The girl grew uncomfortable as she rode on and on without ever striking the trail; and the cutting sentences which she had prepared for the piano-tuner escaped her mind long before she reached the township, and found, as she now expected, that nobody answering to his description had been seen in the vicinity.
Naomi was not the one to waste time in a superfluity of inquiries. She saw in a moment that Engelhardt had not been near the place, and a similar fact was even more easily ascertained in the matter of Sam Rowntree. The township people knew him well. His blue fly-veil had not enlivened their hotel verandas for a whole week. So Naomi received her mail-bag and rode off without dismounting. A glimpse which she had caught of a red beard, at the other side of the broad sandy road, and the sound of a well-known voice shouting thickly, added to her haste. And on this journey she never once drew rein until her horse cantered into the long and sharp-cut shadows of the Taroomba stables.
As Naomi dismounted, Mrs. Potter emerged from the homestead veranda. The good woman had grown not a little nervous in her loneliness. Her looks as she came up were in striking contrast to those of her mistress. The one was visibly relieved; the other had come back ten times more anxious than she had gone away.
"No one been near you, Mrs. Potter?"
"Not a soul, miss. Oh, but it's good to see you back! I thought the afternoon was never coming to an end."
"They are neither of them at the township," said Naomi, with a miserable sigh.
"Nor have they been there at all—neither Mr. Engelhardt nor Sam Rowntree!"
Mrs. Potter cudgelled her poor brains for some—for any—kind of explanation.
"Sam did tell me"—she had begun, when she was promptly shut up.