face turned scarlet with rage as he slated a new recruit for his
awkwardness.

"Now, Rafferty," he roared, "you'll spoil the line with those feet. Draw
them back at once, man, and get them in line."

Rafferty's dignity was hurt.

"Plaze, sargint," he said, "they're not mine; they're Micky Doolan's in
the rear rank!"


OBEYING ORDERS

The manager of a big Australian sheep-ranch engaged a discharged sailor
to do farm work. He was put in charge of a large flock of sheep.

"Now, all you've got to do," explained the manager, "is to keep them on
the run."

A run is a large stretch of bushland enclosed by a fence, and sheep have
many ingenious methods of escaping from their own to neighboring runs
and so getting mixed up with other flocks.

At the end of a couple of hours the manager rode up again--the air was
thick with dust as though a thousand head of cattle had passed by.

At last he distinguished the form of his new shepherd--a collapsed heap
prone upon the ground. Surrounding him were the sheep, a pitiful,
huddled mass, bleating plaintively, with considerably more than a week's