ON THE EDGE OF A PLAIN


"I'd been away from home for eight years," said Mitchell to his
mate, as they dropped their swags in the mulga shade and sat down.
"I hadn't written a letter--kept putting it off, and a blundering
fool of a fellow that got down the day before me told the old folks
that he'd heard I was dead."

Here he took a pull at his water-bag.

"When I got home they were all in mourning for me. It was night, and
the girl that opened the door screamed and fainted away like a shot."

He lit his pipe.

"Mother was upstairs howling and moaning in a chair, with all the
girls boo-hoo-ing round her for company. The old man was sitting in
the back kitchen crying to himself."

He put his hat down on the ground, dinted in the crown, and poured
some water into the hollow for his cattle-pup.

"The girls came rushing down. Mother was so pumped out that she
couldn't get up. They thought at first I was a ghost, and then they
all tried to get holt of me at once--nearly smothered me. Look at
that pup! You want to carry a tank of water on a dry stretch when
you've got a pup that drinks as much as two men."