CONTENTS
| CHAPTER I | |
| PAGE | |
| ‘Fresh Fields—and Pastures New’ | [1] |
| CHAPTER II | |
| The First Camp | [21] |
| CHAPTER III | |
| The New Home | [43] |
| CHAPTER IV | |
| Mr. Henry O’Desmond of Badajos | [59] |
| CHAPTER V | |
| ‘Called on by the County’ | [77] |
| CHAPTER VI | |
| An Australian Yeoman | [93] |
| CHAPTER VII | |
| Tom Glendinning, Stock-rider | [111] |
| CHAPTER VIII | |
| Mr. William Rockley of Yass | [125] |
| CHAPTER IX | |
| Hubert Warleigh, Yr., of Warbrok | [139] |
| CHAPTER X | |
| A Provincial Carnival | [149] |
| CHAPTER XI | |
| Mr. Bob Clarke schools King of the Valley | [161] |
| CHAPTER XII | |
| Steeplechase Day | [173] |
| CHAPTER XIII | |
| Miss Vera Fane of Black Mountain | [189] |
| CHAPTER XIV | |
| The Duel | [204] |
| CHAPTER XV | |
| The Life Story of Tom Glendinning | [220] |
| CHAPTER XVI | |
| ‘So we’ll all go a-hunting to-day’ | [238] |
| CHAPTER XVII | |
| The First Meet of the Lake William Hunt Club | [251] |
| CHAPTER XVIII | |
| The Major discovers his Relative | [265] |
| CHAPTER XIX | |
| Black Thursday | [282] |
| CHAPTER XX | |
| An Unexpected Development | [296] |
| CHAPTER XXI | |
| A Green Hand | [312] |
| CHAPTER XXII | |
| Injun Sign | [328] |
| CHAPTER XXIII | |
| The Battle of Rocky Creek | [339] |
| CHAPTER XXIV | |
| Gyp’s Land | [352] |
| CHAPTER XXV | |
| Bob Clarke once more wins on the Post | [366] |
| CHAPTER XXVI | |
| The Return from Palestine | [387] |
| CHAPTER XXVII | |
| The Duel in the Snow | [401] |
CHAPTER I
‘FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW’
‘What letter are you holding in your hand all this time, my dear?’ said Captain Howard Effingham to his wife during a certain family council.
‘Really, I had almost forgotten it. A foreign postmark—I suppose it is from your friend Mr. Sternworth, in Australia or New Zealand.’
‘Sternworth lives in New South Wales, not New Zealand,’ returned he rather testily. ‘I have told you more than once that the two places are a thousand miles apart by sea. Yes! it is from old Harley. When he was chaplain to our regiment he was always hankering after a change from routine duty. Now he has got it with a vengeance. He was slightly eccentric, but a better fellow, a stauncher friend, never stepped.’
‘Don’t people go to Australia to make money?’ asked Rosamond Effingham, a girl of twenty, with ‘eldest daughter’ plainly inscribed upon her thoughtful features. ‘I saw in a newspaper that some one had come home after making a fortune, or it may have been that he died there and left it to his relatives.’
‘Sternworth has not made a fortune. He is not the man to want one. Still, he seems wonderfully contented and raves about the beauty of the climate and the progress of his colony.’
‘Let me read his letter out,’ pleaded the anxious wife softly, and, with a gesture of assent, the father and daughter sat expectant.