else he's drunk.'

A couple of chaps got up and went to see. Then there was that waiting,
mysterious silence that comes when something happens in the dark and
nobody knows what it is. I went over, and the thing dawned on me. I'd
stretched a wire clothes-line across there during the day, and had
forgotten all about it for the moment. Romany had no idea of the line,
and, as he rode up, it caught him on a level with his elbows and scraped
him off his horse. He was sitting on the grass, swearing in a surprised
voice, and the horse looked surprised too. Romany wasn't hurt, but the
sudden shock had spoilt his temper. He wanted to know who'd put up that
bloody line. He came over and sat on the log. The chaps smoked a while.

'What did you git down so sudden for, Romany?' asked Jim Bullock
presently. 'Did you hurt yerself on the pommel?'

'Why didn't you ask the horse to go round?' asked Dave Regan.

'I'd only like to know who put up that bleeding wire!' growled Romany.

'Well,' said Jimmy Nowlett, 'if we'd put up a sign to beware of the line
you couldn't have seen it in the dark.'

'Unless it was a transparency with a candle behind it,' said Dave Regan.
'But why didn't you get down on one end, Romany, instead of all along?
It wouldn't have jolted yer so much.'

All this with the Bush drawl, and between the puffs of their pipes.
But I didn't take any interest in it. I was brooding over Mary and the
Jackaroo.

'I've heard of men getting down over their horse's head,' said
Dave presently, in a reflective sort of way--'in fact I've done it
myself--but I never saw a man get off backwards over his horse's rump.'

But they saw that Romany was getting nasty, and they wanted him to play
the fiddle next night, so they dropped it.

Mary was singing an old song. I always thought she had a sweet voice,
and I'd have enjoyed it if that damned Jackaroo hadn't been listening
too. We listened in silence until she'd finished.

'That gal's got a nice voice,' said Jimmy Nowlett.

'Nice voice!' snarled Romany, who'd been waiting for a chance to be
nasty. 'Why, I've heard a tom-cat sing better.'

I moved, and Jack, he was sitting next me, nudged me to keep quiet. The
chaps didn't like Romany's talk about 'Possum at all. They were all fond
of her: she wasn't a pet or a tomboy, for she wasn't built that way,
but they were fond of her in such a way that they didn't like to hear
anything said about her. They said nothing for a while, but