om the harness
before we could put it on the horses.

We soon finished a hearty breakfast of mutton grilled in the hot ashes,
and hot tea, and proceeded to get ready for the day's work, which we
knew would be a heavy one if we were to get over the pass before
sundown.

It was two miles to the top, but such a two miles to take a horse dray
over. The gradient was not only very steep and rough, but it was covered
with six to eighteen inches of snow, except in some few exposed parts
where it had drifted off and left the surface nearly bare. There was no
track to guide us beyond a very uncertain and irregular one made by a
few pedestrians and horses who had preceded us the evening before when
we had been delayed by the drays.

We decided to take the drays over separately, yoking all four horses to
each in turn, tandem fashion, by means of ropes with which we were well
provided. Just as we were about to start the first, a party of diggers
arrived, who volunteered to push and spoke the wheels. Thanks to these
men and the game, honest horses, our difficulties were considerably
lightened. Some went before to clear the snow where it lay thickest, but
this was soon abandoned as labour in vain.

We found that the utmost efforts of the four horses, assisted by half a
dozen men, were only sufficient to drag the dray from twenty to fifty
yards at a spurt, then on stopping to take a breath a log was thrown
behind the wheels, and after a few moments' rest another spurt was made,
and so on.

Our progress was so satisfactory that before nightfall both drays were
safely over the pass and we had proceeded down the opposite side as far
as an out-station of McLean's, on whose run we now were. Here we learned
to our joy that we were within twenty-five miles of the reported
diggings, with a fairly passable track all the way.

Mr. R. McLean was a wealthy sheep farmer who had originally made his
money on the Australian goldfields. His present attitude therefore
towards the diggers was considered the more cruel. He had given orders
at all his out-stations that neither food nor shelter was to be afforded
them, and upon our arrival at the shepherd's hut aforesaid, the
occupant, a worthy Scotsman, informed us with regret that we would have
to arrange for our accommodation in the open, it being as much as his
place was worth to feed or shelter diggers. This was unpleasant news,
as we hoped to have taken up our quarters in his hut that night aft