where the dust lay a foot thick and soft like precipitated velvet, and
hurrying over the street, waked the Postmaster and roused the Little
Milliner, who at once came to their doors. Catching sight of each other,
they nodded, and blushed, and nodded again; and then the Postmaster,
neglecting the business of the country, went upon his own business into
the private sitting-room of the Little Milliner; for those wandering
laughs from O'Fallen's had done the work set for them by the high powers.

Over in the hot bar-room the man with the eye-glass was being frankly
"intr'juced" to Dicky Merritt and Company, Limited, by Victoria Lindley,
who, as hostess of this saloon, was, in his eyes, on a footing of
acquaintance. To her he raised his hat with accentuated form, and
murmured his name--"Mr. Jones--Mr. Jones." Forthwith, that there might
be no possible unpleasantness--for even such hostesses have their duties
of tact--she politely introduced him as Mr. Jones.

He had been a man of innumerable occupations--nothing long: caretaker
of tanks, rabbit-trapper, boundary-rider, cook at a shearers' camp, and,
in due time, he became book-keeper at O'Fallen's. That was due to Vic.
Mr. Jones wrote a very fine hand--not in the least like a business man--
when he was moderately sober, and he also had an exceedingly caustic wit
when he chose to use it. He used it once upon O'Fallen, who was a rough,
mannerless creature, with a good enough heart, but easily irritated by
the man with the eye-glass, whose superior intellect and manner, even
when drunk, were too noticeable. He would never have employed him were
it not for Vic, who was worth very much money to him in the course of the
year. She was the most important person within a radius of a hundred and
fifty miles, not excepting Rembrandt, the owner of Bomba Station, which
was twenty miles square, nor the parson at Magari, ninety miles south, by
the Ring-Tail Billabong. For both Rembrandt and the parson had, and