bootless, in the rear. Now and again he tramped on a Bathurst-burr, and,
in sitting down to extract the prickle, would receive a cluster of them
elsewhere. When he escaped the burr it was only to knock his shin against
a log or leave a toe-nail or two clinging to a stone. Joe howled, but the
wind howled louder, and blew and blew.

Dave, in pausing to wait on Joe, would mutter:

"To HELL with everything! Whatever he wants bringing us out a night like
this, I'm DAMNED if I know!"

Dad could n't see very well in the dark, and on this night could n't see
at all, so he walked up against one of the old draught horses that had
fallen asleep gazing at the lucerne. And what a fright they both got!
The old horse took it worse than Dad--who only tumbled down--for he plunged
as though the devil had grabbed him, and fell over the fence, twisting
every leg he had in the wires. How the brute struggled! We stood and
listened to him. After kicking panels of the fence down and smashing
every wire in it, he got loose and made off, taking most of it with him.

"That's one wallaby on the wheat, anyway," Dave muttered, and we giggled.
WE understood Dave; but Dad did n't open his mouth.

We lost no time lighting the fires. Then we walked through the "wheat"
and wallabies! May Satan reprove me if I exaggerate their number by one
solitary pair of ears--but from the row and scatter they made there were
a MILLION.

Dad told Joe, at last, he could go to sleep if he liked, at the fire.
Joe went to sleep--HOW, I don't know. Then Dad sat beside him, and for