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Her figure was quick and strong and supple; her hair lay about her head as an aureole; her eyes were great and bright and deep; her feet were slender and without blemish; her lips waited on the coming of some supreme adventure.

Quite suddenly Power found the girl speaking to him. She held her head a little sideways and was looking over him.

"Are you camping here, Mister?" she said.

Power was startled out of his words. He sat up straight again. "No, thanks. I came along with your father. I'm going on now."

"We can give you a shake-down. It's no worry."

"No, thanks. I must get home. I'm mustering to-morrow. Good night."

"Good night, Mister."

Power rode home at a foot pace. He thought of the girl all the way. Her beauty had moved him more than anything he had known.

Midnight had chimed at Surprise, and the camp was asleep. The party telling stories from their long chairs outside the staff quarters had been broken up an hour since in a last "A-haw." Mr. Wells had forgotten his cornet, and Mr. Horrington, rather muddled, had found his stretcher and blown out the light. Houses, humpies and tents were in the dark. But outside, the pallor of the moon fell, making filigree work of the leaves on the trees, and staring coldly into the eyes of sleepy curs, which blinked back from their beds in the grasses.