Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/269

 left barrels, they turned out to be wombats. He had happened to be near their burrow, to which they always make if disturbed. In confirmation of this statement he presented me with a skin—dark brown in colour—with long coarse hair, something between that of a dog and a kangaroo. The thick hide covers the body in loose folds. The dogs become aware by experience that, on account of its thickness and slippery looseness, it is vain to attempt capture of a wombat. Retreating to his burrow, he scratches earth briskly into his opponent's mouth and eyes until he desists. One peculiarity of this underground animal is, that the eyes are apparently protected by a movable eyebrow, which, in the form of a small flap of skin, shuts over the indispensable organ.

We are politely received at the selector's house. A few cattle are kept; pigs and poultry abound. The father and son 'work in the creek' for gold, when the water is low, and thus supplement the family earnings. Clearing is too expensive as yet to be entered into on a large scale. Want of roads must militate for a while against farming profits in rough and elevated country. A flower-garden and orchard bear testimony to the richness of the soil. But looking forward to the value of the timber, the certainty of annual crops, the gradual covering of the pasture with clover and exotic grasses, the day is not distant in our opinion when the agriculture of this region will stand upon a safe and solvent basis. It is hard to overestimate the value of a moist, temperate climate, and this the inhabitants of the vicinity possess beyond all dispute.

The sun is showing above the tall tree-tops as we sit at breakfast next morning. The air is keen. We need the fire which glows in the cavernous chimney. In ten minutes we are off—ready to do or die—to accomplish the voluntary march or perish by the wayside.

How pleasant is it as we swing along in the fresh morning air. If we had had a mate—one who read the same books, thought the same thoughts, had the same tastes, and in a general way was congenial and sympathetic—our happiness would be complete. But in this desperately busy, workaday land, properly-graduated companionship is difficult to procure. Still, to those who do not let their minds remain entirely fallow, there is choice companionship in these wooded