e land,
thinking that he was still on the water-shed of the Snowy-river, and
hoping, by following down some creek, to find some place he knew.

Gradually day broke, cold and cheerless. He was wet and miserable, and
could merely give a guess at the east, for the sun was quite invisible;
but, about eight o'clock, he came on a track, running at right angles
to the way he had been going, and marked with the hoofs of two horses,
whose riders had apparently passed not many hours before.

Which way should he go? He could not determine. The horsemen, it seemed
to him, as far as he could guess, had been going west, while his route
lay east. And, after a time, having registered a vow never to stir out
of sight of the station again without a compass, he determined to take
a contrary direction from them, and to find out where they had come
from.

The road crossed gully after gully, each one like the other. The timber
was heavy stringy bark, and, in the lower part of the shallow gullies,
the tall white stems of the blue gums stood up in the mist like ghosts.
All nature was dripping and dull, and he was chilled and wretched.

At length, at the bottom of a gully, rather more dreary looking, if
possible, than all the others, he came on a black reedy waterhole, the
first he had seen in his ride, and perceived that the track turned
short to the left. Casting his eye along it, he made out the dark
indistinct outline of a hut, standing about forty yards off.

He rode up to it. All was as still as death. No man came out to welcome
him, no dog jumped, barking forth, no smoke went up from the chimney;
and, looking round, he saw that the track ended here, and that he had
ridden all these miles only to find a deserted hut.

But was it deserted? Not very long so, for those two horsemen, whose
tracks he had been on so long, had started from here. Here, on this
bare spot in front of the door, they had mounted. One of their horses
had been capering; nay, here were their footsteps on the threshold.
And, while he looked, there was a light fall inside, and the chimney
began smoking. "At all events," said the Doctor, "the fire's in, and
here's the camp-oven, too. Somebody will be here soon. I shall go in
and light my pipe."

He lifted the latch, and went in. Nobody there. Stay--yes, there is a
man asleep in the bed-place. "The watchman, probably," thought the
Doctor; "he's been up all night with the sheep, and is taking his rest
by day. Well, I