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By saying he’d be there I think he intended to give me a hint, in case anything happened. I believe now that Jack’s wife had got anxious and had written to him.

We jogged along comfortably and happily for three or four days, and as we passed shanty after shanty, and town after town, without Jack showing the slightest inclination to pull up at any of them, I began to feel safe about him.

Then it happened, in the simplest way, as most things of this sort happen if you don’t watch close.

The third night it rained, rained heavens-hard, and rainy nights can be mighty cold out on those plains, even in midsummer. Jack and I rigged up a strip of waterproof stuff we had to cover the swags on the packhorse, but the rain drove in, almost horizontally, and we got wet through, blankets, clothes and all. Jack got a bad cold and coughed fit to break himself; so about daylight, when the rain held up a bit, we packed up and rode on to the next pub, a wretched little weather-board place in the scrub.

Jack reckoned he’d get some stuff for his cold there. I didn’t like to speak, but before we reached the place I said, “You won’t touch a drink, Jack.”

“Do you think I’m a blanky fool?” said Jack, and I shut up.

The shanty was kept by a man who went by the name of Thomas, a notorious lamber-down,* as I found out afterwards. He was a big, awkward bullock of a man, a selfish, ignorant brute, as anyone might have seen by his face; but he had a loud voice, and adopted a careless, rollicking, hail-fellow-well-met! come-in-and-sit-down-man-alive! clap-you-on-the-back style, which deceived a good many, or which a good many pretended to believe in. His “missus” was an animal of his own species, but she was duller and didn’t bellow.

[ * “Lamber-down,” a shanty keeper who entices cheque-men to drink. ]

He had a rather good-looking girl there–I don’t know whether she was his daughter or not. They said that when he saw the shearers coming he’d say, “Run and titivate yourself, Mary; here comes the shearers!”

But what surprised me was that Jack Barnes didn’t seem able to see through Thomas; he thought that he was all right, “a bit of a rough diamond.” There are any amount of scoundrels and swindlers knocking about the world disguised as rough diamonds.

Jack had a fit of coughing when we came in.

“Why, Jack!” bellowed Thomas, “that’s a regular churchyarder you’ve got. Go in to the kitchen fire and I’ll mix you a stiff toddy.”

“No, thank you, Thomas,” said Jack, glancing at me rather sheepishly, I thought. “I’ll have a hot cup of coffee presently, that’ll do me more good.”

“Why, man alive, one drink won’t hurt you!” said Thomas. “I know you’re on the straight, and you know I’m the last man that ‘ud try to get you off it. But you want something for that cold. You don’t want to die on the track, do you? What would your missus say? That cough of yours is enough to bust a bullock.”

“Jack isn’t drinking, Thomas,” I said rather shortly, “and neither am I.”

“I’ll have a cup of coffee at breakfast,” said Jack; “thank you all the same, Thomas.”

“Right you are, Jack!” said Thomas. “Mary!” he roared at the girl, “chuck yerself about and get breakfast, and make a strong cup of coffee; and I say, missus” (to his wife), “git some honey and vinegar in a cup, will yer? or see if there’s any of that cough stuff left in the bottle. Go into the kitchen, you chaps, and dry yourselves at the fire, you’re wringing wet.”

Jack went through into the kitchen. I stepped out to see if the horses were all right, and as I came in again through the bar, Thomas, who had slipped behind the counter, crooked his finger at me and poured out a stiff whisky. “I thought you might like to have it on the quiet,” he whispered, with a wink.