they derived the
best part of their wealth. But he only managed for other men until he
had made enough money of his own to take up and stock new country for
himself.

In a few years he had acquired a moderate-sized herd and established
himself with it on the almost unexplored reaches of the Upper Leura.
Life on that river never lacked dangerous adventure. McKeith's father
had owned a station on the Lower Leura--the bank took it in payment of
their mortgage after the catastrophe occurred. That station had been
the scene of one of the most horrible native outrages in the history of
Australia. The tragedy had set its mark on Colin McKeith. Left a
penniless boy after having worked his way to independent manhood he had
made it his purpose to pursue the wild black with relentless animosity.

All along the Upper Leura to the fastnesses at the river's head where
his new station stood on the boundaries of civilisation he had gone,
mercilessly punishing native depredations.

He had been put on trial by a humanitarian Government for so-called
manslaughter of natives, and had been acquitted under an administration
immediately succeeding it. Afterwards he had at the peril of his life,
made an exploring trip across the base of the northern peninsula of the
colony with the intention, as he phrased it, of 'shaking round a bit.'
He 'shook round' to some purpose, penetrated to the Big Bight, and got
on the tracks of a famous lost explorer. Colin McKeith solved the
mystery of that explorer's fate and had his revenge on the Government
which had impeached him by pocketing the reward which it had offered
any adventurous pioneer following on the lost explorer's steps.

Later, McKeith was given a mission to explore and develop a certain
tract of fertile country between the heads of the Leura and the Big
Bight--the particular Premier instigating the mission being a
far-sighted politician who realised that a Japanese invasion of the
northern coast might eventually interfere very radically with the plan
for a White Australia.

Colin McKeith threw into his own scheme of life a trip to Japan, by way
of India and China. He volunteered, too, for the Boer War, and did a
short term of service with the Australian Contingent in South Africa.

He dreamed more and more of becoming an Empire-maker--a sort of
Australian Cecil Rhodes. But he was wise enough to realise that all
Empire-making cannot be on the Rhodesian scale.

He realised that his perso