down, they just hopped over the fence and sat looking at him. Poor Dad! I do n't know if he was knocked up or if he did n't know any more, but he stopped swearing and sat on a stump looking at a patch of barley they had destroyed, and shaking his head. Perhaps he was thinking if he only had a dog! We did have one until he got a bait. Old Crib! He was lying under the table at supper-time when he took the first fit, and what a fright we got! He must have reared before stiffening out, because he capsized the table into Mother's lap, and everything on it smashed except the tin-plates and the pints. The lamp fell on Dad, too, and the melted fat scalded his arm. Dad dragged Crib out and cut off his tail and ears, but he might as well have taken off his head.

Dad stood with his back to the fire while Mother was putting a stitch in his trousers. "There's nothing for it but to watch them at night," he was saying, when old Anderson appeared and asked "if I could have those few pounds." Dad asked Mother if she had any money in the house? Of course she had n't. Then he told Anderson he would let him have it when he got the deeds. Anderson left, and Dad sat on the edge of the sofa and seemed to be counting the grains on a corn-cob that he lifted from the floor, while Mother sat looking at a kangaroo-tail on the table and did n't notice the cat drag it off. At last Dad said, "Ah, well!—it won't be long now, Ellen, before we have the deeds!"

We took it in turns to watch the barley. Dan and the two girls watched the first half of the night, and Dad, Dave and I the second. Dad always slept in his clothes, and he used to think some nights that the others came in before time. It was terrible going out, half awake, to tramp round that paddock from fire to fire, from hour to hour, shouting and yelling. And how we used to long for daybreak! Whenever we sat down quietly together for a few minutes we would hear the dull THUD! THUD! THUD!—the kangaroo's footstep.

At last we each carried a kerosene tin, slung like a kettle-drum, and belted it with a waddy—Dad's idea. He himself manipulated an old bell that he had found on a bullock's grave, and made a splendid noise with it.

It was a hard struggle, but we succeeded in saving the bulk of the barley, and cut it down with a scythe and three reaping-hooks. The girls helped to bind it, and Jimmy Mulcahy carted it in return for three days' binding Dad put in for him. The stack was n't built twenty-four hours when a score of somebody's crawling cattle ate their way up to their tails in it. We took the hint and put a sapling fence round it.

Again Dad decided to go up country for a while. He caught Emelina after breakfast, rolled up a blanket, told us to watch the stack, and started. The crows followed.

We were having dinner. Dave said, "Listen!" We listened, and it seemed as though all the crows and other feathered demons of the wide bush were engaged in a mighty scrimmage. "Dad's back!" Dan said, and rushed out in the lead of a stampede.

Emelina was back, anyway, with the swag on, but Dad was n't. We caught her, and Dave pointed to white spots all over the saddle, and said—"Hanged if they have n't been ridin' her!"—meaning the crows.

Mother got anxious, and sent Dan to see what had happened. Dan found Dad, with his shirt off, at a pub on the main road, wanting to fight the publican for a hundred pounds, but could n't persuade him to come home. Two men brought him home that night on a sheep-hurdle, and he gave up the idea of going away.

After all, the barley turned out well—there was a good price that year, and we were able to run two wires round the paddock.

One day a bulky Government letter came. Dad looked surprised and pleased, and how his hand trembled as he broke the seal! "THE DEEDS!" he said, and all of us gathered round to look at them. Dave thought they were like the inside of a bear-skin covered with writing.

Dad said he would ride to town at once, and went for Emelina.

"Could n't y' find her, Dad?" Dan said, seeing him return without the mare.

Dad cleared his throat, but did n't answer. Mother asked him.

"Yes, I FOUND her," he said slowly, "DEAD."

The crows had got her at last.

He wrapped the deeds in a piece of rag and walked.

There was nothing, scarcely, that he did n't send out from town, and Jimmy Mulcahy and old Anderson many and many times after that borrowed our dray.

Now Dad regularly curses the deeds every mail-day, and wishes to Heaven he had never got them.

Chapter IV.

When the Wolf was at the Door.

There had been a long stretch of dry weather, and we were cleaning out the waterhole. Dad was down the hole shovelling up the dirt; Joe squatted on the brink catching flies and letting them go again without their wings—a favourite amusement of his; while Dan and Dave cut a drain to turn the water that ran off the ridge into the hole—when it rained. Dad was feeling dry, and told Joe to fetch him a drink.

Joe said: "See first if this cove can fly with only one wing." Then he went, but returned and said: "There's no water in the bucket—Mother used the last drop to boil th' punkins," and renewed the fly-catching. Dad tried to spit, and was going to say something when Mother, half-way between the house and the waterhole, cried out that the grass paddock was all on fire. "So it is, Dad!" said Joe, slowly but surely dragging the head off a fly with finger and thumb.

Dad scrambled out of the hole and looked. "Good God!" was all he said. How he ran! All of us rushed after him except Joe—he could n't run very well, because the day before he had ridden fifteen miles on a poor horse, bare-back. When near the fire Dad stopped running to break a green bush. He hit upon a tough one. Dad was in a hurry. The bush was n't. Dad swore and tugged with all his might. Then the bush broke and Dad fell heavily upon his back and swore again.

To save the cockatoo fence that was round the cultivation was what was troubling Dad. Right and left we fought the fire with boughs. Hot! It was hellish hot! Whenever there was a lull in the wind we worked. Like a wind-mill Dad's bough moved—and how he rushed for another when one was used up! Once we had the fire almost under control; but the wind rose again, and away went the flames higher and faster than ever.

"It's no use," said Dad at last, placing his hand on his head, and throwing down his bough. We did the same, then stood and watched the fence go. After supper we went out again and saw it still burning. Joe asked Dad if he did n't think it was a splendid sight? Dad did n't answer him—he did n't seem conversational that night.

We decided to put the fence up again. Dan had sharpened the axe with a broken file, and he and Dad were about to start when Mother asked them what was to be done about flour? She said she had shaken the bag to get enough to make scones for that morning's breakfast, and unless some was got somewhere there would be no bread for dinner.

Dad reflected, while Dan felt the edge on the axe with his thumb.

Dad said, "Won't Missus Dwyer let you have a dishful until we get some?"

"No," Mother answered; "I can't ask her until we send back what we owe them."

Dad reflected again. "The Andersons, then?" he said.

Mother shook her head and asked what good there was it sending to them when they, only that morning, had sent to her for some?

"Well, we must do the best we can at present," Dad answered, "and I'll go to the store this evening and see what is to be done."

Putting the fence up again in the hurry that Dad was in was the very devil! He felled the saplings—and such saplings!—TREES many of them were—while we, "all of a muck of sweat," dragged them into line. Dad worked like a horse himself, and expected us to do the same. "Never mind staring about you," he'd say, if he caught us looking at the sun to see if it