‘The men are in bed, I suppose,’ said Daisy, glancing towards their hut. ‘They are away on the run,’ replied Fortescue, ‘drawing fencing stuff for the new line. But it’s a wonder we don’t see the blacks’ fire.’ As they stood leaning against the garden fence a soft continuous ripple, mingled with a sound like the sighing of wind through tall belars fell on their ears. ‘It’s only the river,’ said Daisy, ‘I’ve often heard it making that mournful noise when it’s rising over its banks. Shall we walk as far as the camp?’ It was a rough track, and more than once, but for the sustaining arm of her companion, Daisy would have come to grief over log or tussock. But they got there at last, guided by a few dim sparks from expiring fires. ‘Why, it’s deserted,’ exclaimed Daisy, as they found themselves amongst the empty gunyahs. ‘They’re gone, dogs and all.’ ‘Off on some hunting expedition, I expect,’ replied Fortescue, laughing. ‘They look at me in a comically disgusted manner of late since I left off getting bushed so regularly.’ It was too dark to see the water, but they stood for a long time listening to the swish of it as it ran full-lipped from one steep high bank to the other, telling with eerie mutterings and whisperings, and curious little complaining noises, and low hoarse threatenings of what it would presently do, and the mischief it would work, but in language all untranslatable by its hearers. ‘What a sweet little lady it is,’ said Fortescue to himself as, later, he sat on the edge of his bed staring straight before him into a pair of tender, steadfast eyes conjured out of the darkness. ‘I wonder if she does? I’m nearly sure of it, thank heaven! Why, she is worth coming here and roughing it like this, and being called “Barton’s Jackaroo” twenty times over for!’ and he laughed gently. ‘Fancy a prize like that hidden away amongst these solitudes. I wonder what her father will say? Anyhow, I won’t put it off any longer. I’ll ask him to-morrow.’ With which resolution he laid down and went to sleep, still thinking on Daisy Barton. He awoke with a start, and lay listening to noises in his room, the remnants, as he imagined, of some grotesque dream. Gurglings there were, and agonised squeakings and scrapings, with, now and then, ploppings and splashings as of many small swimmers. Then something cold, wet and hairy, crawled over his hand. Shaking it off with an exclamation, he jumped out of bed, and with the shock of it, stood stock still for two minutes up to his knees in water.