t if I didn't expect to feel the bones grate
agin one another; he was that strong he hardly knew his own strength, I
believe. Then he sits down on the log by the fire. He took out his pipe,
but somehow it wouldn't light. 'Good-bye, Crib,' says I. The old dog
looked at me for a bit, wagged his tail, and then went and sat between
dad's knees. I took my horse and rode away slowish. I felt all dead and
alive like when I got near the turn in the track. I looked back and seen
the dog and him just the same. I started both horses then. I never set
eyes on him again. Poor old dad!

I wasn't very gay for a bit, but I had a good horse under me, another
alongside, a smartish lot of cash in notes and gold, some bank deposits
too, and all the world before me. My dart now was to make my way to
Willaroon and look sharp about it. My chance of getting through was none
too good, but I settled to ride a deal at night and camp by day. I began
to pick up my spirits after I got on the road that led up the mountain,
and to look ahead to the time when I might call myself my own man again.

Next day after that I was at Willaroon. I could have got there
overnight, but it looked better to camp near the place and come next
morning. There I was all right. The overseer was a reasonable sort of
man, and I found old George had been as good as his word, and left word
if a couple of men like me and Starlight came up we were to be put on
with the next mob of cattle that were going to Queensland. He did a
store cattle trade with the far-out squatters that were stocking up new
country in Queensland, and it paid him very well, as nearly everything
did that he touched. We were to find our own horses and be paid so much
a week--three pounds, I think--and so on.

As luck would have it, there was a biggish mob to start in a week, and
road hands being scarce in that part the overseer was disappointed that
my mate, as he called him, hadn't come on, but I said he'd gone another
track.

'Well, he'll hardly get such wages at any other job,' says he, 'and if I
was Mr. Storefield I wouldn't hire him again, not if he wanted a billet
ever so bad.'

'I don't suppose he will,' says I, 'and serves him quite right too.'

I put my horses in the paddock--there was wild oats and crowsfoot
knee-high in it--and helped the overseer to muster and draft. He gave me
a fresh horse, of course. When he saw how handy I was in the yard he got
quite shook on me, and, says he--

'By