he takes his dinner with him and sometimes he comes back to
the station to get it, and in the afternoon goes to a different part of
his section. Sometimes he does not come back at all, and the next
morning a search is made for him. Of course there is now and then a man
who runs away and leaves his employment, but this is rarely the case, as
there is no occasion for him doing so unless he has committed some
offense."

The youths listened in breathless silence, waiting for what would come
next.

"There really ought to be two men riding together at all times, so that
if a mishap occurs to one of them, the other can help him out of his
trouble, and, if unable to do so, can go for assistance; and we
generally send out a black boy on horseback with each stockman. A few
months ago one of our stockmen, who had gone out alone, failed to come
home at night, and we were at once apprehensive that something had
happened to him. His horse came back along about midnight, and the next
morning several of us started out to find him. We tried to make use of
the intelligence of the horse to guide us to the place where he had left
his master, but, unfortunately, it was an animal that he had ridden only
a few times and there was no attachment whatever between man and beast.
We rode along the boundary where we knew he was accustomed to go, but
did not find him. We spread out over all the ground we could cover and
shouted continually, in the hope that he would hear us and answer. We
made a complete circuit of the portion of the run in his charge, and,
finding no traces of him, we struck off haphazard across the middle of
it. We kept up our shouting and finally heard a faint answer.

"Then we rode in the direction of the sound, and in fifteen or twenty
minutes we reached the man's side. It seems that his horse had stumbled
over a fallen log so violently as to pitch the rider over his head. In
falling, the man had the misfortune to break his leg. The horse stood
and looked at him a few minutes while he tried to call the animal to his
side, but to no purpose. The beast threw his head and then his heels
into the air and trotted off. He was soon out of sight in the bush and
the stockman was left alone, disabled in the way I tell you.

"There was no water in this vicinity and he had no food with him, and he
could not walk or stand on account of his broken leg. He could crawl
slowly, but only a short distance at a time. He knew that he was out of