name, and he suggested that the P.O. should
be called "Winton." This is the name of a suburb of Bournemouth,
Hampshire, England, and Allen's native place.

We had kept one of Fitzmaurice's teams to haul in firewood, and posts to
fence a paddock on Vindex run, the lessees, Messrs. Scott and Gordon,
having given us permission to do so.

The manager of Elderslie also gave us permission to fence in a piece of
ground at the Pelican Waterhole for a vegetable garden.

The team obtained employment at Bladensburg, where Mr. Macartney was
building a stockyard. As I felt clerical work to be hard on me, I would
take an occasional trip with the bullocks to relieve the drudgery.

During this year the member for Gregory, Mr. Thomas McWhannell, passed
through Winton, and opportunity was taken to bring under his notice the
necessity for a water supply for the town. The disabilities we suffered
under were pointed out. We had to procure water from a hole in Mistake
Creek, two and a-half miles away, the water of which was frequently
polluted by numbers of dead cattle. By his efforts a sum was passed by
Parliament for water conservation.

[Illustration: WESTERN RIVER IN FLOOD. LOOKING SOUTH FROM RAILWAY
STATION.]

The Oondooroo bullock team had come in for supplies, but the driver
started drinking, and was unable to take the team home.

Not having forgotten my old avocation, I took his place, and thereby
began a close friendship with the Schollick Brothers, who were
completely out of rations when I arrived.

During this year the town and district were invaded by a plague of rats,
travelling from north-east to south-west in hundreds of thousands.

The vermin would eat the buttons off one's coat when camping out. Cats
and dogs were surfeited from killing them. I told the Chinaman cook of
the hotel that I would give him a pound of tobacco if he caught a
hundred rats. That night, as I was sleeping on a stretcher at the back
of the store, I was several times awakened by what seemed to be a
stamping of feet. In the morning I found that the Chinaman had obtained
an ironbark wooden shutter, and rigged up a figure four trap with bait
underneath, and by this means had obtained a wheelbarrow full of dead
rats.

These rats had bushy tails, and apparently lived on the roots of grass.
These devastated the country through which they passed. It was unknown
whence they came from or whither they went.

The rats were followed by a plague of dead