other luxuries, at station prices. Moreover, if you lost your own
horse you would have to find another, and if that died or went astray
you would have to find a third--or forfeit your pay and return on
foot. The boss drover agreed to provide flour and mutton--when such
things were procurable.

Consequently, Clancy's unfavourable opinion of the colonies.

My mate
and I sat down on our swags against the fence to talk things over.
One of us was very deaf. Presently a black tracker went past and
looked at us, and returned to the pub. Then a trooper in Queensland
uniform came along and asked us what the trouble was about, and where
we came from and were going, and where we camped. We said we were
discussing private business, and he explained that he thought it was a
row, and came over to see. Then he left us, and later on we saw him
sitting with the rest of the population on a bench under the hotel
veranda. Next morning we rolled up our swags and left Hungerford to
the north-west.




A CAMP-FIRE YARN


"This girl," said Mitchell,
continuing a yarn to his mate, "was about the ugliest girl I ever saw,
except one, and I'll tell you about her directly. The old man had a
carpenter's shop fixed up in a shed at the back of his house, and he