in their bellies. However, some of them do pretty well,
though they do say they have to live on 'possums for a time.
We didn't do much, in spite of our grand start.

The flat was well enough, but there were other places in the gullies
beyond that that father had dropped upon when he was out shooting.
He was a tremendous chap for poking about on foot or on horseback,
and though he was an Englishman, he was what you call a born bushman.
I never saw any man almost as was his equal. Wherever he'd been once,
there he could take you to again; and what was more,
if it was in the dead of the night he could do it just the same.
People said he was as good as a blackfellow, but I never saw one
that was as good as he was, all round. In a strange country, too.
That was what beat me -- he'd know the way the creek run,
and noticed when the cattle headed to camp, and a lot of things
that other people couldn't see, or if they did, couldn't remember again.
He was a great man for solitary walks, too -- he and an old dog he had,
called Crib, a cross-bred mongrel-looking brute, most like
what they call a lurcher in England, father said. Anyhow, he could do
most anything but talk. He could bite to some purpose, drive cattle or sheep,
catch a kangaroo, if it wasn't a regular flyer, fight like a bulldog,
and swim like a retriever, track anything, and fetch and carry,
but bark he wouldn't. He'd stand and look at dad as if he worshipped him,
and he'd make him some sign and off he'd go like a child that's got a message.
Why he was so fond of the old man we boys couldn't make out.
We were afraid of him, and as far as we could see he never patted
or made much of Crib. He thrashed him unmerciful as he did us boys.
Still the dog was that fond of him you'd think he'd like to die for him
there and then. But dogs are not like boys, or men either -- better, perhaps.