An Outback Marriage

have wings-we still shun the club bore, and let him have a table to himself; the head waiter usually looks a more important personage than any of th

s and such horrors; while beyond them a lot of racing men were swilling champagne and eating and talking as heartily as so many navvies. A few squatters, down from their stations, had fore-gathered at the centre table, where each was trying to make out that he had had less rain than the others. The Bo'sun and his guests were taken in hand by the head waiter, who formerly had been at

conversation flowed. A bushman, especially when primed with champagne, is always ready to give his tongue a run-and when he has two open-mouthed new chums for audience, as Gordon had

n?" said the Bo'sun. "Haven't s

t it's all one to him. He wires to me to go and inspect them quick and lively before someone else gets them, and I ride and drive and coach hundreds of miles to get at some flat-sided pike-horned mob of brutes without enough fat on them to oil a man's hair with. I've to go right away out back now and take over a place that the old man advanced some money

be-trotter, who was spending a month in the co

so long as he stuck to dead-reckoning he was all right. He made out we were off Cairns, and that's just where we were; because we struck the Great Barrier Reef, and became a total wreck ten minutes after. With the cattle it's just the same. You'll reckon the cattle that you started with, add on each year's calves, subtract all t

gh would as soon have an attack of faceache as see old Bully looming up the track. Every time he goes up he shifts every blessed sheep out of every paddock, and knocks seven years' growth out of them putting them through the yards; then he overhauls the store, and if there's a box of matches shor

d Carew rather hesitated. Then he came out wi

man named Considine

his mates ran him twenty miles into Bourke between two horses to keep him from going to sleep, giving him a nip of whisky every twenty minutes; a

ther, not feeling quite sure that he was not being l

to find him. A great-uncle of mine died out here a long while ago, and we believe he left a son; and if there is such a son, it turns out that he would be entitled to a heap of money. It has been heaping up for years

drawled Gordon, "supposing you d

and he dies without making a will, then the money would all come to my p

d to find him dead. If we come across him away in the back country, we'll soon arrange his dea

yone to shoot him,"

h me, and we'll fin

rose it was arranged nem. con., and with much enthusiasm, that Carew should accompany Gordon on his trip to N

and somewhat loudly, they st