This new boss b'long you, you savvy. All
about station b'long him. I go buffalo-shooting. Me stony broke.
Poor fellow me! Been fifteen years in this God-forgotten country,
too," he said reminiscently, placing his elbows on the table,
and gazing at the wall in front of him. "Fifteen years livin'
mostly with the blacks and the Chineyman, and livin' like a black
or a Chineyman, too. And what have I got to show for it? I've got
to hump my bluey out of this, and take to the road like any other
broken-down old swagman."
"It's a bit rough," said Charlie. "How did you come to grief?"
"Oh, I came out here with a big mob of cattle," said the old man,
filling his pipe, as Ah Loy placed some tin plates, a tin dish,
and a bottle of Worcester sauce on the table, and withdrew to the
kitchen for the provender. "I lived here, and I spent nothing, and
I let 'em breed. I just looked on, and let 'em breed. Oh, there was
no waste about my management. I hadn't an overseer at two pounds
ten a week, to boss a lot of flash stockmen at two pounds. I jest
got my own two gins and three good black boys, and I watched them
cattle like a blessed father. I never saw a stranger's face from
year's end to year's end. I rode all over the face of the earth,
keepin' track of 'em. I kep' the wild blacks from scarin' 'em to
death, and spearin' of 'em, as is their nature to, and I got speared
myself in one or two little shootin' excursions I had.
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