"And, likely as not," I said, "when you'd put him on his feet he'd take the nearest track to the next shanty, and go on a howling spree, and come back to Lost Souls' in a week, raving aid worse than ever. What would you do then?"

"We'd take him in again, and build him up some more; and a third or fourth time if necessary. I believe in going right on with a thing once I take it in hand. And if he didn't turn up after the last spree we'd look for him up the scrub and bring him in and let him die on a bed, and make his death as comfortable as possible. I've seen one man die on the ground, and found one dead in the bush. We'd bury him under a gum and put 'Sacred to the Memory of a Man who Died. (Let him R.I.P.)' over him. I'd have a nice little graveyard, with gums for tombstones—and I'd have some original epitaphs—I promise you."

"And how much gratitude would you expect to get out of the Lost Souls' Hotel?" I asked.

"None," said Mitchell, promptly. "It wouldn't be a Gratitude Discovery Syndicate. People might say that the Lost Souls' Hotel was a den for kidnapping women and girls to be used as decoys for the purpose of hocussing and robbing bushmen, and the law and retribution might come after me—but I'd fight the thing out. Or they might want to make a K.C.M.G., or a god of me, and worship me before they hung me. I reckon a philanthropist or reformer is lucky if he escapes with a whole skin in the end, let alone his character— But there!— Talking of gratitude: it's the fear of ingratitude that keeps thousands from doing good. It's just as paltry and selfish and cowardly as any other fear that curses the world—it's rather more selfish than most fears, in fact—take the fear of being thought a coward, or being considered eccentric, or conceited, or affected, or too good, or too bad, for instance. The man that's always canting about the world's ingratitude has no gratitude owing to him as a rule—generally the reverse—he ought to be grateful to the world for being let live. He broods over the world's ingratitude until he gets to be a cynic. He sees the world like the outside of a window, as it were, with the blind drawn and the dead, cold moonlight shining on it, and he passes on with a sour face; whereas, if he took the trouble to step inside he'd most likely find a room full of ruddy firelight, and sympathy and cheerfulness, and kindness, and love, and gratitude. Sometimes, when he's right down on his uppers, and forced to go amongst people and hustle for bread, he gets a lot of surprises at the amount of kindness he keeps running against in the world—and in places where he'd never have expected to find it. But—ah, well! I'm getting maudlin."

"And you've forgot all about the Lost Souls' Hotel," I said.

"No, I haven't," said Mitchell; "I'd fix that up all right. As soon as I'd got things going smoothly under a man I could trust, I'd tie up every penny I had for the benefit of the concern; get some 'white men' for trustees, and take the track again. I'm getting too old to stay long in one place—(I'm a lost soul that always got along better in another place). I'm so used to the track that if I was shut up in a house I'd get walking up and down in my room of nights and disturb the folk; and, besides, I'd feel lost and light-shouldered without the swag."

"So you'd put all your money in the concern?"

"Yes—except a pound or two to go on the track with—for, who knows, I might come along there, dusty and tired, and ragged and hard up and old, some day, and be very glad of a night's rest at the Lost Souls' Hotel. But I wouldn't let on that I was old Mitchell, the millionaire, who founded Lost Souls'. They might be too officious, and I hate fuss.... But it's time to take the track, Harry."

There came a cool breeze with sunset; we stood up stiffly, shouldered our swags and tucker-bags, and pushed on, for we had to make the next water before we camped. We were out of tobacco, so we borrowed some from one of the bullock-drivers.



THE BOOZERS' HOME

"A dipsomaniac," said Mitchell, "needs sympathy and commonsense treatment. (Sympathy's a grand and glorious thing, taking it all round and looking at it any way you will: a little of it makes a man think that the world's a good world after all, and there's room and hope for sinners, and that life's worth living; enough of it makes him sure of it: and an overdose of sympathy makes a man feel weak and ashamed of himself, and so moves him to stop whining—and wining—and buck up.)

"Now, I'm not taking the case of a workman who goes on the spree on pay night and sweats the drink out of himself at work next day, nor a slum-bred brute who guzzles for the love of it; but a man with brains, who drinks to drown his intellect or his memory. He's generally a man under it all, and a sensitive, generous, gentle man with finer feelings as often as not. The best and cleverest and whitest men in the world seem to take to drink mostly. It's an awful pity. Perhaps it's because they're straight and the world's crooked and they can see things too plain. And I suppose in the bush the loneliness and the thoughts of the girl-world they left behind help to sink 'em.

"Now a drunkard seldom reforms at home, because he's always surrounded by the signs of the ruin and misery he has brought on the home; and the sight and thought of it sets him off again before he's had time to recover from the last spree. Then, again, the noblest wife in the world mostly goes the wrong way to work with a drunken husband—nearly everything she does is calculated to irritate him. If, for instance, he brings a bottle home from the pub, it shows that he wants to stay at home and not go back to the pub any more; but the first thing the wife does is to get hold of the bottle and plant it, or smash it before his eyes, and that maddens him in the state he is in then.

"No. A dipsomaniac needs to be taken away from home for a while. I knew a man that got so bad that the way he acted at home one night frightened him, and next morning he went into an inebriate home of his own accord—to a place where his friends had been trying to get him for a year past. For the first day or two he was nearly dead with remorse and shame—mostly shame; and he didn't know what they were going to do to him next—and he only wanted them to kill him quick and be done with it. He reckons he felt as bad as if he was in jail. But there were ten other patients there, and one or two were worse than he was, and that comforted him a lot. They compared notes and sympathized and helped each other. They discovered that all their wives were noble women. He struck one or two surprises too—one of the patients was a doctor who'd attended him one time, and another was an old boss of his, and they got very chummy. And there was a man there who was standing for Parliament—he was supposed to be having a rest down the coast.... Yes, my old mate felt very bad for the first day or two; it was all Yes, Nurse, and Thank you, Nurse, and Yes, Doctor, and No, Doctor, and Thank you, Doctor. But, inside a week, he was calling the doctor 'Ol' Pill-Box' behind his back, and making love to one of the nurses.

"But he said it was pitiful when women relatives came to visit patients the first morning. It shook the patients up a lot, but I reckon it did 'em good. There were well-bred old lady mothers in black, and hard-working, haggard wives and loving daughters—and the expressions of sympathy and faith and hope in those women's faces! My old mate said it was enough in itself to make a man swear off drink for ever.... Ah, God—what a world it is!

"Reminds me how I once went with the wife of another old mate of mine to see him. He was in a lunatic asylum. It was about the worst hour I ever had in my life, and I've had some bad ones. The way she tried to coax him back to his old self. She thought she could do it when all the doctors had failed. But I'll tell you about him some other time.

"The old mate said that the principal part of the treatment was supposed to be injection of bi-chloride of gold or something, and it was supposed to be a secret. It might have been water and sugar for all he knew, and he thought it was. You see, when patients got better they were allowed out, two by two, on their honour—one to watch the other—and it worked. But it was necessary to have an extra hold on them; so they were told that if they were a minute late for 'treatment,' or missed one injection, all the good would be undone. This was dinged into their ears all the time. Same as many things are done in the Catholic religion—to hold the people. My old mate said that, as far as the medical treatment was concerned, he could do all that was necessary himself. But it was the sympathy that counted, especially the sympathy between the patients themselves. They always got hold of a new patient and talked to him and cheered him up; he nearly always came in thinking he was the most miserable wretch in this world. And it comforts a man and strengthens him and makes him happier to meet another man who's worse off or sicker, or has been worse swindled than he has been. That's human nature.... And a man will take draughts from a nurse and eat for her when he wouldn't do it for his own wife—not even though she had been a trained nurse herself. And if a patient took a bad turn in the night at the Boozers' Home and got up to hunt the snakes out of his room, he wouldn't be sworn at, or laughed at, or held down; no, they'd help him shoo the snakes out and comfort him. My old mate said that, when he got better, one of the new patients reckoned that he licked St Pathrick at managing snakes. And when he came out he didn't feel a bit ashamed of his experience. The institution didn't profess to cure anyone of drink, only to mend up shattered nerves and build up wrecked constitutions; give them back some will-power if they weren't too far gone. And they set my old mate on his feet all right. When he went in his life seemed lost, he had the horror of being sober, he couldn't start the day without a drink or do any business without it. He couldn't live for more than two hours without a drink; but when he came out he didn't feel as if he wanted it. He reckoned that those six weeks in the institution were the happiest he'd ever spent in his life, and he wished the time had been longer; he says he'd never met with so much sympathy and genius, and humour and human nature under one roof before. And he said it was nice and novel to be looked after and watched and physicked and bossed by a pretty nurse in uniform—but I don't suppose he told his wife that. And when he came out he never took the trouble to hide the fact that he'd been in. If any of his friends had a drunkard in the family, he'd recommend the institution and do his best to get him into it. But when he came out he firmly believed that if he took one drink he'd be a lost man. He made a mania of that. One curious effect was that, for some time after he left the institution, he'd sometimes feel suddenly in high spirits—with nothing to account for it—something like he used to feel when he had half a dozen whiskies in him; then suddenly he'd feel depressed and sort of hopeless—with nothing to account for that either—just as if he was suffering a recovery. But those moods never lasted long and he soon grew out of them altogether. He didn't flee temptation. He'd knock round the pubs on Saturday nights with his old mates, but never drank anything but soft stuff—he was always careful to smell his glass for fear of an accident or trick. He drank gallons of ginger beer, milk-and-soda, and lemonade; and he got very fond of sweets, too—he'd never liked them before. He said he enjoyed the novelty of the whole thing and his mates amused him at first; but he found he had to leave them early in the evening, and, after a while, he dropped them altogether. They seemed such fools when they were drunk (they'd never seemed fools to him before). And, besides, as they got full, they'd get suspicious of him, and then mad at him, because he couldn't see things as they could. That reminds me that it nearly breaks a man's heart when his old drinking chum turns teetotaller—it's worse than if he got married or died. When two mates meet and one is drunk and the other sober there is only one of two things for them to do if they want to hit it together—either the drunken mate must get sober or the sober mate drunk. And that reminds me: Take the case of two old mates who've been together all their lives, say they always had their regular sprees together and went through the same stages of drunkenness together, and suffered their recoveries and sobered up together, and each could stand about the same quantity of drink and one never got drunker than the other. Each, when he's boozing, reckons his mate the cleverest man and the hardest case in the world—second to himself. But one day it happens, by a most extraordinary combination of circumstances, that Bill, being sober, meets Jim very drunk, and pretty soon Bill is the most disgusted man in this world. He never would have dreamed that his old mate could make such a fool and such a public spectacle of himself. And Bill's disgust intensifies all the time he is helping Jim home, and Jim arguing with him and wanting to fight him, and slobbering over him and wanting to love him by turns, until Bill swears he'll give Jim a hammering as soon as ever he's able to stand steady on his feet."

"I suppose your old boozing mate's wife was very happy when he reformed," I said to Mitchell.

"Well, no," said Mitchell, rubbing his head rather ruefully. "I suppose it was an exceptional case. But I knew her well, and the fact is that she got more discontented and thinner, and complained and nagged him worse than she'd ever done in his drinking days. And she'd never been afraid of him. Perhaps it was this way: She loved and married a careless, good-natured, drinking scamp, and when he reformed and became a careful, hard-working man, and an honest and respected fellow-townsman, she was disappointed in him. He wasn't the man that won her heart when she was a girl. Or maybe he was only company for her when he was half drunk. Or maybe lots of things. Perhaps he'd killed the love in her before he reformed—and reformed too late. I wonder how a man feels when he finds out for the first time that his wife doesn't love him any longer? But my old mate wasn't the nature to find out that sort of thing. Ah, well! If a woman caused all our trouble, my God! women have suffered for it since—and they suffer like martyrs mostly and with the patience of working bullocks. Anyway it goes, if I'm the last man in the world, and the last woman is the worst, and there's only room for one more in Heaven, I'll step down at once and take my chances in Blazes."



THE SEX PROBLEM AGAIN

It was Mitchell's habit to take an evening off now and then from yarning or reflecting, and proceed, in a most methodical manner, to wash his spare shirts and patch his pants. I was in the habit of contributing to some Sydney papers, and every man is an editor at heart, so, at other times, Mitchell would take another evening off, and root out my swag, and go through my papers in the same methodical manner, and make alterations and additions without comment or reference to me; and sometimes he'd read a little thing of my own which didn't meet his views, and accidentally drop it into the fire; and at other times he'd get hold of some rhyme or sketch that was troubling me, and wrap it up and give it to a passing mailman unbeknown to me. The unexpected appearance of such articles in the paper, as well as the effects of the involuntary collaboration in other pieces, gave me several big surprises.

It was in camp on a fencing contract west of Bourke. We had a book which we'd borrowed from a library at Bourke for a year or two—never mind the name of it—it was in ninety-one or ninety-two, and the sex problem was booming then. I had been surreptitiously tearing some carefully-written slips of manuscript—leaves taken from an old pocket-book—into small pieces; I dropped them, with apparent carelessness, into the fire and stood with my back to it.

"I'll bet five pounds," said Mitchell, suddenly, "that you've been trying your hand on a sex-problem story."

I shifted uneasily and brought my hands from behind me into my pockets. "Well, to tell you the truth," I admitted, "I have."

"I thought so," exclaimed Mitchell. "We'll be put to the expense of sending you to Sydney for medical treatment yet. You've been having too easy times lately, plenty of hard graft and no anxiety about tucker or the future. What are the symptoms?"

"Well," I said, taking a hand out to scratch the back of my head, "the plot looked all right—at first sight."

"So there's a plot, is there? Well, in the first place, a plot is a problem. Well, what's the plot?... Come on, you needn't be frightened to tell an old mate like me."

"Well," I said, "the yarn looked all right at first sight; that article of 'T's' in the Bulletin turned me off it; listen and see what you think of it: There was a young fellow, a bit of a genius——"

"Just so, it's the geniuses that build the sex problems. It's an autobiography. Go on."

"Well, he married a girl."

Mitchell (sotto voce): "God help her."

"He loved her, and she loved him: but after they'd been married a while he found out that, although he understood her, she didn't and couldn't possibly ever understand him."

"Yes," commented Mitchell, "and if he hadn't caught the sex problem, nor been reading about it, he would never have found that out."

"It was a terrible disappointment," I continued—I had got into the habit of taking Mitchell's interruptions and comments as matters of course—"He saw that his life would be a hell with her——"

Mitchell: "Didn't strike him that her life would be a hell with him?"

"They had no thought in common."

Mitchell: "She was in her right mind then."

"But he couldn't leave her because he loved her, and because he knew that she loved him and would break her heart if he left her."

"Must have been a pretty cocksure sort of a fellow," remarked Mitchell, "but all geniuses are."

"When he was with her he saw all her obstinacy, unreason, and selfishness; but when he was away he only saw her good points."

Mitchell: "Pity such men don't stop away."

"He thought and thought, and brooded over it till his life was a hell——"

Mitchell: "Jes-so: thanks to the problemaniacs."

"He thought of killing her and himself, and so taking her with him"

"Where?" asked Mitchell. "He must have loved her a lot.... Good Lord! That shows the awful effects of the sex problem on the mind of a healthy young man like you;" and Mitchell stood up.

"He lay awake by her side at nights thinking and fighting the thing out."

"And you've been lying awake, thinking, with me and 'the Oracle' by your side. We'll have to plant the tommy-hawk, and watch you by turns at night till you get over this."

"One night he rested on his elbow, and watched her sleeping, and tried to reconstruct his ideal out of her, and, just when he was getting into a happier frame of mind, her mouth fell open, and she snored.... I didn't get any further than the snore," I said.

"No, of course you didn't," said Mitchell, "and none of the sex problemers ever will—unless they get as far as 'blanky.' You might have made the snore cure him; did it?"

"No, it was making things worse in my idea of the yarn. He fell back and lay staring at the ceiling in a hopeless kind of a way."

"Then he was a fit case for the lunatic asylum.... Now, look here, Harry, you're a good-natured, soft old fool when you're in your right mind; just you go on being a good-natured, soft old fool, and don't try to make a problem out of yourself or anybody else, or you'll come to a bad end. A pocket-book's to keep your accounts in, not to take notes in (you take them in your head and use 'em in your arms), not to write sex-problem rot in—that's spoilt many a good pocket-book, and many a good man. You've got a girl you're talking about going back to as soon as we've finished this contract. Don't you make a problem of her; make a happy wife and mother of her.... I was very clever when I was young"—and here Mitchell's voice took a tinge of bitterness, or sadness. "I used to make problems out of things.... I ain't much to boast of now.... Seems to me that a good many men want to make angels of their wives without first taking trouble of making saints of themselves. We want to make women's ways our ways—it would be just as fair to make our ways theirs. Some men want to be considered gods in their own homes; you'll generally find that sort of men very small potatoes outside; if they weren't they wouldn't bother so much about being cocks on their own little dunghills.... And again, old mates seldom quarrel, because they understand each other's moods. Now, if you went brooding round for any length of time I'd say to you. 'Now then, Harry, what have I been doing to you? Spit it out, old man.' And you'd do the same by me; but how many men would take even that much trouble with their wives?"

A breeze stirred the mulga and brought the sound of a good voice singing in the surveyors' camp:

Should old acquaintance be forgot And never brought to min'? Should old acquaintance be forgot And the days of Auld Lang Syne?

"That damned old tune will upset the Oracle for the rest of the night," I said.

"Now, there's the Oracle," said Mitchell. "He was wronged by a woman as few men are wronged; his life was ruined—but he isn't the man to take any stock in sex problems on account of her. He thinks he's great on problems, but he isn't. It all amounts to this—that he's sorry for most men and all women and tries to act up to it to the best of his ability; and if he ain't a Christian, God knows what is—I don't. No matter what a woman does to you, or what you think she does to you, there come times, sooner or later, when you feel sorry for her—deep down in your heart—that is if you're a man. And, no matter what action or course you might take against her, and no matter how right or justified you might seem in doing it, there comes a time when, deep down in your heart, you feel mean and doubtful about your own part. You can take that as a general thing as regards men against women, and man against man, I think. And I believe that deep-down feeling of being doubtful, or mean, or sorry, that comes afterwards, when you are cooler and know more about the world, is a right and natural thing, and we ought to act more in accordance with it."

Came the refrain from the surveyors' camp:

We twa hae run about the braes, An' pu'd the gowans fine; But we've wandered mony a weary foot Sin' Auld Lang Syne.

"We feel sorry for our quarrels with our worst enemy when we see him lying still and quiet—dead. Why can't we try and feel a bit sorry beforehand?"

For Auld Lang Syne. We twa ha' padl't i' the burn, Fra mornin' sun till dine; But seas between us braid ha' roar'd Sin' Auld Lang Syne.

"I used to feel blazing bitter against things one time but it never hurt anybody but myself in the end. I argued and quarrelled with a girl once—and made a problem of the thing and went away. She's married to a brute now, and I'm what I am. I made a problem of a good home or the world once, and went against the last man in God's world that I should have gone against, and turned my back on his hand, and left him. His hand was very cold the next time I took it in mine. We don't want problems to make us more bitter against the world than we get sometimes."

And here's a han' my trusty frien', An' gie's a han' o' thine, We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet For Auld Lang Syne.

"And that song's the answer of all problems," said Mitchell. But it was I who lay awake and thought that night.

[Children of the Bush by Henry Lawson II]



THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAG

The Australian swag fashion is the easiest way in the world of carrying a load. I ought to know something about carrying loads: I've carried babies, which are the heaviest and most awkward and heartbreaking loads in this world for a boy or man to carry, I fancy. God remember mothers who slave about the housework (and do sometimes a man's work in addition in the bush) with a heavy, squalling kid on one arm! I've humped logs on the selection, "burning-off," with loads of fencing-posts and rails and palings out of steep, rugged gullies (and was happier then, perhaps); I've carried a shovel, crowbar, heavy "rammer," a dozen insulators on an average (strung round my shoulders with raw flax)-to say nothing of soldiering kit, tucker-bag, billy and climbing spurs—all day on a telegraph line in rough country in New Zealand, and in places where a man had to manage his load with one hand and help himself climb with the other; and I've helped hump and drag telegraph-poles up cliffs and sidings where the horses couldn't go. I've carried a portmanteau on the hot dusty roads in green old jackaroo days. Ask any actor who's been stranded and had to count railway sleepers from one town to another! he'll tell you what sort of an awkward load a portmanteau is, especially if there's a broken-hearted man underneath it. I've tried knapsack fashion—one of the least healthy and most likely to give a man sores; I've carried my belongings in a three-bushel sack slung over my shoulder—blankets, tucker, spare boots and poetry all lumped together. I tried carrying a load on my head, and got a crick in my neck and spine for days. I've carried a load on my mind that should have been shared by editors and publishers. I've helped hump luggage and furniture up to, and down from, a top flat in London. And I've carried swag for months out back in Australia—and it was life, in spite of its "squalidness" and meanness and wretchedness and hardship, and in spite of the fact that the world would have regarded us as "tramps"—and a free life amongst men from all the world!

The Australian swag was born of Australia and no other land—of the Great Lone Land of magnificent distances and bright heat; the land of self-reliance, and never-give-in, and help-your-mate. The grave of many of the world's tragedies and comedies—royal and otherwise. The land where a man out of employment might shoulder his swag in Adelaide and take the track, and years later walk into a hut on the Gulf, or never be heard of any more, or a body be found in the bush and buried by the mounted police, or never found and never buried—what does it matter?

The land I love above all others—not because it was kind to me, but because I was born on Australian soil, and because of the foreign father who died at his work in the ranks of Australian pioneers, and because of many things. Australia! My country! Her very name is music to me. God bless Australia! for the sake of the great hearts of the heart of her! God keep her clear of the old-world shams and social lies and mockery, and callous commercialism, and sordid shame! And heaven send that, if ever in my time her sons are called upon to fight for her young life and honour, I die with the first rank of them and be buried in Australian ground.

But this will probably be called false, forced or "maudlin sentiment" here in England, where the mawkish sentiment of the music-halls, and the popular applause it receives, is enough to make a healthy man sick, and is only equalled by music-hall vulgarity. So I'll get on.

In the old digging days the knapsack, or straps-across-the chest fashion, was tried, but the load pressed on a man's chest and impeded his breathing, and a man needs to have his bellows free on long tracks in hot, stirless weather. Then the "horse-collar," or rolled military overcoat style—swag over one shoulder and under the other arm—was tried, but it was found to be too hot for the Australian climate, and was discarded along with Wellington boots and leggings. Until recently, Australian city artists and editors—who knew as much about the bush as Downing Street knows about the British colonies in general—seemed to think the horse-collar swag was still in existence; and some artists gave the swagman a stick, as if he were a tramp of civilization with an eye on the backyard and a fear of the dog. English artists, by the way, seem firmly convinced that the Australian bushman is born in Wellington boots with a polish on 'em you could shave yourself by.

The swag is usually composed of a tent "fly" or strip of calico (a cover for the swag and a shelter in bad weather—in New Zealand it is oilcloth or waterproof twill), a couple of blankets, blue by custom and preference, as that colour shows the dirt less than any other (hence the name "bluey" for swag), and the core is composed of spare clothing and small personal effects. To make or "roll up" your swag: lay the fly or strip of calico on the ground, blueys on top of it; across one end, with eighteen inches or so to spare, lay your spare trousers and shirt, folded, light boots tied together by the laces toe to heel, books, bundle of old letters, portraits, or whatever little knick-knacks you have or care to carry, bag of needles, thread, pen and ink, spare patches for your pants, and bootlaces. Lay or arrange the pile so that it will roll evenly with the swag (some pack the lot in an old pillowslip or canvas bag), take a fold over of blanket and calico the whole length on each side, so as to reduce the width of the swag to, say, three feet, throw the spare end, with an inward fold, over the little pile of belongings, and then roll the whole to the other end, using your knees and judgment to make the swag tight, compact and artistic; when within eighteen inches of the loose end take an inward fold in that, and bring it up against the body of the swag. There is a strong suggestion of a roley-poley in a rag about the business, only the ends of the swag are folded in, in rings, and not 'tied. Fasten the swag with three or four straps, according to judgment and the supply of straps. To the top strap, for the swag is carried (and eased down in shanty bars and against walls or veranda-posts when not on the track) in a more or less vertical position—to the top strap, and lowest, or lowest but one, fasten the ends of the shoulder strap (usually a towel is preferred as being softer to the shoulder), your coat being carried outside the swag at the back, under the straps. To the top strap fasten the string of the nose-bag, a calico bag about the size of a pillowslip, containing the tea, sugar and flour bags, bread, meat, baking-powder and salt, and brought, when the swag is carried from the left shoulder, over the right on to the chest, and so balancing the swag behind. But a swagman can throw a heavy swag in a nearly vertical position against his spine, slung from one shoulder only and without any balance, and carry it as easily as you might wear your overcoat. Some bushmen arrange their belongings so neatly and conveniently, with swag straps in a sort of harness, that they can roll up the swag in about a minute, and unbuckle it and throw it out as easily as a roll of wall-paper, and there's the bed ready on the ground with the wardrobe for a pillow. The swag is always used for a seat on the track; it is a soft seat, so trousers last a long time. And, the dust being mostly soft and silky on the long tracks out back, boots last marvellously. Fifteen miles a day is the average with the swag, but you must travel according to the water: if the next bore or tank is five miles on, and the next twenty beyond, you camp at the five-mile water to-night and do the twenty next day. But if it's thirty miles you have to do it. Travelling with the swag in Australia is variously and picturesquely described as "humping bluey," "walking Matilda," "humping Matilda," "humping your drum," "being on the wallaby," "jabbing trotters," and "tea and sugar burglaring," but most travelling shearers now call themselves trav'lers, and say simply "on the track," or "carrying swag."

And there you have the Australian swag. Men from all the world have carried it—lords and low-class Chinamen, saints and world martyrs, and felons, thieves, and murderers, educated gentlemen and boors who couldn't sign their mark, gentlemen who fought for Poland and convicts who fought the world, women, and more than one woman disguised as a man. The Australian swag has held in its core letters and papers in all languages, the honour of great houses, and more than one national secret, papers that would send well-known and highly-respected men to jail, and proofs of the innocence of men going mad in prisons, life tragedies and comedies, fortunes and papers that secured titles and fortunes, and the last pence of lost fortunes, life secrets, portraits of mothers and dead loves, pictures of fair women, heart-breaking old letters written long ago by vanished hands, and the pencilled manuscript of more than one book which will be famous yet.

The weight of the swag varies from the light rouseabout's swag, containing one blanket and a clean shirt, to the "royal Alfred," with tent and all complete, and weighing part of a ton. Some old sundowners have a mania for gathering, from selectors' and shearers' huts, and dust-heaps, heart-breaking loads of rubbish which can never be of any possible use to them or anyone else. Here is an inventory of the contents of the swag of an old tramp who was found dead on the track, lying on his face on the sand, with his swag on top of him, and his arms stretched straight out as if he were embracing the mother earth, or had made, with his last movement, the sign of the cross to the blazing heavens:

Rotten old tent in rags. Filthy blue blanket, patched with squares of red and calico. Half of "white blanket" nearly black now, patched with pieces of various material and sewn to half of red blanket. Three-bushel sack slit open. Pieces of sacking. Part of a woman's skirt. Two rotten old pairs of moleskin trousers. One leg of a pair of trousers. Back of a shirt. Half a waistcoat. Two tweed coats, green, old and rotting, and patched with calico. Blanket, etc. Large bundle of assorted rags for patches, all rotten. Leaky billy-can, containing fishing-line, papers, suet, needles and cotton, etc. Jam-tin, medicine bottles, corks on strings, to hang to his hat to keep the flies off (a sign of madness in the bush, for the corks would madden a sane man sooner than the flies could). Three boots of different sizes, all belonging to the right foot, and a left slipper. Coffee-pot, without handle or spout, and quart-pot full of rubbish—broken knives and forks, with the handles burnt off, spoons, etc., picked up on rubbish-heaps; and many rusty nails, to be used as buttons, I suppose.

Broken saw blade, hammer, broken crockery, old pannikins, small rusty frying-pan without a handle, children's old shoes, many bits of old bootleather and greenhide, part of yellowback novel, mutilated English dictionary, grammar and arithmetic book, a ready reckoner, a cookery book, a bulgy anglo-foreign dictionary, part of a Shakespeare, book in French and book in German, and a book on etiquette and courtship. A heavy pair of blucher boots, with uppers parched and cracked, and soles so patched (patch over patch) with leather, boot protectors, hoop iron and hobnails that they were about two inches thick, and the boots weighed over five pounds. (If you don't believe me go into the Melbourne Museum, where, in a glass case in a place of honour, you will see a similar, perhaps the same, pair of bluchers labelled "An example of colonial industry.") And in the core of the swag was a sugar-bag tied tightly with a whip-lash, and containing another old skirt, rolled very tight and fastened with many turns of a length of clothes-line, which last, I suppose, he carried to hang himself with if he felt that way. The skirt was rolled round a small packet of old portraits and almost indecipherable letters—one from a woman who had evidently been a sensible woman and a widow, and who stated in the letter that she did not intend to get married again as she had enough to do already, slavin' her finger-nails off to keep a family, without having a second husband to keep. And her answer was "final for good and all," and it wasn't no use comin' "bungfoodlin'" round her again. If he did she'd set Satan on to him. "Satan" was a dog, I suppose.

The letter was addressed to "Dear Bill," as were others. There were no envelopes. The letters were addressed from no place in particular, so there weren't any means of identifying the dead man. The police buried him under a gum, and a young trooper cut on the tree the words:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF BILL WHO DIED.



"BUCKOLTS' GATE"

PROLOGUE

Old Abel Albury had a genius for getting the bull by the tail with a tight grip, and holding on with both hands and an obstinacy born of ignorance—and not necessarily for the sake of self-preservation or selfishness—while all the time the bull might be, so to speak, rooting up life-long friendships and neighbourly relations, and upsetting domestic customs and traditions with his horns.

Yes, Uncle Abel was always grasping the wrong end of things, and sticking to it with that human mulishness which is often stronger, and more often wearies and breaks down the opposition than an intelligent man's arguments. He was——or professed to be, the family said—unable for a long time to distinguish between his two grand-nephews, one of whom was short and fat, while the other was tall and thin, the only points of resemblance between them being that each possessed the old family nose and eyes. When they were boys he used to lay the strap about one in mistake for the other. They had a saying that Uncle Abel saw with ten squinting eyes.

Also, he could never—or would not, as the family said—remember names. He referred to Mrs Porter, a thin, haggard selector's wife, as "Mrs Stout" and he balanced matters by calling Mrs Southwick "Mrs Porterwicket"—when he didn't address her as "Mrs What's-the-woman's-name"—and he succeeded in deeply offending both ladies.

Uncle Abel was Mrs Carey's uncle.

Down at the lower end of Carey's selection at Rocky Rises, in the extreme corner of the lower or outer paddock, were sliprails opening into the main road, which ran down along the siding, round the foot of a spur from ridge, and out west. These sliprails were called "The Lower Sliprails" by the family, and it occurred to Uncle Abel to refer to them as "Buckolts' Gate," for no other reason apparently than that Buckolts' farm lay in that direction. The farm was about a mile further on, on the other side of the creek, and the gate leading to it from the main road was round the spur, out of sight of Carey's selection. It is quite possible that Uncle Abel reasoned the thing out for days, for of such material are some human brains. Sliprails, or a slip-panel, is a panel of fencing of which the rails are made to be slipped out of the mortise holes in the posts so as to give passage to horses, vehicles and cattle. I suppose Abel called it a gate, because he was always going to hang a proper gate there some day. The family were unaware of his new name for the Lower Sliprails, and after he had, on one or two occasions, informed the boys that they would find a missing cow or horse at the Buckolts' Gate, and they had found it calmly camped at the Lower Sliprails, and after he had made several appointments to meet parties at Buckolts' Gate, and had been found leaning obstinately on the fence by the Lower Sliprails with no explanation to offer other than that he was waiting at Buckolts' Gate, they began to fear that he was becoming weak in his mind.

ACT I

It was New Year's Eve at Rocky Rises. There was no need for fireworks nor bonfires, for the bush-fires were out all along the ranges to the east, and, as night came on, lines and curves of lights—clear lights, white lights, and, in the nearer distance, red lights and smoky lights—marked the sidings and ridges of a western spur of the Blue Mountain Range, and seemed suspended against a dark sky, for the stars and the loom of the hills were hidden by smoke and drought haze.

There was a dance at Careys'. Old Carey was a cheerful, broad-minded bushman, haunted at times by the memories of old days, when he was the beau of the bush balls, and so when he built his new slab-and-bark barn he had it properly floored with hard-wood, and the floor well-faced "to give the young people a show when they wanted a dance," he said. The floor had a spring in it, and bush boys and girls often rode twenty miles and more to dance on that floor. The girls said it was a lovely floor.

On this occasion Carey had stacked his wheat outside until after the New Year. Spring-carts, and men and girls on horseback came in from miles round. "Sperm" candles had been cut up and thrown on the floor during the afternoon, and rubbed over by feet cased tightly in 'lastic-sides; and hoops were hung horizontally from the tie-beams, with candles stuck round them. There were fresh-faced girls, and sweet, freckled-faced girls, and jolly girls, and shy girls—all sorts of girls except sulky, "toney" girls—and lanky chaps, most of them sawney, and weird, whiskered agriculturists, who watched the dancers with old, old time-worn smiles, or stood, or sat on their heels yarning, with their pipes, outside, where two boilers were slung over a log-fire to boil water for tea; and there were leathery women, with complexions like dried apples, who gossiped—for the first time in months perhaps—and watched the young people, and thought at times, no doubt, of other days—of other days when they were girls. (And not so far distant either, in some cases, for women dry quickly in the bush.)

And there were one or two old soldiers and their wives, whose eyes glistened when Jim Bullock played "The Girl I Left Behind Me."

Jim Bullock was there with his concertina. He sat on a stool in front of a bench, on which was a beer-keg, piles of teacups and saucers, several big tin teapots, and plates of sandwiches, sponge-cakes, and tarts. Jim sat in his shirt-sleeves, with his flat-brimmed, wire-bound, "hard-hitter" hat on, slanting over his weaker eye. He held one leg loosely and the other rigid, with the concertina on his knee, and swanked away at the instrument by the hour, staring straight in front of him with the expression of a cod-fish, and never moving a muscle except the muscles of his great hairy arms and big chapped and sun-blotched hands; while chaps in tight "larstins" (elastic-side boots), slop suits of black, bound with braid, and with coats too short in the neck and arms, and trousers bell-mouthed at the bottoms, and some with paper collars, narrow red ribbon ties, or scarfs through walnut shells, held their partners rigidly, and went round the room with their eyes—most of them—cocked at the rafters in semi-idiotic ecstasy.

But there was tall, graceful, pink-and-white Bertha Buckolt, blue-eyed and blue-black-haired, and little Mary Carey with the kind, grey eyes and red-gold hair; there was Mary's wild brother Jim, with curly black hair and blue eyes and dimples of innocence; and there was Harry Dale, the drover, Jim's shearing and droving mate, a tall, good-looking, brown-eyed and brown-haired young fellow, a "better-class" bushman and the best dancer in the district. Uncle Abel usurped the position of M.C., and roared "Now then! take yer partners!" and bawled instructions and interrupted and tangled up the dancers, until they got used to taking no notice of his bull voice. Mary Carey was too shy—because she loved him, and secretly and fondly hoped and doubted that he cared for her—to be seen dancing more than once with Harry Dale, so he shared Bertha Buckolt, the best girl dancer there, with Jim Carey, who danced with his sister when Harry was dancing with Bertha Buckolt, and who seemed, for some reason best known to himself, to be perfectly satisfied with the arrangement. Poor little Mary began to fret presently, and feel a little jealous of Bertha, her old schoolmate. She was little and couldn't dance like Bertha, and she couldn't help noticing how well Bertha looked to-night, and what a well-matched pair she and Harry made; and so, when twelve o'clock came and they all went outside to watch the Old Year out and the New Year in—with a big bonfire on the distant ridge where the grass fires had reached a stretch of dry scrub—and to join hands all round and sing "Auld Lang Syne," little Mary was not to be found, for she was sitting on a log round behind the cow-yard, crying softly to herself.

And when about three o'clock they all started home, Mary gave Bertha her cheek to kiss instead of her mouth, and that hurt Bertha, who had her cry riding home, to the astonishment and irritation of her brother Jack, who rode home with her. But when they were all gone Mary was missing again and when her mother called her, and, after a pause, the voice of Harry Dale said, respectfully, in the darkness, "She's here, Mrs Carey, she's all right," the two were discovered sitting on a convenient log of the wood-heap, with an awkward and overacted interval of log between them.

Old Carey liked Harry Dale, and seemed very well satisfied with the way things appeared to be going. He pressed Harry to stay at the selection overnight. "The missus will make you a shake-down on the floor," he said. Harry had no appointments, and stayed cheerfully, and old Carey, having had a whisky or two, insisted on Mary making the shake-down, and the old folks winked at each other behind the young folks' backs to see how poor little Mary spread a spare mattress, with redhot, averted face, and found an extra pillow and a spare pair of ironed sheets for the shake-down.

At sunrise she stole out to milk the cows, which was her regular duty; there was no other way out from her room than through the dining-room, where Harry lay on his back, with his arms folded, resting peacefully. He seemed sound asleep and safe for a good two hours, so she ventured. As she passed out she paused a moment looking down on him with all the lovelight in her eyes, and, obeying a sudden impulse, she stooped softly and touched his forehead with her lips, then she slipped out. Harry stretched, opened his eyes, winked solemnly at the ceiling, and then, after a decent interval, he got up, dressed, and went out to help her to milk.

Harry Dale and Jim Carey were going out to take charge of a mob of bullocks going north-west, away up in Queensland. And as they had lost a day and night to be at the dance, they decided to start in the cool of the evening and travel all night. Mary walked from the homestead to the Lower Sliprails between her brother, who rode—because he was her brother—and led a packhorse on the other side, and Harry, who walked and led his horse—because he was her sweetheart, avowed only since last night.

There were thunderstorms about, and Mary had repented sufficiently with regard to Bertha Buckolt to wear on her shoulders a cape which Bertha had left behind her last night.

When they reached the Lower Sliprails Jim said he'd go on and that Harry needn't hurry: he stooped over his horse's neck, kissed his sister, promised to keep away from the drink, not to touch a card, and to leave off fighting, and rode on. And when he rounded the Spur he saw a tall, graceful figure slipping through the trees from the creek towards Buckolts' Gate.

Then came the critical time at the Lower Sliprails. The shadows from the setting sun lengthened quickly on the siding, and then the sun slipped out of sight over a "saddle" in the ridges, and all was soon dusk save the sunlit peaks of the Blue Mountains away to the east over the sweeps of blue-grey bush.

"Ah, well! Mary," said Harry, "I must make a start now."

"You'll—you'll look after Jim, won't you, Harry?" said Mary.

"I will, Mary, for your sake."

Her mouth began to twitch, her chin to tremble, and her eyes brimmed suddenly.

"You must cheer up, Mary," he said with her in his arms. "I'll be back before you know where you are, and then we'll be married right off at once and settle down for life."

She smiled bravely.

"Good-bye, Mary!"

"Good-bye, Harry!"

He led his horse through the rails and lifted them, with trembling hands, and shot them home. Another kiss across the top rail and he got on his horse. She mounted the lower rail, and he brought his horse close alongside the fence and stooped to kiss her again.

"Cheer up, Mary!" he said. "I'll tell you what I'll do—when I come back I'll whistle when I reach the Spur and you be here to let the sliprails down for me. I'll time myself to get here about sundown. I'll whistle 'Willie Riley,' so you'll know it's me. Good-bye, little girl! I must go now. Don't fret—the time will soon go by."

He turned, swung his horse, and rode slowly down the track, turning now and again to wave his hand to her, with a farewell flourish of his hat as he rounded the Spur. His track, five hundred miles, or perhaps a thousand, into the great north-west; his time, six months, or perhaps a year. Hers a hundred yards or so back to the dusty, dreary drudgery of selection life. The daylight faded into starlight, the sidings grew very dim, and a faint white figure blurred against the bars of the slip-panel.

ACT II

It was the last day of the threshing—shortly after New Year—at Rocky Rises. The green boughs, which had been lashed to the veranda-posts on Christmas Eve, had withered and been used for firewood. The travelling steamer had gone with its gang of men, and the family sat down to tea, the men tired with hard work and heat, and with prickly heat and irritating wheaten chaff and dust under their clothes—and with smut (for the crop had been a smutty one) "up their brains" as Uncle Abel said—the women worn out with cooking for a big gang of shearers.

Good-humoured Aunt Emma—who was Uncle Abel's niece—recovered first, and started the conversation. There were one or two neighbours' wives who bad lent crockery and had come over to help with the cooking in their turns. Jim Carey's name came up incidentally, but was quickly dropped, for ill reports of Jim had come home. Then Aunt Emma mentioned Harry Dale, and glanced meaningly at Mary, whose face flamed as she bent over her plate.

"Never mind, Mary," said Aunt Emma, "it's nothing to be ashamed of. We were all girls once. There's many a girl would jump at Harry."

"Who says I'm ashamed?" said Mary, straightening up indignantly.

"Don't tease her, Emma," said Mrs Carey, mildly.

"I'll tell yer what," said young Tom Carey, frankly, "Mary got a letter from him to-day. I seen her reading it behind the house."

Mary's face flamed again and went down over her plate.

"Mary," said her mother, with sudden interest, "did Harry say anything of Jim?"

"No, mother," said Mary. "And that's why I didn't tell you about the letter."

There was a pause. Then Tommy said, with that delightful tact which usually characterizes young Tommies:

"Well, Mary needn't be so cocky about Harry Dale, anyhow. I seen him New Year's Eve when we had the dance. I seen him after the dance liftin' Bertha Buckolt onter her horse in the dark—as if she couldn't get on herself—she's big enough. I seen him lift her on, an' he took her right up an' lifted her right inter the saddle, 'stead of holdin' his hand for her to tread on like that new-chum jackaroo we had. An', what's more, I seen him hug her an' give her a kiss before he lifted her on. He told her he was as good as her brother."

"What did he mean by that, Tommy?" asked Mrs Porter, to break an awkward pause.

"How'm I ter know what he means?" said Tommy, politely.

"And, Tommy, I seen Harry Dale give young Tommy Carey a lick with a strap the day before New Year's Eve for throwing his sister's cat into the dam," said Aunt Emma, coming to poor Mary's rescue. "Never mind, Mary, my dear, he said goodbye to you last."

"No, he didn't!" roared Uncle Abel.

They were used to Uncle Abel's sudden bellowing, but it startled them this time.

"Why, Uncle Abel," cried both Aunt Emma and Mrs Carey, "whatever do you mean?"

"What I means is that I ain't a-goin' to have the feelin's of a niece of mine trifled with. What I means is that I seen Harry Dale with Bertha Buckolt on New Year's night after he left here. That's what I means—"

"Don't speak so loud, Abel, we're not deaf," interrupted Carey, as Mary started up white-faced. "What do you want to always shout for?"

"I speak loud because I want people to hear me!" roared Uncle Abel, turning on him.

"Go on, Uncle Abel," said Mary, "tell me what you mean."

"I mean," said Uncle Abel, lowering his voice a little, "that I seen Harry Dale and Bertha Buckolt at Buckolts' Gate that night—I seen it all—"

"At Buckolts' Gate!" cried Mary.

"Yes! at Buckolts' Gate! Ain't I speakin' loud enough?"

"And where were you?"

"Never mind wheers I was. I was comin' home along the ridges, and I seen them. I seen them say good-bye; I seen them hug an' kiss—"

"Uncle Abel!" exclaimed Aunt Emma.

"It's no use Uncle Abelin' me. What I sez I sez. I ain't a-goin' to have a niece of mine bungfoodled—"

"Uncle Abel," cried Mary, staring at him wild-eyed, "do be careful what you say. You must have made a mistake. Are you sure it was Bertha and Harry?"

"Am I sure my head's on me neck?" roared Uncle Abel. "Would I see 'em if I didn't see 'em? I tell you—"

"Now wait a moment, Uncle Abel," interrupted Mary, with dangerous calmness. "Listen to me. Harry Dale and I are engaged to be married, and—"

"Have you got the writings!" shouted Uncle Abel.

"The what?" said Mary.

"The writings."

"No, of course not."

"Then that's where you are," said Uncle Abel, triumphantly. "If you had the writings you could sue him for breach of contract."

Uncle Abel, who couldn't read, had no faith whatever in verbal agreements (he wouldn't sign one, he said), all others he referred to as "writings."

"Now, listen to me, Uncle Abel," said Mary, trembling now. "Are you sure you saw Harry Dale and Bertha Buckolt at Buckolts' Gate after he left here that night?"

"Yes. An' what's more, I seen young Tommy there ridin' on his pony along by the Spur a little while after, an' he muster seen them too, if he's got a tongue."

Mary turned quickly to her brother.

"Well, all I can say," said Tommy, quietened now, "is that I seen her at Buckolts' Gate that night. I was comin' home from Two-Mile Flat, and I met Jim with his packhorse about a mile the other side of Buckolts', and while we was talkin' Harry Dale caught up, so I jist said 'So-long' an' left 'em. And when I got to Buckolt's Gate I seen Bertha Buckolt. She was standin' under a tree, and she looked as if she was cryin'."

But Mary got her bonnet and started out.

"Where are you going to, Mary?" asked her mother, starting up nervously.

"I'm going across to Buckolts' to find out the truth," said Mary, and she went out.

"Better let her go, Lizzie," said Aunt Emma, detaining her sister.

"You've done it now, Uncle Abel."

"Well, why didn't she get the writings?" retorted Uncle Abel.

Half-way to Buckolts' Mary met Bertha Buckolt herself, coming over to the selection for the first time since the night of the party. Bertha started forward to kiss Mary, but stopped short as Mary stood stock-still and faced her, with her hands behind her back.

"Why! whatever is the matter, Mary?" exclaimed Bertha.

"You know very well, Bertha."

"Why! Whatever do you mean? What have I done?"

"What haven't you done? You've—you've broken my heart."

"Good gracious me! Whatever are you talking about? Tell me what it is, Mary?"

"You met him at your gate that night?"

"I know I did."

"Oh, Bertha! How could you be so mean and deceitful?"

"Mean and deceitful! What do you mean by that? Whatever are you talking about? I suppose I've got as good a right to meet him as anyone else."

"No, you haven't," retorted Mary, "you're only stringing him on. You only did it to spite me. You helped him to deceive me. You ought to be ashamed to look me in the face."

"Good gracious! Whatever are you talking about? Ain't I good enough for him! I ought to be, God knows! I suppose he can marry who he likes, and if I'm poor fool enough to love him and marry him, what then? Mary, you ought to be the last to speak—speak to—to me like that."

"Yes. He can marry all, the girls in the country for all I care. I never want to see either him or you any more. You're a cruel, deceitful, brazen-faced hussy, and he's a heartless, deceiving blackguard."

"Mary! I believe you're mad," said Bertha, firmly. "How dare you speak to me like that! And as for him being a blackguard. Why, you ought to be the last in the world to say such a thing; you ought to be the last to say a word against him. Why, I don't believe you ever cared a rap for him in spite of all your pretence. He could go to the devil for all you cared."

"That's enough, Bertha Buckolt!" cried Mary. "You—you! Why, you're a barefaced girl, that's what you are! I don't want to see your brazen face again." With that she turned and stumbled blindly in the direction of home.

"Send back my cape," cried Bertha as she too turned away.

Mary walked wildly home and fled to her room and locked the door. Bertha did likewise.

Mary let Aunt Emma in after a while, ceased sobbing and allowed herself to be comforted a little. Next morning she was out milking at the usual time, but there were dark hollows under her eyes, and her little face was white and set. After breakfast she rolled the cape up very tight in a brown-paper parcel, addressed it severely to

MISS BERTHA BUCKOLT,

Eurunderee Creek,

and sent it home by one of the school-children. She wrote to Harry Dale and told him that she knew all about it (not stating what), but she forgave him and hoped he'd be happy. She never wanted to see his face again, and enclosed his portrait.

Harry, who was as true and straight as a bushman could be, puzzled it out and decided that some one of his old love affairs must have come to Mary's ears, and wrote demanding an explanation.

She never answered that letter.

ACT III

It was Christmas Day at Rocky Rises. The plum puddings had been made, as usual, weeks beforehand, and hung in rags to the tie-beams and taken down and boiled again. Poultry had been killed and plucked and cooked, and all the toil had been gone through, and every preparation made for a red-hot dinner on a blazing hot day—and for no other reason than that our great-grandmothers used to do it in a cold climate at Christmas-times that came in mid-winter. Merry men hadn't gone forth to the wood to gather in the mistletoe (if they ever did in England, in the olden days, instead of sending shivering, wretched vassals in rags to do it); but Uncle Abel had gone gloomily up the ridge on Christmas Eve, with an axe on his shoulder (and Tommy unwillingly in tow, scowling and making faces behind his back), and had cut young pines and dragged them home and lashed them firmly to the veranda-posts, which was the custom out there.

There was little goodwill or peace between the three or four farms round Rocky Rises that Christmas Day, and Uncle Abel had been the cause of most of the ill-feeling, though they didn't know, and he was least aware of it of any.

It all came about in this way.

Shortly after last New Year Ryan's bull had broken loose and gone astray for two days and nights, breaking into neighbours' paddocks and filling himself with hay and damaging other bulls, and making love by night and hiding in the scrub all day. On the second night he broke through and jumped over Reid's fences, and destroyed about an acre of grape-vines and adulterated Reid's stock, besides interfering with certain heifers which were not of a marriageable age. There was a L5 penalty on a stray bull. Reid impounded the bull and claimed heavy damages. Ryan, a small selector of little account, was always pulling some neighbour to court when he wasn't being "pulled" himself, so he went to court over this case.

Now, it appears that the bull, on his holiday, had spent a part of the first night in Carey's lower paddock, and Uncle Abel (who was out mooching about the bush at all hours, "havin' a look at some timber" or some "indercations" [of gold], or on some mysterious business or fad, the mystery of which was of his own making)—Uncle Abel saw the bull in the paddock at daylight and turned it out the sliprails, and talked about it afterwards, referring to the sliprails as "Buckolts' Gate," of course, and spoke mysteriously of the case, and put on an appearance of great importance, and allowed people to get an idea that he knew a lot if he only liked to speak; and finally he got himself "brought up" as a witness for Ryan.

He had a lot of beer in town before he went to the courthouse. All he knew would have been of no use to either party, but he swore that he had seen Ryan's bull inside Buckolts' Gate at daylight (on the day which wasn't in question) and had turned him out. Uncle Abel mixed up the court a good deal, and roared like the bull, and became more obstinate the more he was cross-examined, and narrowly escaped being committed for contempt of court.

Ryan, who had a high opinion of the breed of his bull, got an idea that the Buckolts had enticed or driven the bull into their paddock for stock-raising purposes, instead of borrowing it honestly or offering to pay for the use of it. Then Ryan wanted to know why Abel had driven his bull out of Buckolts' Gate, and the Buckolts wanted to know what business Abel Albury had to drive Ryan's bull out of their paddock, if the bull had really ever been there. And so it went on till Rocky Rises was ripe for a tragedy.

The breach between the Careys and the Buckolts was widened, the quarrel between Ryan and Reid intensified. Ryan got a down on the Careys because he reckoned that Uncle Abel had deliberately spoilt his case with his evidence; and the Reids and Careys were no longer on speaking terms, because nothing would convince old Reid that Abel hadn't tried to prove that Ryan's bull had never been in Reid's paddock at all.

Well, it was Christmas Day, and the Carey family and Aunt Emma sat down to dinner. Jim was present, having arrived overnight, with no money, as usual, and suffering a recovery. The elder brother, Bob (who had a selection up-country), and his wife were there. Mrs Carey moved round with watchful eyes and jealous ears, lest there should be a word or a look which might hurt the feelings of her wild son—for of such are mothers.

Dinner went on very moodily, in spite of Aunt Emma, until at last Jim spoke—almost for the first time, save for a long-whispered and, on his part, repentant conversation with his mother.

"Look here, Mary!" said Jim. "What did you throw Harry Dale over for?"

"Don't ask me, Jim."

"Rot! What did he do to you? I'm your brother" (with a glance at Bob), "and I ought to know."

"Well, then, ask Bertha Buckolt. She saw him last."

"What!" cried Jim.

"Hold your tongue, Jim! You'll make her cry," said Aunt Emma.

"Well, what's it all about, anyway?" demanded Jim. "All I know is that Mary wrote to Harry and threw him over, and he ain't been the same man since. He swears he'll never come near the district again."

"Tell Jim, Aunt Emma," said Mary. And Aunt Emma started to tell the story as far as she knew.

"Saw her at Buckolt's sliprails!" cried Jim, starting up. "Well, he couldn't have had time to more than say good-bye to her, for I was with her there myself, and Harry caught up to me within a mile of the gate—and I rode pretty fast."

"He had a jolly long good-bye with her," shouted Uncle Abel. "Look here, Jim! I ain't goin' to stand by and see a nephew of mine bungfoodled by no girl; an', I tell you I seen 'em huggin' and kissin' and canoodlin' for half an hour at Buckolts' Gate!"

"It's a—a— Look here, Uncle Abel, be careful what you say. You've got the bull by the tail again, that's what it is!" Jim's face grew whiter—and it had been white enough on account of the drink. "How did you know it was them? You're always mistaking people. It might have been someone else."

"I know Harry Dale on horseback two miles off!" roared Uncle Abel. "And I knowed her by her cape."

It was Mary's turn to gasp and stare at Uncle Abel.

"Uncle Abel," she managed to say, "Uncle Abel! Wasn't it at our Lower Sliprails you saw them and not Buckolts' Gate?"

"Well!" bellowed Uncle Abel. "You might call 'em the 'Lower Sliprails,' but I calls 'em Buckolts' Gate! They lead to'r'ds Buckolts', don't they? Hey? Them other sliprails"—jerking his arms in the direction of the upper paddock "them theer other sliprails that leads outer Reid's lane I calls Reid's Sliprails. I don't know nothing about no upper or lower, or easter or wester, or any other la-di-dah names you like to call 'em."

"Oh, uncle," cried Mary, trembling like a leaf, "why didn't you explain this before? Why didn't you tell us?"

"What cause have I got to tell any of you everything I sez or does or thinks? It 'ud take me all me time. Ain't you got any more brains than Ryan's bull, any of you? Hey!—You've got heads, but so has cabbages. Explain! Why, if the world wasn't stuffed so full of jumped-up fools there'd be never no need for explainin'."

Mary left the table.

"What is it, Mary?" cried Aunt Emma.

"I'm going across to Bertha," said Mary, putting on her hat with trembling hands. "It was me Uncle Abel saw. I had Bertha's cape on that night."

"Oh, Uncle Abel," cried Aunt Emma, "whatever have you done?"

"Well," said Uncle Abel, "why didn't she get the writin's as I told her? It's to be hoped she won't make such a fool of herself next time."

Half an hour later, or thereabouts, Mary sat on Bertha Buckolt's bed, with Bertha beside her and Bertha's arm round her, and they were crying and laughing by turns.

"But-but-why didn't you tell me it was Jim?" said Mary.

"Why didn't you tell me it was Harry, Mary?" asked Bertha. "It would have saved all this year of misery.

"I didn't see Harry Dale at all that night," said Bertha. "I was—I was crying when Jim left me, and when Harry came along I slipped behind a tree until he was past. And now, look here, Mary, I can't marry Jim until he steadies down, but I'll give him another chance. But, Mary, I'd sooner lose him than you."

Bertha walked home with Mary, and during the afternoon she took Jim aside and said:

"Look here, Jim, I'll give you another chance—for a year. Now I want you to ride into town and send a telegram to Harry Dale. How long would it take him to get here?"

"He couldn't get here before New Year," said Jim.

"That will do," said Bertha, and Jim went to catch his horse. Next day Harry's reply came: "Coming"

ACT IV

New Year's Eve. The dance was at Buckolts' this year, but Bertha didn't dance much; she was down by the gate most of the time with little Mary Carey, waiting, and watching the long, white road, and listening for horses' feet, and disappointed often as other horsemen rode by or turned up to the farm.

And in the hot sunrise that morning, within a hundred 'miles of Rocky Rises, a tired, dusty drover camped in the edge of a scrub, boiled his quart-pot, broiled a piece of mutton on the coals, and lay down on the sand to rest an hour or so before pushing on to a cattle station he knew to try and borrow fresh horses. He had ridden all night.

Old Buckolt and Carey and Reid smoked socially under the grape-vines, with bottles of whisky and glasses, and nudged each other and coughed when they wanted to laugh at Old Abel Albury, who was, for about the first time in his life, condescending to explain. He was explaining to them what thund'rin' fools they had been.

Later on they sent a boy on horseback with a bottle of whisky and a message to Ryan, who turned up in time to see the New Year in with them and contradict certain slanders concerning the breed of his bull.

Meanwhile Bertha comforted Mary, and at last persuaded her to go home. "He's sure to be here to-morrow, Mary," she said, "and you need to look fresh and happy."

But Mary didn't sleep that night; she was up before daylight, had the kettle on and some chops ready to fry, and at daybreak she was down by the sliprails again. She was turning away for the second time when she heard a clear whistle round the Spur—then the tune of "Willie Riley," and the hobble-chains and camp-ware on the packhorse jingling to the tune.

She pulled out the rails with eager, trembling hands and leaned against the tree. An hour later a tired drover lay on his back, in his ragged, track-worn clothes and dusty leggings, on Mary's own little bed in the skillion off the living-room, and rested. Mary bustled round getting breakfast ready, and singing softly to herself; once she slipped in, bent over Harry and kissed him gently on the lips, and ran out as he stirred.

"Why, who's that?" exclaimed Uncle Abel, poking round early and catching a glimpse of Harry through the open door.

"It's only Harry, Uncle Abel," said Mary.

Uncle Abel peered in again to make sure.

"Well, be sure you git the writin's this time," he said.



THE BUSH-FIRE

I

SQUATTER AND SELECTOR

Wall was a squatter and a hard man. There had been long years of drought and loss, and then came the rabbit pest—the rabbits swarmed like flies over his run, and cropped the ground bare where even the poor grass might have saved thousands of sheep—and the rabbits cost the squatter hundreds of pounds in "rabbit-proof" fences, trappers' wages, etc., just to keep them down. Then came arrangements with the bank. And then Wall's wife died. Wall started to brood over other days, and the days that had gone between, and developed a temper which drove his children from home one by one, till only Mary was left. She managed the lonely home with the help of a half-caste. Then in good seasons came the selectors.

Men remembered Wall as a grand boss and a good fellow, but that was in the days before rabbits and banks, and syndicates and "pastoralists" or pastoral companies instead of good squatters. Runs were mostly pastoral leases for which the squatter paid the Government so much per square mile (almost a nominal rent). Selections were small holdings taken up by farmers under residential and other conditions and paid for by instalments. If you were not ruined by the drought, and paid up long enough, the land became freehold. The writer is heir to a dusty patch of three hundred acres or so in the scrub which was taken up thirty years ago and isn't freehold yet.

Selectors were allowed to take up land on runs or pastoral leases as well as on unoccupied Crown lands, and as they secured the best bits of land, and on water frontages if they could, and as, of course, selections reduced the area of the run, the squatters loved selectors like elder brothers. One man is allowed to select only a certain amount of land, and required by law to live on it, so the squatters bought as much freehold about the homestead as they could afford, selected as much as they are allowed to by law, and sometimes employed "dummy" selectors to take up choice bits about the runs and hold them for them. They fought selectors in many various ways, and, in some cases, annoyed and persecuted them with devilish ingenuity.

Ross was a selector, and a very hard man physically. He was a short, nuggety man with black hair and frill beard (a little dusty), bushy black eyebrows, piercing black eyes, horny knotted hands, and the obstinacy or pluck of a dozen men to fight drought and the squatter. Ross selected on Wall's run, in a bend of Sandy Creek, a nice bit of land with a black soil, flat and red soil sidings from the ridges, which no one had noticed before, and with the help of his boys he got the land cleared and fenced in a year or two—taking bush contracts about the district between whiles to make "tucker" for the family until he got his first crop off.

Wall was never accused of employing dummies, or underhanded methods in dealings with selectors, but he had been through so much and had brooded so long that he had grown very hard and bitter and suspicious, and the reverse of generous—as many men do who start out in life too soft and goodhearted and with too much faith in human nature. He was a tall, dark man. He ordered Ross's boys off the run, impounded Ross's stock—before Ross had got his fencing finished, summoned Ross for trespass, and Ross retaliated as well as he could, until at last it mightn't have been safe for one of those men to have met the other with a gun. The impounding of the selector's cattle led to the last bad quarrel between Wall and his son Billy, who was a tall, good-natured Cornstalk, and who reckoned that Australia was big enough for all of us. One day in the drought, and in an extra bitter mood, Wall heard that some of his sheep had been dogged in the vicinity of Ross's selection, and he ordered Billy to take a station-hand and watch Ross's place all night, and, if Ross's cattle put their noses over the boundary, to drive them to the pound, fifteen miles away; also to lay poisoned baits for the dogs all round the selection. And Billy flatly refused.

"I know Ross and the boys," he said, "and I don't believe they dogged the sheep. Why, they've only got a Newfoundland pup, and an old lame, one-eyed sheep-dog that couldn't hurt a flea. Now, father, this sort of thing has been going on long enough. What difference does a few paltry acres make to us? The country is big enough, God knows! Ross is a straight man and—for God's sake, give the man a chance to get his ground fenced in; he's doing it as fast as he can, and he can't watch his cattle day and night."

"Are you going to do as I tell you, or are you not?" shouted Wall.

"Well, if it comes to that, I'm not," said Billy. "I'm not going to sneak round a place all night and watch for a chance to pound a poor man's cows."

It was an awful row, down behind the wool-shed, and things looked so bad that old Peter, the station-hand, who was a witness, took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves, ready, as he said afterwards, "to roll into" either the father or the son if one raised a hand against the other.

"Father!" said Billy, though rather sobered by the sight of his father's trembling, choking passion, "do you call yourself an Englishman?"

"Yes!" yelled Wall, furiously. "What the hell do you call yourself?"

"If it comes to that I'm an Australian," said Billy, and he turned away and went to catch his horse. He went up-country and knocked about in the north-west for a year or two.

II

ROMEO AND JULIET

Mary Wall was twenty-five. She was an Australian bush girl, every inch of her five-foot-nine; she had a pink-and-white complexion, dark blue eyes, blue-black hair, and "the finest figure in the district," on horseback or afoot. She was the best girlrider too (saddle or bare-back), and they say that when she was a tomboy she used to tuck her petticoats under her and gallop man-fashion through the scrub after horses or cattle. She said she was going to be an old maid.

There came a jackaroo on a visit to the station. He was related to the bank with which Wall had relations. He was a dude, with an expensive education and no brains. He was very vain of his education and prospects. He regarded Mary with undisguised admiration, and her father had secret hopes. One evening the jackaroo was down by the homestead-gate when Mary came cantering home on her tall chestnut. The gate was six feet or more, and the jackaroo raised his hat and hastened to open it, but Mary reined her horse back a few yards and the "dood" had barely time to jump aside when there was a scuffle of hoofs on the road, a "Ha-ha-ha!" in mid-air, a landing thud, and the girl was away up the home-track in a cloud of dust.

A few days later the jackaroo happened to be at Kelly's, a wayside shanty, watching a fight between two bushmen, when Mary rode up. She knew the men. She whipped her horse in between them and struck at first one and then the other with her riding-whip.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!" she said; "and both married men, too!"

It evidently struck them that way, for after a bit they shook hands and went home.

"And I wouldn't have married that girl for a thousand pounds," said the jackaroo, relating the incidents to some friends in Sydney.

Mary said she wanted a man, if she could get one.

There was no life at home nowadays, so Mary went to all the bush dances in the district. She thought nothing of riding twenty or thirty miles to a dance, dancing all night, and riding home again next morning. At one of these dances she met young Robert Ross, a clean-limbed, good-looking young fellow about her own age. She danced with him and liked him, and danced with him again, and he rode part of the way home with her. The subject of the quarrel between the two homes came up gradually.

"The boss," said Robert, meaning his father, "the boss is always ready to let bygones be bygones. It's a pity it couldn't be fixed up."

"Yes," said Mary, looking at him (Bob looked very well on horseback), "it is a pity."

They met several times, and next Prince of Wales's birthday they rode home from the races together. Both had good horses, and they happened to be far ahead of the others on the wide, straight clear road that ran between the walls of the scrub. Along, about dusk, they became very confidential indeed—Mary had remarked what a sad and beautiful sunset it was. The horses got confidential, too, and shouldered together, and touched noses, and, after a long interval in the conversation, during which Robert, for one, began to breathe quickly, he suddenly leaned over, put his arm round her waist and made to kiss her. She jerked her body away, threw up her whiphand, and Robert ducked instinctively; but she brought her whip down on her horse's flank instead, and raced ahead. Robert followed—or, rather, his horse did: he thought it was a race, and took the bit in his teeth. Robert kept calling, appealing:

"Wait a while, Mary! I want to explain! I want to apologize! For God's sake listen to me, Mary!"

But Mary didn't hear him. Perhaps she misunderstood the reason of the chase and gave him credit for a spice of the devil in his nature. But Robert grew really desperate; he felt that the thing must be fixed up now or never, and gave his horse a free rein. Her horse was the fastest, and Robert galloped in the dust from his heels for about a mile and a half; then at the foot of a rise Mary's horse stumbled and nearly threw her over his head, and then he stopped like the good horse he was.

Robert got down feeling instinctively that he might best make his peace on foot, and approached Mary with a face of misery—she had dropped her whip.

"Oh, Bob!" she said, "I'm knocked out;" and she slipped down into his arms and stayed there a while.

They sat on a log and rested, while their horses made inquiries of each other's noses, and compared notes.

And after a good while Mary said "No, Bob, it's no use talking of marrying just yet. I like you, Bob, but I could never marry you while things are as they are between your father and mine. Now, that'll do. Let me get on my horse, Bob. I'll be safer there."

"Why?" asked Bob.

"Come on, Bob, and don't be stupid."

She met him often and "liked" him.

III

A TRAMP'S MATCH AND WHAT IT DID

It was Christmas Eve at Wall's, but there was no score or so of buggies and horses and dozens of strange dogs round the place as of old. The glasses and decanters were dusty on the heavy old-fashioned sideboard in the dining-room; and there was only a sullen, brooding man leaning over the hurdles and looking at his rams in the yard, and a sullen, brooding half-caste at work in the kitchen. Mary had ridden away that morning to visit a girl chum.

It was towards the end of a long drought, and the country was like tinder for hundreds of miles round—the ground for miles and miles in the broiling scrubs "as bare as your hand," or covered with coarse, dry tufts. There was feed grass in places, but you had to look close to see it.

Shearing had finished the day before, but there was a black boy and a station-hand or two about the yards and six or eight shearers and rouseabouts, and a teamster camped in the men's huts—they were staying over the holidays to shear stragglers and clean up generally. Old Peter and a jackaroo were out on the run watching a bush-fire across Sandy Creek.

A swagman had happened to call at the station that morning; he asked for work and then for tucker. He irritated Wall, who told him to clear out. It was the first time that a swagman had been turned away from the station without tucker.

Swaggy went along the track some miles, brooding over his wrongs, and crossed Sandy Creek. He struck a match and dropped it into a convenient tuft of grass in a likely patch of tufts, with dead grass running from it up into the scrubby ridges—then he hurried on.

Did you ever see a bush-fire? Not sheets of flame sweeping and roaring from tree-top to tree-top, but the snaky, hissing grass-fire of hardwood country.

The whole country covered with thin blue smoke so that you never know in what direction the fire is travelling. At night you see it like the lighted streets of cities, in the distant ranges. It roars up the hollows of dead trees and gives them the appearance of factory chimneys in the dusk. It climbs, by shreds of bark, the trunks of old dead white-box and blue-gums—solid and hard as cast-iron—and cuts off the limbs. And where there's a piece of recently ringbarked country, with the dead leaves still on the trees, the fire will roar from bough to bough—a fair imitation of a softwood forest fire. The bush-fire travels through the scrubs for hundreds of miles, taking the grass to the roots, scorching the living bush but leaving it alive—for gumbush is hardest of any to kill. Where there is no undergrowth, and the country seems bare as a road for miles, the fire will cross, licking up invisible straws of grass, dusty leaves, twigs and shreds of bark on the hard ground already baking in the drought. You hear of a fire miles away, and next day, riding across the head of a gully, you hear a hissing and crackling and there is the fire running over the ground in lines and curves of thin blue smoke, snakelike, with old logs blazing on the blackened ground behind. Did you ever hear a fire where a fire should not be? There is something hellish in the sound of it. When the breeze is, say, from the east the fire runs round western spurs, up sheltered gullies—helped by an "eddy" in the wind perhaps—and appears along the top of the ridge, ready, with a change in the wind, to come down on farms and fields of ripe wheat, with a "front" miles long.

A selector might be protected by a wide sandy creek in front and wide cleared roads behind, and, any hour in the day or night, a shout from the farther end of the wheat paddock, and—"Oh, my God! the wheat!"

Wall didn't mind this fire much; most of his sheep were on their way out back, to a back run where there was young grass; and the dry ridges along the creek would be better for a burning-off—only he had to watch his fences.

But, about dusk, Mary came galloping home in her usual breakneck fashion.

"Father," she cried, "turn out the men and send them at once. The fire is all down by Ross's farm, and he has ten acres of wheat standing, and no one at home but him and Bob."

"How do you know?" growled Wall. Then suddenly and suspiciously, "Have you been there?"

"I came home that way."

"Well—let Ross look after his own," snarled the father.

"But he can't, father. They're fighting the fire now, and they'll be burnt out before the morning if they don't get help—for God's sake, father, act like a Christian and send the men. Remember it is Christmas-time, father. You're surely not going to see a neighbour burnt out."

"Yes, I am," shouted Wall. "I'd like to see every selector in the country burnt out, hut and all! Get off that horse and go inside. If a man leaves the station to-night he needn't come back." (This last for the benefit of the men's hut.)

"But, father—"

"Get off that horse and go inside," roared Wall.

"I—I won't."

"What!" He darted forward as though to drag her from the saddle, but she swung her horse away.

"Stop! Where are you going?"

"To help Ross," said Mary. "He had no one to send for help."

"Then go the same way as your brother!" roared her father; "and if you show your nose back again I'll horse-whip you off the run!"

"I'll go, father," said Mary, and she was away.

IV

THE FIRE AT ROSS'S FARM

Ross's farm was in a corner between the ridges and the creek. The fire had come down from the creek, but the siding on that side was fairly clear, and they had stopped the fire there. It went behind the ridge and ran up and over. The ridge was covered thickly with scrub and dead grass; the wheat-field went well up the siding, and along the top was a bush face with only a narrow bridle-track between it and the long dead grass. Everything depended on the wind. Mary saw Ross and Mrs Ross and the daughter Jenny, well up the siding above the fence, working desperately, running to and fro, and beating out the fire with green boughs. Mary left her horse, ran into the hut, and looked hurriedly round for something to wear in place of her riding-skirt. She only saw a couple of light print dresses. She stepped into a skillion room, which happened to be Bob's room, and there caught sight of a pair of trousers and a coat hanging on the wall.

Bob Ross, beating desperately along a line of fire that curved down-hill to his right, and half-choked and blinded with the smoke, almost stumbled against a figure which was too tall to be his father.

"Why! who's that?" he gasped.

"It's only me, Bob," said Mary, and she lifted her bough again.

Bob stared. He was so astonished that he almost forgot the fire and the wheat. Bob was not thin—but—

"Don't look at me, Bob!" said Mary, hurriedly. "We're going to be married, so it doesn't matter. Let us save the wheat."

There was no time to waste; there was a breeze now from over the ridges, light, but enough to bear the fire down on them. Once, when they had breathing space, Mary ran to the creek for a billy of water. They beat out the fire all along the siding to where a rib of granite came down over the ridge to the fence, and then they thought the wheat was safe. They came together here, and Ross had time to look and see who the strange man was; then he stared at Mary from under his black, bushy eyebrows. Mary, choking and getting her breath after her exertions, suddenly became aware, said "Oh!" and fled round the track beyond the point of granite. She felt a gust of wind and looked up the ridge. The bush fence ended here in a corner, where it was met by a new wire fence running up from the creek. It was a blind gully full of tall dead grass, and, glancing up, Mary saw the flames coming down fast. She ran back.

"Come on!" she cried, "come on! The fire's the other side of the rocks!"

Back at the station, Wall walked up and down till he cooled. He went inside and sat down, but it was no use. He lifted his head and saw his dead wife's portrait on the wall. Perhaps his whole life ran before him in detail—but this is not a psychological study.

There were only two tracks open to him now: either to give in, or go on as he was going—to shut himself out from human nature and become known as "Mean Wall," "Hungry Wall," or "Mad Wall, the Squatter." He was a tall, dark man of strong imagination and more than ordinary intelligence. And it was the great crisis of his ruined life. He walked to the top of a knoll near the homestead and saw the fire on the ridges above Ross's farm. As he turned back he saw a horseman ride up and dismount by the yard.

"Is that you, Peter?"

"Yes, boss. The fences is all right."

"Been near Ross's?"

"No. He's burnt out by this time."

Wall walked to and fro for a few minutes longer. Then he suddenly stopped and called, "Peter!"

"Ay, ay!" from the direction of the huts.

"Turn out the men!" and Wall went into a shed and came out with his saddle on his arm.

The fire rushed down the blind gully. Showers of sparks fell on the bush fence, it caught twice, and they put it out, but the third time it blazed and roared and a fire-engine could not have stopped it.

"The wheat must go," said Ross. "We've done our best," and he threw down the blackened bough and leaned against a tree, and covered his eyes with a grimy hand.

The wheat was patchy in that corner—there were many old stumps of trees, and there were bare strips where the plough had gone on each side of them. Mary saw a chance, and climbed the fence.

"Come on, Bob," she cried, "we might save it ye. Mr Ross, pull out the fence along there," and she indicated a point beyond the fire. They tramped down and tore up the wheat where it ran between the stumps—the fire was hissing and crackling round and through it, and just as it ran past them in one place there was a shout, a clatter of horses' hoofs on the stones, and Mary saw her father riding up the track with a dozen men behind him. She gave a shriek and ran straight down, through the middle of the wheat, towards the hut.

Wall and his men jumped to the ground, wrenched green boughs from the saplings, and, after twenty minutes' hard fighting, the crop was saved—save for a patchy acre or so. When it was all over Ross sat down on a log and rested his head on his hands, and his shoulders shook. Presently he felt a hand on his shoulder, looked up, and saw Wall.

"Shake hands, Ross," he said.

And it was Christmas Day.

But in after years they used to nearly chaff the life out of Mary. "You were in a great hurry to put on the breeches, weren't you, Mary?" "Bob's best Sunday-go-meetin's, too, wasn't they, Mary?" "Rather tight fit, wasn't they, Mary?" "Couldn't get 'em on now, could you, Mary?"

"But," reflected old Peter apart to some cronies, "it ain't every young chap as gits an idea of the shape of his wife afore he marries her—is it? An' that's sayin' somethin'."

And old Peter was set down as being an innercent sort of ole cove.



THE HOUSE THAT WAS NEVER BUILT

There had been heavy rain and landslips all along the branch railway which left the Great Western Line from Sydney just beyond the Blue Mountains, and ran through thick bush and scrubby ridgy country and along great alluvial sidings—were the hills on the opposite side of the wide valleys (misty in depths) faded from deep blue into the pale azure of the sky—and over the ends of western spurs to the little farming, mining and pastoral town of Solong, situated in a circle of blue hills on the banks of the willow-fringed Cudgegong River.

The line was hopelessly blocked, and some publicans at Solong had put on the old coach-road a couple of buggies, a wagonette, and an old mail coach—relic of the days of Cobb & Co., which had been resurrected from some backyard and tinkered up—to bring the train passengers on from the first break in the line over the remaining distance of forty miles or so. Capertee Station (old time, "Capertee Camp"—a teamster's camp) was the last station before the first washout, and there the railway line and the old road parted company for the last time before reaching Solong—the one to run round by the ends of the western spurs that spread fanlike, and the other to go through and over, the rough country.