“A year this sundown, Dan, since we first sampled one of your dampers,” and, chuckling, Dan reviewed the details of that camp, and slipped thence into reviewing education.  “Somebody’s learned a thing or two since then,” he chuckled:  “don’t notice people catching cows and milking ’em round these parts quite so often.”

In the morning came the Quiet Stockman’s turn.  “There’s a little brown filly in the mob I’m just beginning on, cut out for the missus,” he said, coming to the house on his way to the stockyard, and we went with him to see the bonnie creature.

“She’s the sort that’ll learn anything,” Jack said, his voice full of admiration.  “If the missus’ll handle her a bit, I’ll learn her everything a horse can learn.”

“Gypsy” he had named her, and in a little while the pretty creature was “roped” and standing quietly beneath Jack’s caressing hand.  “Now, missus,” he said—­and then followed my first lesson in “handling,” until the soft brown muzzle was resting contentedly in my hand.  “She’ll soon follow you,” Jack said eagerly, “you ought to come up every day “; and looking up at the glowing, boyish face, I said quietly: 

“Just a year to-day, Jack, since you met us by the roadside,” and the strong young giant looked down with an amused light in his eyes.  “Just a year,” he said, with that quiet smile of his; and that quiet smile, and that amused “Just a year” were more eloquent than volumes of words, and set Dan “reckoning” that somebody else’s been learning a thing or two besides book learning.

But the Dandy was waiting for some tools from the office, and as we went with him he, too, spoke of the anniversaries.  “Just a year since you first put foot on this verandah,” he said, and that reminiscence brought into the Maluka’s eyes that deep look of bush comradeship, as he added:  “And became just One of Us.”

Before long Mac was reminding us that a year ago she was wrestling with the servant question, and Cheon coming by, we indulged in a negative anniversary.  “A year ago, Cheon,” we said “there was no Cheon in our lives,” and Cheon pitied our former forlorn condition as only Cheon could, at the same time asking us what could be expected of one of Sam’s ways and caste.

Then other anniversaries crowded on us thick and fast, and with them there crept into the Territory that scourge of the wet season—­malarial dysentery, and travellers coming in stricken-down with it rested a little while before going on again.

But two of these sick travellers went down to the very gates of death, where one, a little Chinaman, slipped through, blessing the “good boss,” who treated all men alike, and leaving an echo of the blessing in old Cheon’s loyal heart.  But the other sick traveller turned back from those open gates, although bowed with the weight of seventy years, and faced life anew, blessing in his turn “the whitest man” those seventy years had known.