The stranger walked into the corner grocery with the air of one who had come back after many years to see someone who would be glad to see him. He shed his swag and stood it by the wall with great deliberation; then he rested his elbow on the counter, stroked his beard, and grinned quizzically at the shopman, who smiled back presently in a puzzled way.  
“Good afternoon,” said the grocer.
 
“Good afternoon.”
 
Pause.
 
“Nice day,” said the grocer.
 
Pause.
 
“Anything I can do for you?”
 
“Yes; tell the old man there's a chap wants to speak to him for a minute.”
 
“Old man? What old man?”
 
“Hake, of course—old Ben Hake! Ain't he in?”
 
The grocer smiled.
 
“Hake ain't here now. I'm here.”
 
“How's that?”
 
“Why, he sold out to me ten years ago.”
 
“Well, I suppose I'll find him somewhere about town?”
 
“I don't think you will. He left Australia when he sold out. He's—he's dead now.”
 
“Dead! Old Ben Hake?”
 
“Yes. You knew him, then?”
 
The stranger seemed to have lost a great deal of his assurance¹. He turned his side to the counter, hooked² his elbow on it, and gazed out through the door along Sunset Track.
 
“You can give me half a pound of nailrod,” he said, in a quiet tone—“I s'pose young Hake is in town?”
 
“No; the whole family went away. I think there's one of the sons in business in Sydney now.”
 
“I s'pose the M'Lachlans are here yet?”
 
“No; they are not. The old people died about five years ago; the sons are in Queensland, I think; and both the girls are married and in Sydney.”
 
“Ah, well!... I see you've got the railway here now.”
 
“Oh, yes! Six years.”
 
“Times is changed a lot.”
 
“They are.”
 
“I s'pose—I s'pose you can tell me where I'll find old Jimmy Nowlett?”
 
“Jimmy Nowlett? Jimmy Nowlett? I never heard of the name. What was he?”
 
“Oh, he was a bullock-driver. Used to carry from the mountains before the railway was made.”
 
“Before my time, perhaps. There's no one of that name round here now.”
 
“Ah, well!... I don't suppose you knew the Duggans?”
 
“Yes, I did. The old man's dead, too, and the family's gone away—Lord knows where. They weren't much loss, to all accounts. The sons got into trouble, I b'lieve—went to the bad. They had a bad name here.”
 
“Did they? Well, t............