A bush telegraph, you see, is mostly worked about the neighbour hood he was born in. He’s not much good anywhere else. He’s like a blackfellow outside of his own “tauri.” He’s at sea. But within twenty or thirty miles of where he was born and bred he knows every track, every range, every hill, every creek, as well as all the short cuts and by-roads. He can bring you miles shorter than anyone that only follows the road. He can mostly track like a blackfellow, and tell you whether the cattle or horses which he sees the tracks of are belonging to his country or are strangers. He can get you a fresh horse on a pinch, night or day, for he knows everybody’s paddocks and yards, as well as the number, looks, pace, and pluck of every body’s riding horses—of many of which he has “taken a turn” out of—that is ridden them hard and far, and returned them during the night, Of course he can be fined—even imprisoned for this—when he is caught in the act. Herein lies the difficulty. I felt like another man after a wash, a nip, and a real good meal, with the two girls sitting close by, and chattering away as usual.

“Do you know,” says Bella,“it half serves you right. Not that that Port Phillip woman was right to peach. She ought to have had her tongue torn out first, let alone go open-mouthed at it. But mightn’t you have come down here from the Turon on Sundays and holidays now and then, and had a yarn with us all?”

Of course we ought, and we deserve to be kicked—the lot of us; but there were good reasons why we didn’t like to. We were regularly boxed up with the diggers, nobody knew who we were, or where we came from, and only for this Jezebel never would have known. If we’d come here they’d have all dropped that we were old friends, and then they’d have known all about us.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve lost your characters,” says Maddie. “You won’t have to be so particular now, and you can come as often as Sir Ferdinand will let you. Good-bye. Billy’s waving his hat.”

It wasn’t long before I was in the saddle and off again. I’d made a bit of a bargain with Jonathan, who sold me a pair of riding boots, bluchers, and a big tweed poncho. The boots were easier to take a long rough ride in than trousers, and I wanted the poncho to keep the Ballard rifle under. It wouldn’t do to have it in your hand all the time.