A string of vehicles moved slowly out of the New Town, taking the road over the long, low slope of the Ridge to the plains. Nothing was moving on the wide stretch of the plains or under the fine, clea...

A string of vehicles moved slowly out of the New Town, taking the road over the long, low slope of the Ridge to the plains. Nothing was moving on the wide stretch of the plains or under the fine, clea...

In a week or two Mrs. Rouminof’s name had dropped out of Ridge life almost as if she had never been part of it. At first people talked of her, of Paul, of Sophie, and of Michael. They gossiped of her ...

The unwritten law of the Ridge was that mates pooled all the opal they found and shared equally, so that all Jun held was Rouminof’s, and all that he held was Jun’s. Ordinarily one man kept the lot, a...

Watty and George were well satisfied with their night’s work when they went out of the bar into the street. Michael was with them. He said nothing, but they took it for granted he was as pleased as th...

Watty was winding dirt, standing by the windlass on the top of the dump over his and his mates’ mine, when he saw Paul coming along the track from the New Town. Paul was breaking into a run at every f...

Michael and Potch were at work next morning as soon as the first cuckoos were calling. Michael had been at the windlass for an hour or thereabouts, when Watty Frost, who was going along to his claim w...

“Give y’ three,” Watty said. “Take ’em.” George Woods did not turn. He was carefully working round a brilliantly fired seam through black potch in the shin cracker he had been breaking through two or ...

In a few weeks thought of the robbery had ceased greatly to disturb anybody. Michael settled down to working with his new mates, and the Ridge accepted the new partnership as the most natural thing in...

Darling pea was lying in purple and magenta patches through the long grass on the tank paddock when Sophie went with Ella and Mirry Flail to gather wild flowers there. Wild flowers did not grow anywhe...

“Mr. Armitage is up at Newton’s!” Paul yelled to Michael, when he saw him at his back door a few minutes after Sophie had given him the news. “Not the old man?” Michael inquired. “No, the young ’un.” ...

Armitage was busy going over parcels of stone and bargaining with the men for the greater part of the next day. He was beginning to have more of Dawe Armitage’s zest for the business; and, every time ...

The visit of an opal-buyer ruffled ever so slightly the still surface of life on the Ridge. When Armitage had gone, he was talked of for a few days; the stones he had bought, the prices he had given f...

Sophie often met Arthur Henty on the road just out of the town. Usually it was going to or coming from the tank paddock, or in the paddock, on Friday afternoons, when he had been into Budda for the sa...

“It’s what I wore, meself, white muslin, when I went to me first ball,” Mrs. George Woods said, standing off to admire the frock of white muslin Sophie had on, and which she had just fastened up for h...

The drive across the plains seemed interminable to Sophie. Paul hummed and talked of the music he was going to play as they went along. He called to Sam Nancarrow’s old nag, quite pleased to be having...

“See Ed means to do you well with a six-horse team this evening, Mr. Armitage,” Peter Newton said, while Armitage was having his early meal before starting on his all-night drive into Budda. Newton re...

The summer Sophie left the Ridge was a long and dry one. Cool changes blew over, but no rain fell. The still, hot days and dust-storms continued until March. Through the heat came the baaing of sheep ...

The summer Sophie left the Ridge was a long and dry one. Cool changes blew over, but no rain fell. The still, hot days and dust-storms continued until March. Through the heat came the baaing of sheep ...

Days and months went by, hot and still, with dust-storms and blue skies, fading to grey. Their happenings were so alike that there was scarcely any remembering one from the other of them. The twilight...

Lying under the coolebah at midday, after they had been burrowing from the shaft for about a week, and Michael was talking of clearing mullock from the drives, Potch said: “I’m going to sink another h...

Michael and Potch were finishing their tea when Watty burst in on them. His colour was up, his small, blue eyes winking and flashing over his fat, pink cheeks. “Who d’y’ think’s come be motor today, M...

Potch had gone to the mine on the morning when Michael went into Paul’s hut, intending to rouse him out and make him go down to the claim and start work again. It was nearly five years since he had go...

The sunset was fading, a persimmon glow failing from behind the trees, its light merging with the blue of the sky, creating the faint, luminous green which holds the first stars with such brilliance, ...

Michael had lit the lamp in Rouminof’s kitchen; innumerable tiny-winged insects, moths, mosquitoes, midges, and golden-winged flying ants hung in a cloud about it. Martha M’Cready, Pony-Fence Inglewoo...

The days which followed that night when Sophie had dropped the great opal were the happiest Potch had ever known. They were days in which Sophie turned to smile at him when he went into Rouminof’s hut...

Tenders had been called for, to clear the course for the annual race meeting. A notice posted on the old, wild cherry tree in the road opposite Newton’s, brought men and boys from every rush on Fallen...

It was still light; the sky, faintly green, a tinge as of stale blood along the horizon, as Sophie and Potch walked down the road to the hall. At a little distance the big building showed dark and ung...

Sophie went into the shed where her cutting-wheel was soon after eight o’clock next morning. She took up a packet of small stones George Woods had left with her and set to work on them. The wheel was ...

“Are you there, Potch?” Sophie stood in the doorway of Michael’s hut, a wavering shadow against the moonlight behind her. Michael looked up. He was lying on the sofa under the window, a book in his ha...

Potch had looked towards Michael’s hut before he went into his own, next evening. There was no light in its window, and he supposed that Michael had gone to bed. In the morning, as they were walking t...

The sky was like a great shallow basin turned over the plains. No tree or rising ground broke the perfect circle of its fall over the earth; only in the distance, on the edge of the bowl, a fringe of ...

Charley was sitting on the couch, leaning towards Michael, his shoulders hunched, his eyes gleaming, when Potch went into the hut. “You can’t bluff me,” Potch heard him say. “You may throw dust in the...

The men stood in groups outside the hall, smoking and yarning together before going into it, on the night John Armitage was to put his proposition for reorganisation of the mines before them. Each gro...

When Michael got back to his hut he found Martha there. “Oh, Michael,” she said, “a dreadful thing has happened.” Michael stared at her, unable to understand what she said. It seemed to him all the te...

The men met to talk about Michael next evening. The meeting was informal, but every man on the fields had come to Fallen Star for it. The hall was filled to the doors as it had been the night before, ...

It was one of those clear days of late spring, the sky exquisitely blue, the cuckoos calling, the paper daisies in blossom, their fragrance in the air; they lay across the plains, through the herbage,...

Dear name forever nursed in my memory thou shalt be, For my heart first stirred to the delight of love for thee! My thoughts and my desire will always be, dear name, toward thee, And my last breath wi...