His tent-home had never seemed so comfortless.

He ended his solitary ride late at night and wet to the skin; his horse had cast a shoe far from any smithy.

Long Jim alone came to the door to greet him.

The shopman, on whose doltish honesty Mahony would have staked his head, had profited by his absence to empty the cash-box and go off on the spree.-- Even one of the cats had met its fate in an old shaft, where its corpse still swam.
The following day, as a result of exposure and hard riding, Mahony was attacked by dysentery; and before he had recovered, the goods arrived from Melbourne.

They had to be unloaded, at some distance from the store, conveyed there, got under cover, checked off and arranged.