Let's get aboard." Just as the coach was about to start a drover came out of the bar of the hotel, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

He stared vacantly about him, first up the street and then down, looked hard at a post in front of the hotel, then stared up and down the street again.

At last he walked over, and, addressing the passengers in a body, said, "Did any of you's see e'er a horse anywheres?
I left my prad here, and he's gorn." A bystander, languidly cutting up a pipeful of tobacco, jerked his elbow down the road.
"That old bloke took 'im," he said.

"Old bloke that come in the coach.
While yous was all talking in the pub, he sneaks out here and nabs that 'orse, and away like a rabbit.

See that dust on the plain?
That's 'im." The drover looked helplessly out over the stretch of plain.