"She has been doing that, I think, rather to put Sam on his mettle; for I think he was taking things too easy with her at first; but now, if Cecil has any false hopes, he may give them up; the sooner the better. No woman who was fancy free could stand seeing that noble head of Sam's come rolling down in the dust at her feet; and what courage and skill he exhibited, too! Talk of bull-fights! I have seen one. Bah! it is like this nail-brush to a gold watch, to what I saw to-day. Sam, sir, has won a wife by cattledrafting." "If that is the case," said Jim, pensively brushing his hair, "I am very glad that Cecil's care for his fine clothes prevented his coming into the yard; for he is one of the bravest, coolest hands among cattle, I know; he beats me." "Then he beats a precious good fellow, Jim. A man who could make such play as you did to-day, with a stick, ought to have nothing but a big three-foot of blue steel in his hand, and Her Majesty's commission to use it against her enemies." "That will come," said Jim, "the day after Sam has got the right to look after Alice; not before; the governor is too fond of his logarithms." When Sam came to dress for dinner he found that he was bruised all over, and had to go to the Captain for "shin plaster," as he called it. Captain Brentwood had lately been trying homeopathy, which in his case, there being nothing the matter with him, was a decided success. He doctored Sam with Arnica externally, and gave him the five-hundredth of a grain of something to swallow; but what made Sam forget his bruises quicker than these dangerous and violent remedies, was the delightful change in Alice's behaviour. She was so agreeable that evening, that he was in the seventh heaven; the only drawback to his happiness being poor Cecil Mayford's utter distraction and misery. Next morning, too, after a swim in the river, he handled such a singularly good knife and fork, that Halbert told Jim privately, that if he, Sam, continued to sport such a confoundedly good appetite, he would have to be carried half-a-mile on a heifer's horns and left for dead, to keep up the romantic effect of his tumble the day before. They were sitting at breakfast, when the door opened, and there appeared before the assembled company the lithe lad I spoke of yesterday, who said,-- "Beg your pardon, sir; child lost, sir." They all started up. "Whose child?" asked the Captain. "James Grewer's child, sir, at the wattle hut." "Oh!" said Alice, turning to Sam, "it is that pretty little boy up the river that we were admiring so last week." "When was he lost?" asked Major Buckley. "Two days now, sir," said the lad. "But the hut is on the plain side of the river," said the Major; "he can't be lost on the plains." "The river is very low, sir," said the lad; "hardly ancle deep just there. He may have crossed." "The black fellows may have found him," suggested Mrs. Buckley.