Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/227

Rh an angel came along on horseback. It was Jack Jones from Mudgee-Budgee, a drinking mate of theirs, a bush-telegraph joker, and the ne'er-do-well of the district. He hung up his shy, spidery filly under a shed at the back of the hut.

"I thought you chaps would be feeling shaky," he said, "and I've been feeling as lonely and dismal as a bandicoot on a burnt ridge, so I thought I'd come out. I've brought a flask of whisky."

Never were two souls more grateful. Bush mateship is a grand thing, drunk or sober.

Andy promptly took charge of the whisky, and proceeded to dole out judicious doses at decent intervals.

Jack, who was a sandy-complexioned young fellow with the expression of a born humorist, had some news.

"You know Corny George?" They had heard of him. He was an old Cornishman who split shingles and palings in the Black Range, and lived alone in a hut in a dark gully under the shadow of Dead Man's Gap.

"He went in to Buckaroo to the police station yesterday," said Jack Jones, "in a very bad state. He swore he'd seen the Hairy Man."

"The watter?"

"Yes, the Hairy Man. He swore that the Hairy Man had come down to his hut the night before last, just after dark, and tried to break in. The Hairy Man stayed about the hut all night, trying to pull the slabs off the walls, and get the bark off the roof, and didn't go away till daylight. Corny says he fired at him two or three times, through the cracks, with his