Wherever It Can, It Helps The Bush-Folk, And They, In Turn, Doing What They Can To Help It In

Self-imposed task, are ever ready to "find room somewhere" in pack-bags or swags for mail-matter in need

Of transport assistance - the general opinion being that "a man that refuses to carry a man's mail to him 'ud be mean enough to steal bread out of a bird-cage."

In all the knowledge of the bush-folk, only one man had proved "mean enough." A man who shall be known as the Outsider, for he was one of a type who could never be one of the bush-folk, even though he lived out-bush for generations: a man so walled in with self and selfishness that, look where he would, he could see nothing grander or better than his own miserable self, and knowing all a mail means to a bushman, he could refuse to carry a neighbour's mail - even though his road lay through that neighbour's run - because he had had a difference with him.

"Stealing bread from a caged bird wasn't in it!" the homestead agreed, with unspeakable scorn; but the man was so reconciled to himself that the scorn passed over him unnoticed. He even missed the contempt in the Maluka's cutting "Perfectly!" when he hoped we understood him. (The Outsider, by the way, spoke of the Never-Never as a land where you can Never-Never gel a bally thing you want! the Outsider's wants being of the flesh pots of Egypt). It goes without saying that the Maluka sent that neighbour's mail to him without delay, even though it meant a four-days' journey for a "boy" and station horses, for the bush-folk do what they can to help each other and the Department in the matter of mails, as in all else.

Fortunately, the Outsider always remained the only exception, and within a day or two of the Fizzer's visit a traveller passed through going east who happened to know that the "chap from Victoria Downs was just about due at Hodgson going back west," and one letter went forward in his pocket en route to its owner. But before the other could be claimed Cheon had opened the last eighty-pound chest of tea, and the homestead fearing the supply might not be equal to the demands of the Wet, the Dandy was dispatched in all haste for an extra loading of stores. And all through his absence, as before it, and before the Fizzer's visit, Dan and the elements "kept things humming."

Daily the soakage yielded less and less water, and daily Billy Muck and Cheon scrimmaged over its yield; for Billy's melons were promising to pay a liberal dividend, and Cheon's garden was crying aloud for water. Every day was filled with flies, and dust, and prickly heat, and daily and hourly our hands waved unceasingly, as they beat back the multitude of flies that daily and hourly assailed us - the flies and dust treated all alike, but the prickly heat was more chivalrous, and refrained from annoying a woman.

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