broke
in again Done sighed contentedly, and relapsed into his former position.
He recognised the crack of a cattle-whip. In a minute or two he heard the
voice of the bullocky admonishing Bally and Spot with a burst of
alliterative invective, and presently the leaders came labouring out of
the darkness, the great red bullocks, with bowed heads, moving slowly and
with that suggestion of impassive invincibility that goes always with a
big team of good working bullocks in action.

'Hello, mate!' cried someone beyond in the shadows.

'Hello, there!'

'Plenty o' water 'bout?'

'A creek down to the left.'

'Right-o! We'll camp here, Stony. Woa, Strawberry! Woa, there, Spot!
Bally! Blackboy!'

The cattle came to a standstill, and while the others busied themselves
unyoking the team, one man went off through the trees, and presently
returned, carrying a billy he had just filled. He kicked the fire
together, threw on a few pieces of wood, and began to prepare a meal,
paying no attention to Jim, who lay watching him. It was not customary to
say 'By your leave!' in little matters of this kind. On the track every
man's company was supposed to be welcome. Following a habit of
observation, Jim examined the man without curiosity. He was thin,
sandy-haired, and wiry, about forty-five, with restless hands, and a
cowed, half-sullen expression--a drinker of strong drinks of the kind
manufactured at the shanties, corrosive liquids that ate the souls out of
men in quick order.

Having disposed of the bullocks, the tinkling of whose bells was a
foreign note in the night, two others came to the fire, carrying the
tucker-box. They were brothers, long, bearded, brown-faced Australians of
the runs, going up to the rush with stores for Coolan and Smith, or
Aberdeen, the universal providers of the Roaring Fifties.

'Hurry up that blasted quart-pot, Stony!' ejaculated the elder of the
two. 'I feel as if I'd done a three days' perish-me!'

The men ate hungrily, sitting about in the light of the fire, drinking
the hot tea from pannikins and from the billy lid, and as they ate they
talked. Done was beginning to find himself at home in the society of men.
The humanities were finding place in his soul. Everything about these
people interested him--their work, their pleasures, their ideas. They
were so closely in touch with vital things, so tolerant. They cherished
no political, social, and religious convictions to the exclusion of their
fello