It was a chilly night and all the ranch hands were warmin' their tails around the fire. The new guy rolled himself a cigarette, pulled a twig from the fire and lit it.
"Hey, Tumbleweed, you ever seen a kangaroo?" asked the greenhorn.
"Here it comes," Dusty chuckled under his breath.
Tumbleweed answered slowly with a far away look in his eyes.
"Yep, I've seen kangaroos...lots of them, and long-nosed bandicoots, hairy wombats, dingos and even a Tasmanian devil or two. I sure have, son."
"Go on," said the green cowboy, "when did you see all them critters? I ain't even heard of half of them. You're makin' it up."
Tumbleweed raised an eyebrow.
"If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'" he said and poked at the fire with a stick.
"Tell us about it, Tumbleweed," Dusty invited. He just couldn't resist hearin' Old Tumbleweed spin a windy.
"Well, there I was, standing on the shores of Australia. My old buddy, Stumpy Ted, had sent me one of them there telegrams askin' me to come. Seems he had himself a new ranch and needed a hand.
Well heck, I'd never been to Australia and old Stumpy was always a good man to ride a trail with, so I just took out and jumped a steam ship headed that way.
I asked a feller in town to point the way to Stumpy's ranch.
"Stumpy Ted's Ranch?" he asked with a grin. He pointed due east and walked away laughin'.
I figured out why when I got out to Stumpy's place. There weren't nothin' there. A ramshackle lean-to stood in the middle of the outback lookin' lonelier than a broke cowboy on Saturday night. There weren't no barn, no corral, nothin' but that old shack and a dunny out back that leaned dangerously to one side.
Leave it to Old Stump. He's the only man I know that can look at mess like that and call it home!
That night we pulled up around a pot of wallaby stew and Stumpy told me why he'd summoned me. Seems his neighbor had a fair-sized herd of cattle that had developed a disappearin' problem. Every morning the herd counted up shy a cow or two.
The puzzled rancher offered Old Stumpy good money to find the rustlers, bring 'em in or run 'em out. And he'd called on me to help.
We rode out the next morning and had a talk with the rancher, he said his beef cows were going missing down around the river that ran through his place. Said he was makin' a count every morning and there was always at least one cow missing. Well now, one cow a day don't seem worth the trouble for rustlers, but something sure was messin' with them cows, so Stump and me come up with a plan.
That night we set up along the river in the weeds and just sorta kept a lookout on the herd. Round about midnight we heard a terrible thrashin' in the water. I grabbed my Sharps rifle and run over there just in time to see a full grown cow goin' underwater with blood all around. That's when I figured it out. Crocs were eatin' them cows!
Well now, once I knew what the problem was, the solution just came to me. Next morning we built us a quick corral, then set out some fresh meat long-side the river. Every time a croc would come up to nab it we'd throw a loop on him and drag him out into the corral.
By sundown me and Stump figured we'd cleaned all the crocs outta that river.
Next day we just drove that herd of crocodiles across the Australian outback to the coast and right on into the ocean.
You know, a croc will drive just as easy as a cow once you get 'em going. You just gotta be careful not to get too close.
Feller was tellin' me last year that there's two kinds of crocs now, fresh water and salt water. I sure was glad to hear those critters adapted to their new range so well."
Tumbleweed fell quiet.
The greenhorn eyed the old story teller for a minute or two.
"That's a croc!" he muttered, then flicked his cigarette butt into the fire and walked off toward the bunkhouse.
