338 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.

“Tar! tar!” he called again.

“Tar! tar! TAR! TAR!” he screamed angrily to the tar-pot boy.

He now rushed up, and another wound was poulticed.

“That boy was tar-dy,” suggested Uncle Nat. They stood watching
the shearers, when Uncle Nat exclaimed: “But where’s Rick? 1
expected to see my nephew down here, Mr. Bright.”

“The men say a boy has been here, cap’n, and I guess it was Rick.
and he probably went home again.”

“Then we shall find him at your house?”

But Ralph had a suspicion that his venturesome br ether was not
there, and when Uncle Nat returned to the house, Ralph lingered to
make a hunt for Rick. Where could Rick be?

Rick had left the house, crazy to get off into the bush and see
if he could not find a kangaroo. He wandered through the home
paddock, and then down to the wool-shed where a shearer and a tar-pot
boy saw him, and he then turned as if going back to the house, ae to
digress from the path and strike off among the trees.

“T mean, I mean,” soliloquized Rick, “to have a real live kangaroo, all
to myself, and I'll make him hop. Yes, I will; see if I don’t! And
if I should come across a baby-kangaroo, I might nab him and take
him home alive, and show him to mother and Nurse Fennel! Wouldn't
all the boys in Concord flock to my barn? I tell ye! And they would
come from Lexington, too!” ;

It was still early, and Rick sauntered off among the trees. He soon
struck a cart-path through the bush, and presently heard the sound
of wheels. A man came along riding in a buggy, and not far behind
was a bullock-dray, piled with bales of wool, and making its way to
market. Then all was still, save as Rick heard in the bush a cock-
atoo screaming, or the mournful tones of the magpie..