"Are you afraid?"

"It is so desolate, and he may be so far off, and we couldn't get to
him if any thing happened, and we shouldn't know."

Then they were again silent, and remained without exchanging more
than a word or two for nearly half an hour. They took hold of each
other, and every now and then went to the kitchen door that the old
woman might be comforted by their presence, but they had no
consolation to offer each other. The silence of the bush, and the
feeling of great distances, and the dread of calamity almost crushed
them. At last there was a distant sound of horse's feet. "I hear
him," said Mrs. Heathcote, rushing forward toward the outer gate of
the horse paddock, followed by her sister.

Her ears were true, but she was doomed to disappointment. The
horseman was only a messenger from her husband--Mickey O'Dowd, the
Irish boundary rider.

He had great tidings to tell, and was so long telling them that we
will not attempt to give them in his own words. The purport of his
story was as follows: Harry had been to Boolabong House, but had
found there no one but the old man. Returning home thence toward his
own fence, he had smelled the smoke of fire, and had found within a
furlong of his path a long ridge of burning grass. According to
Mickey's account, it could not have been lighted above a few minutes
before Heathcote's presence on the spot. As it was, it had got too
much ahead for him to put it out single-handed; a few yards he might
have managed, but--so Mickey said, probably exaggerating the matter--