kfellow; but, as yet, they have not
come to distinguish a man on horseback from a four-footed beast. And,
this seems to show that animals have their traditions like men."

"Pray, Sam, are not these pretty beasts, these kangaroos, becoming
extinct?"

"On sheep-runs, very nearly so. Sheep drive them off directly; but on
cattle-runs, so far from becoming extinct, they are becoming so
numerous as to be a nuisance; consuming a most valuable quantity of
grass."

"How can you account for that?"

"Very easily," said Sam; "their enemies are all removed. The settlers
have poisoned, in well-settled districts, the native dogs and
eagle-hawks, which formerly kept down their numbers. The blacks prefer
the beef of the settlers to bad and hard-earned kangaroo venison; and,
lastly, the settlers never go after them, but leave them to their own
inventions. So that the kangaroo has better times of it than ever."

"That is rather contrary to what one has heard, though," said Frank.

"But Sam is right, Dean," said the Major. "People judge from seeing
none of them on the plains, from which they have been driven by the
sheep; but there are as many in the forest as ever."

"The Emu, now," said Frank, "are they getting scarce?"

"They will soon be among the things of the past," said the Major; "and
I am sorry for it, for they are a beautiful and harmless bird."

"Major," said Frank, "how many outlying huts have you?"

"Five," said the Major. "Four shepherds' huts, and one stockkeeper's in
the range, which we call the heifer station."

"You have no church here, I know," said Frank; "but do these men get
any sort of religious instruction?"

"None whatever," said the Major. "I have service in my house on Sunday,
but I cannot ask them to come to it, though sometimes the stockmen do
come. The shepherds, you know, are employed on Sunday as on any other
day. Sheep must eat!"

"Are any of these men convicts?"

"All the shepherds," said the Major. "The stockman and his assistant
are free men, but their hut-keeper is bond."

"Are any of them married?"

"Two of the shepherds; the rest single; but I must tell you that on our
run we keep up a regular circulation of books among the huts, and my
wife sticks them full of religious tracts, which is really about all
that we can do without a clergyman."

"Do you find they read your tracts, Mrs. Buckley?" asked Frank.

"No," said Mrs. Buckley, "with the exception, perhaps, of 'Black Giles
the