"
He sipped his whiskey, threw away the stump of his cigarette,
and lit another before continuing.
"Well, I managed to write a line to W. F. with my own hand,
which, as you will gather, was not very badly wounded; it was
simply this third finger that was split and in splints; and next
morning the doctor packed me off on a bovine beast that would
have done for an ambulance. Half the team came up to see me
start; the rest were rather sick with me for not stopping to see
the match out, as if I could help them to win by watching them.
They little knew the game I'd got on myself, but still less did I
know the game I was going to play.
"It was an interesting ride enough, especially after passing the
place called Whittlesea, a real wild township on the lower slope
of the ranges, where I recollect having a deadly meal of hot
mutton and tea, with the thermometer at three figures in the
shade. The first thirty miles or so was a good metal road, too
good to go half round the world to ride on, but after Whittlesea
it was a mere track over the ranges, a track I often couldn't see
and left entirely to the mare. Now it dipped into a gully and
ran through a creek, and all the time the local color was inches
thick; gum-trees galore and parrots all colors of the rainbow.
In one place a whole forest of gums had been ring-barked, and
were just as though they had been painted white, without a leaf
or a living thing for miles.
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