Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/428

 always adopted the fiction that he was an old retainer of our family.) 'Far from it.' But after this dark saying he relapsed into his usual reserve on the subject and enlightened me no further. One trait of character which was in keeping with his presumed social past he was well known to possess.

'You seem mighty independent, my man,' said an employer to him on one occasion.

'Yes,' replied Jack proudly, 'and I can uphold it.'

He was in my service before and after 'the gold' as stock-rider, horse-breaker, and road-hand, both at Port Fairy and Lake Boga. Not the man to save his wages; unlike many of his contemporaries, who are now men of substance, Jack varied but little in his non-possession of the world's goods. But there were many homesteads in his old district where he was always sure of a welcome, a glass of grog, and a week's lodgings, so that when out of employment he was never in any great straits.

With one influential class of the community he was especially acceptable, and a favourite to the last. He had a natural 'Hans the boatman' faculty for amusing children, whom he delighted by making miniature stockwhips and other bush requisites, while they never tired of listening to his wondrous tales of flood and field.

In the matter of stockwhip-making he was a second 'Nangus Jack,' and, moreover, an extraordinary performer with that weapon in the saddle. I have seen him cantering along with a steady stock-horse, standing in the saddle and cracking a brace of stockwhips, one in either hand—a feat which any young gentleman is free to try if he wishes to ascertain if it be easy or otherwise. He had been through the rougher experiences of bush life, and mentioned casually, once, having been speared by blacks in Gippsland. The company being disposed to treat the statement as 'Jack's yarn,' he gave ocular proof by exhibiting a cicatrice, far from trifling in dimensions, where the jagged spear-point had been cut out above his hip-bone.

He was a reliable horse-breaker, for several reasons. Being long and loose of frame, he rode a good deal 'all over his horse'—unlike some breakers, who are so still and noiseless in their method that any unwonted cheerfulness of manner is apt to startle their pupils into 'propping.' But as Jack on his