and both had scrubby beards,
but Brummy's beard was a dusty black and Swampy's fiery red--he indulged
in a monkey-shave sometimes, but his lower face was mostly like a
patch of coarse stubble with a dying hedge round it. They had travelled
together for a long time. They seemed at times to hate each other with
a murderous hatred, but they were too lazy to fight. Sometimes they'd
tramp side, by side and growl at each other by the hour, other times
they'd sulk for days; one would push on ahead and the other drop behind
until there was a mile or two between them; but one always carried the
billy, or the sugar, or something that was necessary to the comfort
of the other, so they'd come together at sundown. They had travelled
together a long time, and perhaps that was why they hated each other.
They often agreed to part and take different tracks, and sometimes they
parted--for a while. They agreed in cadging, and cadged in turn. They
carried a spare set of tucker-bags, and if, for instance, they were out
of sugar and had plenty flour and tea, Brummy or Swampy would go to the
store, boundary-rider's hut, or selector's, with the sugar-bag in his
hand and the other bags in his shirt front on spec. He'd get the sugar
first, and then, if it looked good enough, the flour-bag would come out,
then the tea-bag. And before he left he'd remark casually that he and
his mate hadn't had a smoke for two days. They never missed a chance.
And when they'd cadged more tucker than they could comfortably carry,
they'd camp for a day or two and eat it down. Sometimes they'd have as
much as a pound of tobacco, all in little "borrowed" bits, cut from the
sticks or cakes of honest travellers. They never missed a chance. If a
stranger gave Swampy his cake of tobacco with instructions to "cut off a
pipeful," Swampy would cut off as much as he thought judicious, talking
to the stranger and watching his eye all the time, and hiding his palm
as much as possible--and sometimes, when he knew he'd cut off more than
he could cram into his pipe, he'd put his hand in his pocket for the
pipe and drop some of the tobacco there. Then he'd hand the plug to his
mate, engage the stranger in conversation and try to hold his eye or
detract his attention from Brummy so as to give Brummy a chance of
cutting off a couple of pipefuls, and, maybe, nicking off a corner of
the cake and slipping it into his pocket. I once heard a bushman say
that no one but a skunk would be gui