"Where's Bat?" I asked.
"Gone to a better billet"—and the leonine voice deepened to hoarseness. "Restin' in the shadder of a lonely rock, as the Bible says. I buried him by my own self, way out back, eight or ten months ago. Many's the time I wish I was with him, for I'm dog-tired of everything goin'. Best-hearted feller ever broke bread, Bat was; an' the prittiest rider ever I seen on a horse. Yes; pore ole chap's gone. You'd 'a' thought he was on'y asleep when "——
No further word was spoken for a couple of minutes. Then Stevenson asked:
"How long since you came down?"
"Five months since I left the Diamantinar. Grand grass there, an' most o' the road down. I come with some fats as fur as Wilcannia; an' a drover took charge o' them there; an' my orders was to come on to Mondunbarra. I been here goin' on for three weeks, rasslin' with that reservoy, an' cursin' M'Gregor an' Smythe for bein' man-eaters, an' myself for bein' a born fool."
"Then why don't you leave?" asked Thompson.
"How can I leave without a settlin'-up?"
"An' why the (sheol) don't you git a settlin'-up?" asked Donovan.
"How'm I goin' to git a settlin'-up, when M'Gregor don't know me from a crow, an' says Smythe'll represent him in the meantime; an' Smythe says his hands is tied on account o' M'Gregor, or else he'd dem soon give me the run. Nice way for a man to be fixed, after me breakin' my neck since I was fifteen, to make M'Gregor what he is. Eighteen solid years clean throwed away!"
"How did you fine us here, unless you was (adv.) well after somebody?" asked Baxter, still suspicious of the dog with a bad name.