sheared out of the enclosure, as I
told you, and then when he has sheared it, he lets it out through this
door into the little yard; that is to enable us to count the men's work
in a way to avoid all disputes. In the early days of Australian sheep
farming, the men who gathered up the fleece kept the accounts of the
shearers, but there were constant disputes on the subject, which led to
the adoption of the present system. You see there isn't any chance for
misunderstanding now."

"Certainly, you have it now beyond question," remarked Harry; "and I am
sure that every shearer is very careful about letting his sheep out
through his own door."

"That he is," was the reply; "and we never have any complaints about
unfair counting. At the end of the day's work everybody can count up for
himself."

"I suppose," said Ned, "that the shearers occasionally cut the sheep
while shearing them."

"Occasionally!" was the reply; "you had better say frequently, or very
often; and some of them are much worse than others. We have proposed to
the Shearers' Union to establish a system of fines for 'tomahawking'
sheep, but the union refuses to do anything about it. We always have a
boy here, and sometimes two boys, while the shearing is going on. The
boy is provided with a tar bucket and brush. Whenever a shearer cuts the
skin of a sheep he calls out 'Tar!' not stopping a moment in his work.
At the sound of that word, the boy runs forward with his bucket and
brush and covers the wounded spot with tar, which keeps the flies away
from it. Tar is the best thing we can find for this purpose, and is in
use on all the sheep runs in the country.

"Many of the shearers," continued their host, "pride themselves on the
skill with which they perform their work. The shearer places the sheep
between his knees with its head upwards; he begins at the throat and
shears downward, so that, when his work is completed, the fleece drops
off in a single piece. As fast as the sheep are sheared, the fleeces are
gathered by the man whose duty it is to collect them. They are then
taken to the baling house, and, when a sufficient quantity has been
obtained, the fleeces are made into bales, in much the same way that
cotton is baled on an American plantation."

Mr. Johnson then led the way to the baling house, or rather the baling
room, as it was in the same building where the shearing is carried on.
The baling apparatus proved to be a simple affair, nothing more th