CHAPTER IX.
A BLACK SHEEP.
"
WHO is Mr. Roden Dalrymple?" asked Rachel presently. Mr. Thornley was escorting her back to her aunt, and the person in question was riding across the ground—slowly, as he had come—in search of one of the grooms of his party, to whom he might deliver his horse to be stabled in the township until the return from Adelonga.
"Who is he?" repeated Mr. Thornley. "He is Mrs. Digby's brother. Nice little woman, Mrs. Digby. You will like her I know. I am very glad she has come."
"But what is he?" persisted Rachel, so absorbed in watching the tall rider swinging along at that stately, easy pace, with his long stirrups and his dangling rein, that she nearly tumbled over a couple of children who crossed her path. "Is he a Queensland squatter?"
"That is what he thinks of being," laughed Mr. Thornley, with an amused, half-mocking laugh. "He has taken up a big run with Jim Gordon, and they are going to live there and manage for themselves. A nice mess they'll make of it, I expect."
"Why?" inquired Rachel.
"Why? They know no more about it than you do. How should they? Oh, by the bye, yes; I suppose Dalrymple has dabbled in cattle a little—in that South American venture of his. But that experience won't benefit him much. He lost every penny he put into that business."