woman who might have been "aunt;" two little boys and the baby. It
was raining heavens hard outside, and the night was as black as pitch.
The uncle was reading a report in a paper (that seemed to have come,
somehow, a long way from somewhere) about two men who were wanted for
sheep- and cattle-stealing in the district. I decidedly remember it
was during the reign of the squatters in the nearer west. There came
a great gust that shook the kitchen and caused the mother to take up
the baby out of the rough gin-case cradle. The father took his pipe
from his mouth and said: "Ah, well! poor devils." "I hope they're
not out in a night like this, poor fellows," said the mother, rocking
the child in her arms. "And I hope they'll never catch 'em,"
snapped her sister. "The squatters has enough."

"I wonder where poor Jim is?" the mother moaned, rocking the baby,
and with two of those great, silent tears starting from her haggard
eyes.

"Oh don't start about Jim again, Ellen," said her sister
impatiently. "He can take care of himself. You were always rushing
off to meet trouble half-way--time enough when they come, God knows."

"Now, look here, Ellen," put in Uncle Abe, soothingly, "he was up
in Queensland doing well when we last heerd of him. Ain't yer never
goin' to be satisfied?"

Jim was evidently another and a younger uncle, whose temperament from
boyhood had given his family constant cause for anxiety.

The father sat smoking, resting his elbow on his knee, bunching up his
brush of red whiskers, and looking into the fire--and back into his