"Do they ever fight?" queried Dick.
"Oh, sometimes. Not often, though. Of course there are plenty of stories of fellows who have gone off their heads and murdered their mate, but we haven't had them going in for those capers on this station. Now and then a man comes in and asks for his cheque—says he can't stand Bill or Jim, or whoever he is, any more. Then the boss has to hustle to get Bill or Jim another mate."
"Like the old story of two mates who couldn't agree about the bird," said Stephen.
"What's that?" asked Dick.
"Oh, it's a chestnut. They were going back to their hut one night and one man said, 'There's a magpie up in that tree.' The other chap said nothing till a long while after, and then he said, 'That wasn't a magpie—it was a crow.' The first man didn't answer; but next morning his mate saw him rolling up his swag. He said, 'Where y' goin' Bill?' The other fellow slung his swag up on his shoulder. 'Too much bloomin' argument about this camp,' he said—and went."
The boys laughed.
"Well, if you once began to argue, I guess you'd go mad," observed Downes. "Most of 'em know that, and they hold their tongues rather than start any subject that may lead to a quarrel."
"There's one old man at the Three Crows. Well, who prefers to live alone—won't have a mate," Stephens told Dick. "He says it's better to be a hatter than to have the wrong man with him and that he doesn't believe the right one exists. So he goes on being a hatter, and he seems to like it all right."
"He writes poetry in his spare time," said Macleod with a grin. "I camped in his hut one night and he showed me stacks of it. Awful rum stuff. There was one poem that I thought was to his girl. It began:
"Ader, she can't be licked by much,
And I have often told her such,
She has the neatest little head,
From horns to hoofs she is clean bred!"