“So you’re from Queensland, eh? From oldUradangie. Long time back when I was up there. Ustabe five pubs in my time. Theystill doing business?”

“Four are. The Unicorn was burned down.”

“That so! Hell! Remember the Unicorn. She was kept by ole Ted Rogers. Ruddy doer he was. So was his ole woman. They took turns in minding the bar… week and week about. Neither could last longer than a week at a time. End of the week’s spell in the bar, and both of ’emwas a cot case. I did hear that Ted Rogers died in the horrors.”

“So did Mrs Rogers. She was in the horrors when the pub went up.”

“Was thatso! ” RedDraffin spat with vigour and almost automatically drove the loaded vehicle along the track twisting about low sand dunes, across salt and blue-bush flats, over water-gutters, and across dry creeks. “Well, Ma Rogers could always drink asgood as Ted, and he was extra. I seen him open a bottle of rum and drain the lot withoutwinkin ’. Hell! Men was men in them days. What brought you down south?”

“Change of country,” Bony replied. “I get around.”

“Iusta,” admitted RedDraffin.“Never stayed on one fly-speckmore’n a month.”

“You have settled down?”

“Yair. Youblows out in the end, y’know. You find that thesandhill beyond the next one’s just the same, and thatOrstralia is just a pancake dotted with pubs wot are all alike. Course, times have changed a lot. The coming generation is too sap-gutted with fruit juices and milk in their tea, and nowadays if a man has a go of the horrors heain’t liked. Once on a time if a man didn’t have the horrors he wasn’t reckoned a man’sshadder.”