rses in
good condition in the paddocks, and when we had mustered the whole lot
we found we had a handsome cheque to get.

It was a little bit strange buckling to after the easy life we'd led for
the last few months; but after a day or two we found ourselves as good
men as ever, and could spin over the limestone boulders and through
the thick mountain timber as well as ever we did. A man soon gets right
again in the fresh air of the bush; and as it used to snow there every
now and then the air was pretty fresh, you bet, particularly in the
mornings and evenings.

After we'd settled up we made up our minds to get as far as Monaro,
and wait there for a month or two. After that we might go in for the
shearing till Christmas, and then whatever happened we would both make a
strike back for home, and have one happy week, at any rate, with mother
and Aileen.

We tried as well as we could to keep away from the large towns and the
regular mail coach road. We worked on runs where the snow came down
every now and then in such a way as to make us think that we might be
snowed up alive some fine morning. It was very slow and tedious work,
but the newspapers seldom came there, and we were not worried day
after day with telegrams about our Adelaide stroke, and descriptions
of Starlight's own look and way of speaking. We got into the old way of
working hard all day and sleeping well at night. We could eat and drink
well; the corned beef and the damper were good, and Jim, like when we
were at the back of Boree when Warrigal came, wished that we could
stick to this kind of thing always, and never have any fret or crooked
dealings again as long as we lived.

But it couldn't be done. We had to leave and go shearing when the spring
came on. We did go, and went from one big station to the other when the
spring was regularly on and shearers were scarce. By and by the weather
gets warmer, and we had cut our last shed before the first week in
December.

Then we couldn't stand it any longer.

'I don't care,' says Jim, 'if there's a policeman standing at every
corner of the street, I must make a start for home. They may catch us,
but our chance is a pretty good one; and I'd just as soon be lagged
outright as have to hide and keep dark and moulder away life in some of
these God-forsaken spots.'

So we made up to start for home and chance it. We worked our way by
degrees up the Snowy River, by Buchan and Galantapee, and gradually made
towa