356 Sport and Life. 



all around us, it was difficult to get satisfactory wood to burn 

 in our stoves, and, although a large monarch of the forest was 

 hauled to our back door, it was some time before the huge trunk 

 was sawn in pieces and chopped up for cordwood. 



The unpleasantest part, perhaps, was the daily duty of pro- 

 viding a joint of meat. The nearest butcher's shop was four 

 days' journey off. To provide meat for the camp some bullocks 

 were driven into the corral once a week, and one or two 

 shot. These were cut into four quarters, and hung in a small 

 ice-house my husband had had built and stocked with ice during 

 the winter. Having only studied the superficial anatomy of 

 the human frame at a School of Art, I was truly puzzled in the 

 study presented to me by a quarter of beef. I had not the slightest 

 idea where to cut the joint from, so I decided beef steak would be 

 the easiest, and, as there is nothing like courage on such occasions, 

 I sliced away till I had got several pieces that, at any rate, looked 

 like steaks. They were so successful when cooked that I went on 

 steadily slicing away at the quarter of beef for several days, always 

 avoiding any bone. Then the storm burst. The cook at the 

 working men's camp, who had about ninety men to cook for, and 

 had also to take his beef from the quarters in the ice-house, 

 complained to my husband that I had hacked one bullock all to 

 pieces and had not left him a decent joint. So we struck a bargain 

 that in future we would visit the ice-house together, and he would 

 joint the beef for me. Another difficulty was the bread. At this 

 period of my housekeeping bread making was an unknown art to 

 me, but luckily one of the young Irishmen who was having his 

 meals with us kindly volunteered to show me how to make baking- 

 powder bread, at which he was an adept. As the oven was small, 

 bread had to be baked twice a day, so with this and the meals we 

 were kept pretty busy, and I was really thankful when the same 

 young Irishman and his brother kindly offered to wash up the 

 dishes after supper, as well as cut firewood for us. It was more 

 than kind of them, as they had the ordinary labourer's day's work, 

 beginning at 7 a.m. and ending at 6 p.m., and only knocking 



