An Outback Marriage

At last, however, Tracey had finished shoeing the coach-horse,

and Miss Grant, with part of her luggage, took a seat on the coach

behind five of Donohoe's worst horses, next to a well-dressed,

powerfully-built man of about five-and-twenty. He looked and talked

like a gentleman, and she heard the coachman address him as "Mr.

Blake." She and he shared the box-seat with the driver, and just

at the last moment the local priest hurried up and climbed on the

coach. In some unaccountable way he had missed hearing who the

young lady was, and for a time he could only look at her back-hair

and wonder.

It was not long before, in the free and easy Australian style, the

passengers began to talk to each other as the coach bumped along

its monotonous road--up one hill, through an avenue of dusty,

tired-looking gum-trees, down the other side through a similar

avenue, up another hill precisely the same as the last, and so on.

Blake was the first to make advances. "Not much to be seen on this

sort of journey, Miss Grant," he said.

The young lady looked at him with serious eyes. "No," she said,

"we've only seen two houses since we left the town. All the rest

of the country seems to be a wilderness."

Here the priest broke in. He was a broth of a boy from Maynooth,

just the man to handle the Doyle and Donohoe congregation.

"It's the big stations is the roon of the country," he said. "How

is the country to go ahead at all wid all the good land locked up?

There's Kuryong on ahead here would support two hundthred fam'lies,

and what does it employ now? Half a dozen shepherds, widout a rag

to their back."

"I am going to Kuryong," said the girl; and the priest was silent.

By four in the afternoon they reached Kiley's River, running yellow

and froth-covered with melting snow. The coachman pulled his horses

up on the bank, and took a good, long look at the bearings. As

they waited, the Kuryong vehicle came down on the other side of

the river.

"There's Mr. Gordon," said the coachman. "I don't think he'll try

it. I reckon it's a trifle deep for me. Do you want to get across

particular, Mr. Blake?"

"Yes, very particularly, Pat. I've told Martin Donohoe to meet me

down here with some witnesses in a cattle-stealing case."

"What about you, Father Kelly?"

"I'm go'n on to Tim Murphy's dyin' bed. Put 'em into the wather,

they'll take it aisy."

The driver turned to the third passenger. "It's a bit dangerous-like,

Miss. If you like to get out, it's up to you to say so. The coach

might wash over. There's a settler's place up the river a mile.

You can go and stay there till the river goes down, and Mr. Gordon

'll come and meet you."