into him and he began already to long for the others' return. ‘Goodbye Nicky,’ Violet called, looking back over her shoulder at him. ‘Goodbye Nicky — Goodbye,’ the others took up the call. ‘O half past eight, We'll be late. Half past eight —,’ Carolyn chanted. ‘O never mind, It's ten to nine, We'll be on time,’ Violet and Arthur chorused in. And Luke walked on a little ahead of the others, somewhat aloof. Once he called back a farewell to Nick in his deep self-conscious voice. At the bend in the road the sun was cut off by the row of pine-trees that lined the embankment. Here the children halted, hesitating before they plunged into the thick cold shadows. They pranced up and down slapping their hands under their arm-pits, blowing into their cupped hands and then blowing the tips of their fingers; taking deep breaths and trying to summon up the courage to make that plunge. Then one by one they dived into the shadows and Nick heard their cries as they did so. The children disappeared around the bend in the road but Nick knew that they would reappear later further down, where the road curved back into view, down by the first mill turn-off. He always waited to catch this last glimpse of his brothers and sisters before he turned to go back inside. ‘Half past eight, We'll be late. Half past eight —,’ he heard the high-pitched chanting of his brothers and sisters. Then Violet called, ‘Goodbye Nicky. See you this afternoon.’ The girl tasted that last sentence. Then she said it again, ‘See you this afternoon.’ It was what the grown-ups said and it was quite strange and fascinating to say really. He saw them for a brief minute away down where the road curved back into view, and they were only specks now. But Nick thought he could pick out who they were, especially Luke who towered above the rest. They were straggled out now. The boy could still hear them, but now there was an added chorus as some of the other children of the settlement called their greetings on their way to school. Nick heard some voices calling away off to his right, beyond the scrub-covered hill and knew that it was the Yates kids and possibly some of the kids from up at Reid's place. They would often come down through the short cut past the Yates' house if they were running late for school or wanted a change of scenery. Otherwise they came down the road past the boy's house and he would see them, about a dozen of them, picking their way down the hill in their bare feet, over the rutted road-way, with their glowing faces and their cheerful calls. A dog began to bark on the hill over by the Yates' house and another started up away off past the pine trees over by Mr Taylor's house, the owner of the mill. Nick could barely hear it. The morning winter sunlight flooded over the earth and brilliantly lit up the scrub-covered hill to the front of the shop. A rooster was crowing away off in the distance, its tone muffled and soft. Now Nick heard the children no more, but he strained to hear still. Once he heard a faint noise that he thought might be them. But strain as he might he heard nothing. The dogs continued barking for a while then they too ceased. Now only the noises of the mill could be heard, with now and then occasional sounds of the settlement; the sudden rush of steam from the winch, splitting the air; the heavy hollow metallic sound as the lever was released. A dull thump as an extra heavy log was dropped onto the skids from the trailer of the logging truck, accompanied by a small jolting tremor of the earth. The screaming of the saws; the high-pitched screaming of the ‘bench saw’, whining incessantly in the background like a drone of bees, and the louder lower-pitched spasmodic screaming of the breaking-down saws; a door slamming, or a woman's high-pitched voice calling to a child or a dog and the hollow husky sound of a bulldozer working away off in the bush. Sometimes the noise of the tractor came to the boy clearly as it was brought in on a rise of wind, then when the wind dropped the sound would be cut off and he would hear only that high-pitched con-