the
sand by the long line of teams which seemed never tired of arriving.
Sheep by thousands, and tens of thousands, began to come, grazing and
cropping up to the lonely sandhill--now swarming with blacksmiths,
carpenters, engineers, fencers, shepherds, bullock-drivers--till the
place looked like a fair on the borders of Tartary.

Meanwhile everything was moving with calculated force and cost, under
the "reign of law". The seeming expense was merely the economic truth
of doing all the necessary work at once, rather than by instalments.
One hundred men for one day rather than one man for one hundred days.
Results soon began to demonstrate themselves. In twelve months the dams
were full, the wells sending up their far-fetched priceless water, the
wire fences erected, the shepherds gone, and 17,000 sheep cropping the
herbage of Anabanco. Tuesday was the day fixed for the actual
commencement of the momentous, almost solemn transaction--the pastoral
Hegira, so to speak, as the time of most station events is
calculated with reference to it, as happening before or after shearing.
But before the first shot is fired which tells of the battle begun,
what raids and skirmishes, what reconnoitring and vedette duty must
take place!

First arrives the cook-in-chief to the shearers, with two assistants to
lay in a few provisions for the week's consumption of 70 able-bodied
men. I must here explain that the cook of a large shearing-shed is a
highly paid and tolerably irresponsible official. He is paid and
provided by the shearers. Payment is generally arranged on the scale of
half-a-crown a head weekly from each shearer. For this sum he must
provide punctual and effective cooking, paying out of his own pocket as
many "marmitons" as may be needful for that end, and to satisfy his
tolerably exacting and fastidious employers.

In the present case he confers with the storekeeper, Mr de Vere, a
young gentleman of aristocratic connexions who is thus gaining an
excellent practical knowledge of the working of a large station and to
this end has the store-keeping department entrusted to him during
shearing.

He does not perhaps look quite fit for a croquet party as he stands
now, with a flour-scoop in one hand and a pound of tobacco in the
other. But he looks like a man at work, and also like a gentleman, as
he is. "Jack the Cook" thus addresses him:

"Now, Mr de Vere, I hope there's not going to be any humbugging about
my rations and thin