nd only to amuse you blanks.'

'He said he'd ride the horse inside the yard for a quid,' said Jim.

'And get smashed against the rails!' said Flash Jack. 'I would be a
fool. I'd rather take my chance outside in the scrub--and it's rough
country round here.'

'Well, how much do you want?' asked the man in the mushroom hat.

'A fiver, I said,' replied Jack indifferently. 'And the blanky stuff in
my pocket before I get on the blanky horse.'

'Are you frightened of us running away without paying you?' inquired one
of the passengers who had gathered round.

'I'm frightened of the horse bolting with me without me being paid,'
said Flash Jack. 'I know that horse; he's got a mouth like iron. I might
be at the bottom of the cliff on Crown Ridge road in twenty minutes with
my head caved in, and then what chance for the quids?'

'You wouldn't want 'em then,' suggested a passenger. 'Or, say!--we'd
leave the fiver with the publican to bury you.'

Flash Jack ignored that passenger. He eyed his boots and softly whistled
a tune.

'All right!' said the man in the cork hat, putting his hand in his
pocket. 'I'll start with a quid; stump up, you chaps.'

The five pounds were got together.

'I'll lay a quid to half a quid he don't stick on ten minutes!' shouted
Jim to his mates as soon as he saw that the event was to come off. The
passengers also betted amongst themselves. Flash Jack, after putting the
money in his breeches-pocket, let down the rails and led the horse into
the middle of the yard.

'Quiet as an old cow!' snorted a passenger in disgust. 'I believe it's a
sell!'

'Wait a bit,' said Jim to the passenger, 'wait a bit and you'll see.'

They waited and saw.

Flash Jack leisurely mounted the horse, rode slowly out of the yard, and
trotted briskly round the corner of the shanty and into the scrub, which
swallowed him more completely than the sea might have done.

Most of the other Bushmen mounted their horses and followed Flash Jack
to a clearing in the scrub, at a safe distance from the shanty; then
they dismounted and hung on to saplings, or leaned against their horses,
while they laughed.

At the hotel there was just time for another drink. The driver climbed
to his seat and shouted, 'All aboard!' in his usual tone. The passengers
climbed to their places, thinking hard. A mile or so along the road the
man with the cork hat remarked, with much truth--

'Those blanky Bushmen have got too much time to think.'