“But I’m not likely to do that, father.”
“Old experienced colonists have been lost, Nic. I have myself.”
“You have, my dear!” cried Mrs Braydon. “I never knew.”
“No, I did not wish to alarm you,” said the doctor quietly. “It was on that occasion when I was a week away searching for stray cattle. You remember now?”
“Yes, I remember now,” said Mrs Braydon, turning pale. “There, don’t be alarmed now. Nic is not going anything like so far as the bush—not much out of sight of the house. The danger is this, Nic: once a man wanders into the scrub the trees and shrubs are all so much alike, the hills and mountains so much the same, that the mind gets deceived and at last confused. Then the country is so vast that, once he goes wrong, he may wander on and on till he frightens his mother out of her wits and makes his sisters cry,” said the doctor merrily. “Now do you understand?”
“Yes, quite, father. But I’ve got a pocket compass.”
“Good! Learn to use it well.”
“And I promise you, mother dear, that I will not go into the bush, or anywhere to-day far from home.”
“That’s right, my boy,” said the doctor. “Be off, then, and we shall have a big meal at sundown. You are free till then.”
“Thank you, father,” cried Nic, whose veins throbbed with eager anticipation of the pleasures to be enjoyed in what seemed to be the first real holiday he had ever had. “You’ll trust me too, mother, won’t you?”