Two men were sitting together in a small outlying hut on one of the great grazing farms of South Australia. The hut was a comfortless place. The floor was of beaten earth. Two bunks for sleeping were fixed to the log wall. Above one of the bunks hung the framed photograph of a comely woman, with two bright-faced lads leaning against her. It was the only picture on the walls. A rough table stood opposite the window, and behind the table was a wooden bench. Above the bench there was a shelf, and a stand for guns.
The men were sitting on the bench. They had not long returned from a hard day's riding. The elder man was leaning back against the wall in a heavy sleep. The other, a slender, dark-eyed fellow, hardly more than a lad, was looking at him with a gloomy contemptuous irritation in his glance.
"Better asleep than awake, though," he muttered to himself, after a moment. "What can he talk about but cattle and horses?"
He shrugged his shoulders, and got up from his seat and stretched himself. The dog lying at the older man's feet, with its paw resting on one of them, raised its head sharply at Gray's movement, but did not attempt to get up even when Gray went to the door and opened it, letting the light of their lamp flow out in a steady stream.
All round the hut stretched the gray level grass-lands, rolling away in vast monotony to a far horizon. A wide sky arched over them, in which the stars were shining with a soft yet brilliant splendour. Gray glanced carelessly up at that glorious sky. He believed himself to be endowed with a keen sense of the beautiful. He prided himself on his distaste for ugly surroundings. When he had earned the fortune he had come to Australia to earn he meant to prove to the world how keen and true his artistic tastes were. But he glanced carelessly up at the shining stars. They had no message for him.
After standing in the doorway a moment he turned back into the hut, shutting the door behind him with a sudden bang that made Harding start up, rubbing his eyes.
"Why, I must have been asleep!" he said with a surprised air. He drew himself up to his full height, towering like a good-tempered giant over Gray's slight figure. "I'm tired out, and that's a fact," he added apologetically. "I think I'll turn in." Gray did not answer. He flung himself down on the bench and began to pare his finger-nails, looking at each finger critically as he finished it, and taking no notice of Harding. The elder man regarded him doubtfully.
"In a wax, old man?" he said in a deprecating voice. Gray flung him a vicious look over his shoulder, and returned to his nails. Harding's face had a very tender expression in it as he advanced a step and put out his hand to touch the young man's shoulder.
"If it's anything I've done," he began in a shuffling, awkward, kindly tone—
Gray turned upon him with startling suddenness.