at Billy was just nine years
old.

THE STRANGERS' HUT

I had come a long journey across country with Glenn, the squatter,
and now we were entering the homestead paddock of his sheep-station,
Winnanbar. Afar to the left was a stone building, solitary in a waste of
saltbush and dead-finish scrub. I asked Glenn what it was.

He answered, smilingly: "The Strangers' Hut. Sundowners and that lot
sleep there; there's always some flour and tea in a hammock, under the
roof, and there they are with a pub of their own. It's a fashion we have
in Australia."

"It seems all right, Glenn," I said with admiration. "It's surer than
Elijah's ravens."

"It saves us from their prowling about the barracks, and camping on the
front veranda."

"How many do you have of a week?"

"That depends. Sundowners are as uncertain as they are unknown
quantities. After shearing-time they're thickest; in the dead of summer
fewest. This is the dead of summer," and, for the hundredth time in our
travel, Glenn shook his head sadly.

Sadness was ill-suited to his burly form and bronzed face, but it was
there. He had some trouble, I thought, deeper than drought. It was too
introspective to have its origin solely in the fact that sheep were
dying by thousands, that the stock-routes were as dry of water as the
hard sky above us, and that it was a toss-up whether many families in
the West should not presently abandon their stations, driven out by a
water-famine--and worse.

After a short silence Glenn stood up in the trap, and, following the
circle of the horizon with his hand, said: "There's not an honest blade
of grass in all this wretched West. This whole business is gambling with
God."

"It is hard on women and children that they must live here," I remarked,
with my eyes on the Strangers' Hut.

"It's harder for men without them," he mournfully replied; and at
that moment I began to doubt whether Glenn, whom I had heard to be a
bachelor, was not tired of that calm but chilly state. He followed up
this speech immediately by this: "Look at that drinking-tank!"

The thing was not pleasant in the eye. Sheep were dying and dead by
thousands round it, and the crows were feasting horribly. We became
silent again.

The Strangers' Hut, and its unique and, to me, awesome hospitality, was
still in my mind. It remained with me until, impelled by curiosity, I
wandered away towards it in the glow and silence of the evening. The
walk was no brief mat