brother took the two eldest boys. Black Jimmie
shifted away from the hut at once with the rest of his family--for the
"devil-devil" sat down there--and Mary's name was strictly "tabooed" in
accordance with aboriginal etiquette.

Jimmie drifted back towards the graves of his fathers in company with
a decreasing flock of sheep day by day (for the house of my uncle had
fallen on times of drought and depression, and foot-rot and wool rings,
and over-drafts and bank owners), and a few strips of bark, a dying
fire, a black pipe, some greasy 'possum rugs and blankets, a litter of
kangaroo tails, etc., four neglected piccaninnies, half a score of mangy
mongrels, and, haply, a "lilly drap o' rum", by night.

The four little Australians grew dirtier and more shy and savage, and
ate underdone kangaroo and 'possum and native bear, with an occasional
treat of oak grubs and goanna by preference--and died out, one by
one, as blacks do when brought within the ever widening circle of
civilisation. Jimmie moved promptly after each death, and left the
evil one in possession, and built another mia-mia--each one being less
pretentious than the last. Finally he was left, the last of his tribe,
to mourn his lot in solitude.

But the devil-devil came and sat down by King Jimmie's side one night,
so he, too, moved out across the Old Man border, and the mia-mia rotted
into the ground and the grass grew there.

. . . . .

I admired Joe; I thought him wiser and cleverer than any white boy in
the world. He could smell out 'possums unerringly, and I firmly believed
he could see yards through the muddiest of dam water; for once, when I
dropped my boat in, and was not sure of the spot, he fished it out first
try. With cotton reels and bits of stick and bark he would make the
model of a station homestead, slaughter-yards, sheep-yards, and all
complete, working in ideas and improvements of his own which might
have been put into practice with advantage. He was a most original and
interesting liar upon all subjects upon which he was ignorant and
which came up incidentally. He gave me a very interesting account of an
interview between his father and Queen Victoria, and mentioned casually
that his father had walked across the Thames without getting wet.

He also told me how he, Joe, had tied a mounted trooper to a verandah
post and thrashed him with pine saplings until the timber gave out and
he was tired. I questioned Jimmie, but the inc