‘It was a wild night. Bill an’ me was lyin’ in our stretchers readin’. About ten o’clock, open flies the door, an’ in bolts Fairleigh drippin’ wet, no hat on, an’ pale as a ghost, an’ stands there like a statue, starin’ at us, without a word. ‘“In God’s name what’s the matter?” I says at last. With that he flaps his hands about, so-fashion, an’ sings out, “Dot’s lost in the ranges!” ‘You may bet that shook us up a bit! You’ve seen the Broken Ranges for yourself, an’ can judge what chance a delicate little kiddy like Dot’d have among them rocks an’ scrub on a worse night than this is. ‘That fool of a sailor-man, if you’ll believe me, an’ his wife had been out sence dark searchin’ for the child, ’stead o’ rousin’ the settlement. Presently, to make matters worse, it appears that he’d lost the woman too—got separated in the scrub, an’ couldn’t find her again. Just by a fluke, while on the Black Hill yonder, he’d caught the glimper o’ sparks from our chimney. He was covered with cuts and bruises an’ goin’ cranky fast when he got to the hut. ‘Bill had gone to tell the news; an’ in a very few minutes a whole crowd o’ Fritzes, an’ Hanses, an’ Hermans, an Gottliebs was turned out an’ ready for a start. ‘They didn’t want no coaxing. All they says was ‘_Ach Gott!_’ an’ they was fit for anythin’. By no manner o’ means a bad lot,’ here commented Ward, ‘when you comes to get in with ’em an’ know ’em like. Honest as the light, an’ as hard-workin’ as a bullock. Slow, maybe, but very sure. Full o’ pluck as a soger-ant. Clannish as the Scotties, an’ as savin’. I’ve got some real good friends among ’em now. An’ their women-folks, too, is amazin’ handy—make you up a square feed out o’ a head o’ cabbage an’ a bit o’ greenhide, I do believe, if they was put to it. ‘Cert’nly their lingo ’s the dead finish at first, till you gets used to it. I can _Deutsch gesprechen_, myself, now, more’n a little. ‘However, that’s neither here nor there. ‘Bill, my mate, as I told you, as much as me, havin’ got full o’ farmin’, we used to take a prospectin’ trip now and then among the ranges. But we never rose the colour. Never found a thing, ’cept scrub turkeys’ eggs. Anyhow, we knew the country better’n the Germans, an’ took the lead. ‘Pitch dark it were, with heavy squalls, an’ the river roarin’ along half a banker. ‘Fairleigh, after a stiff nip o’ rum, began to find his senses again sufficient to give us the right course. ‘Such scramblin’, an’ _coo-eein’_, an’ slippin’, an’ tearin’ about the Bush in the dark never, I should think, happened before. But we managed to keep in some sort o’ line an’ cover a goodish track o’ country. ‘We must ha’ gone fully five miles into the ranges, an’ Bill an’ me was gettin’ to the end of our tether in that direction, when we found Mrs Fairleigh. Karl Itzig nearly falls over her, lyin’ stretched out on a big flat rock.