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Rh —dying to communicate it to someone. Mrs. Jem will have a benefit when he gets to Tunimba."

"Well, I have no doubt Edith will reward him by an extra glass of grog, and that the mail will be late at Corinda in consequence," said Hallett. "What has happened?"

"Braile is never late," said the girl, not answering the question. "He is wound up to carry the mails, and nothing short of a creek risen past his saddle flaps will stop him. I have a respect for Braile. The way in which he grasped the dramatic points of the situation was most admirable."

"What is the situation? You shouldn't tantalize me. I believe it's only some joke. Nothing really exciting now—is there?"

Elsie nodded gravely. "Enough to excite Braile and Horace, and even Ina—and me. Enough to raise the district and to make you wish you were a bushranger, or the head of police, that you might be in the play-bill too."

"Then it's Moonlight out again. Have they caught him?"

"It's Moonlight, and if they had caught him should I say that you would like to be in his place?"

"I suppose not. Not," and the young man reddened and stammered and looked at her in a curious way—"not if you cared two straws about me."

He seemed to wait for her reply, but she only stared at the ground, gazing from her lofty position over his head.

"I wish you'd tell me why in any case I should wish to be Captain Moonlight."

"Because he is a hero," said the girl.

"Do you think so? Must one wear a mask and rob one's neighbours to be a hero?"

The girl made an impatient gesture. "You don't understand. You've no romance; you've no ideas beyond the eternal cattle. You are quite satisfied to be a bushman—you are more humdrum even than Ina."

He did not answer for a moment: "I am very anxious to know what the news was that old Braile brought. Look here, let me help you down from those rocks. You seem