nd late hours. The racehorses, too, like most racehorses,
ate up more money than they earned. So that Mr. Gavan Blake, though a
clever man, with a good practice, always seemed to find himself hard up.

It was so on this particular morning. Every letter that he opened seemed
to have some reference to money. One, from the local storekeeper, was
a pretentious account embracing all sorts of items--ammunition,
stationery, saddlery and station supplies (the latter being on account
of a small station that Blake had taken over for a bad debt, which
seemed likely to turn out an equally bad asset). Station supplies, even
for bad stations, run into a lot of money, and the store account
was approaching a hundred pounds. Then there was a letter from a
horse-trainer in Sydney to whom he had sent a racehorse, and though this
animal had done such brilliant gallops that the trainer had three times
telegraphed him that a race was a certainty--once he went so far as to
say that the horse could stop to throw a somersault and still win the
race--on each occasion it had always come in among the ruck; and every
time forty or fifty pounds of Blake's money had been lost in betting.
For Blake was a confirmed gambler, a heavy card-player and backer of
horses, and he had the contempt for other people's skill and opinions
which seems an inevitable ingredient in the character of brilliant men
of a certain type.

He was a man of splendid presence, with strong features and clear
blue-grey eyes--the type of face that is seen on the Bench and among the
Queen's Counsel in the English Courts. He was quick-witted, eloquent,
and logical of mind. Among the Doyles and Donohoes he was little short
of a king. Wild, uneducated, and suspicious, they believed in him
implicitly. They swore exactly the things that he told them to swear,
spoke or were silent according as he ordered, and trusted him with
secrets which they would not entrust to their own brothers. In that
district he wielded a power greater than the law.

On this particular day, after opening the trainer's letter asking for
cheque to pay training expenses (L50), and one from a client, saying "I
got your note, and will pay you when I get the wool money," he came upon
a letter that startled him. It was written in an old-fashioned, lady's
hand, angular and spidery. It ran--

Kuryong Station, Monday.

Dear Mr. Blake,

Miss Grant tells me that she owes her life to your bravery in saving her
from the