flooring boards, running on uneven lines the length
of the hut from within about 6ft. of the fire-place. Lengths of single
six-inch boards or slabs on each side, supported by the projecting ends
of short pieces of timber nailed across the legs of the table to serve
as seats.

On each side of the hut runs a rough framework, like the partitions in a
stable; each compartment battened off to about the size of a manger, and
containing four bunks, one above the other, on each side--their ends,
of course, to the table. Scarcely breathing space anywhere between.
Fireplace, the full width of the hut in one end, where all the cooking
and baking for forty or fifty men is done, and where flour, sugar, etc.,
are kept in open bags. Fire, like a very furnace. Buckets of tea and
coffee on roasting beds of coals and ashes on the hearth. Pile of
"brownie" on the bare black boards at the end of the table. Unspeakable
aroma of forty or fifty men who have little inclination and less
opportunity to wash their skins, and who soak some of the grease out
of their clothes--in buckets of hot water--on Saturday afternoons or
Sundays. And clinging to all, and over all, the smell of the dried,
stale yolk of wool--the stink of rams!

. . . . .

"I am a rouseabout of the rouseabouts. I have fallen so far that it
is beneath me to try to climb to the proud position of 'ringer' of the
shed. I had that ambition once, when I was the softest of green hands;
but then I thought I could work out my salvation and go home. I've got
used to hell since then. I only get twenty-five shillings a week (less
station store charges) and tucker here. I have been seven years west of
the Darling and never shore a sheep. Why don't I learn to shear, and
so make money? What should I do with more money? Get out of this and go
home? I would never go home unless I had enough money to keep me for
the rest of my life, and I'll never make that Out Back. Otherwise, what
should I do at home? And how should I account for the seven years, if
I were to go home? Could I describe shed life to them and explain how
I lived. They think shearing only takes a few days of the year--at the
beginning of summer. They'd want to know how I lived the rest of the
year. Could I explain that I 'jabbed trotters' and was a 'tea-and-sugar
burglar' between sheds. They'd think I'd been a tramp and a beggar all
the time. Could I explain ANYTHING so that they'd understand? I'd have
to be lying a