ain't it? The bullocks'll be able to do their selves some sort o' justice."

It was a clear but moonless night; the dark blue canopy spangled
with myriad stars--grandeur, peace, and purity above; squalor, worry,
and profanity below. Fit basis for many an ancient system of Theology--
unscientific, if you will, but by no means contemptible.

Price and Cooper, being cooks, had kindled an unobtrusive fire in a crabhole,
where three billies were soon boiling. And the tea, when cool enough,
needed no light to escort a due proportion of simple provender
into that mysterious laboratory which should never be considered too curiously.

After supper, we lay around, resting ourselves; everyone smoking tranquilly
except Willoughby. Dixon and Bum were evidently old friends; they reclined
with their heads together, occasionally laughing and whispering--a piece
of bad manners silently but strongly resented by the rest of the company.

"I'll jist go an' have a squint at the carrion," remarked Mosey, at length,
with the inevitable adjective; and, passing through the broken fence,
he disappeared in the timber and old-man salt-bush.

"Wants some o' the flashness took outen him," remarked Price,
in arrogant assertion of parental authority, yet glancing apprehensively
after Mosey as he spoke.

"Should 'a' thought about that before," observed Cooper gravely.
"Too late now. You ain't good enough."

A few minutes silence ensued, while each member of the company
thought the matter over in his own way. Then Mosey returned.