parted, an' rode roun' an' roun', as slow as they could crawl, stoppin' every now an' agen, an' listening for all they was worth; an' me settin' on the log, puzzlin' my brains. At last I hears another whimper.
"'There you are again!' says I.
"An' one cove, he was stopped close in front o' the butt end o' the log at the time; an' he jumps off his horse, an' sticks his head in the holler o' the log, an' lets a oath out of him. Fearful feller to swear, he was. I disremember his name jis' now; but he'd bin on Grundle ever since he bolted from his ole man's place, in Bullarook Forest, on account of a lickin' he got; an' it was hard to best him among sheep; an' now I rec'lect his name was Dick—Dick—it's jist on the tip o' my (adj.) tongue"
"No matter hees name," interposed Helsmok; "he have yoined der graat mayority too."
"Well, as I was sayin'," continued the patient Saunders, "we lis'ned at the mouth o' the holler, an' heard the kid whinin' inside; an' when we sung-out to him, he was as quiet as a mouse. An' we struck matches, an' tried to see him, but he was too fur along, an' the log was a bit crooked; an' when you got in a couple o' yards, the hole was so small you 'd wonder how he done it. Anyhow, the two station blokes rode out to pass the word; an' the most o' the crowd was there in half-an-hour. The kid was a good thirty foot up the log; an' there was no satisfaction to be got out of him. He would n't shift; an' by-'n'-by we come to the impression that he could n't shift; an' at long an' at last we had to chop him out, like a bees' nest. Turned out after, that the little (stray) had foun' himself out of his latitude when night come on; an' he'd got gumption enough to set down where he was, an' wait for mornin'. He'd always bin told to do that, if he got lost. But by-'n'-by he heard 'Hen-ree! Hen-ree!' boomin' an' bellerin' back an' forrid across the bend in the dark; an' he thought the boody-man, an' the bunyip, an' the banshee, an' (sheol) knows what all, was after him. So he foun' this holler log, an' he thought he could nt git fur enough into it. He was about seven year old then; an' that was in '71—the year after the big flood—an' the shearin' was jist about over. How old would that make him now? Nineteen or twenty. He left his ole man three year ago, to travel with a sheep-drover, name o' Sep Halliday, an' he's bin with the same bloke ever since. Mos' likely some o' you chaps knows this Sep? Stout butt of a feller, with a red baird. Used to mostly take flocks for truckin' at Deniliquin; but that got too many at it—like everything else—an' he went out back, Cooper's Creek way, with three thousand Gunbar yowes, the beginnin' o' las' winter, an' I ain't heard of him since he crossed at Wilcanniar"
"No wonder," I observed; "he's gone aloft, like the rest."
There was a pause, broken by Stevenson, in a voice that brought constraint on us all:
"Bad enough to lose a youngster for a day or two, and find him alive and well; worse, beyond comparison, when he's found dead; but the most fearful thing of all is for a youngster to be lost in the bush, and never found, alive or dead. That's what happened to my brother Eddie, when he was about eight year old. You must remember it, Thompson?"
