After A Consultation Across The River In Long-Drawn-Out Syllables, Jack Decided On A Horse Muster For The Return Trip - Genuine This Time - And Went On His Way, After Appointing To Meet Us At Knock-Up Camp Next Evening.

But our horses refusing to leave the deep green feed, we settled down just where we were, beside the river, and formed a curious camping-ground for ourselves, a small space hacked out and trampled down, out of the dense rank grass that towered above and around us.

But this was to be a record trip for discomfort. Dan, on opening out the tucker-bags, announced ruefully that our supply of meat had "turned on us"; and as our jam-tin had "blown," we feared we were reduced to damper only, until the Maluka unearthed a bottle of anchovy paste, falsely labelled "Chicken and Ham." "Lot's wife," Dan called it, after "tackling some as a relish."

Birds were everywhere about the lagoons - ducks, shags, great geese, and pigmy geese, hovering and settling about them in screaming clouds; and after dinner, deciding we might as well have a bit of game for supper, we walked across the open salt-bush plain to the Big Red Lily. But revolvers are hardly the thing for duck shooting, and the soft-nosed bullets of the Maluka's rifle reducing an unfortunate duck to a tangled mass of blood and feathers we were obliged to accept, willy-nilly, the prospect of damper and "Lot's wife" for supper.

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