ly smoking
and gazing straight ahead, as if the past lay before him--and it _was_
before him.

"Ah, well!" he said, in explanation of a long meditative silence on
his part; "ah, well--them saplings--the smell of them gum-leaves set me
thinking." And he thought some more.

"Well, for my part," said a tourist in the coach, presently, in a
condescending tone, "I can't see much in Australia. The bally colonies
are--"

"Oh, that be damned!" snarled the Australian-born--they had finished the
second flask of whisky. "What do you Britishers know about Australia?
She's as good as England, anyway."

"Well, I suppose you'll go straight back to the States as soon as you've
done your business in Christchurch," said the bagman, when near their
journey's end they had become confidential.

"Well, I dunno. I reckon I'll just take a run over to Australia first.
There's an old mate of mine in business in Sydney, and I'd like to have
a yarn with him."

A DAY ON A SELECTION

The scene is a small New South Wales western selection, the holder
whereof is native-English. His wife is native-Irish. Time, Sunday, about
8 a.m. A used-up looking woman comes from the slab-and-bark house, turns
her face towards the hillside, and shrieks:

"T-o-o-m_may_!"

No response, and presently she draws a long breath and screams again:

"_Tom_m-a-a-y!"

A faint echo comes from far up the siding where Tommy's presence is
vaguely indicated by half a dozen cows moving slowly--very slowly--down
towards the cow-yard.

The woman retires. Ten minutes later she comes out again and screams:

"_Tom_my!

"Y-e-e-a-a-s-s!" very passionately and shrilly.

"Ain't you goin' to bring those cows down to-day?"

"Y-e-e-a-a-s-s-s!--carn't yer see I'm comin'?"

A boy is seen to run wildly along the siding and hurl a missile at a
feeding cow; the cow runs forward a short distance through the trees,
and then stops to graze again while the boy stirs up another milker.

An hour goes by.

The rising Australian generation is represented by a thin, lanky youth
of about fifteen. He is milking. The cow-yard is next the house, and is
mostly ankle-deep in slush. The boy drives a dusty, discouraged-looking
cow into the bail, and pins her head there; then he gets tackle on to
her right hind leg, hauls it back, and makes it fast to the fence.
There are eleven cows, but not one of them can be milked out of the
bail--chiefly because their teats are sore. The selector