es; and the
most self-opinionated and obstinate people that ever lived when they got
a thing into their heads; and they got it into their heads that Brummy
Usen was shot while trying to bail up old Mr S---- and was dead and
buried.

"But the wife of the publican that had the saw-pit knew him; he went to
her, and she recognized him at once; she'd got it into her head from the
first that it wasn't Brummy that was shot, and she stuck to it--she was
just as self-opinionated as the neighbours, and many a barney she had
with them about it. She would argue about it till the day she died, and
then she said with her dying breath: 'It wasn't Brummy Usen.' No more
it was--he was a different kind of man; he hadn't spunk enough to be a
bushranger, and it was a better man that was buried for him; it was a
different kind of woman, holding up a different kind of branch, that
was tattooed on Brummy's arm. But, you see, Brummy'd always kept himself
pretty much to himself, and no one knew him very well; and, besides,
most of them were pretty drunk at the inquest--except the girl, and she
was too scared to know what she was saying--they had to be so because
the corpse was in such a bad state.

"Well, Brummy hung around for a time, and tried to prove that he wasn't
an impostor, but no one wouldn't believe him. He wanted to get some
wages that was owing to him.

"He tried the police, but they were just as obstinate as the rest; and,
beside, they had their dignity to hold up. 'If I ain't Brummy,' he'd
say, 'who are I?' But they answered that he knew best. So he did.

"At last he said that it didn't matter much, any road; and so he went
away--Lord knows where--to begin life again, I s'pose."

The traveller smoked awhile reflectively; then he quietly rolled up his
right sleeve and scratched his arm.

And on that arm we saw the tattooed figure of a woman, holding up a
branch.

We tramped on by his side again towards the station-thinking very hard
and not feeling very comfortable.

He must have been an awful old liar, now we come to think of it.

SECOND SERIES

THE DROVER'S WIFE

The two-roomed house is built of round timber, slabs, and stringy-bark,
and floored with split slabs. A big bark kitchen standing at one end is
larger than the house itself, veranda included.

Bush all round--bush with no horizon, for the country is flat. No
ranges in the distance. The bush consists of stunted, rotten native
apple-trees. N