over the whole country. The front ranges stopped the tide of squatters
for some little time; it was thought that there was too much snow upon
them for too many months in the year,--that the sheep would get lost, the
ground being too difficult for shepherding,--that the expense of getting
wool down to the ship's side would eat up the farmer's profits,--and that
the grass was too rough and sour for sheep to thrive upon; but one after
another determined to try the experiment, and it was wonderful how
successfully it turned out. Men pushed farther and farther into the
mountains, and found a very considerable tract inside the front range,
between it and another which was loftier still, though even this was not
the highest, the great snowy one which could be seen from out upon the
plains. This second range, however, seemed to mark the extreme limits of
pastoral country; and it was here, at a small and newly founded station,
that I was received as a cadet, and soon regularly employed. I was then
just twenty-two years old.

I was delighted with the country and the manner of life. It was my daily
business to go up to the top of a certain high mountain, and down one of
its spurs on to the flat, in order to make sure that no sheep had crossed
their boundaries. I was to see the sheep, not necessarily close at hand,
nor to get them in a single mob, but to see enough of them here and there
to feel easy that nothing had gone wrong; this was no difficult matter,
for there were not above eight hundred of them; and, being all breeding
ewes, they were pretty quiet.

There were a good many sheep which I knew, as two or three black ewes,
and a black lamb or two, and several others which had some distinguishing
mark whereby I could tell them. I would try and see all these, and if
they were all there, and the mob looked large enough, I might rest
assured that all was well. It is surprising how soon the eye becomes