lion.

"Krehl, suppose you give me your view, unbiased by your friend's," he said, presently.

"Well, boss, when Ormiston rushed me like a bull, I wouldn't have risked my precious right hand on his mug, like Sterl did. I'd jest have bored him, had a coupla drinks of red likker, an' forgot all about him. We say Ormiston is no good. You give him the benefit of the doubt, an' leave it to me an' Sterl to find him out."

"Reason, intelligence, courage," boomed the drover. "These I respect above all other qualities. You have my consent. Go slow. Be sure. That's all I ask. Slyter, can you add anything to that?"

"No, Stanley. That says all."

"Yes, and nothing shall deter us...Hazelton, I was surprised and sorry indeed at the way Beryl took Ormiston's part. She is a headstrong, passionate child. Beryl has been pleading with me to make the trek by way of the Gulf."

Silent acceptance of that statement attested to its significance. Red dropped his gaze to the ground, and Sterl saw his lean brown hand clutch until the knuckles shone white.

"Not that it influences me in the least," continued Dann, rising.

Slyter arose also, shaking his head. "As if droving a mob of eight thousand cattle wasn't enough!"

Leslie walked a few steps with him, then returned.

"Dog-gone you, cain't you leave me an' Sterl alone atall?" complained Red, but a child could see that he did not mean that.

Leslie looked from him to Sterl with troubled, grateful eyes.

"Boys," she said, breathing hard, "if Beryl is in it, so am I. And she is! She's on Ash Ormiston's side. He has been making love to her all along. Besides I know her. She had all the boys at home in love with her. She likes it. Cedric, that boy today. He came on this trek solely, because of Beryl. Ormiston--Oh, he is two-faced! Neither her father nor my Dad can see that."

"Wal, my dear, we can see it," returned Red, persuasively. "I'm not as all-fired stuck on Beryl as I was, at thet. But let's give her a chance."

"Sterl...won't you see me...later?" implored Leslie. "I know you've been angry with me for days. I deserve it. I'm sorry. I told Red to tell you I'd been a cat. Sterl, I couldn't bear to have you despise me longer."

"Leslie, how silly! I never despised you!" replied Sterl, with a smile. "I'll come to see you later."

A light illumined her troubled face. She wheeled to bound away like a deer.

"Pard, shore you see how it is with Leslie?" queried Red.

"I'm afraid I do," reluctantly admitted Sterl.

"Red, what's Ormiston's game?"

"Easy to say, far as the girls air concerned. Shore, he didn't mean marriage with her. But he might with Beryl. If Dann gets to the Kimberleys with half his cattle he'll be rich, an' richer pronto."

"It's a cinch he'll never end this trek with us."

"I've a hunch he doesn't mean to."

Sterl gave Red a searching gaze, comprehending, and indicative of swiftly revolving thoughts. "We're up against the deepest, hardest game we ever struck. Listen, let's try a trick that has worked before. Tip off Slyter and Stanley Dann that you and I will pretend to quarrel--fall out--and you'll drink and hobnob with Ormiston's drivers, in order to spy on Ormiston."

"Thet'll queer me with Beryl. Not thet I care about it now."

"No, it'll make a hero out of you, if through this you save her father."

"Dog-gone!" ejaculated Red, his face lighting. "You always could outfigger me. Settled, pard, an' the cards air stacked. Tomorrow night you an' me will have a helluva fight, savvy? Only be careful where an' how you sock me."

"Righto. There's Friday. Red, I'm going to try to make that black understand our game."

"Go ahaid. Another good idee. I'll tell Slyter, an' then talk to Leslie a bit."

Friday and Sterl stood on the brink of the river. "Friday, you sit down alonga me," said Sterl. "Me bad here. Trouble," he went on, touching his forehead. With a map drawn in the sand, in the argot which Friday understood, he set forth the difference of opinion regarding routes to the Kimberleys.

"Me savvy," replied the black, and tracing the gulf-line on the sand he shook his head vehemently, then tracing a line along the big river and across the big land he nodded just as vehemently.

"Good, Friday," rejoined Sterl, strongly stirred. "You know country up alonga here?"

The aborigine shook his head. "Might be black fella tellum."

"Friday get black fella tell?"

"Might be. Some black fella good--some bad."

"Some white fella bad," went on Sterl, intensely. "Ormiston bad. Him wanta go this way. No good. Him make some white fella afraid. Savvy, Friday?"

The native nodded. He encouraged Sterl greatly. If he understood, then it did not matter that he could talk only a little.

"Ormiston bad along missy," continued Sterl. "Alonga big boss missy, too. Friday, watchum all time. Me watchum all time. Savvy, Friday?"

The aborigine nodded his black head instantly, with the mien of an Indian chief damning an enemy to destruction. "Friday savvy. Friday watchum. Friday no afraid!"

Sterl forgot to call for Leslie, but when she stole upon him it was certain that she had not forgotten, and that with the moonlight on her rippling hair, and sweet grave face, she was lovely.

"I waited and waited, but you didn't come," she said, taking his arm and leaning on him.

"Leslie, the talk I just had with Friday would make anyone forget. I'm sorry."

He looked down upon her with stirring of his pulse. In another year Leslie would be a beautiful woman, and irresistible.

"You've forgiven me?"

"Really, Leslie, I didn't have anything to forgive."

"Oh, but I think you had. I don't know what was the matter with me that day. Or now, for that matter. Today has been a little too much for your cowgirl. Red told me about cowgirls. Oh, he's the finest, strangest boy I ever knew. I adore him, Sterl."

"Well, I'm not so sure I'll allow you to adore Red," rejoined Sterl. "And see here, Leslie, now that we've made up, and you're my charge on this trek..."

"How did you guess I longed for that?" she interposed frankly.

"I didn't. But as you seemed upset this afternoon and put such store on my friendship, why I decided to sort of boss you."

"I need it. Since we got to this camp, and I saw Ormiston again--I'm just scared out of my wits. Silly of me!"

"Well, outside of Ormiston, I reckon there's plenty to be scared about. Ormiston, though--you needn't fear him personally, any more. Keep out of his way. Always ride within sight of us. Never lose sight of me in a jam or any kind. Don't go to Dann's camp unless with us or your dad."

"Dad would take me, and forget me. Sterl, won't you please let me be with you often like this? I couldn't have slept tonight if you hadn't."

"Yes, you can be with me all you want," promised Sterl, helpless in the current. "But Red and I must go to bed early. Remember I have to ride herd after two o'clock. That means you're slated for bed right now."

"Oh, you darling," she cried, happily, and kissing him soundly she ran toward her wagon.

CHAPTER 8

Slyter wanted to keep his mob of cattle intact, so that it would not be lost in the larger mob. It was inevitable, Sterl told him, that sooner or later there would be only one mob. All the cattle except Woolcott's were unbranded.

Stanley Dann had foreseen this contingency, and his idea was to count the stock of each partner, as accurately as possible, and when they arrived at their destination let him take his percentage.

Discussion of this detail was held at the end of the next day's trek, in a widening part of the valley, where the stream formed a large pool. Ormiston objected to the idea of percentage; and when Stanley Dann put it to a vote, Red Krehl sided with Ormiston.

"Red Krehl, I'm ashamed of you," Leslie burst out, when Red approached the Slyter campfire that night.

"You air. Wal, thet's turrible," drawled Red in a voice which would have angered anyone.

"I saw you, after we halted today. You were with Ormiston's drovers. Very jolly! And after that conference at Dann's you were basking in Beryl's smiles. She has won you over for Ormiston."

"Les, you're a sweet kid, but kinda hothaided an' dotty."

"I'm nothing of the kind."

"Me an' Sterl don't agree on some things."

"Oh, you've been drinking. Drink changes men. I ran from Ormiston when he'd been drinking."

"You'd better run from me, pronto, or I'll spank the daylights out of you."

"You--you!..." Leslie was too amazed and furious to find words. She looked around to see how her parents took this offense. Mrs. Slyter called for Leslie to leave the campfire. Leslie found her voice, and her dignity. "Mr. Krehl, some things are evident, and one is that you're no gentleman. You leave my campfire, or I will!"

Red did not show up at Slyter's camp next morning until time to drive the herd across the stream. The wagons crossed only hub deep at a bar below camp. But the cattle were put to the deep water. The take-off was steep, and many of the steers leaped, to go under. Splashing, cracking horns, bawling, the mob swam across the river, waded out. The horses, following in the deep trough which the cattle had cut into the bank, trooped down to take their plunge.

It was well Sterl had an oilskin cover over his rifle as King went in, up to his neck. The black loved the water. Leslie came last. She bestrode Duke, who hated a wetting but showed that he could not be left behind. He pranced, he reared.

"Come on, Les," called Sterl cheerily. "Give him the steel."

"Okay," trilled the girl, spirited and sure, and Sterl smiled at the thought that she was absorbing American dialect. She spurred the big sorrel, and he plunged to go clear under. She kept her seat. The sorrel came up with a snort and swam powerfully across.

At last the sun rose high enough to be warm, and to dry wet garments. At noon it was hot. By the almost imperceptible increase in temperature and the changing nature of the verdure, Sterl became aware of the tropics. He saw strange trees and flowering shrubs along with those he already knew. No mile passed that he did not observe a beautifully plumaged bird that was new.

Leslie rode over to offer Sterl a wet biscuit. She had recovered from her shyness, or else in the broad sunlight and mounted on a horse that would jump at a touch, she had something of audacity. Presently he chased her back toward her station. Her eyes were flashing back and her hat swinging.

He would play square with this kid, he thought, but he had grown more aware of her captivating charm and freshness as the nights and days passed. He had no illusion about any cowboy, even himself. Yet he was disgusted with himself for being wooed so easily from a lamentable love affair. He should hate all women.

Sunset had come and passed when the main mob ceased to move, indicating that the drovers on the right had halted for camp. Slyter loped in behind his comrades. By the wagon Red sat his horse, waiting.

"Pard," he said, low-voiced, as Sterl halted close, "I'll eat with thet other outfit tonight. Meet you at the big campfire after supper. Spring the dodge then."

"Depends on how mean you get," replied Sterl, with a mirthless laugh. "Red, honest Injun, I don't like the dodge."

"Hell no! But, pard, it's for them, an' us too," returned Red, sharply. "It's our deal an' I've stacked the cairds. Play the game, you!" And Red rode away at a swinging canter. Darkness descended and the cook pounded a kettle to call all to supper.

Stanley Dann's community campfire blazed brightly in the center of a circle of bronzed faces. Dann had barbecued a beef. It hung revolving over a pit full of red-hot coals. Sterl appeared purposely late, his soft step inaudible as he came up behind Ormiston to hear him say, "But Leslie, my sweet girl, surely you cannot hold that against me?"

Sterl smothered an impulse to kick the man with all his might. Probably Red's arrival, more than his restraint, checked the precipitation of an issue that was bound to come. There were two drovers with Red, trying to hold him back, as he wrestled good-naturedly with them, and broke out in loud, lazy voice: "Dog-gone-it, fellers. Lemme be. Wasser masser with you? I'm a ladies' man--I am--an' I've been some punkins in my day."

His companions let him go, and kept back out of the circle of light. Sterl nerved himself for the prearranged split. Red shouldered Ormiston aside, to bend over Leslie.

"Les, I been huntin' you all over this heah dog-gone camp," said Red, with a gallant bow.

"I've been here, Red," replied Leslie, quickly, evidently glad to welcome him, drunk or sober. "Come, sit down."

"You shore air my sweet lir girl frien'," returne