exception, the men do not seem hard
up; at least, not as that condition is understood by the swagmen of
these times. The least lucky one of the lot had three weeks' work in a
shed last season, and there might probably be five pounds amongst the
whole crowd. They are all shearers, or at least they say they are. Some
might be only "rousers."

These men have a kind of stock hope of getting a few stragglers to shear
somewhere; but their main object is to live till next shearing. In order
to do this they must tramp for tucker, and trust to the regulation--and
partly mythical--pint of flour, and bit of meat, or tea and sugar, and
to the goodness of cooks and storekeepers and boundary-riders. You can
only depend on getting tucker _once_ at one place; then you must tramp
on to the next. If you cannot get it once you must go short; but there
is a lot of energy in an empty stomach. If you get an extra supply you
may camp for a day and have a spell. To live you must walk. To cease
walking is to die.

The Exception is an outcast amongst bush outcasts, and looks better
fitted for Sydney Domain. He lies on the bottom of a galvanized-iron
case, with a piece of blue blanket for a pillow. He is dressed in a blue
cotton jumper, a pair of very old and ragged tweed trousers, and one
boot and one slipper. He found the slipper in the last shed, and the
boot in the rubbish-heap here. When his own boots gave out he walked
a hundred and fifty miles with his feet roughly sewn up in pieces of
sacking from an old wool-bale. No sign of a patch, or an attempt at
mending anywhere about his clothes, and that is a bad sign; when a
swagman leaves off mending or patching his garments, his case is about
hopeless. The Exception's swag consists of the aforesaid bit of blanket
rolled up and tied with pieces of rag. He has no water-bag; carries
his water in a billy; and how he manages without a bag is known only to
himself. He has read every scrap of print within reach, and now lies on
his side, with his face to the wall and one arm thrown up over his
head; the jumper is twisted back, and leaves his skin bare from hip to
arm-pit. His lower face is brutal, his eyes small and shifty, and ugly
straight lines run across his low forehead. He says very little, but
scowls most of the time--poor devil. He might be, or at least _seem_, a
totally different man under more favourable conditions. He is probably a
free labourer.

A very sick jackaroo lies in one of the