ingybark roof of
the salt-shed which protected the troughs from rain peeped out
picturesquely from the musk and peppercorn shrubs by which it was densely
surrounded, and was visible from where we lunched. I refilled the
quart-pot in which we had boiled our tea with water from the creek,
father doused our fire out with it, and then tied the quart to the D of
his saddle with a piece of green hide. The green-hide bags in which the
salt had been carried were hanging on the hooks of the pack-saddle which
encumbered the bay pack-horse. Father's saddle and the brown pillow were
on Dart, the big grey horse on which he generally carried me, and we were
on the point of making tracks for home.

Preparatory to starting, father was muzzling the dogs which had
just finished what lunch we had left. This process, to which the dogs
strongly objected, was rendered necessary by a cogent reason. Father had
brought his strychnine flask with him that day, and in hopes of causing
the death of a few dingoes, had put strong doses of its contents in
several dead beasts which we had come across.

Whilst the dogs were being muzzled, I busied myself in plucking ferns and
flowers. This disturbed a big black snake which was curled at the butt of
a tree fern.

"Bitey! bitey!" I yelled, and father came to my rescue, despatching the
reptile with his stock-whip. He had been smoking, and dropped his pipe on
the ferns. I picked it up, and the glowing embers which fell from it
burnt my dirty little fat fists. Hence the noise with which my story
commences.

In all probability it was the burning of my fingers which so indelibly
impressed the incident on my infantile mind. My father was accustomed to
take me with him, but that is the only jaunt at that date which I
remember, and that is all I remember of it. We were twelve miles from
home, but how we reached there I do not know.

My father was a swell in those days--held Bruggabrong, Bin Bin East, and
Bin Bin West, which three stations totalled close on 200,000 acres. Father
was admitted into swelldom merely by right of his position. His pedigree
included nothing beyond a grandfather. My mother, however, was a
full-fledged aristocrat. She was one of the Bossiers of Caddagat, who
numbered among their ancestry one of the depraved old pirates who
pillaged England with William the Conqueror.

"Dick" Melvyn was as renowned for hospitality as joviality, and our
comfortable, wide-veranda'ed, irregularly buil