down from the river by rail, with another small lot that
was going, and I started James off with them. He took the west road, and
down Guntawang way a big farmer who saw James with the sheep (and who
was speculating, or adding to his stock, or took a fancy to the wool)
offered James as much for them as he reckoned I'd get in Sydney, after
paying the carriage and the agents and the auctioneer. James put the
sheep in a paddock and rode back to me. He was all there where riding
was concerned. I told him to let the sheep go. James made a Greener
shot-gun, and got his saddle done up, out of that job.

I took up a couple more forty-acre blocks--one in James's name, to
encourage him with the fencing. There was a good slice of land in an
angle between the range and the creek, farther down, which everybody
thought belonged to Wall, the squatter, but Mary got an idea, and went
to the local land office and found out that it was 'unoccupied Crown
land', and so I took it up on pastoral lease, and got a few more
sheep--I'd saved some of the best-looking ewes from the last lot.

One evening--I was going down next day for a load of fencing-wire for
myself--Mary said,--

'Joe! do you know that the Matthews have got a new double buggy?'

The Matthews were a big family of cockatoos, along up the main road, and
I didn't think much of them. The sons were all 'bad-eggs', though the
old woman and girls were right enough.

'Well, what of that?' I said. 'They're up to their neck in debt, and
camping like black-fellows in a big bark humpy. They do well to go
flashing round in a double buggy.'

'But that isn't what I was going to say,' said Mary. 'They want to sell
their old single buggy, James says. I'm sure you could get it for six or
seven pounds; and you could have it done up.'

'I wish James to the devil!' I said. 'Can't he find anything better to
do than ride round after cock-and-bull yarns about buggies?'

'Well,' said Mary, 'it was James who got the steers and the sheep.'

Well, one word led to another, and we said things we didn't mean--but
couldn't forget in a hurry. I remember I said something about Mary
always dragging me back just when I was getting my head above water and
struggling to make a home for her and the children; and that hurt her,
and she spoke of the 'homes' she'd had since she was married. And that
cut me deep.

It was about the worst quarrel we had. When she began to cry I got my
hat and went out and walked