years. But he tore the paper away, and shook the things out on the two-plank table. They were very ordinary things. Seven letters in Randal's straggling writing; a bunch of dried cotton flowers and daisies gathered on the Brothers last mustering season; a chipped Maori axe found at the head of the river (he had carried it in his shirt for safety and it had rubbed a raw wound before he could give it to her) , and one or two birthday and Christmas cards, with no more than the name "Effie" on them in his handwriting. Randal touched them softly with his fingertips, and Ormond looked steadfastly on the cnunbling sod wall himg with the miner's things that were so familiar.
In the dead silence the talk of little flames in the chimney piece was eager and cruelly dis- tinct. They called for food. Ormond heard them. Then Randal passed him with a long swift step, cast a double handful of the stuff on the red, and ground it in with his heel. Or- mond waited while the cotton-flower ash spun up into the night with the paper, while the green flint axe settled, strong and imflaking, into the heart of the fire. Then he came across and put a hand on the bowed shoulders. He had learned to know Randal since the night Death missed them both on the Lion.
Randal twisted away from him.
