ome and live and die here; and about the strangest
place to pick for a home I ever saw.'

'There's a good many strange people in the colony, Dick, my boy,' says
Starlight, 'and the longer you live the more you'll find of them. Some
day, when we've got quiet horses, we'll come up and have a regular
overhauling of the spot. It's years since I've been there.'

'Suppose he turned out some big swell from the old country? Dad says
there used to be a few in the old days, in the colony. He might have
left papers and things behind him that might turn to good account.'

'Whatever he did leave was hidden away. Warrigal says he was a little
chap when he died, but he says he remembers men making a great coroboree
over him when he died, and they could find nothing. They always thought
he had money, and he showed them one or two small lumps of gold, and
what he said was gold-dust washed out from the creek bed.'

As we had no call to work now, we went in for a bit of sport every
day. Lord! how long it seemed since Jim and I had put the guns on our
shoulders and walked out in the beautiful fresh part of the morning to
have a day's shooting. It made us feel like boys again. When I said so
the tears came into Jim's eyes and he turned his head away. Father came
one day; he and old Crib were a stunning pair for pot shooting, and
he was a dead game shot, though we could be at him with the rifle and
revolver.

There was a pretty fair show of game too. The lowan (Mallee hen, they're
mostly called) and talegalla (brush turkey) were thick enough in some of
the scrubby corners. Warrigal used to get the lowan eggs--beautiful pink
thin-shelled ones they are, first-rate to eat, and one of 'em a man's
breakfast. Then there were pigeons, wild ducks, quail, snipe now
and then, besides wallaby and other kangaroos. There was no fear of
starving, even if we hadn't a tidy herd of cattle to come upon.

The fishing wasn't bad either. The creeks ran towards the north-west
watershed and were full of codfish, bream, and perch. Even the jewfish
wasn't bad with their skins off. They all tasted pretty good, I tell
you, after a quick broil, let alone the fun of catching them. Warrigal
used to make nets out of cooramin bark, and put little weirs across the
shallow places, so as we could go in and drive the fish in. Many a fine
cod we took that way. He knew all the blacks' ways as well as a good
many of ours. The worst of him was that except in hunting, fishing,