Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/75

 'Yes,' said the driver, flicking his horses, 'they are.'

'Blanky (sniff) blanky old Australian gums!' exclaimed the ex-Australian, with strange enthusiasm.

'They're not old,' said the driver; 'they're only young trees. But they say they don't grow like that in Australia―'count of the difference in the climate. I always thought'

But the other did not appear to hear him; he kept staring hard at the trees they were passing. They had been planted in rows and cross-rows, and were coming on grandly.

There was a rabbit trapper's camp amongst those trees; he had made a fire to boil his billy with gum leaves and twigs, and it was the scent of that fire which interested the exile's nose, and brought a wave of memories with it.

'Good day, mate!' he shouted suddenly to the rabbit trapper, and to the astonishment of his fellow passengers.

'Good day, mate!' The answer came back like an echo―it seemed to him―from the past.

Presently he caught sight of a few trees which had evidently been planted before the others as an experiment, perhaps―and, somehow, one of them had grown after its own erratic native fashion―gnarled and twisted and ragged, and could not be mistaken for anything else but an Australian gum.

'A thunderin' old blue-gum!' ejaculated the traveller, regarding the tree with great interest.

He screwed his neck to get a last glimpse, and then sat silently smoking and gazing straight ahead, as if the past lay before him―and it was before him.