to own that some of the devices were “handy enough.”  A neat little tray, made from the end of a packing-case and a few laths, interested him in particular.  “You’ll get him dodged for ideas one of these days,” he said, alluding to the Maluka’s ingenuity, and when, a day or two later, I broke the spring of my watch and asked helplessly, “However was I going to tell the time till the waggons came with the clock?” Dan felt sure I had set an unsolvable problem.

“That ’ud get anybody dodged,” he declared; but it took more than that to “dodge” the Maluka’s resourcefulness.  He spent a little while in the sun with a compass and a few wooden pegs, and a sundial lay on the ground just outside the verandah.

Dan declared it just “licked creation,” and wondered if “that ’ud settle ’em,” when I asked for some strong iron rings for a curtain.  But the Dandy took a hobble chain to the forge, and breaking the links asunder, welded them into smooth round rings.

The need for curtain rings was very pressing, for, scanty as it was, the publicity of our wardrobe hanging in one corner of the reception room distressed me, but with the Dandy’s rings and a chequered rug for curtain, a corner wardrobe was soon fixed up.

Dan looked at it askance, and harked back to the sundial and education.  “It’s ’cute enough,” he said.  “But it won’t do, boss.  She should have been taught how to tell the time by the sun.  Don’t you let ’em spoil your chances of education, missus.  You were in luck when you struck this place; never saw luck to equal it.  And if it holds good, something’ll happen to stop you from ever having a house, so as to get you properly educated.”

My luck “held good” for the time being; for when Johnny came along in a few days he announced, in answer to a very warm welcome, that “something had gone wrong at No. 3 Well” and that “he’d promised to see to it at once.”

“Oh, Johnny!” I cried reproachfully, but the next moment was “toeing the line” even to the Head Stockman’s satisfaction; for with a look of surprise Johnny had added:  “I—­I thought you’d reckon that travellers’ water for the Dry came before your rooms.”  Out-bush we deal in hard facts.

“Thought I’d reckon!” I said, appalled to think my comfort should even be spoken of when men’s lives were in question.  “Of course I do; I didn’t understand, that was all.”

“We haven’t finished her education yet,” Dan explained, and the Maluka added, “But she’s learning.”

Johnny looked perplexed.  “Oh, well!  That’s all right, then,” he said, rather ambiguously.  “I’ll be back as soon as possible, and then we shan’t be long.”

Two days later he left the homestead bound for the well, and as he disappeared into the Ti-Tree that bordered the south track, most of us agreed that “luck was out.”  Only Dan professed to think differently.  “It’s more wonderful than ever,” he declared; “more wonderful than ever, and if it holds good we’ll never see Johnny again.”