“Whatever he did leave was hidden away. Warrigal says he was a little chap when he died, but he says he remembers men making a great corroboree over him when he died, and they could find nothing. They always thought he had money, and he showed them one of two small lumps of gold, and what he said was gold-dust washed out from the creek bed.”

As we had no call to work now, we went in for a bit of sport every day. Lord! how long it seemed since Jim and I had put the guns on our shoulders and walked out in the beautiful fresh part of the morning to have a day’s shooting. It made us feel like boys again. When I said so the tears came into Jim’s eyes and he turned his head away. Father came one day; he and old Crib were a stunning pair for pot shooting, and he was a dead game shot, though we could beat him with the rifle and revolver.

There was a pretty fair show of game, too. The Iowan (Mallee hen, they’re mostly called) and talegalla (brush turkey) were thick enough in some of the scrubby corners. Warrigal used to get the Iowan eggs—beautiful pink thin-shelled ones they are, first-rate to eat, and one of ‘em a man’s breakfast. Then there were pigeons, wild ducks, quail, snipe now and then, besides wallaby and other kangaroos. There was no fear of starving, even if we hadn’t a tidy herd of cattle to come upon.

The fishing wasn’t bad either. The creeks ran towards the northwest watershed and were full of codfish, bream, and perch. Even the jewfish wasn’t bad with their skins off. They all tasted pretty good, I tell you, alter a quick broil, let alone the fun of catching them. Warrigal used to make nets out of cooramin bark, and put little weirs across the shallow places, so as we could go in and drive the fish in. Many a fine cod we took that way. He knew all the blacks’ ways as well as a good many of ours. The worst of him was that except in hunting, fishing, and riding he’d picked up the wrong end of the habits of both sides. Father used to set snares for the brush kangaroo and the bandicoots, like he’d been used to do for the hares in the old country. We could always manage to have some kind of game hanging up. It kept us amused, too.

But I don’t know whatever we should have done, that month we stayed there, at the first—we were never so long idle again—without the horses. We used to muster them twice a week, run ‘em up into the big receiving yard, and have a regular good look over ‘em till we knew every one of ‘em like a book.