Part 60 (2/2)

Yours, in a ,

THOMAS COLLINS

”I'll put this into Jack's hand, if I live,” said the boundarysolemnity, as he buttoned his jumper-pocket over the letter

”Thank you, Alf And now,” I continued, retaining for a moment the hand he extended in farewell--”take omery notice Let some more capable boundary man take your place

You're not worth your dah to cover musical proficiency such as yours, and leave the narrowest flap available for anything else I can see through you like glass I could write your biography And, believe me, you're no more fitted for this life than you are to preside over a school of Stoic Philosophy You're a reed, shaken by the wind Be a man, Alf

Turn your face eastward or southward, and challenge Fortune with your violin and your voice”

He e of the crape mask I saw his lips move, as he bent his head in unconscious acquiescence

A quarter of an hour afterward, I looked back to see hi the di perspective of the line of fence There was so the whole of our companionshi+p, he had never uttered one objectionable or uncharitable word, nor atte Mrs Beaudesart

CHAPTER VII

The reader, however unruly under weaker ement, is by this time made aware of a power, beyond his own likes and dislikes, controlling the selection and treatment of these infors, resides napoleonically with myself, and has, I trust, been exercised toward the information and edification of the feho fall under its jurisdiction-- suggesting, as it does, Toel froed by this assurance, and proht construe into fastidiousness, I shall once ative hitherto so profitably sustained The routine record of March 9 is not a desirable text It would -down of two stalwart fencers by a pi has been described ad sickenum by other pens, less proper than mine--described, in fact, till you would think that, in the back-country, drinking took the place of Conduct, as three-fourths of life; whilst the re Whereas, outside the shearing season, youat five shanties, without seeing a man the worse for drink; and you would be stillat fifty shanties, without seeing any indication of a fight Of course, there are soedies, andin a broad, statistical way, the shanty-keeper gets such a e of the money earned out-back that he usually lives in saint-like indigence, and dies in the odour of very inferior liquor Here and there, the exceptional case of a shanty-keeper retiring on his Congealed Ability goes to show the fatuity of the curse--hypothesis, rounding us up on the one unassailable bit of standing-ground, naood to hear how the old Major (he was an ex-officer of the Imperial army) fawned on entleard, handsome wife leered at me over his shoulder--how the open-hearted asses of fencers, in weary alternation, confidentially told mentary and idiotic yarns--how they shook hands with usted--how they irrelevantly and profusely apologised for anything they ht me, if I felt anyway nasty, to take it out of their (adj) hides--I say, it would do you no good

So, for this and two other reasons, I shall take asverse This arbitrary departure in dates will give you another glimpse of Alf Jones Also, the peculiar scythe-sweep of my style of narrative will take in a rencontre with another person, to whom, in your helpless state as a reader, you have already been introduced And if you take it not patiently, the more is your mettle

FRI MARCH 28 Wilcannia shower Jack the Shellback

SAT MARCH 29 To Runnyht of the 27th at Burke's ca decently for the season Burke, the regular station-contractor, had been off work for ahis twenty horses and twenty-four bullocks in the Abbotsford Paddock, and watering theer's Tank

The Abbotsford Paddock, having gone dry in the spring, had fair grass in it, but, of course, no station stock

In spite of all the loafing I could do, the season was telling on my horses

Their hoofs orn to the similitude of quoits; you could count their ribs a quarter of a mile off; and they had acquired that crease down the hip pathetically known as 'the poorhad becoey that I used to be asha hihest standard compatible with justice to hie fatality was again drivinga few e to Alf Jones's, and, next day, a fifteen-, with frequent holidays, was fast enough for afear of the sack If Alf was gone, so much the better for himself; if he was still in the old spot, so much the better for me That was the way I looked at it

In view of the soul-destroying ignorance which saturates society, it may be well to repeat that this central point of the universe, Riverina Proper, consists of a wide pro in froes, clumps of red box, patches of scrub or tie the rivers Eastward, the plain runs out irregularly into open forests of white box, pine, and other ti over a couple of hundred miles from the Murray--the tortuous frontier of boundless scrub meets the plain with the abruptness of a wall Boottara is half plain and half scrub; Runnymede is practically all plain

When I left Burke's ca, dry, and--as it seeh the tops of the trees I thought it ht lull before I left the shelter of the scrub, but it only increased The y foliage of the scattered myalls on the plain stood out horizontally to leeward; and an endless supply of lightly-bounding roley-poleys were chasing each other across the level ground I lashedturned down to keep some of the sand and dust out of my weather-ear The horses, with ears flattened backward and ht the storainst the still-increasing pressure, pushed on gallantly They rerass as well as I remembered his music