CHAPTER II.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 415, 30 October 1889, Page 3

CHAPTER 11.

Their first sensation was one of purely animal freedom ! .They looked at each other with sparkling eyea and long silent breaths. But this spontaneous outburst of eavage nature Boon passed. Susy's little hand pro&ently reached forward and clutched Clarence's jacket. The boy understood it, and said quickly, * They ain't gone far, and they'll stop as poon as they find us gone.' They trotted on a little faster, tho sun they had followed every day and the fresh wageon tracks being their unfailing guides; the keen frosh air of the plains taking the place of that all-pervading dust and smell of the perspiring oven, invigorating them with its breath. "We ain't skeerb a bib, are we?' said Susy. ' What's there to be afraid of ? ' said Clarence scornfully. He said this none the less strongly because he suddenly remembered that they had been often left alone in the waggon for hours without being looked after, and that their absence might not bo noticed until the train stopped to encamp at dusk, two hours later. They were not running very fast, yet either they were more tired than they knew, or the air wa3 thinner, for they both seemed to breathe quickly. Suddenly Clarence stopped. * There they are now. ' He was pointing to a light cloud of dust in the far-off horizon, trom which the black hulk of a waggon emerged for a moment and was lost. But' even as they gazed the cloud seemed to sink like a fairy miracle to the earth again, the whole train disappeared, and only the empty stretching track returned. They did not know tjiafc this seemingly flat and level plain was reajly undulatory, and that the vanished train had simply dipped below their view on some further slope even as it had once before. But they knew they were disappointed, and that disappointment revealed to them the fact that they had concealed from each other. The girl was the first) to succumb, and burst into a quick spasm of angry tears. That simple act of weakness called out the boy' 3 pride and strength. There was no longer an equality of Buffering ; he had become her protector ; he folfc himself responsible for both. Being no longer his equal, he was no longer frank with her. * There's nothin' to boo-boo for,' he said with half and half affected bruaqueness. 4 So quit now ! They'll stop in a minit, and send someone back for us. Shouldn't wonder if they're doin it now.' But Susy, with feminine discrimination detecting the hollow ring in his voice, here threw herself upon him and began to beat i him violently with her little fists. ' They ain't ! They ain't ! They ain't ! You knowit ! How dare you V Then exhausted with her' struggles she suddenly threw herself flab on the dry grass, shut her eyes tightly and clutched at the stubble. ' ' Get up,' said the boy with a pale, determined face that seined to have got much older.

' You leave mo be,' aaid Susy. 'Do you want me to go away and leave you,' asked the boy. Susy opened one blue eye furtively in the secure depths of her sun bonnet and gazed at his changed face. 4 Ye-es.' He pretended to turn away, but really to look at the height of the sinking sun. 1 Kla'uns !' • Well !' •Take me.' She was holding up her hand?. He lifted her gently in his arms, dropping her head over hia shoulder. 'Now, 1 he said, cheerfully, ' you keep a good look out that way, and I this, and" we'll soon be there.' The idea seemed to please her. After Clarence had stumbled on for a few moments, she said, 'Do you see anything, Kla'uns?' 1 Not yet.' 'No more don't I.' This equality of perception apparently satisfied her. Presently she lay more limp in his arms. She wasasleep. The sun "was sinking lower ; it had already touched the edge of the horizon, and was level with his dazzled and straining eyes. At times it seemed to impede his, eager search and task his vision. Haze and black spots floated across the horizon, and round wafer?, like duplicates of the sun, glittered back from the dull surface of the plains. Then he resolved to look no more until he had counted fifty, a hundred, but always with the same result, the return of the empty, unending plains. The disc growing redder as it near'ed the horizon the fire it seemed to kindle as it sank, but nothing more ! • Staggering under his burden, he tried to distract himself by fancying how the discovery of their absence would be made. He heard the listless, half- querulous discussion about the locality that regularly pervaded the nightly camp. He heard the discontented voice of Jake Silsbee as ho halted beside their waggon, and said • Come out o' that now, you two, and mighty quick about it.' He saw the look of irritation on Silsbee's ■ dusty bearded face that followed his hur- I ried glance into the empty waggon. He heard the query, • What's gone o' them limbs now?' handed from waggon to wacrgon. He heard a few oaths ; Mrs ! Sihbee's high rasping voice, abuse of himself, the hurried and discontented detach* menb of a search party, Silsbee and one of ' the hired men, and vociferation and blame. I Blame always for himself, the elder, who might have ' known better !' A little fear.i perhaps, but he could nob fancy either pity or commiseration. Perhaps the thought i upheld his pride ; under the prospect of sympathy he might have broken down. At last ho sbumblsd and stopped to keep himself from falling forward on his face. He could go no further ; his breath was spent ; ho was dripping with perspiration ; his legs were trembling under him ; there waa a roaring in his ears ; round red discs of the sun were scattered everywhere around him like spots of blood. To the right of the trail there seemed to be a slight mound where he could rest awhile, and yet keep his watchful survey of the horizon. But on reaching it he found that it was only a tangle of taller mosquito grass, into which he sank with his burden. Nevertheless, if useless as a point of vantage it afforded a soft couch for Susy, who seemed to have fallen quite naturally into her usual afternoon siesta, and in a measure it shielded her from a cold breeze that had sprung up from the west. Utterly exhausted himself, bub not daring to yield to the torpor that seemed to be creeping over him, Clarence half-sab, halfknelt down beside her, supporting himself with one hand, and, partly hidden in the long grass, kept his straining eyes fixed on the lonely brack. The red disc was sinking lower. It soomed to have already crumbled away a part of the distance with its eating- fires. As it sank still lower it shot out long luminous rays, diverging fan like across the plain, as if, in the boy's excited fancy, it too were searching for the lost astrays. And as one long beam seemed to linger over his hiding place, he even thought that it might serve as a guide to Silsbee and the other seekers, and was constrained to stagger to his feet, erect in its light. Bub it soon sank, and with it Clarence dropped back again to his crouching watch. Yet he knew that the daylight was still good for an hour, and with the withdrawal of that mystic sunset glory, objects became even more distinct and sharply defined than at any other time. And with the merciful sheathing of that flaming sword which seemed to have moved between him and the vanished train, his eyes already felt a blessed relief. ( To he Continued. )