could make the men around him respect him, then they would treat him
well; but they could never be brought to respect him by flattery. He
was very nearly right in his views of men, and would have been right
altogether could he have seen accurately what justice demanded for
others as well as for himself. As far as the intention went, he was
minded to be just to every man.

It seemed, as they were riding, that the heat grew fiercer and
fiercer. Though there was still the same moaning sound, there was not
a breath of air. They had now got upon a track very well known to
Heathcote, which led up from the river to the wool-shed, and so on to
the station, and they had turned homeward. When they were near the
wool-shed, suddenly there fell a heavy drop or two of rain. Harry
stopped and turned his face upward, when, in a moment, the whole
heavens above them and the forest around were illumined by a flash of
lightning so near them that it made each of them start in his saddle,
and made the horses shudder in every limb. Then came the roll of
thunder immediately over their heads, and with the thunder rain so
thick and fast that Harry's "ten thousand buckets" seemed to be
emptied directly over their heads.

"God A'mighty has put out the fires now," said Jacko.

Harry paused for a moment, feeling the rain through to his bones--for
he had nothing on over his shirt--and rejoicing in it. "Yes," he
said; "we may go to bed for a week, and let the grass grow, and the
creeks fill, and the earth cool. Half an hour like this over the
whole run, and there won't be a dry stick on it."

As they went on, the horses splashed through the water. It seemed as