[51]
]‘MO-POKE!’
‘Yes, I’m from out back,’ said a dark, wiry little man, as he dismounted from his horse at a Queensland frontier-township hotel, in answer to a question from one of a knot of bushmen and drovers assembled in the verandah. ‘Out back beyond the Warburton, an’ a nice warm time I’ve had of it, too!’
‘My eye!’ exclaimed the first speaker. ‘Been right away in that new country we been hearin’ of, eh? What like a shop is it, mate?’
‘Oh, the country’s right enough; lots o’ grass an water,’ replied the newcomer, as, giving his horse to the groom, he strode into the bar, ‘only the mopokes is so cussed bad an’ thick in them parts that there’s no livin’
for a quiet man. Roll up, lads, an’ give it a name! It’s a long time since I felt so dry!’
‘What did yer mean by “mopokes,” just now, mate?’ queried an elderly, grizzled overlander, as, lighting their pipes, the party sat down on the wide wooden bench. ‘Was it snakes?’
‘No, friend, it weren’t snakes. Wusser—a heap.
Howsomever—I reckon it’s a hour or more till supper, so I’ll just tell you how it all happened. Gosh!’
he [52] ]exclaimed emphatically, ‘what a comfort it is to git into a Chrischin place agin!’
‘Well, boys,’ commenced the stranger, ‘last April, I ’greed with ole Davies—him as owns “Tylunga,” not far from this—to go out an’ herd cattle for him on his new Adelaide country. Wages was good, three notes a week—I reckoned it were worth thirty afore I left—but as for the tucker, well, a feller never knows what he can live on till he tries it.