sn't got a sister
or sister-in-law, and his father and mother's been dead over ten years."

"Now, if I was running a theatre," said Mitchell, as we left the office,
"I'd give five pounds a night for the face Jake'll have on him when he
takes that telegram to Baldy Thompson."

TWO SUNDOWNERS

Sheep stations in Australia are any distance from twenty to a hundred
miles apart, to keep well within the boundaries of truth and the great
pastoral country. Shearing at any one shed only lasts a few weeks in
the year; the number of men employed is according to the size of the
shed--from three to five men in the little bough-covered shed of the
small "cockatoo," up to a hundred and fifty or two hundred hands all
told in the big corrugated iron machine shed of a pastoral company.

Shearing starts early up in northern Queensland, where you can get a
"January shed;" and further south, in February, March or April sheds,
and so on down into New South Wales, where shearing often lasts over
Christmas. Shearers travel from shed to shed; some go a travel season
without getting a pen, and an unlucky shearer might ride or tramp for
several seasons and never get hands in wool; and all this explains the
existence of the "footman" with his swag and the horse man with his
packhorse. They have a rough life, and the Australian shearers are
certainly the most democratic and perhaps the most independent,
intelligent and generous body of workmen in the world.

Shearers at a shed elect their own cook, pay him so much a head,
and they buy their rations in the lump from the station store; and
"travellers," i.e. shearers and rouseabouts travelling for work, are
invited, as a matter of course, to sit down to the shearers' table.
Also a certain allowance of tea, sugar, flour or meat is still made
to travellers at most Western station stores; so it would be rather
surprising if there weren't some who, travelled on the game. The swagman
loafer, or "bummer," times himself, especially in bad weather, to arrive
at the shed just about sundown; he is then sure of "tea," shelter for
the night, breakfast, and some tucker from the cook to take him on along
the track. Brummy and Swampy were sundowners.

Swampy was a bummer born--and proud of it. Brummy had drifted down to
loaferdom, and his nature was soured and his spirit revengeful against
the world because of the memory of early years wasted at hard work and
in being honest. Both were short and stout,