that
I might have done away with him and that the thing ought to be looked
into.

When a man drops mateship altogether and takes to "hatting" in the bush,
it's a step towards a convenient tree and a couple of saddle-straps
buckled together.

I had an idea that I, in a measure, took the place of Jack Moonlight's
mate about this time.

"'Ullo, Jack!" I hailed as he reached the corner of the park.

"Good morning, Harry!" said Jack, as if he'd seen me last yesterday
evening instead of three months ago. "How are you getting on?"

We walked together towards the Union Office, where I had a camp in the
skillion-room at the back. Jack was silent. But there's no place in
the world where a man's silence is respected so much (within reasonable
bounds) as in the Australian bush, where every man has a past more or
less sad, and every man a ghost--perhaps from other lands that we know
nothing of, and speaking in a foreign tongue. They say in the bush, "Oh,
Jack's only thinking!" And they let him think. Generally you want to
think as much as your mate; and when you've been together some time
it's quite natural to travel all day without exchanging a word. In
the morning Jim says, "Well, I think I made a bargain with that horse,
Bill," and some time late in the afternoon, say twenty miles farther on,
it occurs to Bill to "rejoin," "Well, I reckon the blank as sold it to
you had yer proper!"

I like a good thinking mate, and I believe that thinking in company is
a lot more healthy and more comfortable, as well as less risky, than
thinking alone.

On the way to the Union Office Jack and I passed the Royal Hotel, and
caught a glimpse, through the open door, of a bedroom off the veranda,
of the landlord's fresh, fair, young Sydney girl-wife, sleeping prettily
behind the mosquito-net, like a sleeping beauty, while the boss lay on
a mattress outside on the veranda, across the open door. (He wasn't
necessary for publication, but an evidence of good faith.)

I glanced at Jack for a grin, but didn't get one. He wore the pained
expression of a man who is suddenly hit hard with the thought of
something that might have been.

I boiled the billy and fried a pound of steak.

"Been travelling all night, Tack?" I asked.

"Yes," said Jack. "I camped at Emus yesterday."

He didn't eat. I began to reckon that he was brooding too much for
his health. He was much thinner than when I saw him last, and pretty
haggard, and he had something of t