sentinels, and every man sleeping with his gun at hand.

"Now, as it was Dick's business to tail (follow) the cattle, five
hundred head, I advised him to have his musket sawed off in the barrel,
so as to be a more handy size for using on horseback. He took my advice;
and Charley Anvils made a very good job of it, so that he could bring it
under his arm when hanging at his back from a rope sling, and fire with
one hand. It was lucky I thought of it, as it turned out.

"At length the overseer fixed on a spot for the station. It was very
well for water and grass, and a very pretty view, as he said, but it was
too near a thicket where the blacks would lie in ambush, for safety. The
old bushmen wanted it planted on a neck of land, where the waters
protected it all but one side, and there a row of fence would have made
it secure.

"Well, we set to work, and soon had a lot of tall trees down. Charley
put up his forge and his grindstone, to keep the ax sharp, and I staid
with him. Dick went tailing the cattle, and the overseer sat on a log,
and looked on. The second day a mob of blacks came down on the opposite
side of the river. They were quite wild, regular _myals_, but some of
our men with green branches, went and made peace with them. They liked
our bread and sugar; and after a short time we had a lot of them helping
to draw rails, fishing for us, bringing wild honey, kangaroos, rats, and
firewood, in return for butter and food, so we began to be less careful
about our arms. We gave them iron tomahawks, and they soon found out
that they could cut out an opossum from a hollow in half-an-hour with
one of our tomahawks, while it took a day with one of their own stone
ones.

"And so the time passed very pleasantly. We worked away. The young men
and gins worked for us. The chiefs adorned themselves with the trinkets
and clothes we gave them, and fished and hunted, and admired themselves
in the river.

"Dick never trusted them; he stuck to his cattle; he warned us not to
trust them, and the overseer called him a blood-thirsty, murdering
blackguard for his pains.

"One day, the whole party were at work, chopping and trimming
weather-boards for the hut; the blacks helping as usual. I was turning
the grindstone for Charley Anvils, and Dick was coming up to the dray to
get some tea, but there was a brow of a hill between him and us: the
muskets were all piled in one corner. I heard a howl, and then a
scream--our camp was full