e was close beside him. And what
a ray of loving old-comradeship shone on him from those star-bright
orbs of hers, undulled by the years that had lightly frosted her dark
hair. She put out her hand, and held it out until he had apologised for
his greasy paw, and given it to her warm grasp.

"Why haven't you been to see me--to see us?" she asked him, smiling.
"Didn't you know we came home last night?"

"I thought you might be tired--or unpacking," Jim lamely excused
himself. "But whenever it is convenient to you, Deb--Mrs Dalzell--I am
always close by; I can come at any time."

He looked at her husband.

"Claud, you remember Jim?"

It was so many years since the men had met that the question was not
uncalled for. They nodded to each other, across the enormous gulf that
separated them, while Deb explained to her husband what an invaluable
manager she had. Jim had grown homelier and shabbier with his advancing
years; Claud more and more exquisitely finished, until he now stood, in
his carefully-careless costume--his short, pointed beard the same tone
of silver-grey as his flannel suit, his finely-chiselled features the
hue of old ivory--a perfect model of patrician 'form'. Only there was
plenty of vigour still manifest in the bushman's bony frame, while the
man of the world wore a valetudinarian air, leaning on the arm of his
regal, upright wife.

"Eh, isn't it like old times!" she mused aloud, as her eyes roamed
about the shed, where every sweating worker was finding time to gaze at
her. "I see some of the old faces--there's Harry Fox--and old
David--and isn't that Keziah's grandson? I must go and speak to them."

She left her husband at the sorter's table, that he and Jim might get
reacquainted--men never learned to know each other while women were in
the way--and it seemed to them both a long time before she came back.
Claud asked questions about the clip, and other matters of business;
and he criticised the manager's management.

"Rather behind the times--isn't it?--for a place like Redford. I
thought all the big stations sheared by machinery now."

"I've only been waiting for Miss--Mrs Dalzell's return to advise her to
have the machines," said Jim, scrupulous to give Deb's husband all
possible information.

"We must have them, of course. I believe in scientific methods."

Mr Dalzell did not ask Jim how his sisters were, and how his brothers
were getting on--did not remember that he had any. And when Deb c