keen and men's
hearts were hard--not as it is in times of drought, when there is no
competition, and men's hearts are soft, and there is all kindness and
goodwill between them. He had had much opposition in fighting Cobb &
Co., and his coaches had won through on the outer tracks. There was
little malice in his composition, but when old Mac, the teamster, turned
his teams over to his sons and started a light van for parcels and
passengers from Cunnamulla--that place which always sounds to me
suggestive of pumpkin pies--out in seeming opposition to Harry
Chatswood, Harry was annoyed.

Perhaps Mac only wished to end his days on the road with parcels that
were light and easy to handle (not like loads of fencing wire) and
passengers that were sociable; but he had been doing well with his
teams, and, besides, Harry thought he was after the mail contract: so
Harry was annoyed more than he was injured. Mac was mean with the money
he had not because of the money he had a chance of getting; and he
mostly slept in his van, in all weathers, when away from home which was
kept by his wife about half-way between the half-way house and the next
"township."

One dark, gusty evening, Harry Chatswood's coach dragged, heavily though
passengerless, into Cunnamulla, and, as he turned into the yard of the
local "Royal," he saw Mac's tilted four-wheeler (which he called his
"van") drawn up opposite by the kerbing round the post office. Mac
always chose a central position--with a vague idea of advertisement
perhaps. But the nearness to the P.O. reminded Harry of the mail
contracts, and he knew that Mac had taken up a passenger or two and some
parcels in front of him (Harry) on the trip in. And something told Harry
that Mac was asleep inside his van. It was a windy night, with signs of
rain, and the curtains were drawn close.

Old Mac was there all right, and sleeping the sleep of a tired driver
after a long drowsy day on a hard box-seat, with little or no back
railing to it. But there was a lecture on, or an exhibition of hypnotism
or mesmerism--"a blanky spirit rappin' fake," they called it, run by
"some blanker" in "the hall;" and when old Mac had seen to his horses,
he thought he might as well drop in for half an hour and see what was
going on. Being a Mac, he was, of course, theological, scientific, and
argumentative. He saw some things which woke him up, challenged the
performer to hypnotize him, was "operated" on or "fooled with" a bit