"

I.

The First Born

The struggling squatter is to be found in Australia as well as the
"struggling farmer". The Australian squatter is not always the mighty
wool king that English and American authors and other uninformed people
apparently imagine him to be. Squatting, at the best, is but a game of
chance. It depends mainly on the weather, and that, in New South Wales
at least, depends on nothing.

Joe Middleton was a struggling squatter, with a station some distance
to the westward of the furthest line reached by the ordinary "new chum".
His run, at the time of our story, was only about six miles square, and
his stock was limited in proportion. The hands on Joe's run consisted
of his brother Dave, a middle-aged man known only as "Middleton's Peter"
(who had been in the service of the Middleton family ever since Joe
Middleton could remember), and an old black shepherd, with his gin and
two boys.

It was in the first year of Joe's marriage. He had married a very
ordinary girl, as far as Australian girls go, but in his eyes she was an
angel. He really worshipped her.

One sultry afternoon in midsummer all the station hands, with the
exception of Dave Middleton, were congregated about the homestead door,
and it was evident from their solemn faces that something unusual was
the matter. They appeared to be watching for something or someone across
the flat, and the old black shepherd, who had been listening intently
with bent head, suddenly straightened himself up and cried:

"I can hear the cart. I can see it!"

You must bear in mind that our blackfellows do not always talk the
gibberish with which they are credited by story writers.

It was not until some time after Black Bill had spoken that the
white--or, rather, the brown--portion of the party could see or even
hear the approaching vehicle. At last, far out through the trunks of the
native apple-trees, the cart was seen approaching; and as it came nearer
it was evident that it was being driven at a break-neck pace, the horses
cantering all the way, while the motion of the cart, as first one
wheel and then the other sprang from a root or a rut, bore a striking
resemblance to the Highland Fling. There were two persons in the cart.
One was Mother Palmer, a stout, middle-aged party (who sometimes did the
duties of a midwife), and the other was Dave Middleton, Joe's brother.

The cart was driven right up to the door with scarcely any abatement of
spe