y miles from the head station. He had plenty of hard
work too; for Mr Ramsay owned cattle as well as sheep, and he had
agreed to take charge of a herd, as well as his flock, with the help of
his sons and a mate who had been sent with him. Labour was very scarce
just then; indeed, it often is in Australia, and a few hands were
obliged to do the work of many. News had just before come to the
station that gold had been found in several places, and that a pocket
full could be had by digging a little, and oftentimes by looking for it
among the rocks. Many people going off to the gold diggings had asked
him to go with them.

"No," he answered, "I came out here to look after sheep and oxen, and I
understand that work, I have a good master and fair wages, and I'll not
desert my master, or change my work."

"Right, Jos," said Mat Clark, his mate; "I never knew any good come to
any one by doing wrong, and we should be doing wrong if we were to leave
Mr Ramsay to take care of his sheep and cattle all by himself. It's
not the way we should like to be served."

Mat had come out to the colony very many years before; how he never
said. He was now an old man. Some people called him Silly Mat. He
used to answer, "May be I'm silly enough to try and do what is right,
and to be sorry for having done what was wrong. I hope to be silly in
this wise to the end of my days."

Joseph and his family lived a somewhat solitary life, but as they had
plenty to do, they did not mind that for themselves, only they knew it
was bad for the children to get no education, and they could never visit
any place of worship. For weeks together they saw no one except Mat and
the keeper of another station about seven miles off, known as Tony
Peach. Tony was not a man they liked at all, though they could not
exactly tell why. He would put on very soft manners though, and seemed
to have taken a great fancy to Joseph and his family. He had lost an
arm as a soldier, he said, and he could not manage a spade or pick, or
he owned that he would have been off to the diggings. He grumbled much
indeed, at not being able to go, for if there was one thing he loved on
earth, it was money, and he thought that it would be very pleasant to
dig up gold as people do potatoes. He thought, however, that he had
found out a way of growing rich without much trouble.

Joseph had just come in one afternoon with his flock and folded them, it
was then Sam's duty to watch