But he's dead now, so it doesn't matter."

There was silence for some time after Dave had finished. The chaps made
no comment on the yarn, either one way or the other, but sat smoking
thoughtfully, and in a vague atmosphere as of sadness--as if they'd just
heard of their mother's death and had not been listening to an allegedly
humorous yarn.

Then the voice of old Peter, the station-hand, was heard to growl from
the darkness at the end of the hut, where he sat on a three-bushel bag
on the ground with his back to the slabs.

"What's old Peter growlin' about?" someone asked.

"He wants to know where Dave got that word," someone else replied.

"What word?"

"_Quint-essents_."

There was a chuckle.

"He got it out back, Peter," said Mitchell, the shearer. "He got it from
a new chum."

"How much did yer give for it, Dave?" growled Peter.

"Five shillings, Peter," said Dave, round his pipe stem. "And stick of
tobacco thrown in."

Peter seemed satisfied, for he was heard no more that evening.

GETTIN' BACK ON DAVE REGAN

A RATHER FISHY YARN FROM THE BUSH

(AS TOLD BY JAMES NOWLETT, BULLOCK-DRIVER)

You might work this yarn up. I've often thought of doin' it meself, but
I ain't got the words. I knowed a lot of funny an' rum yarns about the
bush, an' I often wished I had the gift o' writin'. I could tell a lot
better yarns than the rot they put in books sometimes, but I never had
no eddication. But you might be able to work this yarn up--as yer call
it.

There useter be a teamster's camp six or seven miles out of Mudgee, at
a place called th' Old Pipeclay, in the days before the railroad went
round to Dubbo, an' most of us bullickies useter camp there for the
night. There was always good water in the crick, an' sometimes we'd turn
the bullicks up in the ridge, an' gullies behind for grass, an' camp
there for a few days, and do our washin' an' mendin', and make new yokes
perhaps, an tinker up the wagons.

There was a woman livin' on a farm there named Mrs Hardwick--an' she
_was_ a hard wick. Her husban', Jimmy Hardwick was throwed from his
horse agenst a stump one day when he was sober, an' he was killed--an'
she was a widder. She had a tidy bit o' land, an' a nice bit of a
orchard an' vineyard, an some cattle, an' they say she had a tidy bit
o' money in the bank. She had the worst tongue in the district, no
one's character was safe with her; but she wasn't old, an' she wasn't
bad-lookin'--only h