enquired.

"Between four and five miles," Jim replied. "Are you making your way there?"

"That's my idea," the stranger answered. "I hear the owner is leaving for England, and I am desirous of having a few words with him before he goes."

"You know him then?"

"I've known him over thirty years," returned the other. "But he has gone up in the world while, as you will gather, I have done the opposite. Standerton was always one of Life's lucky ones; I am one of Her failures. Anything he puts his hand to prospers; while I, let it be ever so promising, have only to touch a bit of business, and it goes to pieces like a house of cards."

The stranger paused and took stock of the young man seated upon the horse.

"Now I come to think of it," he continued, after having regarded Jim intently for some seconds, "you're not unlike Standerton yourself. You've got the same eyes and chin, and the same cut of mouth."

"It's very probable, for I am his son," Jim replied. "What is it you want with my father?"

"That's best known to myself," the stranger returned, with a surliness in his tone that he had not exhibited before. "When you get home, just tell your governor that Richard Murbridge is on his way up the river to call upon him, and that he will try to put in an appearance at the Station early to-morrow morning. I don't fancy he'll be best pleased to see me, but I must have an interview with him before he leaves Australia, if I have to follow him round the country to get it."

"You had better be careful how you talk to my father," said Jim. "If you are as well acquainted with him as you pretend to be, you should know that he is not the sort of man to be trifled with."

"I know him as well as you do," the other answered, lifting his billy from the fire as he spoke. "William Standerton and I knew each other long before you were born. If it's only the distance you say to the Head Station, you can tell him I'll be there by breakfast time. I'm a bit foot-sore, it is true, but I can do the journey in an hour and a-half. On what day does the coach pass, going South?"

"To-morrow morning," Jim replied. "Do you want to catch it?"

"It's very probable I shall," said Murbridge. "Though I wasn't born in this cursed 

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