lies a hundred miles or so farther Riverinawards, I spent the first years
of my childhood.




CHAPTER TWO



An Introduction to Possum Gully


I was nearly nine summers old when my father conceived the idea that he was
wasting his talents by keeping them rolled up in the small napkin of an
out-of-the-way place like Bruggabrong and the Bin Bin stations. Therefore
he determined to take up his residence in a locality where he would have
more scope for his ability.

When giving his reason for moving to my mother, he put the matter before
her thus: The price of cattle and horses had fallen so of late years
that it was impossible to make much of a living by breeding them. Sheep
were the only profitable article to have nowadays, and it would he
impossible to run them on Bruggabrong or either of the Bin Bins. The
dingoes would work havoc among them in no time, and what they left the
duffers would soon dispose of. As for bringing police into the matter, it
would be worse than useless. They could not run the offenders to earth,
and their efforts to do so would bring down upon their employer the wrath
of the duffers. Result, all the fences on the station would be fired for
a dead certainty, and the destruction of more than a hundred miles of