"Good-day," replied Tom Gibbon. "Travelling?"

"Yes. Cattle. How's the water down the road?"

The man consulted a paper nailed on a board. It contained the names of
all the water-holes from Alice Springs to Oodnadatta. He began to
read, running his finger below the words and pronouncing them slowly:
"Yellow--dry. Sugar-Loaf--dry. Anvil Soak--dry. One Tree Well--only
enough for a plant; makes very slow. Simpson's Hole--dry. In fact the
whole lot are dry till you get as far as the Stevenson Bore. You're
right after that. How many've you got?"

"A thousand."

"Holy sailor! You'll never get through. Bob Hennesy was the last man
down with cattle. He got as far as the Crown and had to leave them on
a well there. They were as poor as wood. No stock passed this way for
three months."

Boss Stobart had been a drover in Central Australia for thirty years,
and the names of the water-holes which Tom Gibbon had read out were
very familiar to him. Tom, however, was new to the country and did not
know who his visitor was. Stobart did not show any surprise at the
state of the country to the south of him, but merely remarked casually:
"Oh, well, I'll have to go round then. I'm a good month ahead of time."

The barman did not know what going round meant, but had no wish to
display an ignorance which was really quite evident to the drover, so
he asked: "What'll you drink?"

"Got any sarsaparilla?"

Tom Gibbon laughed. It seemed a good joke to him that a bushman should
ask for a teetotal drink. "Yes, any amount of it," he answered.
"'Johnny Walker', 'Watson's No. 10', 'King George'--any brand you like."

"I said sarsaparilla, not whisky," said Stobart.

The laugh died out on Tom Gibbon's face. "D'you mean it?" he asked.

"Why, yes. What d'you think I'd ask for it for if I didn't want it?"

The sarsaparilla bottle was taken down from the shelf and put on the
counter, together with a glass and a water-bag. "Have one with me?"
invited the drover.

"No, thanks," replied the other. "I don't care for that stuff. A man
needs something with a nip to it in this country."

Stobart poured out his drink and watered it. "Does he?" he asked
quietly. "When you've been in this country as long as I have, you'll
know what's good for you."

When his visitor had gone, Tom Gibbon asked a black-fellow who the man
was that preferred sarsaparilla to whisky. He got rather a shock when
the native told him that the man