sant afternoon, devoted to reminiscences of old times and a
renewal of early friendship, in uncomfortable silence. The monthly mail,
which Stanesby had brought in, contained many papers, and after their
meal they lighted their pipes and read diligently, first one paper
and then another. At first they made efforts at conversation, read out
incidents and scraps of news and commented thereon, but as the afternoon
wore on, the silence grew till it became difficult to break it. The
sunlight outside crept in and in through the open doorway. There were no
shadows because there was nothing to cast shadows, save the banks of the
creek down below the level of the plain and the red bluffs, thirty
miles to the eastward. But the sun stole in and crossed the hard
earthen floor, and stole up the wall on the other side, crept up slowly,
emphasising the dull blankness of the place. So did the sun every day
of the year, pretty nearly; so did he in every stockkeeper's hut on
the plains of Western Australia; but to-day he seemed to Turner to be
mocking his misery, pointing it out and emphasising it. Such his life
had been for the last three or four years; such it was now; such it
would be to the end. He could see no prospect of change, no prospect
of better things: always the bare walls and the earthen floors for him;
unloved, uncared for he had lived, unloved and uncared for he would die.
And this man beside him--bah! it would not bear thinking of. He pushed
back the stool he had been sitting on, and strolling to the door looked
out. Nothing in sight but the black boy, who wasn't a boy at all, but a
man apparently over thirty years of age, lolling up against the verandah
post, like one who had plenty of time on his hands.

Stanesby got up and joined him. The hot wind that had blown fiercely all
day had died down, and now there hardly seemed a breath of air stirring.
It was stupid to comment on the weather in a place where the weather
was always the same, but Turner felt the need of something to say, so he
seized on the well-worn topic.

"It's getting a little cooler, I think."

"Confound it, no."

Stanesby looked round discontentedly. The untidy, uninviting remains of
their midday meal were still on the table, pushed aside to make room
for the papers they had been reading; it gave the place a dishevelled,
comfortless air, which made its dull blank-ness ten times worse.

Turner noticed it, but he did not feel on sufficiently good terms