the sternest game in the world and with it began a series
of adventures that read like a romance and give a stirring background to
the man's extraordinary public achievements.

Hughes found out at once that all hope of earning a livelihood by
teaching in the bush was out of the question. His money was gone: he had
to exist, so he took the first job that came his way. A band of
timber-cutters about to go for a month's sojourn in the woods needed a
cook, so Hughes became their potslinger. Frail as he was, he seemed to
thrive on hardship. In succession he became sheep shearer, railway
labourer, boundary rider, stock runner, scrub-cleaner, coastal sailor,
dishwasher in a bush hotel, itinerant umbrella-mender and sheep drover.

With a small band he once brought fifty thousand sheep down from
Queensland into New South Wales. For fifteen weeks he was on the tramp,
sleeping at night under the stars, trudging the dusty roads all day. At
the end of this trip occurred the incident that made him deaf. Over
night he passed from the sun-baked plains to a high mountain altitude.
Wet with perspiration, he slept out with his flocks and caught cold. The
result was an infirmity which is only one of many physical handicaps
that this amazing little man has had to overcome throughout his
tempestuous life.

Yet he has fought them all down. As he once humorously said: "If I had
had a constitution I should have been dead long ago."

After all his strenuous bushwhacking the year 1890 found him running a
small shop in the suburbs of Sydney. By day he sold books and
newspapers: at night he repaired locks and clocks in order to get enough
money to buy law books. Into his shop drifted sailors from the wharves
with their grievances. Born with a passionate love of freedom, these
sounds of revolt were as music to his ears. Figuratively he sat at the
feet of Henry George, whose "Progress and Poverty" helped to shape the
course of his thinking. Lincoln's letters and speeches were among his
favourites, too.

One night a big dock bruiser grabbed a package of tobacco off the
counter, but before he could move a step Hughes had caught him under the
jaw with his fist. His burly associates cheered the game little
shopkeeper. They now came to him with their troubles and he was soon
their friend, philosopher and guide.

For years the synonym for Australian Labour was strike. When the unions
were merged into a national body Hughes was the unanimous choice o