Page:Australian Emigrant 1854.djvu/107

Rh CHAPTER VIII.

. Dodge was about forty years of age, although he looked ten years older; he stood six feet in his mocassins; as for boots or shoes, his feet had long been deficient of those luxuries. He was spare and wiry, his features sharp, decided, and angular; his nose aquiline and slightly drooping at the point; his deep-set eyes were grey and piercing. His invariable dress was a blue flannel shirt, a pair of loose canvass trousers, which had once been white, but were something of the color of mahogany, with a fine polish about the knees, they were studded with stains of blood and a few burnt holes. Round his waist was a broad belt fastened with a massive silver buckle: suspended from the belt was a knife, a pouch made from the skin of a platybus, containing a pipe, tobacco, and a tinder-box. His head was covered by a broad-brimmed Manilla hat, such as a quaker might have envied. His beard was long and straggling, but the moustache which mingled with it was unexceptionable. He was altogether a strange mortal even for the bush, but he was a universal favorite, and a welcome guest wherever and whenever he appeared.

Dodge's father was an English gentleman, and he himself might have been one, had he not, imbued with the spirit of adventure, left his home too early in life to render permanent and decided the advantages derivable from his position. Through the rust of bush habits and feelings, which had grown about him during many years spent in the woods, there were still to be discovered traits which clearly distinguished him from ordinary bushmen. The misfortunes which beset him he accounted for,