On the third day after I had said good-bye to Sheilah and Barranda township, I found myself leaving the Mallee scrub and entering more open country. Here I did not like to attract attention by camping during the day. Accordingly I made up my mind to risk meeting anyone who might know me, and, saddling my horse, started down the track. It was a warm morning, and seeing the amount of work that still lay before him, I did not push my horse too hard. I therefore jogged easily along, smoking my pipe, and thinking of Sheilah, my pretty wife, and of the old life I had left behind me. For upwards of an hour I had been following a faint track, which was now fast developing into a well-defined road. A little later I heard behind me the sound of a couple of horses coming along at a slow, swinging canter. For the reason that I was only travelling at a walk they soon caught me up, when I discovered that the new-comer was a smart, active, fresh-complexioned young fellow, obviously an Englishman, mounted on a neat bay and leading a clever-looking grey pack-horse beside him.
'Good morning,' he said, as he drew up alongside me. 'Pretty warm, ain't it? Travelling far?'
In case I should be questioned I had already decided upon the sort of answer I would return.
'I'm thinking of turning off after the next township,' I said, 'and following the river down till I strike the track for Bourke.' Then reflecting that if he were an experienced bushman he would find something wrong in this, I hastened to add, 'I should have gone in higher up, I know, and followed the coach road along the foot of the Ranges, but they say the country thereabouts is all burnt up and travelling is next door to an impossibility.'
'That is so,' he answered. 'I've come over the border myself, and had a pretty rough time of it out towards the Warrego. Are you droving?'
'Going down for a mob to take out to the Diamintina,' I answered. 'One of Blake & Furley's of Callington Plains.'
He shook his head.
'I don't know them,' he said. 'I'm next door to a new chum myself; been out on the Balloo best part of three years. Now, however, I'm going to take a jolly good holiday.'
For an hour or so we jogged on side by side, talking of horses, cattle, sheep, and half a hundred other things. Then the township came into view, and nothing would please my new friend but we must pull up at the grog shanty and take a drink. I would have made an excuse and have said good-bye to him, but he would not hear of such a thing. Accordingly, very loth, but unable to persist in my refusal for fear of exciting his suspicions, I consented and we pulled up at the Drover's Arms, as the shanty was called, and having made our horses fast to the rail outside, went in to the bar. There were two or three other men of the usual bar loafer stamp present at the time, and according to bush custom they were invited to join us in our refreshment. To my horror, as we were satisfying their curiosity as to whence we had come and whither we were going, and what the track was like further up, a police trooper entered and called for a nobbler of whiskey.
'How are you, Sergeant?' asked one of the loafers with well simulated interest. 'Any news to-day of the man you're looking for?'