difference in the climate. I always thought--"

But the other did not appear to hear him; he kept staring hard at the
trees they were passing. They had been planted in rows and
cross-rows, and were coming on grandly.

There was a rabbit trapper's camp amongst those trees; he had made a
fire to boil his billy with gum-leaves and twigs, and it was the scent
of that fire which interested the exile's nose, and brought a wave of
memories with it.

"Good day, mate!" he shouted suddenly to the rabbit trapper, and to
the astonishment of his fellow passengers.

"Good day, mate!" The answer came back like an echo--it seemed to
him--from the past.

Presently he caught sight of a few trees which had evidently been
planted before the others--as an experiment, perhaps--and, somehow,
one of them had grown after its own erratic native fashion--gnarled
and twisted and ragged, and could not be mistaken for anything else
but an Australian gum.

"A thunderin' old blue-gum!" ejaculated the traveller, regarding the
tree with great interest.

He screwed his neck to get a last glimpse, and then sat silently
smoking and gazing straight ahead, as if the past lay before him--and
it _was_ before him.