bushwoman was busy putting some tucker in a sugar-bag. "There's tea
and sugar and salt in these mustard tins, and they won't get wet,"
she said, "and there's some butter too; but I don't know how you'll
manage about the bread--I've wrapped it up, but you'll have to keep it
dry as well as you can."

"Thank you, missus, but that'll be all right. I've got a bit of
oil-cloth," he said.

They spoke lamely for a while, against time; then the bushwoman
touched the spring, and their voices became suddenly low and earnest
as they drew together. The stranger spoke as at a funeral, but the
funeral was his own.

"I don't care about myself so much," he said, "for I'm tired of it,
and--and--for the matter of that I'm tired of everything; but I'd like
to see poor Jack right, and I'll try to get clear myself, for his
sake. You've seen him. I can't blame myself, for I took him from a
life that was worse than jail. You know how much worse than animals
some brutes treat their children in the bush. And he was an
'adopted.' You know what that means. He was idiotic with
ill-treatment when I got hold of him. He's sensible enough when away
with me, and true as steel. He's about the only living human thing
I've got to care for, or to care for me, and I want to win out of this
hell for his sake."

He paused, and they were all silent. He was measuring time, as his
next words proved: "Jack must be nearly ready now." Then he took a
packet from some inside pocket of his blue dungaree shirt. It was
wrapped in oil-cloth, and he opened it and laid it on the table; there