84 Australian Life 



seems to come from some white-hot furnace. 

 After a hasty breakfast, washed down by scald- 

 ing, milkless tea, the pastoralist throws himself 

 into the saddle, and rides away to the big station 

 tanks to superintend the work already going on 

 there. Round the shrunken pool of yellow water 

 stands a row of sheep, unable from sheer weak- 

 ness to extricate themselves from the mud into 

 which they have rushed in their eagerness to 

 drink. Some are already dead, while men are 

 busily employed in drawing the survivors from 

 the trap into which they have fallen. Their 

 owner looks at the pathetic, bleating animals, 

 mere skeletons covered by wool and hide, with a 

 dull wonder that they have lived so long, and a 

 dead certainty that they cannot live much longer. 



He rides on. On all sides are skeletons and 

 decaying carcasses, with gorged crows flapping 

 lazily away before him. Not a blade of grass to 

 be seen anywhere, nothing but the scanty black 

 green foliage of the gums, and in the distance the 

 grey, dusty mulga scrub. He heads for the scrub, 

 crossing the creek-bed, now dry and choked with 

 dust. Men are cutting down the mulga, the only 

 food the station now affords to the starving sheep. 

 It is the last resort, and the animals eat it: not 

 eagerly, even though they be starving, for it is 

 tough and uninviting. 



His next visit is paid to his stud flock, once the 

 pride of the station, and still cherished with care, 

 for it represents the only hope for the future. 



