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‘What did you git down so sudden for, Romany?’ asked Jim Bullock presently. ‘Did you hurt yerself on the pommel?’

‘Why didn’t you ask the horse to go round?’ asked Dave Regan.

‘I’d only like to know who put up that bleeding wire!’ growled Romany.

‘Well,’ said Jimmy Nowlett, ‘if we’d put up a sign to beware of the line you couldn’t have seen it in the dark.’

‘Unless it was a transparency with a candle behind it,’ said Dave Regan. ‘But why didn’t you get down on one end, Romany, instead of all along? It wouldn’t have jolted yer so much.’

All this with the Bush drawl, and between the puffs of their pipes. But I didn’t take any interest in it. I was brooding over Mary and the Jackaroo.

‘I’ve heard of men getting down over their horse’s head,’ said Dave presently, in a reflective sort of way–‘in fact I’ve done it myself–but I never saw a man get off backwards over his horse’s rump.’

But they saw that Romany was getting nasty, and they wanted him to play the fiddle next night, so they dropped it.

Mary was singing an old song. I always thought she had a sweet voice, and I’d have enjoyed it if that damned Jackaroo hadn’t been listening too. We listened in silence until she’d finished.

‘That gal’s got a nice voice,’ said Jimmy Nowlett.

‘Nice voice!’ snarled Romany, who’d been waiting for a chance to be nasty. ‘Why, I’ve heard a tom-cat sing better.’

I moved, and Jack, he was sitting next me, nudged me to keep quiet. The chaps didn’t like Romany’s talk about ‘Possum at all. They were all fond of her: she wasn’t a pet or a tomboy, for she wasn’t built that way, but they were fond of her in such a way that they didn’t like to hear anything said about her. They said nothing for a while, but it meant a lot. Perhaps the single men didn’t care to speak for fear that it would be said that they were gone on Mary. But presently Jimmy Nowlett gave a big puff at his pipe and spoke–

‘I suppose you got bit too in that quarter, Romany?’

‘Oh, she tried it on, but it didn’t go,’ said Romany. ‘I’ve met her sort before. She’s setting her cap at that Jackaroo now. Some girls will run after anything with trousers on,’ and he stood up.

Jack Barnes must have felt what was coming, for he grabbed my arm, and whispered, ‘Sit still, Joe, damn you! He’s too good for you!’ but I was on my feet and facing Romany as if a giant hand had reached down and wrenched me off the log and set me there.

‘You’re a damned crawler, Romany!’ I said.

Little Jimmy Nowlett was between us and the other fellows round us before a blow got home. ‘Hold on, you damned fools!’ they said. ‘Keep quiet till we get away from the house!’ There was a little clear flat down by the river and plenty of light there, so we decided to go down there and have it out.

Now I never was a fighting man; I’d never learnt to use my hands. I scarcely knew how to put them up. Jack often wanted to teach me, but I wouldn’t bother about it. He’d say, ‘You’ll get into a fight some day, Joe, or out of one, and shame me;’ but I hadn’t the patience to learn. He’d wanted me to take lessons at the station after work, but he used to get excited, and I didn’t want Mary to see him knocking me about. Before he was married Jack was always getting into fights–he generally tackled a better man and got a hiding; but he didn’t seem to care so long as he made a good show–though he used to explain the thing away from a scientific point of view for weeks after. To tell the truth, I had a horror of fighting; I had a horror of being marked about the face; I think I’d sooner stand off and fight a man with revolvers than fight him with fists; and then I think I would say, last thing, ‘Don’t shoot me in the face!’ Then again I hated the idea of hitting a man. It seemed brutal to me. I was too sensitive and sentimental, and that was what the matter was. Jack seemed very serious on it as we walked down to the river, and he couldn’t help hanging out blue lights.