has been manager. I hear it was one of his
first improvements."

They had struck the farther fence, and the mob was well in hand along
the wires. Moya and the jackeroo were ambling leisurely behind, and
nothing could have been more natural than Moya's questions.

"And the hut is unoccupied?" was her next.

"Quite; as a matter of fact, it's unfit for occupation."

"Yet you wanted me to drink the water!"

"That might have been all right; besides any water's better than none
when you're as thirsty as I thought you were."

Moya said no more about her thirst; it was intolerable; but they must be
getting near the gate at last. She was silent for a time, a time of
imaginative torment, for her mind ran on the latter end of such
sufferings as she was only beginning to endure. She was just
uncomfortable enough to have a dreadful inkling of the stages between
discomfort and death.

"It's a pity not to use the hut," she said at length.

"I believe it was more bother than the class of water was worth,"
returned Ives. "Yes, now I think of it, I remember hearing that they
couldn't get men to stay there. Blind Man's Block used to give them the
creeps. They're frightfully superstitious, these back-blockers!"

"I'm not surprised," said Moya, with a shudder. "I never want to see
Blind Man's Block again, or the hut either."

"But you will, you know!" the jackeroo reminded her. And that put an end
to the conversation.

Over a thousand sheep were at the gate waiting for them, with half a
dozen horses and as many men. Of course Ives was the last to arrive with
his mob, but the goodly numbers of the latter combined with the amazing
apparition of Moya to save her friend from the reprimand he seldom
failed to earn. Rigden came galloping to meet them, and for both men's
sake Moya treated him prettily enough in front of Ives. Even through
that day's coat of red, Rigden glowed, and told Ives that he should make
something of him yet. His water-bag was not quite empty, and Moya had
enough to make her long for more as she cantered with the bag to Ives,
who had forged discreetly ahead.

"Don't let him know we went so long without, Mr. Ives!"

And his cracked lips were sealed upon the subject.

"Of course you cut off the corner, and didn't go right round by the
hut?" said Rigden, riding up; and the jackeroo felt justified in
speaking strictly for himself; and thought it so like Miss Bethune not
to compromise him by saying how near to t