CHAPTER XX^mi 



THE SHEEP-DROVER, THE SHEPHERD, AND THE 

 BOUNDARY-KEEPER 



The bullock-driver must be born to his trade, to be 

 successful ; the sheep-drover nicay be made. He may- 

 have spent all his days at " clerical " work (accounting, 

 teaching, perhaps preaching, writing, painting, who- 

 knows-what ?), be " as weak as a cat," obnoxiously 

 modest, and " too bloomin' polite for anj'thing." He 

 may possess literary skill and have culture enough to cite 

 Dante and the poets. Suddenly, he is thrown out of 

 gear, and, half -doubtfully, half-eagerly, he grasps at a 

 " droving billet." He takes his first job — to aid in 

 driving a thousand sheep from one station — say, Narni, 

 to another — say, Yarrawanga, on the Victorian side of 

 the Murray, whence they are to be consigned to Mel- 

 bourne. His horse is his first trouble, and it is " for 

 six consecutive weeks a terror by day and an incarnate 

 nightmare." He makes his first acquaintance with an 

 extensive drafting yard, which seems to him " a mere 

 maze, the prize ground-plan of a labyrinth." He has, 

 to begin with, repeatedly to carry two buckets of water 

 from a water-hole 800 or 900 yards away, but looking 

 and feeling as if it were miles distant, and that under 

 the torrid blaze of the Riverina-plains sun at midday, 

 when the thermometer sometimes stands at 117° in 

 the shade. The stock-route, which is not necessarily 

 either the coach-road or the regular travelling thorough- 

 fare, but must follow the lead of feed and water, may 

 be the worst imaginable. Its desolation may be 



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