"Go on with Nellie; what are you dawdling for?" Ailleen called out as they came up.
"Why can't we all keep together? What's the good of splitting up?" Dickson answered, as he came alongside Ailleen on the opposite side to young Murray.
The latter looked over at him with an expression that showed he at least had a considerable objection to keeping all together. He was only a youngster of sixteen, but he was one among the many of Ailleen's admirers, and the price of his accompanying his sister was that he should have the enjoyment of Ailleen's company all the way to Barellan and back. There was little sympathy between him and Dickson; but the absent Tony was his ideal of all that a man should be, so that if there was any truth in the rumour that Tony and Dickson were rivals, he would not miss an opportunity of praising the one at the expense of the other, being satisfied that with Tony already a claimant, he could have no hope of ever enjoying Ailleen's undivided affections.
"It was the arrangement, anyway. If you don't like it, why did you hurry out? We didn't ask you," he said.
Nellie, finding herself alone, had turned back and rejoined the others.
"Heavens! are you all going to camp, or what?" she exclaimed. "Don't you want us to go to the station, Willy? Or perhaps Bobby and I can go back home—is that it? We don't mind."
"Don't we? Well, we do," Bobby retorted. "It's Dickson who keeps loafing round. Here, go on," he added, as, turning his horse round, he hit Dickson's with a switch across the flank.
The horse plunged forward, and by the time its rider had it checked he was well ahead, with Nellie close at his heels.
"I'm not going to stand much of this, I can tell you," she exclaimed, as she came beside him. "If you think you're going to play with me as you like, you're mistaken. You treat me properly or I'll tell your mother all about——"
"You're always grumbling. I never saw such a girl," he interrupted.