uld have
liked better than this meeting with his old friend, which to-day fell
flat. No, he had nothing to say. Already their paths lay wide apart.

An hour's slow riding brought them to the creek Stanesby had spoken of.
There was no gentle slope down to the river, the plain simply seemed to
open at their feet, and show them the river bed some twenty feet below.
Only a river bed about twenty yards wide, but there was no water to be
seen, only signs, marked signs in that thirsty land, that water had been
there. Down where the last moisture had lingered the grass grew green
and fresh, and leafy shrubs and small trees and even tangled creepers
made this dip in the plain a pleasant resting-place for the eye wearied
with the monotony of the world above it.

"By Jove!" cried Turner, surprised.

"Told you so," said his companion, "but it ain't much after all. Fancy
calling that wiry stuff grass in England, and admiring those straggly
creepers and shrubs. Why we wouldn't give 'em house-room in the dullest,
deadest corner of the wilderness at home."

"Lucky beggar!" sighed the other man. "But you see they 're all I 'm
likely to have for many a long year to come. Hang it all, man, I bet you
'd put that shrub there, that chap with the bright red flower, into your
hot-house and look after him with the greatest care, or your gardener
would for you."

"It'd require a d----d hot house," said Stanesby laconically, wiping his
hot face.

They did not descend into the bed of the creek, the ground was better
adapted for riding up above, and a mile further along they came upon a
large blackfellows' camp stretched all along the edge of a water-hole.

"The brutes," said Turner; "bagging the water of course."

"They 'd die if they didn't, I suppose. This, and the hole by my place
is the only water I know of for forty miles round. After all they were
here first, and if I had my way they'd be left to it."

"All very well for you to talk," grumbled Turner. "Do they look worth
anything?"

Certainly they did not. The camp was a mere collection of breakwinds
made of bark and branches, more like badly-stacked woodheaps than
anything else, and the children of the soil lay basking in the sun,
among the dogs and filth and refuse of the camp, or crouched over small
fires as if it were bitter cold. The dogs started up yelping, for a
blackfellow's dog doesn't know how to bark properly, as the white men
passed, but their masters took no notice.