ference; it was the
sun falling sheer on his upturned face that cut short his sleep of deep
exhaustion. The sky was a dark and limpid blue; but every leaf within
Vanheimert's vision bore its little load of sand, and the sand was
clotted as though the dust-storm had ended with the usual shower.
Vanheimert turned and viewed the sylvan amphitheatre; on its far side
were two small tents, and a man in a folding chair reading the
_Australasian_. He closed the paper on meeting Vanheimert's eyes, went
to one of the tents, stood a moment looking in, and then came across the
sunlit circle with his newspaper and the folded chair.

"And how do you feel now?" said he, setting up the chair beside the
blanket, but still standing as he surveyed the prostrate man, with dark
eyes drawn together in the shade of a great straw sombrero.

"Fine!" replied Vanheimert, huskily. "But where am I, and who are you
chaps? Rabbiters?"

As he spoke, however, he searched for the inevitable strings of rabbit
skins festooned about the tents, and found them not.

"If you like," replied the other, frowning a little at the immediate
curiosity of the rescued man.

"I don't like," said Vanheimert, staring unabashed. "I'm a rabbiter
myself, and know too much. It ain't no game for abandoned stations, and
you don't go playin' it in top-boots and spurs. Where's your skins and
where's your squatter to pay for 'em? Plucky rabbiters, you two!"

And he gazed across the open toward the further tent, which had just
disgorged a long body and a black beard not wholly unfamiliar to
Vanheimert. The dark man was a shade darker as he followed the look and
read its partial recognition; but a grim light came with quick resolve,
and it was with sardonic deliberation that an eye-glass was screwed into
one dark eye.

"Then what should you say that we are?"

"How do I know?" cried Vanheimert, turning pale; for he had been one of
the audience at Mrs. Clarkson's concert in Gulland's store, and in
consecutive moments he had recognized first Howie and now Stingaree.

"You know well enough!"

And the terrible eye-glass covered him like a pistol.

"Perhaps I can guess," faltered Vanheimert, no small brain working in
his prodigious skull.

"Guess, then!"

"There are tales about a new chum camping by himself--that is, just with
one man----"

"And what object?"

"To get away from the world, sir."

"And where did you hear these tales?"

"All along the road, sir."

T