Sam Eccles had killed a brown snake in his wood-heap, and had proceeded to play a prehistoric trick on all comers to the Murrumbidgee Bridge Hotel. He had curled up the carcase under a bench on the verandah, and the new chum from Paka, riding in for the station mail, had very violently killed that snake again. But the new chum was becoming acclimatised to bush humour; and he arranged the lifeless coil in a most lifelike manner on the snoring body of a Gol-gol boundary-rider who was lying deathly drunk inside the bar. This a small but typical company applauded greatly; but Sam Eccles himself leant back against the wall and laughed only softly in his beard. There was a reminiscent twinkle in his eye, and someone offered him something for his thoughts.

"I was thinkin'," said Sam, "of another old snake-yarn that come my way last Christmas-time. Was any of you jokers in the township then? I thought not; it was the slackest Christmas ever I struck."

"My troubles about Christmas!" said a drover with a blue fly-veil. "Pitch us the yarn."

"Ah, but it's a yarn and a half! I'm not sure that I want to pitch it. I do and I don't; it'd make you smile."

"Yes?"

"Rip it out, Sam!"

"See here, boss," said the drover, "mix yer own pison and chalk it to me." And that settled the matter.

"Any of you know the I-talian?" began Sam, by way of preface, as he mixed his grog.

"Pasquale?" said the new chum. "Rather! I sling him out of my store periodically."

"He's our local thief," Sam explained, for the benefit of the drover and his mates, who were strangers to the township. "A real bad egg, so bad that we're proud of him. Shakes everything he can lay his dirty nails on, and smokes a meerschum he must have shook before we knew him. An organ-grinder in redooced circumstances, that's what's the matter with old Squally; but he must have been out a good bit, for he speaks as good bloomin' English as you or me. Came this way first a year or two ago; hadn't been here a month before every decent door in the place was slammed in the beggar's face. I've fired him out of this again and again. The last time was last Christmas Day. He had the cheek to shove in his ugly mug, first thing in the morning, and ask if there was any free drinks going. Free drinks for him! He went out quicker than he come in. But he turns up again in the afternoon, as bold as blessed brass, and, by cripes, I didn't fire him then!

"The joker was bit by a snake. His face was as white as his teeth, an' there was the fear o' death, yes, an' the heat of hell in his wicked eyes. He'd chucked his hat away, after ripping out the greasy blue linin', and that's what he'd got twisted around his right wrist. Twisted so tight, with the stem of his pipe, that the hand looked dead and rotten, all but a crust of blood between the knuckles. Then he licks off the blood, and there sure enough were two little holes, just like stabs, five-eighths of an inch apart. My blessed oath!

"'What kind?' says I, though I thought I knew.

"'A coral,' says Squally, as I expected. And you know what that means, you mister; there's not one in ten as gets bit by a coral-snake and lives to show the place."

The new chum nodded.

"Well, there was just one chance for the joker and that was all. I filled a tumbler with whisky straight—hanged if he'd touch it! Never see such a thing in my life! That swine who'd get dead drunk every time he got the slant—who'd been round that very mornin', cadgin' for a drink—the same obstinate pig wouldn't touch a drop now to save his life. 'No, no,' says Squally, 'I have been drunken dev-ill all my days, let me die sober, let me die sober.' So we had to take him and force that whisky down his throat, like giving a horse a ball, and another big nobbler on top of it to make sure. Then we stood round and looked on. D'ye see, mister, if it made him tight we'd pull him through; if it didn't, there was no hope for him; and there'd be one blackguard less in Riverina. Well, for a bit he stood as straight an' as firm as them verandah posts; but it wasn't long before I see his knees givin' an' his chin comin' down upon his chest; an' then I knew as all was right. In less than five minutes he was blind and speechless; we'd got him spread out comfy in that corner; and the rest of us were quenching the little thirst we'd raised over the business."

Here Sam Eccles suited the action to the word, and the drover with the blue fly-veil shook his head.

"You didn't deserve them drinks," said he. "What did you want to go and save a thing like that for? You should have let the joker die. I would."

"I wished I had," replied Sam, ruefully. "That's not the end of the yarn, d'ye see, and it's the end what's going to make you chaps smile. There's a rabbit inspector lives in this here township, and knows more about nat'ral history than any other two men in the back-blocks. He happened to be at home that day, and he's at home to-day, too, if you'd like to see the snake what bit the Italian. He has it in his house—and this is how he come to get it. Somebody tells him what's happened, and he looks in during the evening to see for himself. There was old Squally drowned in whisky, sleepin' like a kid. 'So,' says Mr. Gray—that's the rabbit-inspector—'now's my time. The other day I lost my pen-knife; must have dropped it out of the buggy, but remembered the place and drove back; met Squally on the way, and nat-rally never saw my knife again. Now's my time,' says he, 'to get it back. Now's the time,' he says, 'for all of us to get back everything we ever lost!' And down he goes on his knees beside Squally, and starts feeling in his pockets.

"'Here it is!' he says directly; and yet he never gets up from his knees.

"'Struck anything else, Mr. Gray?' says I at last.

"'Yes, Sam, I have,' says he, turning round and fixing me with his blue goggles. 'What sort of a snake was it our friend here said had bitten him?'

"'A coral,' says I.

"'Not it,' says he.

"'What then?' says I.

"'A new variety altogether,' says Mr. Gray, grinning through his beard.

"'Give it a name, sir,' says I.

"'Certainly,' says he, getting up. 'If we call it the knife-snake we shan't be far out.' And blowed if he didn't show me the little blade of his own knife blooded at the point; blowed if he didn't fit the blessed point into Squally's blessed bites!"

Sam covered his face for shame, but joined next moment in the laugh against himself. Not so he of the blue fly-veil. The drover's hairy visage was a strong study in perfectly candid contempt.

"You run a bush pub, and you were had by that old dodge. It hasn't got a tooth in its head—it's as old as the blooming sandhills—yet you were had. My stars!"

The new chum from Paka diverted the laugh by innocently inquiring what that dodge might be.

"A free drunk," said the drover. "And you ought to stand us free drinks, mister, for not knowing. You're only a shade better than our friend the boss. To swallow that old chestnut at this time o' day!"

Sam Eccles lost his temper.

"You've said about enough. The man I mean was a born actor. Either shut your blessed head or take off that coat and come outside."

"Right," replied the drover, divesting himself on his way to the door. Sam followed him with equal alacrity, but came to a sudden halt upon the threshold.

"Wait a bit!" he cried. "Jiggered if here ain't the very man I've been telling you about; running on one leg too, as if he was up to the same old dodge again. He can't be. It's too steep!"

Even as he spoke there was the bound of a bare foot in the verandah, and a hulking Neapolitan hopped into the bar with his other foot in his hand and apparent terror in his eyes. But his face was not white at all; it was flushed with running; and the actor seemed dazed, or disconcerted by the presence of an unknown audience.

"Bitten again?" inquired Sam Eccles, genially.

"Bitten by a coral. Bitten in my foot! Look, look at the marks. Per Dio! I am dead man. A drink—a drink!"

"Hark at that!" said Sam Eccles, nudging the man whom he had been about to fight. "You're in luck; I never thought, when I was pitching you that yarn, that you'd see the same thing over again with your own eyes. Who'd have believed he'd try the same game twice? But don't he do it well?" And as Sam said this, he wrested the whisky-bottle from Pasquale's hands, and put that worthy down on his back.

"No, you don't. Not this time, Squally. Not much!"

The Neapolitan was up again in an instant, foaming at the mouth, and cursing volubly, but ready hands held him back.

"You ought to have been an actor, old man," said one.

"He ought so," laughed the drover. "He's a treat. I wouldn't have missed him for a lot."

Pasquale spat in his face.

"No, no, you don't see him at his best," said Sam Eccles, apologetically. "He's over-doing it. He was three times as good last trip."

The actor turned and reviled him, struggling with his captors, kicking them harmlessly with his bare feet—gesticulating—pointing to the twin blood-spots on his left instep—and weeping prayers and curses in the same breath. But if none had heeded him at first, much less would they do so now; for he had fallen incontinently upon his native tongue.

"A damned good performance," said the drover, wiping his face. "But I guess I'll burst him when he's finished."

"I wouldn't," said the tolerant Eccles. "I let him off light last time. It's something to have an actor like him in the back-blocks. Look at that!"

The Neapolitan lay bunched and knotted on the ground in a singularly convincing collapse.

"I don't believe it's acting at all!" cried the youth from Paka, in a whinny of high excitement.

"You're a new chum," retorted Sam Eccles. "What do you know about it? You wasn't even here last time."

"I know a sham when I see one. There's not much sham about this!"

And without more words the new chum fled the bar, a shout of laughter following him out into the heat.

"These young chaps from home, they know so much," said Sam Eccles. "I tell you what, our friend was drunk this trip before he come in. That's what made him pile it on so. He's as paralytic now as he was last time after them two tumblers of whisky. Let's stick him in the same old corner, and drink his bloomin' health."

The company did so while Sam refilled the glasses.

"Here's to old Squally the I-talian. Otherwise Lion Comique of the Riverina district of Noo South Wales. Long life an' 'ealth to 'em—hip, hip, hurray!"

Sam made the speech and led the cheers. His late antagonist and he clinked glasses and shook hands; then Sam pointed to the heap of moleskin and Crimean shirting, in the far corner of the bar, and lowered his voice.

"You've not seen him at his best," he insisted. "The beggar was too blooming drunk to start with."

"I'll see him when he's sober," said the drover grimly. "But he can act!"

"My oath! Sober or drunk. Hullo, here is a joke; blowed if that new chum hasn't fetched Mr. Gray to have a look at old Squally, just like he did before!"

And the two men paused to watch the rabbit-inspector, who had entered without looking their way, kneel down beside the prostrate Pasquale, and bend over him with blue spectacles intent. He examined the punctures on the left instep; he stooped and sucked them with his lips. His next act was to raise one eyelid after another; his last, to lay a weather-beaten hand upon the Italian's heart; and all this was done in a dead silence which had fallen upon the place with the entry of Mr. Gray.

"Long life to 'im again," murmured the drover, emptying his glass; but Sam Eccles neither heard nor answered him. At length the inspector arose, and turned towards them with his expressionless glasses.

"There was no nonsense about it this time, Sam. It was a snake right enough, and a coral-snake into the bargain."

Sam gave a gasping cry.

"But if he's drunk——"

"He isn't; he's dead."

In his own corner the Gol-gol boundary-rider lay snoring through it all, a dead snake still curled upon his breast.