in three days, against sixty miles an hour of the express trains of the world. "Speed's the thing," cries the world, and speeds on, gaining little but speed; and we bush-folk travel our sixty miles and gain all that is worth gaining—excepting speed.

"Hand-over-hand this time!" Mac said, looking up at the telegraph wire that stretched far overhead. "There's no pulley here. Hand-over-hand, or the horse's-tail trick."

But Mine Host of the "Pub" had seen us, and running down the opposite side of the gorge, launched a boat at the river's brink; then pulling up-stream for a hundred yards or so in the backwash, faced about, and raced down and across the swift-flowing current with long, sweeping strokes; and as we rode down the steep winding track to meet him, Mac became jocular, and reminding us that the gauntlet of the Katherine had yet to be run, also reminded us that the sympathies of the Katherine were with the stockmen; adding with a chuckle, as Mine Host bore down upon us. "You don't even represent business here; no woman ever does."

Then the boat grounded, and Mine Host sprang ashore—another burly six-foot bushman—and greeted us with a flashing smile and a laughing "There's not much of her left." And then, stepping with quiet unconcern into over two feet of water, pushed the boat against a jutting ledge for my convenience. "Wet feet don't count," he laughed with another of his flashing smiles, when remonstrated with, and Mac chuckled in an aside, "Didn't I tell you a woman doesn't represent business here?"