Part 23 (1/2)

Another indifferent-looking alternative was accepted whenthe river, and I declined, on the plea of haste A picaninny alternative, that, you say? I tell you, it proved an old-hting of my pipe would have occupied three or four er in ti line, and nothing ree for yourself whether even your own discretion and address could have carried the allotted trip to a less unhappy issue

Hand over hand along the wire, I had wobbled the bark to the middle of the stream, when I noticed, not fifty yards away, a dead tree of twelve or fifteen tons displace about nineteen-twentieths sub no branches on the upper side, it would have passed under the wire but for a stu about five feet above the surface of the water, on its forward end In re root, I merely mean to imply such iht rather be viewed as a root with a tree attached than as a tree with a root attached This is the aspect it still retains in h time to pull the bark ashore and sink the wire, so I did the next best thing I could As the log approached, I carefully rose to h to clear the root Nearer it came; it would pass the bark nicely within three or four feet; a few seconds lide underneath the wire----

Pup had re on the bank for a fewa charcoal burner's antipathy to the bath--but at last beco whilst I judiciously gauged the height of the root, and meanwhile balanced the unsteady bark under my feet When the root ithin six inches of the wire, Pup's chin and forepaere on the gunwale; in three secondswith one hand to the root, the other stillfor the log; and the splitters' bark had gone to Davy Jones's locker

In another half-ers, ong root for the land of the Crow-eaters

I was no o on to B----'s as if nothing had happened; and put up with the inconvenience of swih I ell splashed, all the things in ratulatedbeen so close to the root at the Royal Georgeing of , it was the splitters' bark; but accidents will happen; and I was certain that not a soul had seen me turn off the htest I took them off, and tied thee to fit the top ofthe latter in my teeth Youwith your clothes on your head arises froe with each stroke But nothing could have been ently into the water, and paddled for the Cabbage Garden shore

When I had gone a few yards, , raised his voice in lamentation, after the manner of his subspecies

”Co round; and the nexthad catapulted hie

After returning to the surface and coughing about a pint of water out of o It was nowhere to be seen I swaet a better view

Good! there was the white, rounded top, an inch above the water, ten yards away As I swam toward it, a whirlpool took it under

I dived after it, struck it smartly with the crown of , whence I watched for its re-appearance above the sloirling water It never re-appeared

Following the sinuosities of the river, this -place; and ti through a gap in the ti half a ht reach of the river

Now, though the Murray is the eneral tendency is directly from east to west Would n't you, therefore--if you were on a floating log, re, like the Apollo Sauroctones, with your hand on the adjacent stump, and, to enhance your resemblance to that fine antique, clad in si the loss of your best clothes, with all the things in the pockets, including a fairly trustworthy watch--if, in addition to this, the patient face of the spratless swag before you till you involuntarily hty yet!” and the nasty part of your ht have had anything up to four-pounds-odd worth of heavenly debentures; whereas, having failed to put your hteousness into celestial scrip, to await you at the end of your pilgri it in your pilgri neither scrip nor mammon--under such circumstances, I say, would n't you be very likely to take the sunset on your left, and swiebra to find out which way the river ought to run? That is what I did

It never occurred to my mind that Victoria could be on the north side of New South Wales

After shouting ers till ht Pup into view on the south, and supposedly Victorian, bank, opposite where I had landed By the time I had induced hione, and night had set in, dark, starless, hot, and full of electricity

And the mosquitos Well, those who have beenopaque, perspiring, Novehts, about Lake Cooper, or the Lower Goulburn, or the Murray frontage, require no reminder; and to those who have not had such experience, no illustration could convey any adequate notion Hyperbolically, however: In the localities I have oads the instinct of aniather round a fire to avail the to see so on his haunches and dexterously filliping his front shoes over a little heap of dry leaves and bark

To return The recollection of much worse predicaments in the past, and the reasonable anticipation of still worse in the future, restored that equilibrium of teh as I welco in each hand to switch myself withal, started northward for the river road, which I purposed following eastward to where the pad branched off, and then running the latter to my camp Once clear of the river tiht, would liding through heavy forest, and cleaving oons, alive with the ”plus, and the interminable ”r-r-r-r-r”

of yabbies, I found the river onthe bank Here was soht on, I must soon strike the old horse-paddock fence, where the splitters used to keep their bark; and in an hour and a-halfreader will perceive, fro the cattle track, with the river onard on the Victorian side, instead of eastward on the New South Wales side If the sky had cleared for a single instant, a glance at the faht

After half a mile, the cattle-track intersected a beaten road, with the black ht, and a wire fence on the left--as I found by running into it Everything see out for land

Soon I heard in front the tra of horses, and men's voices in jolly conversation I aiainst a loose horse, feeding leisurely on the grass, I distinguished through the hot, stagnant darkness the approaching forentle eography”---- I got no farther, for a colt that one of the felloas riding suddenly shi+ed athis best Upon this, the loose horse presented hi round in senseless emulation, while the other two horses swerved and tried to bolt All this took place in half a minute

The rider of the colt was taken by surprise, but he was plucky Though losing not only his stirrups but his saddle with the first buck, he spent the next couple ofall over that colt, sometimes on his ears, and so could n't last--it never does last--so, after hanging on for about twenty seconds by one heel the fellow dis this ti of the two otherto force their excited horses toward the spot where I was skipping round, ready to catch the colt on thethe attempt, I missed the bridle in the dark; and away shot the colt in one direction, and the loose horse in another

”I bet a note Jack's off,” said a voice from the distance