til I met a battery mule--he's a shade worse!"

"Wait till you've worked with a camel in a bad temper, Mr. Jim," said
Dave Boone darkly; he had put in a weary time in Egypt. "For downright
wickedness them snake-headed beggars is the fair limit!"

"Yes, I've heard so," said Jim. "Anyhow, we haven't added mules and
camels to our worries in Victoria yet; sheep are bad enough for me.
Norah says turkey hens are worse, and she's certainly tried both; there
isn't much about the run young Norah doesn't know. But you aren't going
to make a living out of turkeys."

"No--Tommy can run them as a side line," said Bob. "I fancy sheep will
give me all I want in the way of worry."

"And you really think you'll go in for sheep, old man?" asked Jim with
pity.

Bob set his lips obstinately.

"I don't think anything yet," he said. "I don't know enough. Wait until
I've learned a bit more--if you're not sick of teaching such an idiot."

"Yerra, ye're no ijit," said Murty under his breath.

Education developed as the weeks went on. Wally had gone to Queensland,
to visit married brothers who were all the "people" he possessed; and
Jim, bereft of his chum, threw himself energetically into the training
of the substitute. Bob learned to slaughter a bullock and kill a
sheep--being instructed that the job in winter was not a circumstance to
what it would be in summer, when flies would abound. He never pretended
to like this branch of learning, but stuck to it doggedly, since it was
explained to him that the man who could not be his own butcher in the
bush was apt to go hungry, and that not one hired hand in twenty could
be trusted to kill.

More to Bob's taste were the boundary riding expeditions made with Jim
to the furthest corners of the run; taking a pack horse with tucker and
blankets, and camping in ancient huts, of which the sole furniture was
rough sacking bunks, a big fireplace, and empty kerosene cases for
seats and tables. It was unfortunate, from the point of view of
Bob's instruction, that the frantic zeal of Murty and the men to have
everything in order for "the Boss" had left no yard of the Billabong
boundary unvisited not a month before. Still, winter gales were always
apt to bring down a tree or two across the wires, laying a few panels
flat; the creeks, too, were all in flood, and where a wire fence crossed
one, floating brushwood often damaged the barrier, or a landslip in
a water-worn bank might carry away a post. So J