broke into a suppressed shout of
laughter. For Wally's catch was nothing less than an ancient, mud-laden
boot!

CHAPTER VI. A BUSH FIRE

Wally disentangled his hook gravely, while the others would have
laughed more heartily but for fear of frightening the fish.

"Well, I'm blessed!" said the captor at length, surveying the prize with
his nose in the air. "A blooming old boot! Been there since the year
one, I should think, by the look of it."

"I thought you had a whale at the very least," grinned Harry.

"Well, I've broken my duck, anyhow, and that's more than any of you
others can say!" Wally laughed. "Time enough for you to grin when you've
caught something yourselves--even if it's only an old boot! It's a real
old stager and no mistake. I wonder how it came in here."

"Some poor old beggar of a swaggie, I expect," Jim said. "He didn't
chuck it away until it was pretty well done, did he? Look at the holes
in the uppers--and there's no sole left to speak of."

"Do you see many tramps here?" Harry asked.

"Not many--we're too far from a road," Jim replied. "Of course there are
a certain number who know of the station, and are sure of getting tucker
there--and a job if they want one--not that many of them do, the lazy
beggars. Most of them would be injured if you asked them to chop a bit
of wood in return for a meal, and some of them threaten to set the place
on fire if they don't get all they want."

"My word!" said Wally. "Did they ever do it?"

"Once--two years ago," Jim answered. "A fellow came one hot evening in
January. We'd had a long spell of heat, and all our meat had gone bad
that day; there was hardly a bit in the place, and of course they
couldn't kill a beast till evening. About the middle of the day this
chap turned up and asked for tucker.

"Mrs. Brown gave him bread and flour and tea and some cake--a real good
haul for any swaggie. It was too good for this fellow, for he
immediately turned up his proud nose and said he wanted meat. Mrs. Brown
explained that she hadn't any to give him; but he evidently didn't
believe her, said it was our darned meanness and, seeing no men about,
got pretty insulting. At last he tried to force his way past Mrs. Brown
into the kitchen."

"Did he get in?" asked Wally.

"Nearly--not quite, though. Dad and Norah and I had been out riding, and
we came home, past the back yard, in the nick of time. We couldn't hear
what the fellow was saying to Mrs. Brown