FOR THE CHILDREN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18571, 1 December 1923, Page 4 (Supplement)

FOR THE CHILDREN.

YOUNG PIONEERS.

BY EDITH HOWES.

(All Rights Reserved.), f

""'.'" - CHAPTER XI. -/ "You have not yet told : me how you came to be so-far ; away from 'home/' said Mr. Forsythe. "We came to look for a notornis, and we found you Jack replied joyfully. They told him the story of the Months since he left them, and his face grew grave as he listened. "I have been worrying about you," he said, "I wondered how you would all manage, though 1 had •no idea you thought me dead. I longed to come hack to you, but I couldn't leave that poor '""hap to die. But you have done splendidly, you two. And now you have found us up and made it possible for me to return for help. Yet no," he paused and considered "No, , I can't leave my invalid. Ho might die on your hands? I know his needs and how to deal with them. I'ou two must return for help. You must go down to the Scotts' homestead and ask them to bring up a stretcher. But that will be to-morrow. Come now and see Jim. He will be overjoyed to know that help has come."

Together they clambered to the head of the ravine, talking all the way. The children were dancing with joy at finding their father, and finding him alive and well; end his face was radiant with relief and gladness. "Oh, if only mother knew !" Jo cried. "How happy she will be when she knows. "Did you find any gold, father?" asked Jack. Mr. Forsythc shook his head. "None," he replied. "1 have turned over the rubble we dislodged and, I have broken open many rocks, but not a trace of gold have I discovered. Yet I feel certain thin is gold country. I feel certain it is." -He looked about him vexcdly."- "I wish I could find it." They came to the tent, set up among the broken rocks brought down by the blasting, and sheltered on the windward sido by a scrub whare built by Mr. Forsytho for his own sleeping place. In the tent lay the sick man. Beard covered half his face, and the skin, where it showed, was white and pallid; -but his eyes were alight with hope. "I knew someone had come," he said in a weak voice. "I heard you 000-ea." His eyes strayed beyond them to the opening, and now there was disappointment in their depths. \ "Only you two boys?" he asked. "Is there no one with you?" Mr. Forsythe explained, and the sick man's eyes lit up again. "Plucky kids!"ho exclaimed in his faint voice. "Chips of the old block, you are. A girl tool Kids, you can be proud of your father. He saved my life, and he's gone on saving it every day since. It would take me a week to tell you all he has done for me." "Nonsense!" laughed Mr. Forsythe. "Come on, you two, and help me to find something for a meal. He lives on birdsoup, this invalid of mine. And to-day there are four to feed." Jack jumped up eagerly, but Jo sat still on the rock at tho bedside. "I'll stay and talk to Mr. Brown," she said. When father,and son had gone off she turned to the side man. "Tell me about father, please," r,he begged. He told her of long days and wakeful nights of devoted nursing and infinite kindness and patience, of never-ceasing effort to ease the awful pain and to keep life in the poor crushed body. "My own mother could not bo gentler," he said, "and no one else could have thought of so many ways of cheering me and helping me to bear the suffering. There" never was such a man." Jo glowed with pleasure to hear her father so praised, and she treasured every word to repeat to Jack and to her mother. "I'm thirsty," said Jo presently, and she rose to find a drink. 7 "Your father—goes up-stream and brings me water from a place he calls the Bubbler," said tho sick man. "He says it does me good because it is filled with air from bubbling over a rock there, and I believe ho is right. Will you bring me some?" His eyes directed her to a billy hanging to the ridge-pole of the tent. Jo took the billy and went down to. the stream. There' were many rocks over' which the water foamed and tumbled, any one of which might have been called the Bubbler; but Jo was looking' for something specially bubbling, and after quenching her own thirst jhfl went up and and up for quite a long way, seeking the invalid's air-filled draught. "This must be it," she said at last, wading into the middle of the shallow torrent. . Hero the water.fell over a big rock into a stony basin, and bubbled out of that again over a lower rock. Stooping, Jo held the billy at the edre of the lower rock till it was nearly filled. As rhe stooped there, her eyes wandering idly,, over the scattered rocks and stones beneath the clear waters, a gleam of yellow caught-- her gaze. She looked more closely. It was a roulided pebble wedged half under a big rock. It was very'yellow, and it shone like gold. "I believe it. is gold,'' thought. Jo. '•* She pulled up her sleeve and reached for the yellow pebble. After a great deal of probing and pulling arid pushing she managed to loosen it and bring it vg. It was very heavy, very shining,

very golden. :■'■'■ ■■ "I believe it is gold," said Jo again. "Suppose it should be really j gold." • '■ -■■ ''■ ■ ;, It was :an excited "Jo who hurried back towards the tent. : Almost at its doorway she met her father. "I have been ■up to the Bubb," she began, "and I think I have found—" "The Bubbler!" interrupted Mr. Forsythe.; "The Bubbler is just there," and he? pointed ,to a rock less than a chain away. :": "You came from much further up the stream. "Oh!" said Jo. "Yes, but I thought it i was the Bubbler ; and I think' I have' found ; a nugget of gold." She opened her hand and showed the yellow pebble. > Her s father took it from lier, looked hard «at it, felt its weight, scratched it with his finger-nail, bit it. "It's a nugget, sure enough," he cried. "It's gold, Jo, gold. Where did you find it?" 1 "Half under a rock in the middle of the stream," replied Jo. "Come and I'll I show you." '■■'' ►':'■■'' "Wait a minute," said Mr. Forsythe, I and he strode into the tent. "Jim, old man, look at'this,'* he,said, and he knelt beside the sick man and held the nugget for- him to see. "Gold, isn't it?" ■'~ .... >:}■s•■■■ ';.,}% Jim's eyes blazed. "Gold it is," he said "Where did it come from?" "Jo found it in the stream. And where this was there may be more. Luck may be turning for us at last, Jim." "You always said it looked like gold country,'' and if ever a man deserved a turn of luck you do, mate." "I'm off to look for it. Come on, you two. Jo even if we find no more this will be worth as much to you as your notornis." (To be Continued.)