a while his horse shied, and
he dropped the turtle on the ground with a dull thud.

"Aren't you going to pick him up again?" cried Carew.

"No more," replied Frying Pan, carelessly. Then he grinned, and
volunteered a remark. "Make that feller plenty tired walk home again,"
he said. And this was his only conversation during a two-hundred-mile
journey.

At night they usually managed to reach a station, where the man in
charge would greet them effusively, and beg them to turn their horses
out and stay a week--or a year or two, just as long as they liked. They
met all sorts at these stations, from English swells to bushmen of the
roughest. Sometimes they camped out, putting hobbles on the horses, and
spreading their blankets under the buggy on a bed of long grass gathered
by Frying Pan.

As they got further out, the road became less and less defined, stations
fewer, and everything rougher. They left the sheep-country behind them
and got out into cattle-land, where "runs" are measured by the hundred
square miles, and every man is a law unto himself. They left their buggy
after a time, and pushed on with pack-horses; and after travelling about
two hundred miles, came to the outer edge of the settled district, where
they stayed with two young Englishmen, who were living under a dray, and
building their cattle-yards themselves--the yards being a necessity,
and the house, which was to come afterwards, a luxury. The diet was
monotonous--meat "ad libitum," damper and tea. They had neighbours
within sixty miles, and got letters once in two months by riding that
distance. "Stay here a while," they said to the travellers, "and take up
some of the country near by."

"We're to take over the country Redman took up," said Charlie. "It joins
you doesn't it?"

"Yes. See those far blue ranges? Well, we run to them on this side, and
Redman's block runs to them on the other."

"Don't your cattle make out that way?" asked Charlie.

"No fear," replied he, laughing. "We've some good boundary riders out
there."

"What do you mean?"

"The wild blacks," answered the Englishman. "They're bad out on those
hills. You'll find yourselves in a nice shop when you take that block
over. There's a pretty fair humpy to live in, that's one thing. What do
you call the place?"

"No Man's Land."

"Good name, too," said the other. "It's not fit for any man. I wish
you'd stop with us a while, but I suppose we'll see you coming back."

"I suppose