THE DESIRE FOR ADVENTURE 15 



When 'twixt the gloaming and the dark we'd hear the welcome 



note 

 Of boist'rous, pealing laughter from the kookaburra's throat. 



Camped out beneath the starlit skies the treetops overhead, 

 A saddle for a pillow and a blanket for a bed, 

 'Twas pleasant, mate, to listen to the soughing of the breeze 

 And learn the lilting lullabies that stirred the mulga trees. 



Our sleep was sound in those days, for the mustering days were 



hard- 

 The morrows might be harder, with the brandings in the yard ! 

 But did you see the station now the men ! and mokes ! they 



keep 

 You'd own the place was beggared since the country carried 



sheep ! " 



The " boss " to use the Australian word of this 

 sheep station was a believer in getting all he could out 

 of a horse as well as out of a man, and I earned my 

 dismissal there because he thought that I was not 

 quick enough in going about a particular job that he 

 had given me. I recollect riding there my first outlaw 

 horse, an animal named " Grasshopper." (It curi- 

 ously enough was responsible for the death of my 

 boss some months after I left the station.) The 

 experience of " buck- jumping " was not particularly 

 disconcerting to me. At any rate I was not thrown 

 out of the saddle, though until I had arrived in 

 Australia I had never had my leg across a horse. 



After leaving Redcliff, compulsorily, I took a job 

 on a cattle station as a stockman. At this station 

 the owner was anxious to breed horses for India, and 

 he had some very good stock on his place, of which 



