the chaps
are getting on?"

'"All right," said Jim.

'"Tell them to come down and get a drink," said Poisonous; "or, wait,
you can take some beer along to them if you like," and he gave us half
a gallon of beer in a billy-can. He knew what the first drink meant with
Bushmen back from a long dry trip.

'We got on our horses, I holding the billy very carefully, and rode back
to where our swags were.

'"I say," said Jim, when we'd strapped the swags to the saddles,
"suppose we take the beer back to those chaps: it's meant for them, and
it's only a fair thing, anyway--we've got as much as we can hold till we
get into Mulgatown."

'"It might get them into a row," I said, "and they seem decent chaps.
Let's hang the billy on a twig, and that old swagman that's coming along
will think there's angels in the Bush."

'"Oh! what's a row?" said Jim. "They can take care of themselves;
they'll have the beer anyway and a lark with Poisonous when they take
the can back and it comes to explanations. I'll ride back to them."

'So Jim rode back to the drovers' camp with the beer, and when he came
back to me he said that the drovers seemed surprised, but they drank
good luck to him.

'We rode round through the mulga behind the shanty and came out on the
road again on the Mulgatown side: we only stayed at Mulgatown to buy
some tucker and tobacco, then we pushed on and camped for the night
about seven miles on the safe side of the town.'

II. Told by One of the Other Drovers.

'Talkin' o' Poisonous Jimmy, I can tell you a yarn about him. We'd
brought a mob of cattle down for a squatter the other side of Mulgatown.
We camped about seven miles the other side of the town, waitin' for the
station hands to come and take charge of the stock, while the boss rode
on into town to draw our money. Some of us was goin' back, though in
the end we all went into Mulgatown and had a boose up with the boss. But
while we was waitin' there come along two fellers that had been drovin'
up north. They yarned a while, an' then went on to Poisonous Jimmy's
place, an' in about an hour one on 'em come ridin' back with a can of
beer that he said Poisonous had sent for us. We all knew Jimmy's little
games--the beer was a bait to get us on the drunk at his place; but we
drunk the beer, and reckoned to have a lark with him afterwards. When
the boss come back, an' the station hands to take the bullocks, we
started into Mulgatown. We stopped outside Po