a sweet breeze and a flawless sky rendered it an exquisite morning when naomi and her piano-tuner took their seats behind the kind of pair which the girl loved best to handle. they were youngsters both, the one a filly as fresh as paint, the other a chestnut colt, better broken, perhaps, but sufficiently ready to be led astray. the very start was lively. engelhardt found himself holding on with his only hand as if his life depended on it, instead of on the firm gloved fingers and the taut white-sleeved arm at his side. he looked from the pair of young ones to that arm and those fingers, and back again at the pair. they were pulling alarmingly, especially the filly. engelhardt took an anxious look at the driver's face. he was prepared to find it resolute but pale. he found it transfigured with the purest exultation. after all, this was the daughter of the man who had returned the bushranger's fire with laughter as loud as his shots; she was her father's child; and from this moment onward the piano-tuner felt it a new honor to be sitting at her side.

"how do you like it?" she found time to ask him when the worst seemed over.

"first-rate," he replied.

"not in a funk?"

"not with you."

"that's a blessing. the filly needs watching—little demon! but she sha'n't smash your other arm for you, mr. engelhardt, if i can prevent it. no screws loose, sam, i hope?"

"not if i knows it, miss!"

sam rowntree had jumped on behind to come as far as the first gate, to open it. already they were there, and as sam ran in front of the impatient pair the filly shied violently at a blue silk fly-veil which fluttered from his wide-awake.

"that nice youth is the dandy of the men's hut," explained naomi, as they tore through the gates, leaving sam and his fly-veil astern in a twinkling. "i daren't say much to him, because he's the only man the hut contains just at present. the rest spend most nights out at the shed, so i should be pretty badly off if i offended sam. i wasn't too pleased with the state of the buggy, as a matter of fact. it's the old shanghai my father used to fancy, and somehow it's fallen on idle days; but it runs lighter than anything else we've got, and it's sweetly swung. that's why i chose it for this little trip of ours. you'll find it like a feather-bed for your bruises and bones and things—if only sam rowntree used his screw-hammer properly. feeling happy so far?"

engelhardt declared that he had never been happier in his life. there was more truth in the assertion than naomi suspected. she also was happy, but in a different way. a tight rein, an aching arm, a clear course across a five-mile paddock, and her beloved riverina breeze between her teeth, would have made her happy at any time and in any circumstances. the piano-tuner's company added no sensible zest to a performance which she thoroughly enjoyed for its own sake; but with him the exact opposite was the case. she was not thinking of him. he was thinking only of her. she had her young bloods to watch. his eyes spent half their time upon her grand strong hand and arm. suddenly these gave a tug and a jerk, both together. but he was in too deep a dream either to see what was wrong or to understand his companion's exclamation.

"he didn't!" she had cried.

"didn't what?" said engelhardt. "and who, miss pryse?"

"sam rowntree didn't use his screw-hammer properly. wretch! the near swingle-tree's down and trailing."

it took engelhardt some moments to grasp exactly what she meant. then he saw. the near swingle-tree was bumping along the ground at the filly's heels, dragged by the traces. already the filly had shown herself the one to shy as well as to pull, and it now appeared highly probable that she would give a further exhibition of her powers by kicking the shanghai to matchwood. luckily, the present pace was too fast for that. the filly had set the pace herself. the filly was keeping it up. as for the chestnut, it was contentedly playing second fiddle with traces drooping like festoons. thus the buggy was practically being drawn by a single rein with the filly's mouth at one end of it and naomi's hand at the other.

"once let the bar tickle her hoofs, and she'll hack us to smithereens," said the latter, cheerfully. "we'll euchre her yet by keeping this up!" and she took her whip and flogged the chestnut.

but this did not ease the strain on her left hand and arm, for the chestnut's pace was nothing to the filly's, so that even with the will he had not the power to tighten his traces and perform his part. engelhardt saw the veins swelling in the section of wrist between the white sleeve and the dogskin glove. he reached across and tried to help her with his left hand; but she bade him sit quiet, or he would certainly tumble out and be run over; and with her command she sent a roar of laughter into his ear, though the veins were swelling on her forehead, too. truly she was a chip of the old block, and the grain was as good as ever.

it came to an end at last.

"hurray!" said naomi. "i see the fence."

engelhardt saw it soon after, and in another minute the horses stood smoking, and the buggy panting on its delicate springs,[pg 88] before a six-bar gate which even the filly was disinclined to tackle just then.

"do you think you can drive through with your one hand, and hold them tight on t'other side?" said naomi. "clap your foot on the break and try."

he nodded and managed creditably; but before opening the gate naomi made a temporary fixture of the swingle-tree by means of a strap; and this proved the last of their troubles. the shed was now plainly in sight, with its long regular roof, and at one end three huts parallel with it and with each other. to the left of the shed, as they drove up, naomi pointed out the drafting yards. a dense yellow cloud overhung them like a lump of london fog.

"they're drafting now," said naomi. "i expect mr. gilroy is drafting himself. if so, let's hope he's too busy to see us. it would be a pity, you know, to take him away from his work," she added next instant; but engelhardt was not deceived.

they drove down the length of the shed, which had small pens attached on either side, with a kind of port-hole opening into each. out of these port-holes there kept issuing shorn sheep, which ran down little sloping boards, and thus filled the pens. at one of the latter naomi pulled up. it contained twice as many sheep as any other pen, and a good half of them were cut and bleeding. the pens were all numbered, and this one was number nineteen.

"bear that in mind," said naomi. "nineteen!"

engelhardt looked at her. her face was flushed and her voice unusually quiet and hard. but she drove on without another word, save of general explanation.

"each man has his pen," she said, "and shears his sheep just inside those holes. then the boss of the shed comes round with his note-book, counts out the pens, and enters the number of sheep to the number of each pen. if a shearer cuts his sheep about much, or leaves a lot of wool on, he just runs that man's pen—doesn't count 'em at all. at least, he ought to. it seems he doesn't always do it."

again her tone was a singular mixture of hard and soft.

"mr. gilroy is over the shed, isn't he?" said engelhardt, a little injudiciously.

"he is," returned naomi, and that was all.

they alighted from the buggy at the farther end of the shed, where huge doors stood[pg 90] open, showing a confused stack of wool-bales within, and sanderson, the store-keeper, engaged in branding them with stencil and tar-brush. he took off his wide-awake to naomi, and winked at the piano-tuner. the near-sighted youth was also there, and he came out to take charge of the pair, while engelhardt entered the shed at naomi's skirts.

beyond the bales was the machine which turned them out. here the two wool-pressers were hard at work and streaming with perspiration. naomi paused to see a bale pressed down and sewn up. then she led her companion on to where the wool-pickers were busy at side tables, and the wool-sorter at another table which stood across the shed in a commanding position, with a long line of shearers at work to right and left, and an equally long pen full of unshorn sheep between them. the wool-sorter's seemed the softest job in the shed. boys brought him fleeces—perhaps a dozen a minute—flung them out upon the table, and rolled them up again into neat bundles swiftly tied with string. these bundles the wool-sorter merely tossed over his shoulder into one or other of the five or six bins at his back.

"he gets a pound a thousand fleeces," naomi whispered, "and we shear something over eighty thousand sheep. he will take away a check of eighty odd pounds for his six weeks' work."

"and what about the shearers?"

"a pound a hundred. some of them will go away with forty or fifty pounds."

"it beats piano-tuning," said engelhardt, with a laugh. they crossed an open space, mounted a few steps, and began threading their way down the left-hand aisle, between the shearers and the pen from which they had to help themselves to woolly sheep. the air was heavy with the smell of fleeces, and not unmusical with the constant swish and chink of forty pairs of shears.

"well, harry?" said naomi, to the second man they came to. "harry is an old friend of mine, mr. engelhardt—he was here in the old days. mr. engelhardt is a new friend, harry, but a very good one, for all that. how are you getting on? what's your top-score?"

"ninety-one, miss—i shore ninety-one yesterday."

"and a very good top-score, too, harry. i'd rather spend three months over the shearing than have sheep cut about and wool left on. what was that number i asked you to keep in mind, mr. engelhardt?"

"nineteen, miss pryse."

"ah, yes! who's number nineteen, harry?"

harry grinned.

"they call him the ringer of the shed, miss."

"oh, indeed. that means the fastest shearer, mr. engelhardt—the man who runs rings round the rest, eh, harry? what's his top-score, do you suppose?"

"something over two hundred."

"i thought as much. and his name?"

"simons, miss."

"point him out, harry."

"why, there he is; that big chap now helping himself to a woolly."

they turned and saw a huge fellow drag out an unshorn sheep by the leg, and fling it against his moleskins with a clearly unnecessary violence and cruelty.

"come on, mr. engelhardt," said naomi, in her driest tones; "i have a word to say to the ringer of the shed. i rather think he won't ring much longer."

they walked on and watched the long man at his work. it was the work of a ruffian. the shearer next him had started on a new sheep simultaneously, and was on farther than the brisket when the ringer had reached the buttocks. on the brisket of the ringer's sheep a slit of livid blue had already filled with blood, and blood started from other places as he went slashing on. he was either too intent or too insolent to take the least heed of the lady and the young man watching him. the young man's heart was going like a clock in the night, and he was sufficiently ashamed of it. as for naomi, she was visibly boiling over, but she held her tongue until the sheep rose bleeding from its fleece. then, as the man was about to let the poor thing go, she darted between it and the hole.

"tar here on the brisket!" she called down the board.

a boy came at a run and dabbed the wounds.

"why didn't you call him yourself?" she then asked sternly of the man, still detaining his sheep.

"what business is that of yours?" he returned, impudently.

"that you will see presently. how many sheep did you shear yesterday?"

"two hundred and two."

"and the day before?"

"two hundred and five."

"that will do. it's too much, my man, you can't do it properly. i've had a look at your sheep, and i mean to run your pen. what's more, if you don't intend to go slower and do better, you may throw down your shears this minute!"

the man had slowly lifted himself to something like his full height, which was enormous. so were his rounded shoulders and his long hairy arms and hands. so was his face, with its huge hook-nose and its mouthful of yellow teeth. these were showing in an insolent yet savage grin, when a good thing happened at a very good time.

a bell sounded, and someone sang out, "smoke-oh!"

instantly many pairs of shears were dropped; in the ensuing two minutes the rest followed, as each man finished the sheep he was engaged on when the bell rang. thus the swish and tinkle of the shears changed swiftly to a hum of conversation mingled with deep-drawn sighs. and this stopped suddenly, miraculously, as the shed opened its eyes and ears to the scene going forward between its notorious ringer and naomi pryse, the owner of the run.

in another moment men with pipes in their hands and sweat on their brows were edging toward the pair from right and left.

"your name, i think, is simons?" naomi was saying, coolly, but so that all who had a mind might hear her. "i have no more to say to you, simons, except that you will shear properly or go where they like their sheep to have lumps of flesh taken out and lumps of wool left on."

"since when have you been over the board, miss?" asked simons, a little more civilly under the eyes of his mates.

"i am not over the board," said naomi, hotly, "but i am over the man who is."

she received instant cause to regret this speech.

"we wish you was!" cried two or three. "you wouldn't make a blooming mull of things, you wouldn't!"

"i'll take my orders from mr. gilroy, and from nobody else," said simons, defiantly.

"well, you may take fair warning from me."

"that's as i like."

"it's as i like," said naomi. "and look here, i won't waste more words upon you and i won't stand your impertinence. better throw down your shears now—for i've done with you—before i call upon your mates to take them from you."

"we don't need calling, miss, not we!"

half a dozen fine fellows had stepped forward, with harry at their head, and the affair was over. simons had flung his shears on the floor with a clatter and a curse, and was striding out of the shed amid the hisses and imprecations of his comrades.

naomi would have got away, too, for she had had more than enough of the whole business, but this was not so easy. someone raised three cheers for her. they were given with a roar that shook the iron roof like thunder. and to cap all this a gray old shearer planted himself in her path.

"it's just this way, miss," said he. "we liked simons little enough, but, begging your pardon, we like mr. gilroy less. he doesn't know how to treat us at all. he has no idea of bossing a shed like this. and mark my words, miss, unless you remove that man, and give us some smarter gentleman like, say, young mr. chester——"

"ay, chester'll do!"

"he knows his business!"

"he's a man, he is——"

"and the man for us!"

"unless you give us someone more to our fancy, like young mr. chester," concluded the old man, doing his best to pacify his mates with look and gesture, "there'll be further trouble. this is only the beginning. there'll be trouble, and maybe worse, until you make a change."

naomi felt inexpressibly uncomfortable.

"mr. gilroy is the manager of this station," said she, for once with a slight tremor in her voice. "any difference that you have with him, you must fight it out between you. i am quite sure that he means to be just. i, at any rate, must interfere no more. i am sorry i interfered at all."

so they let her go at last, the piano-tuner following close upon her heels. he had stuck to her all the time with shut mouth and twitching fingers, ready for anything, as he was ready still. and the first person these two encountered in the open air was gilroy himself, with so white a face and such busy lips that they hardly required him to tell them he had heard all.

"i am very sorry, monty," said the girl, in a distressed tone which highly surprised her companion; "but i simply couldn't help it. you can't stand by and see a sheep cut to pieces without opening your mouth. yet i know i was at fault."

"it's not much good knowing it now," returned gilroy, ungraciously, as he rolled along at her side; "you should have thought of that first. as it is, you've given me away to the shed, and made a tough job twice as tough as it was before."

"i really am very sorry, monty. i know i oughtn't to have interfered at all. at the same time, the man deserved sending away, and i am sure you would have been the first to send him had you seen what i saw. i know i should have waited and spoken to you; but i shall keep away from the shed in future."

"that won't undo this morning's mischief. i heard what the brutes said to you!"

"then you must have heard what i said to them. don't try to make me out worse than i am, monty."

she laid her hand upon his arm, and engelhardt, to his horror, saw tears on her lashes. gilroy, however, would not look at her. instead, he hailed the store-keeper, who had passed them on his way to the huts.

"make out simons's account, sandy," he shouted at the top of his voice, "and give him his check. miss pryse has thought fit to sack him over my head!"

instantly her penitence froze to scorn.

"that was unnecessary," she said, in the same quiet tone she had employed toward the shearer, but dropping her arm and halting dead as she spoke. "if this is the way you treat the men, no wonder you can't manage them. come, mr. engelhardt!"

and with this they turned their back on the manager, but not on the shed; that was not naomi's way at all. she was pre-eminently one to be led, not driven, and she remained upon the scene, showing engelhardt everything, and explaining the minutest details for his benefit, much longer than she would have dreamt of staying in the ordinary course of affairs. this involved luncheon in the manager's hut, at which meal naomi appeared in the highest spirits, cracking jokes with sanderson, chaffing the boy in spectacles, and clinking pannikins with everyone but the manager himself. the latter left early, after steadily sulking behind his plate, with his beard in his waistcoat and his yellow head presented like a bull's. tom chester was not there at all. engelhardt was sorry, though the others treated him well enough to-day—sanderson even cutting up his meat for him. it was three o'clock before naomi and he started homeward in the old shanghai.

with the wool-shed left a mile behind, they overtook a huge horseman leading a spare horse.

"that's our friend simons," said naomi. "i wonder what sort of a greeting he'll give me. none at all, i should imagine."

she was wrong. the shearer reined up on one side of the track, and gave her a low bow, wide-awake in hand, and with it a kind of a glaring grin that made his teeth stand out like brass-headed nails in the afternoon sunshine. naomi laughed as they drove on.

"pretty, wasn't it? that man loves me to distraction, i should say. on the whole we may claim to have had a rather lively day. first came that young lady on the near side, who's behaving herself so angelically now; and then the swingle-tree, which they've fixed up well enough to see us through this afternoon at any rate. next there was our friend simons; and after him, poor dear monty gilroy—who had cause to complain, mind you, mr. engelhardt. we mustn't forget that i had no sort of right to interfere. and now, unless i'm very much mistaken, we're on the point of meeting two more of our particular friends."

in fact, a couple of tramps were approaching, swag on back, with the slow swinging stride of their kind. engelhardt colored hotly as he recognized the ruffians of the day before. they were walking on opposite sides of the track, and as the buggy cut between them the fat man unpocketed one hand and saluted them as they passed.

"not got a larger size yet?" he shouted out. "why, that ain't a man at all!"

the poor piano-tuner felt red to his toes, and held his tongue with exceeding difficulty. but, as usual, naomi and her laugh came to his rescue.

"how polite our friends are, to be sure! a bow here and a salute there! birds of a feather, too, if ever i saw any; you might look round, mr. engelhardt, and see if they're flocking together."

"they are," said he, next minute.

then naomi looked for herself. they were descending a slight incline, and, sure enough, on top of the ridge stood the two tramps and the mounted shearer. stamped clean against the sky, it looked much as though horses and men had been carved out of a single slab of ebony.