of them ---- newfangled ---- two-story ----! "night houses" (as it
called them). And, thereafter, when he had a load on, or the weather
was too bad for sleeping in or under his wagon, the veranda of a
one-storied shanty (if he could get to it) was good enough for
MacSomething, the carrier.




THE HYPNOTIZED TOWNSHIP



They said that Harry Chatswood, the mail contractor would do anything
for Cobb & Co., even to stretching fencing-wire across the road in a
likely place: but I don't believe that--Harry was too good-hearted to
risk injuring innocent passengers, and he had a fellow feeling for
drivers, being an old coach driver on rough out-back tracks himself.
But he did rig up fencing-wire for old Mac, the carrier, one night,
though not across the road. Harry, by the way, was a city-born
bushman, who had been everything for some years. Anything from
six-foot-six to six-foot-nine, fourteen stone, and a hard case. He is
a very successful coach-builder now, for he knows the wood, the roads,
and the weak parts in a coach.

It was in the good seasons when competition was keen and men's hearts
were hard--not as it is in times of drought, when there is no
competition, and men's hearts are soft, and there is all kindness and
goodwill between them. He had had much opposition in fighting Cobb &
Co., and his coaches had won through on the outer tracks. There was