This memory brought the man slowly awake and he saw the magpie at (he top of the dead tree looking down at him, head cocked. Yes how

many years was it after that day in the dole queue and the morning wak­ing in the cow paddock. Seven, eight years maybe, since he had come to Cabbage Tree and moved out to a hut in the bush where he made forays into the forest to cut sleepers , and now he was fully, bare daylight awake and Te looked down at his left arm where it disappeared into the side of the log. He had hoped that when he woke he might find that it had all been a dream.