th his head resting on his paws, and watches the wall. He is not
a very beautiful dog, and the light shows numerous old wounds where the
hair will not grow. He is afraid of nothing on the face of the earth or
under it. He will tackle a bullock as readily as he will tackle a flea.
He hates all other dogs--except kangaroo-dogs--and has a marked dislike
to friends or relations of the family. They seldom call, however. He
sometimes makes friends with strangers. He hates snakes and has killed
many, but he will be bitten some day and die; most snake-dogs end that
way.

Now and then the bushwoman lays down her work and watches, and listens,
and thinks. She thinks of things in her own life, for there is little
else to think about.

The rain will make the grass grow, and this reminds her how she fought a
bush-fire once while her husband was away. The grass was long, and very
dry, and the fire threatened to burn her out. She put on an old pair of
her husband's trousers and beat out the flames with a green bough, till
great drops of sooty perspiration stood out on her forehead and ran in
streaks down her blackened arms. The sight of his mother in trousers
greatly amused Tommy, who worked like a little hero by her side, but
the terrified baby howled lustily for his "mummy." The fire would have
mastered her but for four excited bushmen who arrived in the nick of
time. It was a mixed-up affair all round; when she went to take up
the baby he screamed and struggled convulsively, thinking it was a
"blackman;" and Alligator, trusting more to the child's sense than his
own instinct, charged furiously, and (being old and slightly deaf)
did not in his excitement at first recognize his mistress's voice, but
continued to hang on to the moleskins until choked off by Tommy with a
saddle-strap. The dog's sorrow for his blunder, and his anxiety to let
it be known that it was all a mistake, was as evident as his ragged tail
and a twelve-inch grin could make it. It was a glorious time for the
boys; a day to look back to, and talk about, and laugh over for many
years.

She thinks how she fought a flood during her husband's absence. She
stood for hours in the drenching downpour, and dug an overflow gutter
to save the dam across the creek. But she could not save it. There are
things that a bushwoman can not do. Next morning the dam was broken, and
her heart was nearly broken too, for she thought how her husband would
feel when he came home and saw