A MENAGERIE RACE


The first time that Jim returned from school was for the Easter
holidays.

He brought a couple of mates with him--boys from New South Wales and
Queensland, Harry Trevor and Walter Meadows. Harry was a little older
than Jim--a short, thick-set lad, very fair and solemn, with
expressionless grey eyes, looking out beneath a shock of flaxen hair.
Those who knew him not said that he was stupid. Those who knew him said
that you couldn't tell old Harry much that he didn't know. Those who
knew him very well said that you could depend on Trevor to his last
gasp. Jim loved him--and there were few people Jim loved.

Walter--or Wally--Meadows was a different type; long and thin for
fourteen, burnt to almost Kaffir darkness; a wag of a boy, with merry
brown eyes, and a temperament unable to be depressed for more than five
minutes at a time. He was always in scrapes at school, but a great
favourite with masters and boys notwithstanding; and he straightway laid
his boyish heart down at Norah's feet, and was her slave from the first
day they met.

Norah liked them both. She had been desperately afraid that they would
try to take Jim away from her, and was much relieved to find that they
welcomed her cheerfully into their plans. They were good riders, and the
four had splendid gallops over the plains after hares. Also they admired
Bobs fervently, and that was always a passport to Norah's heart.

It was on the third day of their visit, and they were making the morning