th amongst the growers, and each and everybody was called
upon to do his adequate share in the work.

Bud was glad. Nor was it without good reason. The busy life was the
life he lived for. And the busy life had been made possible and
complete by the events of the previous summer.

He was physically weary and yearning for the supper which was still
awaiting Nan's return. But if he were physically tired the feeling did
not extend beyond his muscles. His thoughts were busy as his eyes
gazed out upon the scenes of life and movement which were going on.

Just now he was thinking of the girl, impatient at the delay of her
return from the pastures, where she was superintending the sorting for
the morrow's branding. Thinking of her quickly carried him to thoughts
of his partner and friend, and thus, by degrees, his mind went back to
the events of the last summer which had left the present operations
free from the threat which had then overshadowed all their efforts.

It had been a bad time, a bad time for them all. But for Jeff--ah, it
had been touch and go. How near, perhaps, it was only now, after long
months had passed, and a proper perspective had been obtained, that the
full extent of his narrow escape could be estimated.

It had been Christmas before Jeff was completely out of the hands of
the surgeon they had had to obtain from Calthorpe. For three months of
that time he had hovered between life and death. Nor had his trouble
been confined solely to his physical hurts. No, these had been sore:
they had been grievous in the extreme. Three times wounded, and his
face, and hands, and arms badly burned. But half of his trouble had
been the mental sufferings he had endured as a result of his marriage,
and the final tragedy of Evie's death.

Now, as Bud looked back on that time, two things stood out beyond all
the rest. It was the desperate courage--even madness he called it--of
Jeff, and the superlative devotion of Nan.

He had by no means understood all that Jeff had achieved at the moment
of his rescue. It was not till long after, by a process of close
questioning, that the magnitude of it became plain. Then the marvel of
it dawned on him. The courage, the madness of it. Jeff had rid the
district of the whole gang of rustlers single-handed. He had shot five
of them to death, and the last two had fallen victims to his own,
Bud's, gun after they had been wounded by Jeff.

Then had followed that peri