"Can you sit on a buck-jumper?’" the Governor asked. "Oh, yes, sometimes," and Tom laughed again. "But I’d much sooner sit on a quiet horse, or in the shade of a tree," And I couldn't explain how pleased I felt when the Governor told him to tet his horses go and put his swag in the hut.
And when Eustace and Kearney were as wet blankets to the Governor, it was good to hear Tom Merton chaffing them, to give him a bit of hope and encouragement.
"Don’t you take any notice of them, Governor," he would cheerfully advise, "they’ve only dreamed about it being a dry country out here. They've been used to inside, along the coast where the big waves are, and where there’s always plenty of wet. Can’t you tell that by their hard salt faces, and their flat, swampy feet, like the hooves on horses that are bred in the big swamps." And Tom, himself, would laugh with the Governor. "But let me tell you," he’d go on, "that my old man, old Jim Merton, who was no sea-gull, was two hundred miles west of this place thirty years ago, and there was always boggins of rains and grass that he used to lose his horses in."
"Well. where th’ blaze has it all gone to, Tom?" Eustace, a pug-nosed, think set, bow-legged, surly fellow would inquire through his nose.
"Sweet man," a great expression of Tom Merton’s. ‘"It’s taking a spell for a while, that’s all, and any day at all now, it won't surprise me to see you fellows out on the rim stripping off your shirts and pants and sticking them to a hollow log to keep them dry."
