things set ready for him on the rough slab table under the bush shed.
The tea was made, the cabbage and potatoes strained and placed in a
billy near the fire. He found the fried bacon and steak between two
plates in the camp-oven. He sat down to the table but he could not
eat. He felt mean. The inexperience and hasty temper of his brother
had caused the quarrel between them that morning; but then Jack
admitted that, and apologized when he first tried to make it up.

Tom moved round uneasily and tried to smoke: he could not get Jack's
last appeal out of his ears--"You ain't going to let the sun go down,
Tom?"

Tom found himself glancing at the sun. It was less than two hours
from sunset. He thought of the words of the old Hebrew--or
Chinese--poet; he wasn't religious, and the authorship didn't matter.
The old poet's words began to haunt him "Let not the sun go down upon
your wrath--Let not the sun go down upon your wrath."

The line contains good, sound advice; for quick-tempered men are often
the most sensitive, and when they let the sun go down on the aforesaid
wrath that quality is likely to get them down and worry them during
the night.

Tom started to go to the claim, but checked himself, and sat down and
tried to draw comfort from his pipe. He understood his brother
thoroughly, but his brother never understood him--that was where the
trouble was. Presently he got thinking how Jack would worry about the
quarrel and have no heart for his work. Perhaps he was fretting over
it now, all alone by himself, down at the end of the damp, dark drive.
Tom had a lot of the old woman about him, in spite of his unsociable