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Dave and Jim were still moping wretchedly about the hut when, towards the middle of the afternoon, an angel came along on horseback. It was Jack Jones from Mudgee-Budgee, a drinking mate of theirs, a bush-telegraph joker, and the ne’er-do-well of the district. He hung up his shy, spidery filly under a shed at the back of the hut.

“I thought you chaps would be feeling shaky,” he said, “and I’ve been feeling as lonely and dismal as a bandicoot on a burnt ridge, so I thought I’d come out. I’ve brought a flask of whisky. ”

Never wer
e two souls more grateful. Bush mate-ship is a grand thing, drunk or sober.

Andy promptly took charge of the whisky, and proceeded to dole out judicious doses at decent intervals.

Jack, who was a sandy-complexioned young fellow with the expression of a born humorist, had some news.

“You know Corny George?” They had heard of him. He was an old Cornishman who split shingles and palings in the Black Range, and lived alone in a hut in a dark gully under the shadow of Dead Man’s Gap.

“He went in to Buckaroo to the police station yesterday,” said Jack Jones, “in a very bad state. He swore he’d seen the Hairy Man. ”

“The watter?”

“Yes, the Hairy Man. He swore that the Hairy Man had come down to his hut the night before last, just after dark, and tried to break in. The Hairy Man stayed about the hut all night, trying to pull the slabs off the walls, and get the bark off the roof, and didn’t go away till daylight. Corny says he fired at him two or three times, through the cracks, with his old shot gun, but the Hairy Man didn’t take any notice. The old chap was pretty shaky on it. ”

“Drink, I s’pose,” grunted Andy contemptuously.

“No, it wasn’t drink. They reckoned he’d been ‘hatting’ it too long. They’ve got him at the police station. ”

“What did he say the Hairy Man was like?” asked Jim Bentley.

“Oh, the usual thing,” said Jack. “’Bout as tall as a man and twice as broad, arms nearly as long as himself, big wide mouth with grinning teeth—and covered all over with red hair. ”

“Why, that’s just what my uncle said he was like,” exclaimed Andy Page, suddenly taking great interest in the conversation. He was passing in with some firewood to stick under a pot in which he was boiling a piece of salt beef; but he stood stock still and stared at Jim Bentley, with the blank, breathless expression of a man who has just heard astounding news.

“Did your uncle see the Hairy Man, Andy?” inquired Dave Regan feebly. He felt too sick to take much interest.

“Yes,” said Andy, staring at Jack with great earnestness. “Didn’t I tell you? He was drivin’ home up the pass to Dead Man’s Gap, where he lived then, and he seen the Hairy Man, bundlin’ off among the rocks. ”

Andy paused impressively, and stared at Jack.

“And what did your uncle do, Andy?” asked Jack, with a jerky little cough.

“He stood up in the cart and hammered into the horse, and galloped it all the way home, full-bat up to the door; then he jumped down, leaving the cart and horse standing there, and went in and lay down on the bed, and wouldn’t speak to anybody for two hours. ”

“How long?” asked Jim, still feebly.

“Two hours,” said Andy earnestly, as he went in with the firewood.

Jack Jones proposed “a bit of a stroll” ; he said it would do them good. He felt an irresistible inclination to giggle, and wished to get out of the hearing of Andy, whom he respected. As they slouched along the track there was an incident which proved the state of their nerves. A big brown snake whipped across the dusty path into a heap of dead boughs. They stared at each other for a full minute, then Jack summoned courage to ask—