sets down to his dinner without askin’ another man whether he’s got a mouth on him or not! Polite sort o’ (person) you are! Gerrout! you bin dragged up on the cheap!”
“Come! A’ll bate ye fifty poun’ A’m betther rairt nor you! Houl’ an’!—A’ll bate ye a hundher’—two hundher’, if ye lek, an’ stake the money down this minit”
“Stiddy, now! draw it mild, you fellers there!” thundered Cooper from behind. “Must n’t have no quarrellin’ while I’m knockin’ round.”
“Ye’ll be late gittin’ to the ram-paddock, Tamson,” remarked M’Nab, treating Cooper with the silent contempt usually lavished upon men of his physique. “Axpect thon’s where ye’re makin’ fur?”
“I say—you better camp with us to-night,” suggested Thompson, evading the implied inquiry.
Without replying, the contractor put his horse into a canter, and, accompanied by his esquire, went on his way, pausing only to speak to Mosey for a few minutes as he passed the foremost team.
“Curious sample o’ (folks) you drop across on the track sometimes,” remarked Rufus, who remained with us.
“No end to the variety,” I replied. Then lowering my voice and glancing furtively round, I asked experimentally, “Have n’t I seen you before, somewhere?”
“Queensland, most likely,” he conjectured, whilst finding something of interest on the horizon, at the side farthest from me. “Native o’ that district, I am. Jist comin’ across for the fust time. What’s that bloke’s name with the nex’ team ahead—if it’s a fair question?”
“Bob Dixon.”
“Gosh, I’m in luck!” He spurred his mare forward, and attached himself to Dixon for the rest of the afternoon.
But time, according to its deplorable habit, had been passing, and the glitter had died off the plain as the sun went on its way to make a futile attempt at purifying the microbe-laden atmosphere of Europe.
At last we reached the spot selected as a camp. Close on our left was the clump of swamp box which covered about fifty acres of the nearer portion of the selection, leaving a few scattered trees outside the fence. On our right, the bare plain extended indefinitely.
I ought to explain that this selection was a mile-square block, which had been taken up, four years previously, by a business man of Melbourne, whose aim was to show the public how to graze scientifically on a small area. Now Runnymede owned the selection, whilst its former occupier was vending sixpenny parcels of inferior fruit on a railway platform. The fence—erected by the experimentalist—was of the best kind; two rails and four wires; sheep-proof and cattle-proof.
The wagons drew off the track, and stopped beside the fence in the deepening twilight. The bullocks were unyoked with all speed, and stood around waiting to see what provision would be made for the night.
“Look ’ere,” said Mosey, taking a dead pine sapling from the stock of firewood under his wagon, and, of course, emphasising his address by an easy and not ungraceful clatter of the adjective used so largely by poets
