Gleeson came at last with the cart and George Brown the Liar; the pig’s legs were again tied together, he was lifted into the cart and covered with the rope net.  Four other pigs were caught, and then the hunters and dogs returned to the place in which the old boar had been left.  But he had broken or slipped his bonds, and had gone away.  He was tracked to the river, which was narrow but deep, so he had saved his bacon for another day.

At the division of the game Philip declined to take any share.  He said: 

“Thanks, I have had pig enough for the present.”

So there were exactly five pigs for the other five men.

Having been satiated with the pleasures of fishing and pig-hunting, Philip was next invited to try the pursuit of the kangaroo.  The first meet of men and hounds took place at Gleeson’s farm.  McCarthy brought his dogs, and Philip brought Sam, his revolver, and a club.  Barton was too proud to join in the sport; he despised inferior game.  It might amuse new chums, but it was below the notice of the old trooper, whose business had been for many years to hunt and shoot bushrangers and black-fellows, not to mention his regular duty as flagellator.

Gleeson that morning was cutting up his pumpkin plants with an axe.

“Good morning, Mr. Gleeson,” said Philip.  “Is anything the matter?  Is it a snake you are killing?”

Gleeson began to laugh, a little ashamed of himself, and said, “Look at these cursed pumpkins.  I think they are bewitched.  Every morning I come to see if the fruit is growing, but this is what they do.  As soon as they get as big as a small potato, they begin to wither and turn yellow, and not a bit more will they grow.  So I’m cutting the blessed things to pieces.”

Philip saw that about half the runners had been already destroyed.  He said, “Don’t chop any more, Gleeson, and I’ll show you how to make pumpkins grow.”

He picked up a feather in the fowl-yard, and went inside the garden.

“Now look at these flowers closely; they are not all alike.  This flower will never turn into a pumpkin, but this one will if it gets a little of the dust from the first flower.  The bees or other insects usually take the dust from one flower to the other, but I suppose there are no bees about here just now?”

Philip then dusted every flower that was open and said:  “Now, my friend, put away the axe, and you will have fruit here yet.”  And the pumpkins grew and ripened.

The two men then went towards the house, and Philip observed the fragments of a clock scattered about the ground in front of the verandah.

“What happened to the clock?” said Philip.

“Why,” replied Gleeson, “the thing wasn’t going right at all, so I took it to pieces just to examine it, and to oil the wheels, and when I tried to put it together again, the fingers were all awry, and the pins wouldn’t fit in their places, and the pendulum swung crooked, and the whole thing bothered me so that I just laid it on the floor of the verandah, and gave it one big kick that sent it to smithereens.  But don’t mind me or the clock at all, master; just come inside, and we’ll have a bit o’ dinner before we start.”