"It's been the anxiety of the whole battalion," said Wally. "It creaked and began to split whenever he drilled in it, and for the last six parades we've always taken out a blanket in case we should need to drape his tattered form on the way home! It's an uncommonly good thing he's left. Most demoralizing for a young corps to see its corpulent lieutenant bursting out of his uniform!"

"He's not corpulent," said Norah indignantly, whereat Jim, who personified leanness with breadth of shoulder, grinned even more widely than Wally, and patted her on the head as he pa.s.sed with an armful of clothes, which he stowed into his wardrobe much as he might have dumped sacks of potatoes into a barn. Even Norah's wide and free views on the subject of garments were not proof against the sight.

"Are those your good suits, Jim?"

"Yes," said her brother, cheerfully. "They're used to it. Chuck me that coat, Wally."

Wally complied, and the coat--which happened to be the one belonging to its owner's evening suit--was added to the heap in the wardrobe.

"I'll sort 'em out some time or other," said Jim. "I'm so jolly sick of unpacking. Wally, you animal, you're not finished, are you?"

"Ages ago," said his chum. "Hadn't anything like your quant.i.ty, you see. My clothes are neat and trim, and my pyjamas have blue ribbon in them and I have put out my lace pin cushion and my tulle slippers, and all is well! Now I feel I can go and play with Cecil with a quiet mind!"

"I really don't know why I brought a lunatic home with me," Jim said, patiently. "Sorry, Nor.; but we'll take him out in the scrub and lose him. Meanwhile--" He closed the last drawer with a bang, and advanced with slow deliberation upon the hapless Mr. Meadows.

For the next few minutes the air in the room was murky with pillows, other missiles and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. Out of the turmoil came yelps, much energetic abuse, and shrieks to Norah for aid to which that maiden, who was enjoying herself hugely, lent a deaf ear. Finally, the combat restricted itself princ.i.p.ally to Wally's bed, from which the bedclothes gradually disappeared, until they formed a tight bundle on the floor, with Wally in the centre. Jim piled the mattress on top, and retreated to the door.

"Beast!" said Wally, disentangling himself with difficulty, until he sat on the pile, considerably dishevelled, and wearing a broad grin.

"It's only your vile brute force--some day I'll get even with you!" He rose, hurled the mattress upon the bed, and looked inquiringly at his blankets. "How do you imagine I'm going to sleep there to-night?"

"Oh, we'll fix it up when we come to bed," laughed Jim. "Come on--we ought to go down to Cecil."

"Hold on till I brush my hair," said Wally, attacking his disturbed locks, and settling his tie. "All right; lead on, Macduff!"

"Ready, Nor.?"

Norah hesitated.

"I'm going to my room for something," she said. "I'll be after you in a few minutes, boys."

She disappeared within her room, and the boys clattered downstairs.

When they had gone, Norah slipped back noiselessly to Jim's apartment, which gave the impression of having recently been the scene of a cyclone. She laughed a little, looking at it from the doorway.

"It certainly is a 'perfick shambles'," she said. "Poor old chaps--and they'll be so tired when they come up to bed!"

Moving quietly, she sorted out the tangled bedclothes and made up the bed, and reduced to order some of the chaos in the room. Then she opened the wardrobe and took out the ma.s.s of clothes, sorting out the suits and putting them away carefully, with a shake to the coats to remove creases. The dress suit she laid in a drawer, running to her own room for a tiny lavender bag to keep away the moths. She was closing the drawer when she started at a step, and Jim came in.

"What on earth are you up to?" was his question. His eye travelled round the room, taking in the open door of the wardrobe, and the dress coat in the drawer, where stood his small sister, rather flushed.

"Well!" he said, and paused. "Weren't we beasts?"

"No, you weren't," said Norah indignantly.

"H'm," said Jim. "It's a jolly good thing when a fellow has a sister, anyhow." He came over to her and put his arm round her shoulders. "Dear old chap!" he said. They went down the stairs together.

CHAPTER VIII

A THUNDERSTORM

The Bush hath moods and changes, as the seasons rise and fall, And the men who love the Bushland--they are loyal thro' it all.

A. B. PATERSON.

"The day after to-morrow is the date of the men's dance," Mr. Linton said. "Norah mustn't go in for any wild exertion on that day, as she'll probably want to dance several hundred miles at night. So if you boys want to plan anything, you had better make your arrangements for to-morrow."

"I don't know that I've energy enough to plan anything," said Jim, lazily. He was lying full length on the lawn, his head on Norah. Wally was close by, and Cecil and Mr. Linton occupied basket chairs. Peace would have reigned supreme had not the mosquitoes kept every one busy.

"Any wishes, Cecil?"

"None whatever," said Cecil. "There are no people to go and see, I think you said, Uncle David?"

"No one that would interest you," Mr. Linton said; and Wally and Jim, who had groaned internally with fear of being taken "calling," felt their spirits return.

"My brain's not equal to planning, as I remarked," Jim said. "But if I go anywhere, I'd like to do so on a horse. I want to feel a horse under me again."

"Hear, hear," from Wally, softly.

"Well, I can't go out to-morrow," said the squatter. "I've letters to see to, and Anderson may be out; so you must look after yourselves--which I believe you to be entirely capable of doing. Norah, haven't you any ideas?"

"Loads," said Norah, promptly, "but they're all connected with mosquitoes!" She aimed a vicious blow into s.p.a.ce as she spoke, and sighed, before rubbing the bite. "Well, suppose we ride out and boil the billy somewhere along the river? Cecil, would you care for that?"

"Very much," said Cecil, in the tones that always gave the impression that he despised the particular subject under discussion. Norah had quite withdrawn the opinion formed in the first five minutes of their acquaintance, that he was ill mannered--now she bewailed the fact that he was so uniformly and painfully polite.

"Well, if you would--" she said, hesitatingly. "What do you boys think?"

"Grand idea," responded Wally. Norah loved Wally's way; he was always so pleased and interested over any plan that might be formed. Jim was wont to remark that if you arranged to clean out a pigsty, Wally would probably regard it as a gigantic picnic, and enjoy his day hugely. She smiled at him gratefully in the darkness.

"You too, Jim?"

"Rather--anything you like," said her brother. "What horse can I have, Dad?"

Jim had no special horse of his own. His two ponies, Sirdar and Mick, he had outgrown, although they were still up to anything of a lighter weight--the former only inferior to Norah's beloved Bobs. His absences from home were so long that it had not seemed worth while to procure him a special horse, and for several holidays he had been accustomed to ride any of the station mounts. Privately, Jim was not altogether satisfied with the arrangement, although quite admitting its common sense. Now that he had left school he intended to ask his father if he could buy a horse.

"You can try my new purchase, Monarch, if you like," Mr. Linton answered. "He's quite a decent mover--I think you'll like him."

Cecil bit his lip, under cover of the darkness. He coveted a ride on both Bobs and Monarch, and had given hints on the subject, but neither had been taken. Now Jim, nearly three years his junior, was lent Monarch without even having asked for him; while he was still, he presumed, to ride the steady-going Brown Betty, whom he thoroughly despised, in spite of the fact that she had once got rid of him. He registered another notch in his general grudge against Billabong.

Mr. Linton was absolutely ignorant of what pa.s.sed in his nephew's mind.

To give the city boy, with his uncertain seat and heavy hands, anything but a steady horse, never occurred to him; he would have regarded it as little short of inviting disaster to put him on Monarch, thoroughbred and newly broken in as he was; and, of course, no one but Norah ever rode Bobs.

"That's all right," he said, as Jim expressed his pleasure. "And what about you, Wally? You're too long now for Mick, I think."

"Oh, anything you like, sir," said Wally, easily. "I haven't met any bad 'uns on Billabong. Warder, or Brown Betty, or Nan--have you got them all still?"

"They're all here," the squatter said. "Cecil generally rides Betty, and I believe Burton's using old Warder just now. But you can have Nan, if you like."