ensland.

'Well, he came to my station on the Lachlan years ago without a penny in
his pocket, or decent rag to his back, or a crust in his tucker-bag, and
I gave him a job. He's my boss now. Ah, well! it's the way of Australia,
you know, Jack.'

The Boss had one man who went on every droving trip with him; he
was 'bred' on the Boss's station, they said, and had been with him
practically all his life. His name was 'Andy'. I forget his other name,
if he really had one. Andy had charge of the 'droving-plant' (a tilted
two-horse waggonette, in which we carried the rations and horse-feed),
and he did the cooking and kept accounts. The Boss had no head for
figures. Andy might have been twenty-five or thirty-five, or anything in
between. His hair stuck up like a well-made brush all round, and his big
grey eyes also had an inquiring expression. His weakness was girls, or
he theirs, I don't know which (half-castes not barred). He was, I think,
the most innocent, good-natured, and open-hearted scamp I ever met.
Towards the middle of the trip Andy spoke to me one night alone in camp
about the Boss.

'The Boss seems to have taken to you, Jack, all right.'

'Think so?' I said. I thought I smelt jealousy and detected a sneer.

'I'm sure of it. It's very seldom HE takes to any one.'

I said nothing.

Then after a while Andy said suddenly--

'Look here, Jack, I'm glad of it. I'd like to see him make a chum of
some one, if only for one trip. And don't you make any mistake about the
Boss. He's a white man. There's precious few that know him--precious few
now; but I do, and it'll do him a lot of good to have some one to yarn
with.' And Andy said no more on the subject for that trip.

The long, hot, dusty miles dragged by across the blazing plains--big
clearings rather--and through the sweltering hot scrubs, and we reached
Bathurst at last; and then the hot dusty days and weeks and months that
we'd left behind us to the Great North-West seemed as nothing,--as I
suppose life will seem when we come to the end of it.

The bullocks were going by rail from Bathurst to Sydney. We were all one
long afternoon getting them into the trucks, and when we'd finished the
boss said to me--

'Look here, Jack, you're going on to Sydney, aren't you?'

'Yes; I'm going down to have a fly round.'

'Well, why not wait and go down with Andy in the morning? He's going
down in charge of the cattle. The cattle-train starts about daylight. It
won't