herbage ripened and
dried; patches of bare earth began to be discernible amid the late
thick-swarded pastures, dust to rise and cloud-pillars of sand to float
and eddy--the desert genii of the Arab. But the work went on at a high
rate of speed, outpacing the fast-coming summer; and before any serious
disasters arose, the last flock was "on the battens," and, amid
ironical congratulations, the "cobbler," or last sheep was seized, and
stripped of his rather dense and difficult fleece. In ten minutes the
vast woolshed, lately echoing with the ceaseless click of the shears,
the jests, the songs, the oaths of the rude congregation, was silent
and deserted. The floors were swept, the pens closed, the sheep on
their way to a distant paddock. Not a soul remains about the building
but the pressers, who stay to work at the rapidly lessening piles of
fleeces in the bins, or a meditative teamster who sits musing on a
wool-bale, absorbed in a calculation as to when his load will be made
up.

It is sundown, a rather later time of closing than usual, but rendered
necessary by the possibility of the "grand finale." The younger men
troop over to the hut, larking like schoolboys. Abraham Lawson throws a
poncho over his broad shoulders, lights his pipe, and strides along,
towering above the rest, erect and stately as a guardsman. Considerably
more so than you or I, reader, would have been, had we shorn 130 sheep,
as he has done to-day. Billy May has shorn 142, and he puts his hand on
the five-foot paling fence of the yard and vaults over it like a deer,
preparatory to a swim in the creek. At dinner you will see them all
with fresh Crimeans and Jerseys, clean, comfortable, and in grand
spirits. Next morning is settling-day. The book-keeping departments at
Anabanco being severely correct, all is in readiness. Each man's tally
or number of sheep shorn has been entered daily to his credit. His
private and personal investments at the store have been as duly
debited. The shearers, as a corporation, have been charged with the
multifarious items of their rather copious mess-bill. This sum total is
divided by the number of the shearers, the extract being the amount for
which each man is liable. This sum varies in its weekly proportion at
different sheds. With an extravagant cook, or cooks, the weekly bill is
often alarming. When the men and their functionary study economy it may
be kept very reasonably low.

The men have been sitting or standin