horses in
the moonlight, not without seeing them, but without a second glance.

Suddenly he left the track at a tangent; but there was no symptom of the
sudden thought. Rigden sat loosely in his saddle, careless but alert, a
man who knew every inch of the country, and his own mind to an
irreducible nicety. A clump of box rose in his path; a round-shot would
have cut through quicker, but not more unerringly. Rigden came out on
the edge of a chain of clay-pans, hard-baked by the sun, and shining
under the moon like so many water-holes.

Rigden rode a little way upon the nearest hard, smooth surface; then he
pulled up, and, looking back, could see scarcely any trace of his
horse's hoofs. He now flung a leg across the saddle, and sat as the
ladies while his quiet beast stood like bronze. A night-horse is _ex
officio_ a quiet beast.

Rigden wondered whether any man had ever before changed his boots on
horseback. When he proceeded it was afoot, with his arm through the
reins, and the pockets of the dust-coat bulging more than ever. From his
walk it was manifest that the new shoes pinched.

But they left no print unless he stamped with all his might. And that
was a very painful process. Rigden schooled himself to endure it,
however, and repeated the torture two or three times on his way across
the clay-pans. On such occasions the night-horse was made to halt (while
the stamping was done under its nose) and to pirouette in fashion that
must have astonished the modest animal almost as much as each fresh
inspiration astonished Rigden himself.

On the sandy ground beyond he merely led the horse until a fence was
reached. Here some minutes were spent, not only in strapping down the
wires and coaxing the night-horse over, but in some little deliberation
which ended in the making of mock footprints with his own boots,
without, however, putting them on. Rigden had still another mile to do
in the tight shoes for this his sin. It brought him to the pouting lips
of a tank (so called) where the moon shone in a mirror of still water
framed in slime. Here he gave his horse a drink, and, remounting,
changed his boots once more. A sharp canter brought him back to the
fence; it was crossed as before; the right horses were discovered and
cut out with the speed and precision of a master bushman; and at
half-past eleven exactly the thunder of their hoofs and the musketry of
Rigden's stock-whip were heard together in the barracks, where the