warm
glow into the cold steely colour of night.

He knew of no happier life than this of his--dodging along most days on
his station pony with his dogs following; always on the alert to
discover anything amiss with an odd sheep or a cattle-beast; sometimes
working with the sheep in the yards, dipping, crutching and such like,
or going off on jaunts to neighbouring stations or distant townships.
It was a life where there was opportunity for the whole of a man's
skill and wit, and where monotony and loneliness were not. After the
day's work he and Charley took turns in cooking the dinner, while the
other went for the mail. The several-day-old paper lost nothing by its
age. The meal finished, they smoked and read the news, had a game of
cards, perhaps, with some one who had ridden over, and turned into bunk
for sleep that was never sounder.

Thus dawned the early days of August with Mac and Charley. There had
been Balkan rumblings, which, it hardly seemed possible, could echo in
these distant hills, but speedily the shadow on Europe darkened, and
they rode out to the cross-road to get the mail as soon as the coach
arrived. And then, through the long spun-out wire which connected many
scattered homesteads with the outer world, came the great news--War
with Germany.

Mac and Charley piled up the great logs that night and sat before the
glowing timber until five in the morning, talking over the
probabilities and the possibilities of the moment. Already the old
station life seemed behind them. What mattered it if the sheep got on
their backs or the cattle broke their silly necks? And of the future
they had a vague apprehension--a terrible sinking that there might not
be a military force required from New Zealand, and, if there was one
formed, it was scarcely likely to reach Europe before the war was over.
That the Dominion would wish to send a force, they never doubted, but
whether England would want it was another question.

They drew out their military kits from beneath their bunks, emptied
their contents on the floor and investigated them keenly with an
increased interest. They donned the tunics. Charley's body was
shortly garbed as that of a lieutenant of the West Coast Infantry
Regiment, but the rest of his figure was not in keeping with his wild
red hair, his bristly jowls awaiting the week-end shave, his open shirt
and his rough working trousers. Mac was in the Manawatu Mounted
Rifles, but had not risen