in his ways as to employ men of that denomination.  He had fenced his run, and dispensed with shepherds and shepherding as old-fashioned and unprofitable.  He had two mounted men, whom he called boundary riders, one an Irishman and the other a German—­and them he trusted fully, the German altogether, and the Irishman equally as regarded his honesty.  But he could not explain to them the thoughts that loaded his brain.  He could instigate them to eagerness; but he could not condescend to tell Karl Bender, the German, that if his fences were destroyed neither his means nor his credit would be sufficient to put them up again, and that if the scanty herbage were burned off any large proportion of his run, he must sell his flocks at a great sacrifice.  Nor could he explain to Mickey O’Dowd, the Irishman, that his peace of mind was destroyed by his fear of one man.  He had to bear it all alone.  And there was heavy on him also the great misery of feeling that every thing might depend on own exertions, and that yet he did not know how or where to exert himself.  When he had ridden about all night and discovered nothing, he might just as well have been in bed.  And he was continually riding about all night and discovering nothing.

After leaving the station on the evening of the day on which he had expressed himself to the women so vehemently respecting Medlicot, he met Bates coming home from his day’s work.  It was then past eight o’clock, and the old man was sitting wearily on his horse, with his head low down between his shoulders, and the reins hardly held within his grasp.

“You’re late, Mr. Bates,” said Harry; “you take too much out of yourself this hot weather.”

“I’ve got to move slower, Mr. Heathcote, as I grow older.  That’s about it.  And the beast I’m on is not much good.”  Now Mr. Bates was always complaining of his horse, and yet was allowed to choose any on the run for his own use.

“If you don’t like him, why don’t you take another?”

“There ain’t much difference in ’em, Mr. Heathcote.  Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.  It’s getting uncommon close shaving for them wethers in the new paddock.  They’re down upon the roots pretty well already.”

“There’s grass along the bush on the north side.”

“They won’t go there; it’s rank and sour.  They won’t feed up there as long as they can live lower down and nearer the water.  Weather like this, they’d sooner die near the water than travel to fill their bellies.  It’s about the hottest day we’ve had, and the nights a’most hotter.  Are you going to be out, Mr. Heathcote?”

“I think so.”

“What’s the good of it, Mr. Heathcote?  There is no use in it.  Lord love you, what can yon do?  You can’t be every side at once.”

“Fire can only travel with the wind, Mr. Bates.”

“And there isn’t any wind, and so there can’t be any fire.  I never did think, and I don’t think now, there ever was any use in a man fashing himself as you fash yourself.  You can’t alter things, Mr. Heathcote.”