r and shot, flour,
salt, tea and sugar. There's lots of game and fish all about me, and
when I want a bit of fresh beef and some more to salt down, I can get it
without breaking the law, or paying for it."

"How is that?" I inquired.

"There are any amount of wild cattle running in the ranges--all
clean-skins" (unbranded), "and no one claims them. One squatter once
tried to get some of them down into his run in the open country--he
might as well have tried to yard a mob of dingoes."

"Then how do you manage to get a beast?"

"Easy enough. I have an old police rifle, and every three months or so,
when my stock of beef is low, I saddle my old pack moke, and start off
to the ranges. I know all the cattle tracks leading to the camping and
drinking places, and generally manage to kill my beast at or near a
waterhole. Then I cut off the best parts only, and leave the rest for
the hawks and dingoes. I camp there for the night, and get back with my
load of fresh beef the next day. Some I dry-salt, some I put in brine."

Early in the morning we started on our ten miles' tramp through the
coastal scrub, or rather forest Our course led us away from the sea, and
nearly parallel to the river, and I thoroughly enjoyed the walk, and my
companion's interesting talk. He had a wonderful knowledge of the
bush, and of the habits of wild animals and birds, much of which he had
acquired from the aborigines of the Brunswick River district As we
were walking along, I inquired how he managed to get platypus without
shooting them. He hesitated, and half smiled, and I at once apologised,
and said I didn't intend to be inquisitive. He nodded, and said no more;
but he afterwards told me he caught them by netting sections of the
river at night.

After we had made about five miles we came to the first crossing above
the bar. This my acquaintance always used when he visited Port ------
(taking the track along the bank on the other side), for the bar was
only crossable at especially low tides. Here, although the water was
brackish, we saw swarms of "block-headed" mullet and grey bream swimming
close in to the sandy bank, and, had we cared to do so, could have
caught a bagful in a few minutes But we pushed on for another two miles,
and on our way shot three "bronze wing" pigeons.

We reached the Warra Swamp at noon, and camped for dinner in a shady
"bangalow" grove, so as not to disturb the ducks, whose delightful
gabble and piping was plainly a