, with his hands behind him, kicking sticks out of the road,
looking out over the plain, down along the Billabong, and up through the
mulga branches at the stars; then he comforted the pup a bit, shoved the
fire together with his toe, stood the tea-billy on the coals, and came
and squatted on the sand by my head.

"Joe! I'll tell you a yarn."

"All right; fire away! Has it got anything to do with the Lachlan?"

"No. It's got nothing to do with the Lachlan now; but it's about a chap
he knew. Don't you ever breathe a word of this to the Lachlan or anyone,
or he'll get on to me."

"All right. Go ahead."

"You know I've been a good many things in my time. I did a deal of
house-painting at one time; I was a pretty smart brush hand, and made
money at it. Well, I had a run of work at a place called Redclay, on the
Lachlan side. You know the sort of town--two pubs, a general store, a
post office, a blacksmith's shop, a police station, a branch bank, and
a dozen private weatherboard boxes on piles, with galvanized-iron tops,
besides the humpies. There was a paper there, too, called the 'Redclay
Advertiser' (with which was incorporated the 'Geebung Chronicle'), and
a Roman Catholic church, a Church of England, and a Wesleyan chapel.
Now you see more of private life in the house-painting line than in
any other--bar plumbing and gasfitting; but I'll tell you about my
house-painting experiences some other time.

"There was a young chap named Jack Drew editing the 'Advertiser' then.
He belonged to the district, but had been sent to Sydney to a grammar
school when he was a boy. He was between twenty-five and thirty; had
knocked round a good deal, and gone the pace in Sydney. He got on as a
boy reporter on one of the big dailies; he had brains and could
write rings round a good many, but he got in with a crowd that called
themselves 'Bohemians', and the drink got a hold on him. The paper stuck
to him as long as it could (for the sake of his brains), but they had to
sack him at last.

"He went out back, as most of them do, to try and work out their
salvation, and knocked round amongst the sheds. He 'picked up' in one
shed where I was shearing, and we carried swags together for a couple
of months. Then he went back to the Lachlan side, and prospected amongst
the old fields round there with his elder brother Tom, who was all there
was left of his family. Tom, by the way, broke his heart digging Jack
out of a cave in a drive they w