Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/243

Rh It was in the drought of '91, that broke almost with the new year in '92. Jack Mitchell and I were "carrying swags" west from the Darling in hopes of "stragglers" to shear, and one morning we started from a place that begins with "G," making for a place that ought to begin with "Z," and, after an hour or so, we noticed, by the age of the wheel tracks, that we'd taken the wet weather and much longer track to the next Government tank. We decided to strike across the awful lignum flats, or dry marshes, to the right track, and got lost, of course; and it was late in the day when we struck the track—or rather when we didn't. We stumbled on a private tank in the lignum, where there were still a few buckets of water, and, under the alleged shade of three stunted mulga saplings, we found two green hands, slight young Sydney jackeroos, in the remains of tailor-made suits, with one small water-bag between them, and the smallest of "stage " swags. They had good lace-up boots, I noticed; but it takes a long time for boots to wear out on those soft, dusty tracks. One man was knocked up and very ill, and more sick with the horror of his condition in such a country; and his mate was nearly as bad, what with the scare of his mate's condition and out-back "stage fright." It was boiling hot, with a smoky, smothering drought-sky over the awful, dry lignum swamps.

"Now, this would be a job for Mark Tapley, Harry," said Mitchell. "But neither of us is built for the character, and I don't know what we can do just yet. We can't carry him on to the tank nor back to the