The Second String

ations of identity. He waited until he was tired, although he had much patience. His throat was parched; his skin burned; there was no shade. On his head, straight down, poured th

's signs, and was never fa

? He expects me to do his work and my own too." He shrugge

e that he should come to this? T

ept when rain clouds swept away the dazzling blue. He looked around, then above. Th

imed. "By all th

ower of feeli

ai

rd rain has a very different meaning. To Glen Leigh rain meant almost everything. There had been none for over nine months,

t it, we dried up sapless things. Rain, Ping. Do you hear, old parchment, rain. And your coat'll be dripping w

k, jerked up his head, and poi

aling it with delight, while an anxious

henomenon, a black patch steering through a sea of blue. In its wake it left a trail, dull, streaking ou

nce seemed to buzz, and the rising wind came through it playing on the stri

alions blotting out the sunlight; the relief to the eyes was immense. He waited, but Jim

aking for months. The land responded to the rain. He fancied he saw the blades of grass already shooting; he knew they would be there in a matter of twenty-four hours. He mounted Ping and rode to his hut. It was no use waiting any longer for Jim Benny; he

ambling pace soon covered the ground, and he

smiled; the intruder would not have had a very rich find. A few of

in amazement. It was no sundowner, not even a man from Boonara, out on the jag, who had wandered in a half-frenzied condition so many miles. What he saw was a woman, a young, pretty woman, whose face was lined with sorrow, whose cheeks were sunken. The hands were hanging down, thin, almost emaciated,

koned up, at about a hundred pounds a ton. It had been brought down the river on one of the puffing, snorting, little steamers, and deposited at the small staging, to be left till called for, and fetched by Bill Bigs at his leisure. Ping sniffed this small portion of evil-smelling stuff with satisfaction. He had never known better fare, for he had been bred in the wilds, and brought up anyhow, on anything. His dam had very little milk for him; she had nothing to make it with. When his dam deserted him, or he left her to go o

d been ill-used, and both came into his possession. Into his possession? What on earth was he to do with the woman? Ping was all right. He had bought

d see to the other one," he said,

still sleeping. He sat do

glance to people in the township. He was hardly likely to have noticed her sufficiently to recognise her now. If she came from Boonara, why had she left the place and wandered all

saw that, and cudgelled his brains to find

ng to somebod

. Had she come along with some squatter, when he had been making a visit to Bathurst, or Bourke, or even Sydney or Melbourne? That was a possible solution, but highly improbable. There was only one large st

ttering, but he could not catch the