My oath! so it is!" yelled Sunlight. "Look! the brute's got her down
again! He's kickin' her. Come on, chaps; come on, or he'll do for her!"

They dropped swags, water-bags and all, and raced forward; but presently
Sunlight, who had the best eyes, slackened his pace and dropped behind.
His mates glanced back at his face, saw a peculiar expression there,
looked ahead again, and then dropped into a walk.

They reached the scene of the trouble, and there stood a little withered
old man by the track, with his arms folded close up under his chin; he
was dressed mostly in calico patches; and half a dozen corks, suspended
on bits of string from the brim of his hat, dangled before his bleared
optics to scare away the flies. He was scowling malignantly at a stout,
dumpy swag which lay in the middle of the track.

"Well, old Rats, what's the trouble?" asked Sunlight.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," answered the old man, without looking round. "I
fell out with my swag, that's all. He knocked me down, but I've settled
him."

"But look here," said Sunlight, winking at his mates, "we saw you jump
on him when he was down. That ain't fair, you know."

"But you didn't see it all," cried Rats, getting excited. "He hit _me_
down first! And look here, I'll fight him again for nothing, and you can
see fair play."

They talked awhile; then Sunlight proposed to second the swag, while his
mate supported the old man, and after some persuasion, Milky agreed, for
the sake of the lark, to act as time-keeper and referee.

Rats entered into the spirit of the thing; he stripped to the waist,
and while he was getting ready the travellers pretended to bet on the
result.

Macquarie took his place behind the old man, and Sunlight up-ended the
swag. Rats shaped and danced round; then he rushed, feinted, ducked,
retreated, darted in once more, and suddenly went down like a shot on
the broad of his back. No actor could have done it better; he went
down from that imaginary blow as if a cannon-ball had struck him in the
forehead.

Milky called time, and the old man came up, looking shaky. However, he
got in a tremendous blow which knocked the swag into the bushes.

Several rounds followed with varying success.

The men pretended to get more and more excited, and betted freely; and
Rats did his best. At last they got tired of the fun, Sunlight let the
swag lie after Milky called time, and the jackaroo awarded the fight
to Rats. They pretended to hand ov