Page:Through South Westland.djvu/57

Rh stock-still, and twisting her head round to look at him. She had run her neck into a loop of supple-jack, and owing to the nose-bag she could not withdraw her head. Her ladyship was fairly caught, and hot and cross as he felt, he could not help laughing at the reproachful look in her eyes.

At last we were able to make a start, and entered on the first stage of the Main South Road, which is like few other roads in the world. For seventy miles beyond Ross it is really a road (barring the lack of such things as bridges), and is travelled all the year round by a mail-coach and settlers’ carts—rivers permitting. It is beyond that its eccentricities begin, and ever as we went it became a source of deeper and deeper interest and speculation. At times it was there; at times it was not. The swamps, or the sea, or the rivers had taken it; then it would reappear, having left us for miles at a time, to extricate ourselves as best we might. Ross was to be our next stopping place, and I was very anxious to hear more about the gold-getting, which always fascinated me.