"Roast mutton!' I heard Dad say under his breath.

"Then we saw Norah. She came racing on Bobs to the fence of the paddock near the head of the gully--much nearer the fire than we were. We saw her look at the fire and into the gully, and I reckon we all knew she was fighting with her promise to Dad about not tackling the fire. But she saw the sheep before we could. They had run from the smoke along the gully till they came to the head of it, where it ended with pretty steep banks all round. By that time they were thoroughly dazed, and there they would have stayed until they were roasted. Sheep are stupid brutes at any time, but in smoke they're just idiots!

"Norah gave only one look. Then she slipped off Bobs and left him to look after himself, and she tore down into the gully."

"Oh, Jim, go on!" said Wally.

"I'm going," said Jim affably.

"Dad gave one shout as Norah disappeared into the gully. 'Go back, my darling!' he yelled, forgetting that he was so far off that he might as well have shouted to the moon. Then he gave a groan, and dug his spurs into Bosun. I had mine as far as they'd go in Sirdar already!

"The smoke rolled on up the gully and in a minute it had covered it all up. I thought it was all up with Norah, too, and old Burrows behind me was sobbing for all he was worth. We raced and tore and yelled!

"Then we saw a sheep coming up out of the smoke at the end of the gully.

Another followed, and another, and then more, until every blessed one of the twenty was there (though we didn't stop to count 'em then, I can tell you!) Last of all--it just seemed years--came Norah!

"We could hear her shouting at the sheep before we saw her. They were terribly hard to move. She banged them with sticks, and the last old ram she fairly kicked up the hill. They were just out of the gully when the fire roared up it, and a minute or so after that we got to her.

"Poor little kid; she was just black, and nearly blind with the smoke.

It was making her cry like fun," said Jim, quite unconscious of his inappropriate simile. "I don't know if it was smoke in his case, but so was Dad. We put the fire out quick enough; it was easy work to keep it in the gully. Indeed, Dad never looked at the fire, or the sheep either.

He just jumped off Bosun, and picked Norah up and held her as if she was a baby, and she hugged and hugged him. They're awfully fond of each other, Dad and Norah."

"And were the sheep all right?" Harry asked.

"Right as rain; not one of the black-faced beauties singed. It was a pretty close thing, you know," Jim said reminiscently. "The fire was just up to Norah as she got the last sheep up the hill; there was a hole burnt in the leg of her riding skirt. She told me afterwards she made up her mind she was going to die down in that beastly hole."

"My word, you must have been jolly proud of her!" Wally exclaimed. "Such a kid, too!"

"I guess we were pretty proud," Jim said quietly. "All the people about made no end of a fuss about her, but Norah never seemed to think a pennyworth about it. Fact is, her only thought at first was that Dad would think she had broken her promise to him. She looked up at him in the first few minutes, with her poor, swollen old eyes. 'I didn't forget my promise, Dad, dear,' she said. 'I never touched the fire--only chased your silly old sheep!'"

"Was that the end of the fire?" Harry asked.

"Well, nearly. Of course we had to watch the burning logs and stumps for a few days, until all danger of more fires was over, and if there'd been a high wind in that time we might have had trouble. Luckily there wasn't any wind at all, and three days after there came a heavy fall of rain, which made everything safe. We lost about two hundred and fifty acres of gra.s.s, but in no time the paddock was green again, and the fire only did it good in the long run. We reckoned ourselves uncommonly lucky over the whole thing, though if Norah hadn't saved the Shropshires we'd have had to sing a different tune. Dad said he'd never shut up so much money in one small paddock again!"

Jim bobbed his float up and down despairingly.

"This is the most fishless creek!" he said. "Well, the only thing left to tell you is where the swagman came in."

"Oh, by Jove," Harry said, "I forgot the swaggie."

"Was it his fault the fire started?" inquired Wally.

"Rather! He camped under a bridge on the road that forms our boundary the night Dad cleared him off the place, and the next morning, very early, he deliberately lit our gra.s.s in three places, and then made off.

He'd have got away, too, and n.o.body would have known anything about it, if it hadn't been for Len Morrison. You chaps haven't met Len, have you?

He's a jolly nice fellow, older than me, I guess he's about sixteen now--perhaps seventeen.

"Len had a favourite cow, a great pet of his. He'd petted her as a calf and she'd follow him about like a dog. This cow was sick--they found her down in the paddock and couldn't move her, so they doctored her where she was. Len was awfully worried about her, and used to go to her late at night and first thing in the morning.

"He went out to the cow on this particular morning about daylight. She was dead and so he didn't stay; and he was riding back when he saw the swag-man lighting our gra.s.s. It was most deliberately done. Len didn't go after him then. He galloped up to his own place and gave the alarm, and then he and one of their men cleared out after the brute."

"Did they catch him?" Wally's eyes were dancing, and his sinker waved unconsciously in the air.

"They couldn't see a sign of him," Jim said. "The road was a plain, straight one--you chaps know it--the one we drove home on from the train. No cover anywhere that would hide so much as a goat--not even you, Wal! They followed it up for a couple of miles, and then saw that he must have gone across country somewhere. There was mighty little cover there, either. The only possible hiding-place was along the creek.

"He was pretty cunning--my word, he was! He'd started up the road--Len had seen him--and then he cut over the paddock at an angle, back to the creek. That was why they couldn't find any tracks when they started up the creek from the road, and they made sure he had given them the slip altogether.

"Len and the other fellow, a chap called Sam Baker, pegged away up the creek as hard as they could go, but feeling pretty blue about catching the swaggie. Len was particularly wild, because he'd made so certain he could lay his hands on the fellow, and if he hadn't been sure, of course he'd have stayed to help at the fire, and he didn't like being done out of everything! They could understand not finding any tracks.

"'Of course it's possible he's walked in the water,' Baker said.

"'We'd have caught him by now if he had,' Len said--'he couldn't get along quickly in the water. Anyhow, if I don't see anything of him before we get to the next bend, I'm going back to the fire.'

"They were nearly up to the bend, and Len was feeling desperate, when he saw a boot-mark half-way down the bank on the other side. He was over like a shot--the creek was very shallow--and there were tracks as plain as possible, leading down to the water!

"You can bet they went on then!

"They caught him a bit farther up. He heard them coming, and left his swag, so's he could get on quicker. They caught that first, and then they caught him. He had 'planted' in a clump of scrub, and they nearly pa.s.sed him, but Len caught sight of him, and they had him in a minute."

"Did he come easily?" asked Wally.

"Rather not! He sent old Len flying--gave him an awful black eye. Len was, up again and at him like a shot, and I reckon it was jolly plucky of a chap of Len's age, and I dare say he'd have had an awful hiding if Sam hadn't arrived on the scene. Sam is a big, silent chap, and he can fight anybody in this district. He landed the swaggie first with one fist and then with the other, and the swaggie reckoned he'd been struck by a thunderbolt when they fished him out of the creek, where he had rolled! You see, Sam's very fond of Len, and it annoyed him to see his eye.

"The swaggie did not do any more resisting. He was like a half-dead, drowned rat. Len and Sam brought him up to the men at the fire just after we'd left to try to save Dad's Shropshires, and they and Mr.

Morrison could hardly keep the men off him. He hid behind Sam, and cried and begged them to protect him. They said it was beastly."

"Rather!" said Harry. "Where's he now?"

"Melbourne Gaol. He got three years," said Jim. "I guess he's reflecting on the foolishness of using matches too freely!"

"By George!" said Wally, drawing a deep breath. "That was exciting, Jimmy!"

"Well, fishing isn't," responded Jim pulling up his hook in disgust, an example followed by the other boys. "What'll we do?"

"I move," said Wally, standing on one leg on the log, "that this meeting do adjourn from this dead tree. And I move a hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Jim Linton for spinning a good yarn. Thanks to be paid immediately.

There's mine, Jimmy!"

A resounding pat on the back startled Jim considerably, followed as it was by a second from Harry. The a.s.saulted one fled along the log, and hurled mud furiously from the bank. The enemy followed closely, and shortly the painful spectacle might have been seen of a host lying flat on his face on the gra.s.s, while his guests, sitting on his back, b.u.mped up and down to his extreme discomfort and the tune of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!"

CHAPTER VII. WHAT NORAH FOUND

Norah, meanwhile, had been feeling somewhat "out of things." It was really more than human nature could be expected to bear that she should remain on the log with the three boys, while Jim told amazing yarns about her. Still it was decidedly lonesome in the jutting root of the old tree, looking fixedly at the water, in which placidly lay a float that had apparently forgotten that the first duty of a float is to bob.

Jim's voice, murmuring along in his lengthy recital, came to her softly, and she could see from her perch the interested faces of the two others.

It mingled drowsily with the dull drone of bees in the ti-tree behind her, and presently Norah, to her disgust, found that she was growing drowsy too.