Out of the south came the Fizzer, lopping once more in his saddle, with the year’s dry stages behind him, and the set lines all gone from his shoulders, shouting as he came:  “Hullo!  What ho!  Here’s a crowd of us!” but on his return trip the Fizzer was a man of leisure, and we had to wait for news until his camp was fixed up.

“Now for it!” he shouted, at last joining the company, and Mac felt the time was ripe for his jocular greeting and, ogling the Fizzer, noticed that “The flats get greener every year about the Elsey.”

But the Fizzer was a dangerous subject to joke with.  “So I’ve noticed,” he shouted as, improving on Mac’s ogle, he singled him out from the company, then dropping his voice to an insinuating drawl he challenged him to have a deal.

Instantly the Sanguine Scot became a Canny Scot, for Mac prided himself on a horse-deal.  And as no one had yet got the better of the Fizzer the company gathered round to enjoy itself.

“A swop,” suggested the Fizzer, and Mac agreeing with a “Right ho!” a preliminary hand-shake was exchanged before “getting to business”; and then, as each made a great presence of mentally reviewing his team, each eyed the other with the shrewdness of a fighting cock.

“My brown mare!” Mac offered at last, and knowing the staunch little beast, the homestead wondered what Mac had up his sleeve.

We explained our suspicions in asides to the travellers, but the Fizzer seemed taken by surprise.  “By George!” he said.  “She’s a stunner!  I’ve nothing fit to put near her excepting that upstanding chestnut down there.”

The chestnut was standing near the creek-crossing, and every one knowing him well, and sure of that “something” up Mac’s sleeve, feared for the Fizzer as Mac’s hand came out with a “Done!” and the Fizzer gripped it with a clinching “Right ho!”

Naturally we waited for the denouement, and the Fizzer appearing unsuspicious and well-pleased with the deal, we turned our attention to the Sanguine Scot.

Mac felt the unspoken flattery, and with an introductory cough, and a great show of indifference, said:  “By the way!  Perhaps I should have mentioned it, but the brown mare’s down with the puffs since the showers,” and looked around the company for approval.

But the Fizzer was filling the homestead with shoutings:  “Don’t apologise,” he yelled.  “That’s nothing!  The chestnut’s just broken his leg; can’t think how he got here.  This’ll save me the trouble of shooting him.”  Then dropping back to that chuckling drawl, and re-assuming the ogle, he added:  “The—­flats—­get—­greener—­every—­year—­about—­the Elsey,” and with a good-humoured laugh Mac asked if “any other gentleman felt on for a swop.”

Naturally, for a while the conversation was all of horse deals, until, Happy Dick coming in, it turned as naturally to dog-fights as Peter and Brown stalked aggressively about the thoroughfare.