is misfortunes, were an added
and ever-present source of misery and despair.

* * * * *

II

A few years before, Harrington had bought Tinandra Downs, and had
stocked the run with three thousand head of store cattle; for half of
which number he had paid, the remainder he had bought on long terms from
a neighbouring squatter--a man who knew his sterling merits, and was
confident that he (Harrington) would make Tinandra one of the best
cattle stations in the far north. Fortune had smiled upon him from the
first; for within two years came the discovery of the famous Palmer
River goldfields, only a few hundred miles distant, and cattle and
station properties doubled in value, for in less than half a year there
were six thousand diggers on the field, and more came pouring in from
the southern colonies by every steamer to Cooktown. New townships sprang
suddenly into existence, provisions of all kinds brought an enormous
price, and Harrington cleared off his debt to his squatter friend almost
ere he could realise having done so, and that he had several thousands
of pounds to the good as well. And his good luck stuck to him, for
it was attended by careful management, and every mob of fat cattle he
despatched to the goldfield instead of sending them on a three-hundred
league journey to Brisbane, meant another couple of thousand sovereigns.

Then he began to improve the head station--and to think of Myra, a girl
whom he had once met in Sydney, and who sent him newspapers, and, once
or twice, at long intervals, had written him letters. He had answered
these letters with a secret hope that, if all went well with him, he
would take another trip to Sydney, and then--well, he could at least
ask her. If she said no, why, who was there to chaff him? He was not a
communicative man, had very few intimate men friends, and the few women
whom he knew were not the sort he could possibly talk to about a lady.
Both his parents had died before he was ten years of age, leaving him
utterly alone in the world. Born in a bush town, in the interior of New
South Wales, he had turned to the bush and to the wide, open, grassy
plains, as an infant would have turned to its mother in its distress;
and the bush and the plains and the grey mountain ranges had taken him
to their bosoms; and the silent, reserved boy became the resolute, hardy
bushman, stock-rider, and then miner--a man fit and ready to meet the
emergencies of his rough life. Of the o