Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/359

 'I can't put on any more men,' he'd say to travellers were after 'stragglers.' 'I can't put on a lot of men to make big cheques when there's no money in the bank to pay 'em―and I've got all I can do to get tucker for the family. I shore nothing but burrs and grass-seed last season, and it didn't pay carriage. I'm just sending away a flock of sheep now, and I won't make threepence a head on 'em. I had twenty thousand in the bank season before last, and now I can't count on one. I'll have to roll up my swag and go on the track myself next.'

'All right, Baldy,' they'd say, 'git out your blooming swag and come along with us, old man; we'll stick to you and see you through.'

'I swear I'd show you round first,' he'd reply. 'Go up to the store and get what rations you want. You can camp in the huts to-night, and I'll see you in the morning.'

But most likely he'd find his way over after tea, and sit on his heels in the cool outside the hut, and argue with the swagmen about Unionism and politics. And he'd argue all night if he met his match.

The track by Baldy Thompson's was reckoned as a good tucker track, especially when a dissolution of Parliament was threatened. Then the guileless traveller would casually let Baldy know that he'd got his name on the electoral list, and show some interest in Baldy's political opinions, and oppose them at first, and finally agree with them and see a lot in them―be led round to Baldy's way of thinking, in fact; and ultimately depart, rejoicing, with a full nose-bag, and a quiet grin for his mate.