Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/252



', there's two of them, and they're having a fight! Come on.'

It seemed a strange place for a fight―that hot, lonely, cotton-bush plain. And yet not more than half-a-mile ahead there were apparently two men struggling together on the track.

The three travellers postponed their smoke-ho! and hurried on. They were shearers―a little man and a big man, known respectively as 'Sunlight' and 'Macquarie,' and a tall, thin, young jackeroo whom they called 'Milky.'

'I wonder where the other man sprang from? I didn't see him before,' said Sunlight.

'He muster bin layin' down in the bushes,' said Macquarie. 'They're goin' at it proper, too. Come on! Hurry up and see the fun!'

They hurried on.

'It's a funny-lookin' feller, the other feller,' panted Milky. 'He don't seem to have no head. Look! he's down―they're both down! They must ha' clinched on the ground. No! they're up an' at it again…Why, good Lord! I think the other's a woman!'

'My oath? so it is!' yelled Sunlight. 'Look! the 222