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80 he counthry his lone, at this saison o' the year. An' it's quare where sthrangers gits till. A foun' a swag on the fence a week or ten days ago, an' a man's thracks at the tank a couple o' days afther; an' the swag's there yit; an' A would think the swag an' the thracks belonged till the man wi' the sandy blight, barr'n this is nat the road till Ivanhoe."

"My word, Rory, I wish either you or I had spoken of this when you came home last night. Never mind the horses now. Give me your bridle, and take Mary on your back."

As we went on, I related how I had seen the man reclining under the tree; and Rory nodded forgivingly when I explained the scruple which had withheld me from making my presence known.

"He must 'a' come there afther ten o'clock yisterday," observed Rory; "or it would be mighty quare fur me till nat see him, consitherin' me eyes is iverywhere when A'm ridin' the boundhry."

"But he was n't near the boundary. I had turned off from the fence to see that dead pine with the big creeper on it."

"Which pine, Tammas?"

"There it is, straight ahead—the biggest of the three that you see above the scrub. You notice it's a different colour?"

"'Deed ay, so it is. A would n't be onaisy, Tammas; it's har'ly likely there's much wrong—but it's good to make sartin about it."

No effort could shake off the apprehension which grew upon me as we neared the fence. But on reaching it I said briskly:

"Stay where you are, Rory; I'll be back in half a minute." Then I crushed myself through the wires.

Fifteen or twenty paces brought me to the spot. The man had changed his position, and was now lying at full length on his back, with arms extended along his sides. His face was fully exposed—the face of a worker, in the prime of manhood, with a heavy moustache and three or four weeks' growth of beard. So much only had I noted at first glance, whilst stooping under the heavy curtain of foliage. A few steps more, and, looking down on the waxen skin of that inert figure, I instinctively uncovered my head.

The dull eyes, half-open to a light no longer intolerable, showed by their death-darkened tracery of inflamed veins how much the lone wanderer had suffered. The hands, with their strong bronze now paled to tarnished ochre, were heavily callused by manual labour, and sharply attenuated by recent hardship. The skin was cold, but the rigidity of death was yet scarcely apparent. Evidently he had not died of thirst alone, but of mere physical exhaustion, sealed by the final collapse of hope. And it seemed so strange to hear the low voices of Rory and Mary close by; to see through occasional spaces in the scrub the clear expanse of the horse-paddock, with even a glimpse of the house, all homely and peaceful in the silent sunshine. But such is life, and such is death.

Rory looked earnestly in my face as I rejoined him, and breathed one of his customary devotional ejaculations.

"Under the big wilga, just beyond that hop-bush," said I, in an