burnin' match. But some travellers is so careless. A chap might light
his pipe an' fling the match away without thinkin' an' the match might
fall in a dry tuft, an'-there yer are!" (with a wave of his arms).
"Hundreds of miles o' grass gone an' thousands o' sheep starvin'. Some
fellers is so careless--they never thinks.... An' what's more, they
don't care if they burn the whole country."

Boss (scratching his head reflectively): "Ah-umph! You can go up to the
store and get a bit of tucker. The storekeeper might let yer have a bit
o' tobacco."

On one occasion, when they were out of flour and meat; Brummy and Swampy
came across two other pilgrims camped on a creek, who were also out of
flour and meat. One of them had tried a surveyors' camp a little further
down, but without success. The surveyors' cook had said that he was
short of flour and meat himself. Brummy tried him--no luck. Then Swampy
said he'd go and have a try. As luck would have it, the surveyors' cook
was just going to bake; he had got the flour out in the dish, put in
the salt and baking powder, mixed it up, and had gone to the creek for
a billy of water when Swampy arrived. While the cook was gone Swampy
slipped the flour out of the dish into his bag, _wiped_ the dish, set it
down again, and planted the bag behind a tree at a little distance. Then
he stood waiting, holding a spare empty bag in his hand. When the cook
came back he glanced at the dish, lowered the billy of water slowly
to the ground, scratched his head, and looked at the dish again in a
puzzled way.

"Blanked if I didn't think I got that flour out!" he said.

"What's that, mate?" asked Swampy.

"Why! I could have sworn I got the flour out in the dish and mixed it
before I went for the water," said the cook, staring at the dish again.
"It's rum what tricks your memory plays on you sometimes."

"Yes," said Swampy, showing interest, while the cook got some more flour
out into the dish from a bag in the back of the tent. "It is strange.
I've done the same, thing meself. I suppose it's the heat that makes us
all a bit off at times."

"Do you cook, then?" asked the surveyors' cook.

"Well, yes. I've done a good bit of it in me time; but it's about played
out. I'm after stragglers now." (Stragglers are stray sheep missed in
the general muster and found about the out paddocks and shorn after the
general shearing.)

They had a yarn and Swampy "bit the cook's ear" for a "bit o' meat an'