Once or twice, he had roughly pushed the dog away, but, when he had finished the work and seated himself from sheer fatigue on the veranda steps, Veno came and squatted beside him, the dog's head upon his knee.

He filled his pipe and smoked ruminatively; the exertion had had one good effect; it had dulled the fierceness of his pain.
As he sat there--a faint breeze that had risen with the approach of sunset, cooling his heated body--he thought again about Moongarr Bill's letter.

He looked at the great pyre in front, and caught the gleam of the lagoon below through the bare branches of the trees the little ripple on its surface, the freshening green at its marge.

Then he gazed out over the vast plain towards the horizon.

From his low position on the steps, the middle distance was hidden from him.