never speak with such as Effie Scannell before other men.
"Poor devil!" he said in his throat. Then he put his finger on the one pulse which he could trust to beat true in Randal.
"Can you shake on it ? That's all right, then. You won't go back on that, Randal. I'll man- age it somehow."
"Thanks," said Randal only.
He turned and tramped over the little dip to the Packer's claim. From the tussock top of it he could see the first wind in the bridle- track beyond the dredges. The Packer, wad- ing up to his middle in wash, was gay as a boy with a holiday nearing.
"Murray's away beyond the All Alone after Jule Harrison," he said, climbing into the tip- head; "so I'm goin' ter take ter-morrer an' all the rest I kin get before he comes back. Onst in five months! Time was when I cud stan' it ev'ry Sat'day. But it ain't a gift wi' me like it was wi' Jos Greer. A good drunk every five months is all as I kin manage now — an' that with Blake's stuff, too. Phelan's would burn the copper-bottom outer a dredge-biler in tmct."
He crawled in under the fall, and Randal sat in the manuka, breaking the white petals away from the brown hearts, and staring down into the next gully where Roddy Duncan and Fysh were having a washing-day. Every
