 The narrator, possibly Lawson himself, examines the level of respect the Bushfolk have for the dead, supplementing the story with his trademark dry, sardonic humour.The story opens with the unnamed narrator and his party, boating on the Darling River, coming across a young man on horseback driving some horses along the bank.The young man asks if the water is too deep to cross, to which a joker in the party replies that it is deep enough to drown him.