away, and over the course of the stream a faint, blue, vapoury haze
hangs in the hot air, beyond which the high table-land on the other side
rises like a ridge, the deep tones of its shadows so strongly impressed
against the clear transparency of the sky that it seems to be
wonderfully near, until the stretch of vapoury haze below corrects the
trick of vision. The roadway, as it passes the boundary fence of the
selection, gleams yellow under the strong glare of the sun, until,
winding behind the clustering trees and bushes, it disappears.

It is a scene fair to look upon, either to one in search of change and
contrast, or to one whose perceptions are softened by the glamour and
charm of Australian association; but especially to the man whose energy
and toil made the bush yield at that one point to the needs of
civilization. He, stolid, hard-working bushman, with no ambition for
anything beyond what he termed "bush graft and square meals," leaned
over his slip-rails and looked up and down the road, wondering what else
a man wants for contentment beyond work, food, and sleep.

For years he had been a lonely man, living by himself in solitary
bachelor simplicity, but withal contentedly, peacefully, happily.
Fifteen miles down the creek there was a cattle station, but none of the
station hands ever came round by the selection; and Taylor was never
disposed, for the sake of a brief yarn, to ride the score of miles he
would have to cover to get to the men's huts. A dozen miles to the east,
over a stretch of timbered table-land, the nucleus of a bush township
was struggling to assert itself, and thrive, in spite of the weighty
handicap of the name of Birralong, and the fact that, after five years'
existence, it had not succeeded in passing the preliminary stage of bush
township life--the stage when a "pub," a store, a constable's cottage,
and a post-office make up the official directory, the constable
combining with his own the offices of postmaster, and another individual
representing both the branches of distributing industry, or, in bush
parlance, "running both the shanty and the store." There were other
residents in the township besides these two; men who came along the road
from the east to the west, some with business and some in search for it;
some with a record they wanted to leave behind, and some with an empty
past they hoped to turn into a well-filled future in the mighty plains
of the rolling lands of the virgin