A Little Bush Maid Part 3

Where is she, I wonder?"

The course was empty.

"Tortoise got away with her!" laughed Wally.

"H'm," said Jim. "We'll track her to her lair."

In her lair--the kitchen--Mrs. Brown was discovered, modestly hiding behind the door. The tortoise was on the table, apparently cheerful.

"Poor dear pet!" said Mrs. Brown. "He wouldn't run. I don't think he was awake to the situation, Master Jim, dear, so I just carried him over--I didn't think it mattered which way I ran--and my scones were in the oven! They're just out--perhaps you'd all try them?"--this insinuatingly. "I don't think this tortoise comes of a racing family!"--and the great menagerie race concluded happily in the kitchen in what Wally called "a hot b.u.t.tered orgy."

CHAPTER IV. JIM'S IDEA

Two hammocks, side by side, under a huge pine tree, swung lazily to and fro in the evening breeze. In them Norah and Harry rocked happily, too comfortable, as Norah said, to talk. They had all been out riding most of the day, and were happily tired. Tea had been discussed fully, and everything was exceedingly peaceful.

Footsteps at racing speed sounded far off on the gravel of the front path--a wide sweep that ran round the broad lawn. There was a scatter of stones, and then a thud-thud over the gra.s.s to the pine trees--sounds that signalised the arrival of Jim and Wally, in much haste. Jim's hurry was so excessive that he could not pull himself up in time to avoid Harry. He b.u.mped violently into the hammock, with the natural result that Harry swung sharply against Norah, and for a moment things were rather mixed.

"You duffer!" growled Harry, steadying his rocking bed. "Hurt you?

"--this to Norah.

"No, thanks," Norah laughed. "What's the matter with you two?"

"Got an idea," Wally gasped, fanning himself with a pine cone.

"Hurt you?"

"Rather. It's always a shock for me to have an idea. Anyway this isn't mine--it's Jim's."

"Oh." Norah's tone was more respectful. Jim's ideas were not to be treated lightly as a rule. "Well, let's hear it."

"Fishing," Jim said laconically. "Let's start out at the very daybreak, and get up the river to Anglers' Bend. They say you can always get fish there. We'll ride, and take Billy to carry the tucker and look for bait.

Spend the whole blessed day, and come home with the mopokes. What do you chaps say?"

"Grand idea!" Norah cried, giving her hammock an ecstatic swing. "We'll have to fly round, though. Did you ask Dad?"

"Yes, and he said we could go. It's tucker that's the trouble. I don't know if we're too late to arrange about any."

"Come and ask Mrs. Brown," said Norah, flinging a pair of long black legs over the edge of the hammock. "She'll fix us up if she can."

They tore off to the kitchen and arrived panting. Mrs. Brown was sitting in calm state on the kitchen verandah, and greeted them with a wide, expansive smile. Norah explained their need.

Mrs. Brown pursed up her lips.

"I haven't anythink fancy, my dear," she said slowly. "Only plum cake and scones, and there's a nice cold tongue, and an apple pie. I'd like you to have tarts, but the fire's out. Do you think you could manage?"

Jim laughed.

"I guess that'll do, Mrs. Brown," he said. "We'll live like fighting c.o.c.ks, and bring you home any amount of fish for breakfast. Don't you worry about sandwiches, either--put in a loaf or two of bread, and a chunk of b.u.t.ter, and we'll be right as rain."

"Then I'll have it all packed for you first thing, Master Jim," Mrs.

Brown declared.

"That's ripping," said the boys in a breath. "Come and find Billy."

Billy was dragged from the recesses of the stable. He grinned widely with joy at the prospect of the picnic.

"All the ponies ready at five, Billy," ordered Jim. "Yours too. We're going to make a day of it--and we'll want bait. Now, you chaps, come along and get lines and hooks ready!"

"Whirr-r-r!"

The alarm clock by Jim's bedside shrieked suddenly in the first hint of daylight, and Jim sprang from his pillow with the alertness of a Jack-in-the-box, and grabbed the clock, to stop its further eloquence.

He sat down on the edge of his bed, and yawned tremendously. At the other side of the room Harry slept peacefully. Nearer Wally's black eyes twinkled for a moment, and hurriedly closed, apparently in deep slumber.

He snored softly.

"Fraud!" said Jim, with emphasis. He seized his pillow, and hurled it vigorously. It caught Wally on the face and stayed there, and beneath its shelter the victim still snored on serenely.

Jim rose with deliberation and, seizing the bedclothes, gave a judicious pull, which ended in Wally's suddenly finding himself on the floor. He clasped wildly at the blankets, but they were dragged from his reluctant grasp. Jim's toe stirred him gently and at length he rose.

"Beast!" he said miserably. "What on earth's the good of getting up at this hour?"

"Got to make an early start," replied his host. "Come and stir up old Harry."

Harry was noted as a sleeper. Pillows hurled on top of him were as nought. The bedclothes were removed, but he turned on his side and slumbered like a little child.

"And to think," Wally said, "that that chap springs up madly when the getting-up bell rings once at school!"

"School was never like this," Jim grinned. "There's the squirt, Wal."

The squirt was there; so was the jug of water, and a moment sufficed to charge the weapon. The nozzle was gently inserted into the sleeper's pyjama collar, and in a moment the drenched and wrathful hero arose majestically from his watery pillow and, seizing his tormentors, banged their heads together with great effort.

"You're slow to wake, but no end of a terror when once you rouse up,"

said Wally, ruefully rubbing his pate.

"Goats!" said Harry briefly, rubbing his neck with a hard towel. "Come on and have a swim."

They tore down the hail, only pausing at Norah's door while Jim ran in to wake her--a deed speedily accomplished by gently and firmly pressing a wet sponge upon her face. Then they raced to the lagoon, and in a few minutes were splashing and ducking in the water. They spent more time there than Jim had intended, their return being delayed by a spirited boat race between Harry's slippers, conducted by Wally and Jim. By the time Harry had rescued his sopping footgear, the offenders were beyond pursuit in the middle of the lagoon, so he contented himself with annexing Jim's slippers, in which he proudly returned to the house. Jim, arriving just too late to save his own, promptly "collared" those of Wally, leaving the last-named youth no alternative but to paddle home in the water-logged slippers--the ground being too rough and stony to admit of barefoot travelling.

Norah, fresh from the bath, was prancing about the verandah in her kimono as the boys raced up to the house, her hair a dusky cloud about her face.

"Not dressed?--you laziness!" Jim flung at her.

"Well, you aren't either," was the merry retort.