fathoming the thoughts that generate action in egotistical, but noble, natures, whose worst enemy is their own inner consciousness.

[Pg 34]

Gilroy and Sanderson were in the horse-yard, leaning backward against the heavy white rails. Their pipes were in their mouths, and they were watching Sam Rowntree stalk a wiry bay horse that took some catching. Sam was the groom, and he had just run up all the horses out of the horse-paddock. The yard was full of them. Gilroy hauled a freckled hand out of a cross pocket to point at the piano-tuner's nag.

"Poor-looking devil," said he.

"Yes, the kind you see when you're out without a gun," remarked the wit. "Quite good enough for a thing like him, though." Some association of ideas caused him to glance round toward the homestead through the rails. "By the hokey, here's the thing itself!" he cried.

The pair watched Engelhardt approach.

"I'd like to break his beastly head for him," muttered the manager. "The cheek of him, spoiling our spell with that cursed row!"

The piano-tuner came up with a pleasant smile that was an effort to him, and [Pg 35]pretended not to notice Sanderson's stock remark, that "queer things come out after the rain."

[Pg 35]

"You'll be glad to hear, gentlemen, that I've finished my job," said he, airily.

"Thank God," growled Gilroy.

"I know it's been a great infliction——"

"Oh, no, not at all," said Sanderson, winking desperately. "We liked it. It's just what we do like. You bet!"

The wiry bay horse had been caught by this time, and Sam Rowntree was saddling it, by degrees, for the animal was obviously fresh and touchy. Engelhardt watched the performance with a bitter feeling of envy for all Australian men, and of contempt for himself because they contemned him. The fault was his, not theirs. He was of a different order from these rough, light-hearted men—of an altogether inferior order, as it seemed to his self-criticising mind. But that was no excuse for his not getting on with them, and as a rider puts his 

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