playin' pitch and toss at
the shanty, one of the fellers yelled out:

"'By Gee! Here comes Dave Regan!'

"And I looked up and saw Dave himself, sidlin' out of a cloud of dust on
a long lanky horse. He rode into the stockyard, got down, hung his horse
up to a post, put up the rails, and then come slopin' towards us with
a half-acre grin on his face. Dave had long, thin bow-legs, and when he
was on the ground he moved as if he was on roller skates.

"''El-lo, Dave!' says I. 'How are yer?'

"''Ello, Jim!' said he. 'How the blazes are you?'

"'All right!' says I, shakin' hands. 'How are yer?'

"'Oh! I'm all right!' he says. 'How are yer poppin' up!'

"Well, when we'd got all that settled, and the other chaps had asked how
he was, he said: 'Ah, well! Let's have a drink.'

"And all the other chaps crawfished up and flung themselves round the
corner and sidled into the bar after Dave. We had a lot of talk, and he
told us that he'd been down before, but had gone away without seein' any
of us, except me, because he'd suddenly heard of a mob of cattle at a
station two hundred miles away; and after a while I took him aside and
said:

"'Look here, Dave! Do you remember the day I met you after the storm?'

"He scratched his head.

"'Why, yes,' he says.

"'Did you get under shelter that day?'

"'Why--no.'

"'Then how the blazes didn't yer get wet?'

"Dave grinned; then he says:

"'Why, when I seen the storm coming I took off me clothes and stuck 'em
in a holler log till the rain was over.'

"'Yes,' he says, after the other coves had done laughin', but before
I'd done thinking; 'I kept my clothes dry and got a good refreshin'
shower-bath into the bargain.'

"Then he scratched the back of his neck with his little finger, and
dropped his jaw, and thought a bit; then he rubbed the top of his head
and his shoulder, reflective-like, and then he said:

"'But I didn't reckon for them there blanky hailstones.'"

Mitchell on Matrimony

"I suppose your wife will be glad to see you," said Mitchell to his
mate in their camp by the dam at Hungerford. They were overhauling their
swags, and throwing away the blankets, and calico, and old clothes, and
rubbish they didn't want--everything, in fact, except their pocket-books
and letters and portraits, things which men carry about with them
always, that are found on them when they die, and sent to their
relations if possible. Otherwise they are taken in charge by the