g unashamed by the bedside, put his hand on
Mrs Denver's shoulder, as she crouched there, wild-eyed, like a hunted
thing. "Nev--never mind, Mrs Denver!" he blurted out, with a note as of
indignation and defiance--just for all the world as if Jack Denver had
done a wrong thing and the district was down on him--"he'll have the
longest funeral ever seen in these parts! Leave that to me." Then some
of the women took her out to her daughter's. Big Ben Duggan gave terse
instructions to some of the young riders about, and then, taking the
best and freshest horse, the cross-country scrub swallowed him--west.
The young men jumped on their horses and rode, fan-like, east.

They took Jack Denver home. They always took their dead home first,
whenever possible, and no matter the distance, before taking them to
their last long home; and they do it yet, I suppose. They are not always
so particular about it in cities, from what I've seen.

But this was a strange funeral. They had arranged mattress and sheet in
the bottom of a four-wheeler, and covered him with sheet, blanket, and
quilt, though the weather was warm; and over the body, from side to
side of the trap, they had stretched the big dark-green table-cloth from
Anderson's dining-room. The long, ghostly, white, cleared government
road between the dark walls of timber in the moonlight. The buggies and
carts behind, and the dead-white faces and glistening or despairingly
staring eyes of the women--wife, daughters, and nieces, and those who
had come to help and comfort. The men--sons and brothers, and few mates
and chums and sweethearts--riding to right and left like a bodyguard, to
comfort and be comforted who needed comfort.

Now and again a brother or son--mostly a brother--riding close to the
wheel, would suddenly throw out his arm on the mud splasher, of buggy or
cart, and, laying his head on it, sob as he rode, careless of tyre and
spokes, till a woman pushed him off gently:

"Take care of the wheel, Jim--mind the wheel."

The eldest son held the most painful position, by his mother's side in
the first buggy, supported by an aunt on the other side, while somebody
led his horse. In the next buggy, between two daughters, sat a young
fellow who was engaged to one of them--they were to be married after the
holidays. The poor girls were white and worn out; he had an arm round
each, and now and again they rested their heads on his shoulders. The
younger girl would sleep by fits