He was answered by a shrill scream, an energetic and most piercing
feminine yell of terror, and lifting his startled eyes he beheld a young
girl, clad after the manner of a settler's daughter, standing a few yards
away, staring at him with wild horrified eyes. The girl's fingers were
clutching her hair, her face was white, her limbs convulsed, she seemed
glued to the spot, incapable of movement, but power of screaming remained
with her, and she exerted it to the utmost--she screamed, and screamed,
and screamed again, the bush resounded with the echoes of her agonised
cries.

For a moment Nickie stared back in blank surprise. It had not struck him
that he was the occasion of this frantic demonstration, but presently he
realised that a little screaming was excusable in an excitable young lady
coming suddenly upon a full-grown missing link drowsing under the gums in
her native bush.

Nickie arose, he advanced a step. His intentions were honourable he meant
to offer a full explanation, with apologies, but the girl did not wait;
at his first movement she swung round and fled through the trees, still
screaming.

The Missing Link sat down again with a sigh. Anyhow there must be a
residence near, he was not destined to perish in the bush; but the girl
would rush home with a shocking tale of some hideous monster in the
paddock, her male relations would come to hunt down that monster. Nickie
had had experience of such hunters; he remembered that they carried guns,
and that they were not disposed to delay shooting in order to argue with
a monkey about the sacredness of life.

Mr. Crips had a ready mind, and his peculiar career had taught him the