job will be within easy walking distance of Bourke. Perhaps he thinks
there'll be a cart or a buggy waiting for him. He travels for a night
and day without a bite to eat, and, on arrival, he finds that the
station is eighty or a hundred miles away. Then he has to explain
matters to a publican and a coach-driver. God bless the publican and
the coach-driver! God forgive our social system!

Native industry was represented at one place along the line by three
tiles, a chimney-pot, and a length of piping on a slab.

Somebody said to me, "Yer wanter go out back, young man, if yer
wanter see the country. Yer wanter get away from the line." I don't
wanter; I've been there.

You could go to the brink of eternity so far as Australia is concerned
and yet meet an animated mummy of a swagman who will talk of going
"out back." Out upon the out-back fiend!

About Byrock we met the bush liar in all his glory. He was dressed
like--like a bush larrikin. His name was Jim. He had been to a ball
where some blank had "touched" his blanky overcoat. The overcoat
had a cheque for ten "quid" in the pocket. He didn't seem to feel
the loss much. "Wot's ten quid?" He'd been everywhere, including
the Gulf country. He still had three or four sheds to go to. He had
telegrams in his pocket from half a dozen squatters and supers
offering him pens on any terms. He didn't give a blank whether he
took them or no. He thought at first he had the telegrams on him but
found that he had left them in the pocket of the overcoat aforesaid.
He had learned butchering in a day. He was a bit of a scrapper
himself and talked a lot about the ring. At the last station where he