"It cannot last much longer," he thought; "even if rain came within a week the rest of the poor brutes left alive will be too weak to recover--and there's not hands enough on the station to cut leaves for them. Even the blacks have cleared out lower down the river... found a good water-hole I daresay, and, like wise n*****s, are camping there. Why doesn't Providence give a poor honest bullock as much show for his life in a drought as a damned, filthy blackfellow! Instead of hoofs--in this part of the country at any rate--cattle ought to have feet like a bandicoot, then the poor beasts could worry along by digging waterholes in the river bed."
Then, sick at heart as he was, a faint smile flitted over his sun-bronzed face at the fancy.
An hour passed, and Harrington, with another weary sig
