him, he would not mind. But the mental loneliness of his position
almost broke his heart.

Then there came across his mind the dim remembrance of certain old
school words, and he touched his horse with his spur and hurried
onward: "Let there be no steps backward." A thought as to the
manliness of persevering, of the want of manliness in yielding to
depression, came to his rescue. Let him, at any rate, have the
comfort of thinking that he had done his best according to his
lights. After some dim fashion, he did come to recognize it as a fact
that nothing could really support him but self-approbation. Though he
fell from his horse in utter weariness, he would persevere.

As the night wore on he came to the German's hut, and finding it
empty, as he expected, rode on to the outside fence of his run. When
he reached this he got off his horse, and taking a key out of his
pocket, whistled upon it loudly. A few minutes afterward the German
came up to him.

"There's been no one about, I suppose?" he asked.

"Not a one," said the man.

"You've been across on Brownbie's run?"

"We're on it now, Mr. 'Eathcote." They were both on the side of the
fence away from Gangoil station.

"I don't know how that is, Karl. I think Gangoil goes a quarter of a
mile beyond this. But we did not quite strike the boundary when we