eth o' White River
Farm, and by the gait he's travelin', I'd gamble, Nevil, you don't cut
that wood to-morrow. Seth don't usually ride hard."

The whole attention on the verandah was centred on Seth, who was riding
toward the hotel from across the track as hard as his horse could lay foot
to the ground.

In a few moments he drew up at the tie-post and flung off his horse. And a
chorus of inquiry greeted him from the bystanders.

The newcomer raised an undisturbed face to them, and his words came
without any of the excitement that the pace he had ridden in at had
suggested.

"The Injuns are out," he said, and bent down to feel his horse's legs.
They seemed to be of most interest to him at the moment.

Curiously enough his words were accepted by the men on the verandah
without question. That is, by all except Steyne. No doubt he was irritated
by what had gone before, but even so, it hardly warranted, in face of the
fires in the south, his obstinate refusal to believe that the Indians were
out on the war-path. Besides, he resented the quiet assurance of the
newcomer. He resented the manner in which the others accepted his
statement, disliking it as much as he disliked the man who had made it.
Nor was the reason of this hatred far to seek. Seth was a loyal white man
who took his life in his own hands and fought strenuously in a savage land
for his existence, a bold, fearless frontiersman; while he, Nevil, knew in
his secret heart that he had lost that caste, had thrown away that
right--that birthright. He had, as these men also knew, "taken the
blanket." He had become a white Indian. He lived by the clemency of that
people, in their manner, their life. He was one of them, while yet his
skin was white. He was regarded by his own race as an outcast. He was a
degenerate. So he hated--hated them all. But Seth he hated most of all
because he saw more of him, he lived near him. He knew that Seth knew him,
knew him down to his heart's core. This was sufficient in a nature like
his to set him hating, but he hated him for yet another reason. Seth was
as strong, brave, honest as he was the reverse. He belonged to an
underworld which nothing could ever drag a nature such as Seth's down to.

He knocked his pipe out aggressively on the wooden floor of the verandah.

"I don't believe it," he said loudly, in an offensive way.

Seth dropped his broncho's hoof, which he had been examining carefully,
and turned round. It would be imp