says the cook, "you'll be glad to come to me for a pint of flour
when I'm cooking and you're on the track, some day."

Sunset. Some of the men sit at the end of the hut to get the full
benefit of a breeze which comes from the west. A great bank of
rain-clouds is rising in that direction, but no one says he thinks it
will rain; neither does anybody think we're going to have some rain.
None but the greenest jackaroo would venture that risky and foolish
observation. Out here, it can look more like rain without raining, and
continue to do so for a longer time, than in most other places.

The Wreck went down to the station this afternoon to get some medicine
and bush medical advice. The Bourke sawney helped him to do up his swag;
he did it with an awed look and manner, as though he thought it a great
distinction to be allowed to touch the belongings of such a curiosity.
It was afterwards generally agreed that it was a good idea for the Wreck
to go to the station; he would get some physic and, a bit of tucker to
take him on. "For they'll give tucker to a sick man sooner than to a
chap what's all right."

The Exception is rooting about in the rubbish for the other blucher
boot.

The men get a little more sociable, and "feel" each other to find out
who's "Union," and talk about water, and exchange hints as to good
tucker-tracks, and discuss the strike, and curse the squatter (which
is all they have got to curse), and growl about Union leaders, and tell
lies against each other sociably. There are tally lies; and lies about
getting tucker by trickery; and long-tramp-with-heavy-swag-and-no-water
lies; and lies about getting the best of squatters and
bosses-over-the-board; and droving, fighting, racing, gambling and
drinking lies. Lies _ad libitum_; and every true Australian bushman must
try his best to tell a bigger out-back lie than the last bush-liar.

Pat is not quite easy in his mind. He found an old pair of pants in the
scrub this morning, and cannot decide whether they are better than his
own, or, rather, whether his own are worse--if that's possible. He does
not want to increase the weight of his swag unnecessarily by taking both
pairs. He reckons that the pants were thrown away when the shed cut out
last, but then they might have been lying out exposed to the weather
for a longer period. It is rather an important question, for it is very
annoying, after you've mended and patched an old pair of pants, to find,
when a