Soon we were on the Murrumbidgee, sweeping from side to side of his mountain valley in broad curves, sometimes rushing hoarse, swollen by the late rains, under belts of high timber, and sometimes dividing broad meadows of rich grass, growing green once more under the invigorating hand of autumn.

All nature had awakened from her deep summer sleep, the air was brisk and nimble, and seldom did three happier men ride on their way than James, the Doctor, and I.
Good Doctor! How he beguiled the way with his learning!--in ecstasies all the time, enjoying everything, animate or inanimate, as you or I would enjoy a new play or a new opera.

How I envied him! He was like a man always reading a new and pleasant book.

At first the stockmen rode behind, talking about beasts, and horses, and what not--often talking about nothing at all, but riding along utterly without thought, if such a thing could be.

But soon I noticed they would draw up closer, and regard the Doctor with some sort of attention, till toward the evening of the second day, one of them, our old acquaintance, Dick, asked the Doctor a question, as to why, if I remember right, certain trees should grow in certain localities, and there only.