or had come back, and he and Mitchell had hanged themselves sociably --
Mitchell for sympathy and the sake of mateship.

But Mitchell was sleeping peacefully, in spite of a path of moonlight
across his face -- and so was the pup.




The Darling River



The Darling -- which is either a muddy gutter or a second Mississippi --
is about six times as long as the distance, in a straight line, from its head
to its mouth. The state of the river is vaguely but generally understood
to depend on some distant and foreign phenomena to which bushmen refer
in an off-hand tone of voice as "the Queenslan' rains",
which seem to be held responsible, in a general way,
for most of the out-back trouble.

It takes less than a year to go up stream by boat to Walgett or Bourke
in a dry season; but after the first three months the passengers generally
go ashore and walk. They get sick of being stuck in the same sort of place,
in the same old way; they grow weary of seeing the same old "whaler"
drop his swag on the bank opposite whenever the boat ties up for wood;
they get tired of lending him tobacco, and listening to his ideas,
which are limited in number and narrow in conception.

It shortens the journey to get out and walk; but then you will have