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down. Sydney was no further use to him, his only friend there being the clergyman at the Seamen’s Mission.

He went north asking for news of Bill, and got it at the Hanging Rock, near Nundle. Bill was a well-known character, or had been. He had died two years ago, from bronchitis, of all things in the world. Good old Bill, with his square blue chin—he always shaved fairly regularly, “though it didn’t go with drovin’”—and his little bits of didactic advice. . . . Somehow Tony had never thought Bill would die. Castlereagh was a different matter altogether. But Bill—With the slightest effort, yes, without the proverbial closing of the eyes, he could see Bill’s face in the firelight, or hazed in the dust of the sunny road, and hear his slow, dry voice. . . .

“Don’t rush into a fight, but, whenever you do fight, hit first.” You remembered the things Bill said, somehow. And his remarks about women were sound in the extreme . . . and he was dead.

“Was anyone with him?”

“No—well, he was drovin’ at the time, an’ they ’ad to go on an’ leave ’im. But ’e was never much of a one for company. Relative o’ yours?”

“No. Friend.”

“Oh! Well, ’e was all right. He died in Tamworth ’Orspital. I was there at the time.” The speaker spat, meditatively, remarked without rancour that we must all go, and relapsed into silence. There did not seem to be anything to add. Tony thanked him and went on.

He went to Queensland, up the coast inside the Barrier Reef as far as he could, then, after a short pause, to Thursday Island. It was winter-time, though that did not make much difference there in the tropics. For almost the first time in his life he did not feel much inclined to work, and settled himself to comparative idleness. Life was easy enough, and he liked pawpaws and grenadillas and chirimoyas, and