“The Gramps are different to your class of country, I suppose?”

“They’re certainly that. I lease a hundred thousand acres, and I can see across the lot of it with a pair of binoculars, it’s that flat. Fill them up, will you? You get many people this way?”

“Not so many,” replied Simpson from the pump. “Mostly regulars. Come once or twice every year, chiefly for the fishing at Lake George, and to get off the apron-strings for a necessary change.” He set the glasses upon the narrow counter between bar and lounge and lit a cigarette. “The tourists don’t come this side of the Gramps. Country’s not opened up like it is over at Hall’s Gap. Our visitors are solid and good spenders, and in between parties we have an easy time of it.”

“The place is probably all the more attractive on that count,” averred Bony. “What’s the road like across to Hall’s Gap?”

“It was only opened last year,” replied Simpson, exhaling smoke and calmly regarding his guest. “It’s still rough and dangerous for cars with faulty brakes. A hundred thousand acres you have! Lot of country. How many sheepd’you run?”

“Oh, round about ten thousand. It’s not like the country I’ve crossed since leaving Melbourne, you know. Still, it provides a living.”

Simpson chuckled and took the glasses back to the pump.

“Better than hotel-keeping,” he said. “By the way, you might find the old man a bit of an ‘ear basher’, but don’t let him worry you. He’ll put it on you for a drink, but you’d oblige by knocking him back. Booze has been his ruin, and now he’s not quite right. Says silly things and imagines the world’s against him, and all that.”

The refilled glasses were set down on the counter. Beyond this quiet room were occasional sounds: the screech of the cockatoo, the cawing of a passing crow, the clang of a tin bucket, the crowing of a rooster. To Bony the atmosphere was familiar, but there was a shade of difference between this hotel and those others beside the Outback tracks. For one thing, there was no dust in this place, and for another the pictures in the hall were too good to be housed by such a building and too large to adorn so small a hall.