THE PIONEER SQUATTER 75 



drying up their resources, and the " banks " were 

 pressing them. Some of the runs had to be sold in order 

 to escape impending ruin. The venture, perhaps, hke 

 Murray Prior's station of Naraigin, had originally been 

 extravagant, and had been made practicable only 

 through heavily mortgaging the run. Its owner was 

 almost penniless. In his sore need he declared : "I 

 will boil down 1,500 wethers as a sop to the bank." 

 A debt of £10,000, at 10 per cent, interest, hung round 

 his neck hke a millstone. " I have reaped the covetous 

 man's reward." * We may think that such men were 

 ground to powder by " the bank." Yet 10 per cent, 

 was, in those days, the ordinary bank-rate of interest. 

 In New Zealand, in 1887 and 1889, 10 per cent, was 

 still, more than thirty years later, the customary rate 

 of the colonial Shy lock. The safest investment then 

 in Queensland should have returned 12 per cent, interest. 



After a few wrecks' tour through the squatting districts 

 a sheep-station would be selected, often on the spot 

 where a future township M^as to stand ; 1,200 ewes in 

 lamb would be bought ; in due time lambing would take 

 place, and a great increase would be the result. Un- 

 avoidably, a great deal of hard work was involved on 

 the part of the owner. He was often his own shearer 

 and washer, with but little aid. House and station 

 buildings were at first of a rude description. Run- 

 holders, having no fixity of tenure, were reluctant to 

 expend money on structures or other improvements 

 that might soon pass out of their hands. The " new 

 era " for squatters lay yet ten or twelve years ahead. 



The life of the pioneer squatter was at times hazardous 

 and often abounded in adventure. It was assuredly 

 never monotonous. There Mas a constant advance, 

 almost always into the Unknown. There were long and 

 stubborn conflicts with drought and flood, snowstorms 

 and heat-waves, disease in their flocks and herds, 

 disappointment and loss, death at the hands of the blacks 

 — often incurred, Ernest Favenc tells us, by the most 

 * Campbell Praed, My Australian Girlhood, p. 109. 



