CHAPTER I.—(Continued.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2701, 20 December 1905, Page 65

CHAPTER I.— (Continued.)

JE Narrawan stole was like most stores on bush stations out back, a dingy, s>labbed-in place having a window giving on the verandah cut in the slabs, with iron netting across the aperture and with inside shutters. These, too, resisted liei efforts, and the tramp unfastened them, letting the light stream in upon a counter where were scales and weights, a long narrow, store book, and an office ink-pot. Beside the counter was a great wooden bin, divided into compartments for flour and tbiee kinds of suaar— tiie Tjlack ration

sort, a lighter kind, and soft white. There was a compartment for tea also, in w hich w-ere two qualities in their zinc-lined chests. Against the end-v, all of the store, sack of flour vreie piled almost to the ■afters; and there were sticky nuts of ration sugar, bags of rice, oatmeal, bran, and <=iich-like goods. Along another side stood barrels and kegs, unopened case&, drums of tobacco, tubs of dried apples and coarse raisins and cui rants. In a corner apart were a number of tins of kerosene. The other walls had rows of shelves with an assortment of men's clothing, rolls of calico and shiiting, blankets, stuff for saddle cloths and saddle linings, printed cottons, and so on. On another shelf were canned goods, jams, pickles, sauces— the usual bush delicacies ; and there was a collection of hardware, of saddlery, station implements, and just above the counter and flour bin were shelves devoted to choicei foods, used in the house, and different luxuries, among them a stack of cigar boxes, one of which was opened on the counter, Mr Galbraith having helped himself from it yesterday morning. On a shelf in a corner, where cobwebs hung like witches' tatters, and a bloated tran° tula lay in wait for unwary insects, were dusty bottles of embrocation — Farmer's Friend, _ Stevens' s Red Blister, Carbolic Sweet Nitre, and the various medicaments common on cattle and sheep stations. The place was very dirty for this season ; there was no time for it to be cleaned. Susan lifted her white skirts and tucked them close round her so that they should not be soiled, and then proceeded to scoop out the flour from the bin.

She weighed the customary " men's ration 1 ' — a larger allowance than it was usual to give a casual tramp — while the man went outside to fetch his ration bags. He reddened uncomfortably as she tilted the flour from the scale into his bag. '" I am not sure whether you understood," he said. " I don't want ... I can't buy a week's rations.", " Please don't trouble," said Susan, has lily. " I expect you will be staying on, and, if so, you would need the extra ration."

He tied up the bags one by one. "I hope that I may have the opportunity to repay your gocdness," he said. "At anyrate. I'm ready to work out the debt in any way that your father choose 6." He waited while she made her entry in the store book. Black Bella, at the door, pleaded again : '" One HI fella bit of tobacco, mithsis." Susan cut an inch or two from a fig and threw it to the gin, who fell back with a grateful " Budgery you, Missee Susan" ; and then an impulse at which she was half frightened made Susan hold out the box of cigars to the tramp. "Won't you take two or three?"' A strange look came into the man's face. He drew his breath in a gasp, asif she had hurt him, and she went red, and her hand faltered. But he recovered himself at once, and accepted the cigars ac simply as a guest might have done to whom his host offered them at leave-taking. He took two, and put them in his pocket. " Thank you ; you are giving me a treat It is a long time since I have sampled a good cigar."

Then he bowed to her as if she were an empress, waited for her to pass out, and, after he had followed her, turned to affix the padlock so that she could lock the door without difficulty.

He stepped down from the verandah and was walking" towards his swag, but she stopped him.

"There's the meat store. I will give you a piece of beef."

He bowed again. " I am very much obliged to you.''

They went to the meat house — another dark room, with a wooden shutter across the window and a sickly smell of brine from the great casks on eithei side of the steelyards. Everything was moist with salt, but the floor, the table, and blocks were scrupulously clean. Susan eyed the meat cask with a shiver of distaste and stood apart from it.

" Would you mind getting out a piece of meat and weighing it?" she said.

Rolling up his sleeves, he plunged his arm into the bi'ine, and presently brought ny a small bit of inferior quality, which he hooked on the steelyards, telling her the weight. This time he did not protest that it was not his due. She entered the weight in the meat book, and went out, he again pulling the door to after her, locking it. and handing her the bunch of keys. He doffed his hat once more, and taking his swag under his arm, while he carried the rations and the meat with the other hand, he made his way to Ah Hong and inquired which was the" men's hut.

Ah Hong smiled blandly, and pointed first in the direction of the stockyard, which was some little way doAvn the* hill, and where the black boy was penning the milkers, then to a bark-ioofed hut beyond the slip-rails, near the lagoon. The tramp walked briskly away, and Susan Galbraith went, back into the' house.