flood long
years agone. Before me the water swirled and eddied and bubbled past on
its way to mingle with the ocean waves, as they were sweeping in across
the wide and shallow bar, two miles away.

The sun had dropped behind the rugged line of purple mountains to the
west, and, as I watched by its after glow five black swans floating
towards me upon the swiftly-flowing water, a footstep sounded near
me, and a man with a gun and a bundle on his shoulder bade me
"good-evening," and then asked me if I had come from Port ------
(a little township five miles away).

Yes, I replied, I had.

"Is the steamer in from Sydney?"

"No. I heard that she is not expected in for a couple of days yet. There
has been bad weather on the coast."

The man uttered an exclamation of annoyance, and laying down his gun,
sat beside me, pulled out and lit his pipe, and gazed meditatively
across the darkening river. He was a tall, bearded fellow, and dressed
in the usual style affected by the timber-getters and other bushmen of
the district Presently he began to talk.

"Are you going back to Port ------ to-night, mister?" he asked, civilly.

"No," and I pointed to my gun, bag, and billy can, "I have just come
from there. I am waiting here till the tide is low enough for me to
cross to the other side. I am going to the Warra Swamp for a couple of
days' shooting and fishing, and to-night I'll camp over there in the
wild apple scrub," pointing to a dark line of timber on the opposite
side.

"Do you mind my coming with you?"

"Certainly not--glad of your company. Where are you going?"

"Well, I was going to Port ------, to sell these platypus skins to the
skipper of the steamer; but I don't want to loaf about the town for a
couple o' days for the sake of getting two pounds five shillings for
fifteen skins. So I'll get back to my humphy. It's four miles the other
side o' Warra."

"Then by all means come and camp with me tonight," I said "I've plenty
of tea and sugar and tucker, and after we get to the apple scrub over
there we'll have supper. Then in the morning we'll make an early start
It is only ten miles from there to Warra Swamp, and I'm in no hurry to
get there."

The stranger nodded, and then, seeking out a suitable tree, tied his
bundle of skins to a high branch, so that it should be out of the reach
of dingoes, and said they would be safe enough until his return on
his way to the Port Half an hour later, the tide being low enoug