and finally collapsed into a shapeless rum-smelling heap and slept once more.
The jackeroo at the end of the verandah had awakened from his drunken sleep, but had not moved. He lay huddled on his side, with his head on the swag; the whole length of the verandah was before him; his eyes were wide open, but his face was in the shade. Now he rose painfully and stood on the ground outside, with his hands in his pockets, and gazed out over the open for a while. He breathed a long breath, too—with a groan in it. Then he lifted his swag quietly from the end of the floor, shouldered it, took up his water-bag and billy, and sneaked over the road, away from the place, like a thief. He struck across the plain, and tramped on, hour after hour, mile after mile, till the bright moon went down with a bright star in attendance and the other bright stars waned, and he entered the timber and tramped through it to the “cleared road”, which stretched far and wide for twenty miles before him, with ghostly little dust-clouds at short intervals ahead, where the frightened rabbits crossed it. And still he went doggedly on, with the ghastly daylight on him—like a swagman’s ghost out late. And a mongrel followed faithfully all the time unnoticed, and wondering, perhaps, at his master.
“What was yer doin’ to that girl yesterday?” asked Danny of Yankee Jack next evening, as they camped on the far side of the plain. “What was you chaps sayin’ to Alice? I heerd her cryin’ in her room last night.”
