-anyway he died in the horrors within the week.

His brother Ned turned up on the last day, and Bob thought he was the
devil, and grappled with him. It took the three of us to hold the Boss
down sometimes.

Sometimes, towards the end, he'd be sensible for a few minutes and talk
about his 'poor wife and children'; and immediately afterwards he'd
fall a-cursing me, and Andy, and Ned, and calling us devils. He cursed
everything; he cursed his wife and children, and yelled that they were
dragging him down to hell. He died raving mad. It was the worst case of
death in the horrors of drink that I ever saw or heard of in the Bush.

Ned saw to the funeral: it was very hot weather, and men have to be
buried quick who die out there in the hot weather--especially men who
die in the state the Boss was in. Then Ned went to the public-house
where the barmaid was and called the landlord out. It was a desperate
fight: the publican was a big man, and a bit of a fighting man; but
Ned was one of those quiet, simple-minded chaps who will carry a thing
through to death when they make up their minds. He gave that publican
nearly as good a thrashing as he deserved. The constable in charge of
the station backed Ned, while another policeman picked up the publican.
Sounds queer to you city people, doesn't it?

Next morning we three started south. We stayed a couple of days at
Ned Baker's station on the border, and then started on our
three-hundred-mile ride down-country. The weather was still very hot, so
we decided to travel at night for a while, and left Ned's place at dusk.
He parted from us at the homestead gate. He gave Andy a small packet,
done up in canvas, for Mrs Baker, which Andy told me contained Bob's
pocket-book, letters, and papers. We looked back, after we'd gone a
piece along the dusty road, and saw Ned still standing by the gate; and
a very lonely figure he looked. Ned was a bachelor. 'Poor old Ned,' said
Andy to me. 'He was in love with Mrs Bob Baker before she got married,
but she picked the wrong man--girls mostly do. Ned and Bob were together
on the Macquarie, but Ned left when his brother married, and he's been
up in these God-forsaken scrubs ever since. Look, I want to tell you
something, Jack: Ned has written to Mrs Bob to tell her that Bob died of
fever, and everything was done for him that could be done, and that he
died easy--and all that sort of thing. Ned sent her some money, and she
is to think that it was the mo