puffed out
volumes of smoke most energetically, considering what he should do. He
soon decided. "Better tell him the grim truth at once," he thought.

"Gerrard!"

The change in his voice struck his companion--it was low, grave, and
sympathetic.

"What is it, Lacey? Now, out with it. You have something unpleasant to
tell me, and don't like doing it. I'll bet you drinks that I can
guess what it is. I saw you start when I mentioned the Capricornian
Pastoralists' Bank. Has that 'busted' too?"

"Yes. It smashed yesterday as a result of the Dacre collapse. The news
was in my rag this morning."

"Was it? I didn't look at the _Clarion_ to-day. Is it a bad case?"

"Very bad; about a shilling in the pound is all that will come out of
the wreck. Will you be hard hit?"

"Rather! Curls me up like a corkscrew. To pay Mrs Tallis her six
thousand pounds I gave a mortgage on Ocho Rios for five thousand pounds
as I only had about three or four thousand pounds in the Capricornian.
I'm deuced lucky that it wasn't more."

He rose from his seat and paced angrily to and fro on the verandah for a
moment or two, then he stopped suddenly, and a smile lit up his scarred
face.

"What an ass I am, Lacey! The thing can't be helped, but only a little
while ago I had made up my mind to give Kaburie to my sister; and now I
can't pay for Kaburie, for my draft for six thousand pounds is worthless
to Mrs Tallis, and all the labouring of mustering and branding has gone
for nothing. Poor little woman! I am sorry for her! Isn't it a beastly
mess?"

"You think too much of others, Gerrard, and too little of yourself."

"I don't! I'm very fond of being good to myself, I can assure you. But
a smack in the face like this is enough to make a saint swear like an
Australian Member of Parliament. Now, I bought Kaburie with the idea
of making it a breeding station--prize cattle and all that sort of
thing--for Ocho Rios. Then when I received this telegram from my agents
in Melbourne telling me that my sister would be left penniless, I made
up my mind to write to her by the next mail south, and tell her that
Kaburie was for her and my niece Mary. And another thing I wanted to do
was to give a man I know a good lift." (He meant Fraser.) "And now I'll
be as good as stony-broke for the next two years."

"I wish I could help you," began Lacey, earnestly.

"Thanks, old man. It is awfully good of you, but I shall pull through
all right in the end, and with a