Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/176

 stupendous ingratitude of it all, he passed his hand across his sweaty, clayey brow, and added—

"An' it's lucky for me that I didn't marry inter it. I'll say that now."

But just here there was a great screaming and running about and wringing of helpless hands down at the house. Then Mary came running, screaming all the way up the gully. Andy seemed rooted to the spot, awaiting the worst in deadly calmness.

"Andy! Andy!!" she screamed, "father's just bin found unconscious in the middle of ther forty-acre paddock."

Andy turned slowly, as though turned by hypnotism, and, after a short helpless stare in the direction where, I knew, lay the little cemetery on the hillside, he swung back again and started running in the direction of the forty-acre paddock.

She had loved, and had always shielded and stuck up for her father.

I thought I might as well follow.

The world is a ridiculous family, but it's safe to follow the Andies—at a little distance.