Page 63 - A Little Bush Maid

"Was it his fault the fire started?" inquired Wally.

"Rather! He camped under a bridge on the road that forms our boundary the
night Dad cleared him off the place, and the next morning, very early, he

deliberately lit our grass in three places, and then made off. He’d have got
away, too, and nobody would have known anything about it, if it hadn’t
been for Len Morrison. You chaps haven’t met Len, have you? He’s a jolly

nice fellow, older than me, T guess he’s about sixteen now--perhaps
seventeen.

"Len had a favourite cow, a great pet of his. He’d petted her as a calf and
she’d follow him about like a dog. This cow was sick--they found her down

in the paddock and couldn’t move her, so they doctored her where she was.
Len was awfully worried about her, and used to go to her late at night and

first thing in the morning.

"He went out to the cow on this particular morning about daylight. She was

dead and so he didn’t stay; and he was riding back when he saw the
swag-man lighting our grass. Tt was most deliberately done. Len didn’t go

after him then. He galloped up to his own place and gave the alarm, and
then he and one of their men cleared out after the brute."

"Did they catch him?" Wally’s eyes were dancing, and his sinker waved
unconsciously in the air.

"They couldn’t see a sign of him," Jim said. "The road was a plain, straight
one--you chaps know it--the one we drove home on from the train. No

cover anywhere that would hide so much as a goat--not even you, Wal!
They followed it up for a couple of miles, and then saw that he must have

gone across country somewhere. There was mighty little cover there, either.
The only possible hiding-place was along the creek.

"He was pretty cunning--my word, he was! He’d started up the road--Len
had seen him--and then he cut over the paddock at an angle, back to the

creek. That was why they couldn’t find any tracks when they started up the
creek from the road, and they made sure he had given them the slip