bush. But the welcome given to them varies. Sometimes they are made
to work before they are fed--to their infinite disgust. But no such
cruelty was exercised at Boolabong. Boolabong was a very Paradise for
vagabonds. There was always flour and meat to be had, generally
tobacco, and sometimes even the luxury of a nobbler. The Brownbies
were wise enough to have learned that it was necessary for their very
existence that they should have friends in the land. On the Sunday
the father and Jerry Brownbie were sitting out in the veranda at
about noon, and the other two sons, Jack and Joe, were lying asleep
on the beds within.

The heat of the day was intense. There was a wind blowing, but it was
that which is called there the hot wind, which comes dry, scorching,
sometimes almost intolerable, over the burning central plain of the
country. No one can understand without feeling it how much a wind can
add to the sufferings inflicted by heat. The old man had on a dirty,
wretched remnant of a dressing-gown, but Jerry was clothed simply in
trowsers and an old shirt. Only that the mosquitoes would have flayed
him, he would have dispensed probably with these. He had been
quarreling with his father respecting a certain horse which he had
sold, of the price of which the father demanded a share. Jerry had
unblushingly declared that he himself had "shaken" the horse--
Anglice, had stolen him--twelve months since on Darnley Downs, and
was therefore clearly entitled to the entire plunder. The father had
rejoined with animation that unless "half a quid"--or ten shillings--
were given him as his contribution to the keep of the animal, he
would inform against his son to the squatter on the Darnley Downs,
and had shown him that he knew the very run from which the horse had
been taken. Then the sons within had interfered from their beds,
swearing that their father was the noisiest old "cuss" unhung, they