let alone a lady. You remember, Hugh, the time those old ewes got
swept down and one of 'em was caught on the head of a tree, and
you went in--"

"Oh, never mind about that," said Hugh. "Did Pat Donohoe lose
anything out of the coach?"

"Only a side of bacon and a bottle of whisky. The whisky was for
old Ned the 'possum trapper, and they say that Ned walked fourteen
miles down the river in hopes that it might have come ashore.
Ned reckons he has never done any tracking, but if he could track
anything it would be whisky."

"What about going out after 'possums down the garden?" said Binjie.
"Now, you youngsters, where are your 'possum dogs? I think they
ought to get some in the garden."

Everyone seemed to welcome the idea. There had been a sort
of stiffness in the talk, and Gavan Blake felt that a walk in the
moonlight might give him a chance to make himself a little more
at home with Mary Grant, while Ellen Harriott had her own reasons
for wanting to get him outside. With laughter and haste they all
put on hats and coats, for it had turned bitterly cold; then with
ear-piercing whistles the children summoned their 'possuming dogs,
who were dreaming happy hours away in all sorts of odd nooks, in
chimney-corners, under the table in the kitchen, under the bunks in
the men's hut, anywhere warm and undisturbed. But at the whistles
each dog dashed out from his nook, tearing over everything in front
of him in his haste not to be left behind; and in three seconds
half a dozen of them were whining and jumping round the children,