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 lagoon at the little lean-to of boughs and bark where Jolie lay watching them.

She had no sense of fear now. The weariness and weakness of the night before had gone. Her long sleep had renewed her strength. That terror of the wilderness which had come upon her had vanished.

She rose presently and emerged from the lean-to. The three horses grazed near by, but of Lachlan and Almayne she saw nothing. She went and talked to the horses.

"Selu," she said, patting the claybank's forehead. "Good boy, Selu! We taught Almayne something yesterday." From him she passed to Nunda, the moon-faced piebald. "You're a good boy, too, old Nunda," she told him, "but you're getting on in years and I'm glad we outran you yesterday because it taught Almayne not to despise me for being a woman."

Tuti the Snowbird, jealous of her attentions, thrust a chestnut nose over the girl's shoulder, and she smiled.

"Poor little Tuti," she whispered, stroking the mare's neck, "you're a pretty lass, but nobody ever notices you because your master is so handsome."

Struck by a sudden thought, she walked down to the water's edge, startling the white birds in clouds. In a battered mirror of Meg Pearson's she had viewed herself in her buckskin costume and had found the image not unsatisfactory. Now she wished to see herself again as Lachlan McDonald saw her, and for