pots for boiling water are called, and the two boys' "swags." Prince Tom and Murri were already mounted, their bare legs looking very ridiculous coming from under the old torn shirt that each of them wore. They were both armed to the teeth with native weapons, for in their belts of kangaroo sinew were thrust their nullah-nullahs, and waddies (clubs), their short throwing sticks, and their most valued weapon, the boomerang. Each man had his native stone hatchet fixed in his belt and lying along his spine, and they carried, too, a few short spears strapped on to their saddles, and over which their left legs passed. Kissing Margaret, who had come on to the verandah to see them start, and shaking hands with Yesslett and Macleod, the boys unfastened their horses and sprang into the saddle with the perfect ease of accomplished horsemen.

It was a beautiful sight to see those boys ride; never did their graceful, well-knit figures show to such advantage as on horseback. Accustomed to riding from their earliest childhood, they sat a horse as though it were—as it surely must be—the most natural place for a man to be. Once in the saddle they seemed to be actually part of the animal they rode, their swelling thighs and muscular calves clasping the horse firmly and composedly, but the whole body above the hips swaying and giving easily to every motion of the horse. They looked two as handsome lads as could well be seen as they rode out of the yard that morning. Their dark eyes were flashing and their healthy brown faces were all aglow with excitement, and they laughed aloud, as their horses pranced proudly beneath them, from sheer joy in the beauty of the sunshine and the brightness of the day.

They turned, as they came to the gate of the paddock, and taking off their soft, grey, broad-brimmed felt hats they waved a farewell to the group on the verandah. The sun gleamed on the short curls of their hair, and shone on the bright barrels of their guns and on the steel of their bridles and stirrups as they shouted a cheery "good-bye."

Everything was bright and promised well. So they left on their wild search for gold.

"Ah, good-bye, good-bye, my fine fellers," maliciously muttered Keggs, who had been watching them with his blinking treacherous eyes from the door of the bachelors' hut, where he was hidden in the shadow. "Better men nor you are a-walkin' now who may be in your saddles afore long."

CHAPTER IV.

THE FIRST STAGES.

Unconscious of the evil glances and still more evil wishes of the man hidden in the bachelors' hut, the boys rode on. They were happy, for hope was strong in their hearts; the day was clear and invigorating, for the sun had not gained much power as yet, though he shone royally from a sky of cloudless blue; they were strong and well; the horses they rode were fresh and powerful; and the feeling that at last they were started on just such an adventure as all their lives they had both wished for, gave a zest to life that they had never before experienced. Could any one wish for more than this?

It was a day to put the most miserable of men in high spirits, and it can hardly be said that Alec and George were of that nature. Up on those wide, open downs the air is clear and strong; a pleasant breeze from the eastern sea blew on their faces and cooled their sun-tanned necks, from which the loose unbuttoned collars of their flannel shirts fell back. The keen, sweet smell of the wild marjoram rose from the ground as their horse's hoofs crushed it as they rode along, and the "chirr" of the crickets and the locusts in the ti-scrub made a cheerful, though unobserved, music in their accustomed ears.

For many miles they would be riding over their own land, for the run was one of those huge tracts of country that were taken up by the pioneer squatters in the early years of the settlement of that part of the colony, and of course the boys knew their way about it better than the natives did, so they led the way, and the black boys followed, leading the spare horses.

Como, the great tawny kangaroo hound, bounded along by the side of George's horse, the pace being an easy one to his enormous stride, every now and then turning aside to examine with inquisitive nose the traces of kangaroo that had passed thereby. He was a splendid hound, standing, when he put his great paws on George's shoulders, some inches taller than his master himself.

For some few miles the country was open and park-like, dotted here and there with clumps of great gum trees, between whose ragged trunks they could easily ride, as no brushwood grows in their shade, and every now and then it was varied with strips and patches of scrub and wild impenetrable bush. Much of the land had been cleared by firing, and the gaunt skeletons of the burnt trees stood up here and there, stretching their bare arms towards heaven, as though protesting against their fate. They had been following, until now, the slight track that had gradually been formed by the horses passing between the head station and the hut on the Yarrun station, where two of the Wandaroo shepherds lived. But where the track turned aside and crossed the deep gully, on the other side of which, at some little distance, the Yarrun hut stood, Alec called a halt.

"Over yonder," said he, pointing to a low line of dim blue hills that lay along the horizon to the north-east, "lie the ranges from which we may perhaps see the first spurs of those great mountains we are looking for. It was from those hills that Stevens said he had seen mountain peaks in the far-distant north. He might have been lying, probably was, for he was an awful liar, but Murri and the other boys also say that the mountains are there. It is no use our making a rush at the hills, and perhaps going over the highest part of all. We may as well strike a valley, if there be one, and save both time and our horses; so we will stop a minute to let the boys catch us up, and ask them."

"Now, then, let's ask Murri or Prince Tom," said George, as the other horses came up.

Alec turned in his saddle, and, resting one hand affectionately on Amber's glossy back, he asked Murri his opinion as to which was the best road across the ranges.

"High up boudgeree cawbawn" (much best) "for um black fellow, 'cause black fellow walk and kangaroo there; low down boudgeree" (good) "for white fellows, 'cause um yarroman" (because of the horses).

"You know um road low down, Murri?"

"Yohi. Mine been along o' that place plenty time, bail gammon bong. Mine go first; white fellow follow 'long o' me." (Yes, I have been to that place many times. No gammon. I will go first, you follow after me.)

From this point the country was new to the two lads, and they had to get Murri to point out to them the direction in which they should go. With that incomprehensible instinct which the Australian savage possesses in such perfection, Murri knew the best road to be taken, and pointed to a slight rise in the ground a few miles ahead, and said—

"Along o' that place first."

By the time that they reached the little hill towards which Murri had directed them the day had grown terribly hot, for the power of the sun at mid-day in Queensland is very trying. Wandaroo was well within the Tropics, being in about the same latitude as Bowen, but a little to the north of it. The black boys, of course, did not feel the heat, and Alec and George, being naturalised to it, were not affected much; but the horses suffered a great deal, both from the sun and the countless flies.

Prince Tom knew of a spring in a little shady ravine on the far side of the hill, and when they had "rose the ridge" they saw the welcome signs of water below them. Thither they led the horses, and after they had filled their "billies" for the tea, which is the bushman's constant beverage, they allowed the thirsty brutes to drink a little. As they had made a very good stage since