Page 51 - A Little Bush Maid

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VI

A BUSH FTRE

Wally disentangled his hook gravely, while the others would have laughed

more heartily but for fear of frightening the fish.

"Well, T’m blessed!" said the captor at length, surveying the prize with his
nose in the air. "A blooming old boot! Been there since the year one, T
should think, by the look of it."

"T thought you had a whale at the very least," grinned Harry.

"Well, T’ve broken my duck, anyhow, and that’s more than any of you
others can say!" Wally laughed. "Time enough for you to grin when you’ve

caught something yourselves--even if it’s only an old boot! Tt’s a real old
stager and no mistake. T wonder how it came in here."

"Some poor old beggar of a swaggie, T expect," Jim said. "He didn’t chuck
it away until it was pretty well done, did he? Look at the holes in the

uppers--and there’s no sole left to speak of."

"Do you see many tramps here?" Harry asked.

"Not many--we’re too far from a road," Jim replied. "Of course there are a

certain number who know of the station, and are sure of getting tucker
there--and a job if they want one--not that many of them do, the lazy

beggars. Most of them would be injured if you asked them to chop a bit of
wood in return for a meal, and some of them threaten to set the place on fire
if they don’t get all they want."

"My word!" said Wally. "Did they ever do it?"

"Once--two years ago," Jim answered. "A fellow came one hot evening in
January. We’d had a long spell of heat, and all our meat had gone bad that

day; there was hardly a bit in the place, and of course they couldn’t kill a