In less than half-an-hour the new-comer, who was walking his horse,
slowly rode up to the bluff, and raised his hat to Miss Fraser and her
companion.
“Good-morning!” he said, as he dismounted. “I saw you as I was coming
along the beach and so turned off. Am I on the right track for Kaburie,
and Fraser's Gully?”
“Yes,” replied Forde, “this is the turn off here for both Kaburie and
the Gully; the main track goes on to Boorala. Will you have some tea?”
“Thank you, I shall be very glad of a drink.” Then again raising his hat
to Kate, he said, “My name is Gerrard. Are you Miss Fraser?”
“Yes,” replied Kate smiling, “and you are Mr Gerrard of Ocho Rios, I am
sure, for I have seen your photograph. But how did you guess I was Kate
Fraser?”
“I really could not tell you; but somehow I felt certain that you were
the young lady whom Mr Lacey described so admiringly to me a day or two
ago.”
“Did he? The dear old man! How nice of him,” and she laughed merrily.
“Mr Gerrard, this is my friend, the Reverend Mr Forde, of Boorala--and
hundreds of other towns as well.”
The two men shook hands, and in a few minutes Gerrard was conversing
with him and his fair companion as if he had known them for years, and
both Forde and Kate were much interested in learning the object of his
visit to Kaburie.
“I do hope you will buy Kaburie, Mr Gerrard,” said Kate; “it is a
really splendid station, and I am sure that you will like it better than
your place away up on Yorke's Peninsula. Of course,” she added, with her
usual serene frankness, “I am very, very sorry that Mrs Tallis is not
coming back, for we are great friends, and always exchanged visits once
a week, and now I shall miss going there very much. And, oh, the garden
of which she was so proud! I suppose now----” she stopped, and reddened
slightly.
“Go on, please,” said Gerrard with assumed gravity, though his eyes were
smiling.
“I was about to be rude enough to say that most men don't care much for
flowers.”
“If I buy Kaburie, Miss Fraser, I will come to you, cap in hand, and
humbly beg you to instruct me what to do; and furthermore, I promise
that when you say 'do this' it shall be done.”
“You are undertaking a big contract, Mr Gerrard,” said Forde with a
laugh, as he rose to go to his horse; “you will have to send to Sydney
for a Scotch gardener.”
As soon as the clergyman was out of hearing Gerrard, who had remembered
Lacey's remark about “a parson being in the running,” said quietly,
“I certainly am a most forgetful man, Miss Fraser, and ask your
forgiveness. Here is a letter for you, which my friend Aulain asked me
to deliver to you.”
The girl blushed deeply as she took the letter, for she instinctively
divined that Gerrard had purposely deferred giving her the letter whilst
Forde was with them. And from that moment she liked him.
“Thank you, Mr Gerrard,” she said, as she placed the letter in the
pocket of her skirt. “Is Mr Aulain any better?”
“Yes, but he won't be 'fit' for another six weeks or so. He has had a
very bad attack of fever this time. Of course you know that he and I are
old friends?”
“Oh, yes, indeed! He always writes and speaks of you as 'old
Tom-and-Jerry.' And I am so really, really glad to meet you, Mr Gerrard.
Randolph says that you are the finest scrub rider in Australia, and he
is next.”
“Ah, no, he is the first, as I told Lacey a couple of days ago. His own
troopers can hardly follow him when----”
“Don't, Mr Gerrard! I know what you were about to say,” and she
shuddered; “but please do not ever speak to me of Mr Aulain in
connection with the Native Police. I loathe and detest them, and would
rather he were a working miner or a stockman, than a leader of such
fiends.”
“Randolph Aulain is a different stamp of a man from the usual Inspector,
Miss Fraser. No one has ever accused him of cruelty or unnecessary
severity in discharging his duties.”
“It is an ignominious duty, I think, to shoot and harass the blacks in
the manner the police do,” persisted Kate. “When the brig _Maria_ was
lost here on the coast some years ago, and some of the crew killed by
the blacks, the Government acted most cruelly. The Native Police not
only shot the actual murderers, but ruthlessly wiped out whole camps of
tribes that were hundreds of miles away from where the vessel was lost.”
Gerrard nodded. “So I heard. But I can assure you, Miss Fraser, that
the Native Police under men like Aulain, can, and do, good service.
The blacks in this part of the colony are bad enough, but on Cape York
Peninsula, they are worse--daring and ferocious cannibals. The instinct
to slay all strangers is inborn with them. Some of the tribes on the
Batavia River district I believe to be absolutely untamable.”
“Would _you_ shoot a black-fellow, Mr Gerrard, for spearing a horse or
bullock?”
“No, certainly not! But you see, Miss Fraser, we squatters would not
mind them killing a beast or two for food occasionally, but they will
spear perhaps thirty or forty, and so terrify a large mob of cattle that
they will seek refuge in the ranges, and eventually become so wild as to
be irrecoverable. I can put down my losses alone from this cause at over
a thousand head. Then, again, two of my stockmen were killed and
eaten three years ago; and this necessitated inflicting a very severe
punishment.”
The girl sighed, but said no more on the subject.
“You will stay with us to-night, will you not, Mr Gerrard?” she said as
Forde returned. “It will be so pleasant for father and me to have both
Mr Forde and you with us for the night.”
“Thank you, I will, with pleasure. Perhaps your father--and you
too--will come on to, Kaburie with me in the morning, show me the ropes,
and tell me something about the country. And then you can see how the
garden looks as well.”
Kate's eyes brightened. “Indeed, we will I I love Kaburie. When we heard
that it was to be sold, father tried to lease it from poor Mrs Tallis,
but she wanted to sell outright, so father has to keep 'pegging away'
at the claim, and our old rattle-trap of a crushing mill. But some day,
perhaps, we shall 'strike it rich' as the miners say.”
The horses were again saddled, and the party set out on their way,
riding single file along the narrow bush track towards the ranges in
which the little mining camp was situated. The sun was well towards
the west when they came in sight of the rough, bark-roofed shed with
uncovered sides, which contained the battery plant, and Fraser's
equally unpretentious dwelling, which, with three or four miners' huts
constituted the camp. A bright, brawling little mountain stream, with
high banks lined with the graceful whispering she-oaks, gave a pleasant
and refreshing appearance to the scene, and the clash and rattle of the
heavy stampers as they crushed the golden quartz, echoed and re-echoed
among the rugged tree clad range.
A big, broad-shouldered man of about sixty years of age, who was engaged
in thrusting a log of ironbark wood into the boiler furnace, turned
as he heard Forde's loud _coo-e-e!_ and came towards them. He was
bareheaded, and clad in a coarse flannel singlet, and dirty moleskin
pants, with knee-boots; and his perspiring face was streaked with oil
and grease from the engine. Taking a piece of cotton-waste from his
belt, he wiped his hands leisurely as the three travellers dismounted.
“Father,” said Kate, “I couldn't find the horses. But I 'found' Mr
Forde, and this is Mr Gerrard, who is going to Kaburie, and who has
promised to camp here to-night.”
“Glad to see you,” and the big man shook hands with Gerrard; “how are
you, Forde? Get along up to the house, Kate, and I'll follow you soon.
Give Forde and Mr Gerrard towels. I daresay they'll be glad of a bathe
in the creek before supper. You know where the whisky is, parson. Help
yourself and Mr Gerrard.”
“How is she going, father?” asked Kate.
“Oh! just the same, about half an ounce or so.”
(“She”, in miners' parlance, was the stone then being crushed--a
crushing is always a “she.” Sometimes “she” is a “bully-boy with a glass
eye; going four ounces to the ton.” Sometimes “she” is a “rank duffer.”
Sometimes “she” is “just paying and no more.”)
Simple as was the girl's question, Gerrard noted the grey shadow of
disappointment in her dark eyes, as her father replied to it, and a
quick sympathy for her sprung up in his heart. And to Fraser himself he
had taken an instantaneous liking. Those big, light-grey Scotsman's eyes
with their heavy brows of white overshadowing, and the rough, but genial
voice reminded him of his brother-in-law Westonley.
“I'll give the old man a lift,” he said to himself, as he walked beside
Kate to the house.
“What are you thinking of, Mr Fraser?” asked Kate, “I really believe you
are talking to yourself.”
“Was I?” he laughed, “it is a habit of mine that has grown on me from
being so much alone. What a splendid type of a man your father is, Miss
Fraser.”
The glance of delight which shone in her eyes made Tom Gerrard's heart
quicken as it had never before to the voice of any woman.