Anchor watch had been set; and as old Nestor struck four bells in the chill morning and croaked hoarsely out his ‘All’s well!’ the stars saw a crowd of men in stockinged feet, and bearing bundles, slipping silently aft. The gig was hanging at the stern-davits. Noiselessly as greased falls could slide over greased sheaves she was lowered without a creak or a splash. The man who had been standing over the cuddy companion with a handspike joined his fellows. Fortunately—for themselves—no one had shown up. The boat pushed off, Bill sculling. The _Sardanapalus_ was crewless. Half-an-hour afterwards, the great Australian Bush took to itself sixteen hairy-breasted able seamen and this story. ‘MO-POKE!’ ‘Yes, I’m from out back,’ said a dark, wiry little man, as he dismounted from his horse at a Queensland frontier-township hotel, in answer to a question from one of a knot of bushmen and drovers assembled in the verandah. ‘Out back beyond the Warburton, an’ a nice warm time I’ve had of it, too!’ ‘My eye!’ exclaimed the first speaker. ‘Been right away in that new country we been hearin’ of, eh? What like a shop is it, mate?’ ‘Oh, the country’s right enough; lots o’ grass an water,’ replied the newcomer, as, giving his horse to the groom, he strode into the bar, ‘only the mopokes is so cussed bad an’ thick in them parts that there’s no livin’ for a quiet man. Roll up, lads, an’ give it a name! It’s a long time since I felt so dry!’ ‘What did yer mean by “mopokes,” just now, mate?’ queried an elderly, grizzled overlander, as, lighting their pipes, the party sat down on the wide wooden bench. ‘Was it snakes?’ ‘No, friend, it weren’t snakes. Wusser—a heap. Howsomever—I reckon it’s a hour or more till supper, so I’ll just tell you how it all happened. Gosh!’ he exclaimed emphatically, ‘what a comfort it is to git into a Chrischin place agin!’ ‘Well, boys,’ commenced the stranger, ‘last April, I ’greed with ole Davies—him as owns “Tylunga,” not far from this—to go out an’ herd cattle for him on his new Adelaide country. Wages was good, three notes a week—I reckoned it were worth thirty afore I left—but as for the tucker, well, a feller never knows what he can live on till he tries it. ‘Howsomever, out we goes—him an’ me an three others; an’ in time we gets there all right, an’ musters the cattle, which was bein’ tailed at the head station—as they calls ’arf-a-dozen bark humpies on a waterhole. Then we drafts ’em into four mobs, an’ each on us takes one away out to blazes into the bush, where the old chap shows us our runs, which was about six or seven mile apart. ‘Us herders had each a little hut to himself; so you see, mates, a feller warn’t likely to quarrel with his neighbours.