into the fire.

That was OUR first harvest.




Chapter III.



Before We Got The Deeds


Our selection adjoined a sheep-run on the Darling Downs, and boasted of
few and scant improvements, though things had gradually got a little
better than when we started. A verandahless four-roomed slab-hut now
standing out from a forest of box-trees, a stock-yard, and six acres under
barley were the only evidence of settlement. A few horses--not
ours--sometimes grazed about; and occasionally a mob of cattle--also not
ours--cows with young calves, steers, and an old bull or two, would stroll
around, chew the best legs of any trousers that might be hanging on the
log reserved as a clothes-line, then leave in the night and be seen no
more for months--some of them never.

And yet we were always out of meat!

Dad was up the country earning a few pounds--the corn drove him up when it
did n't bring what he expected. All we got out of it was a bag of
flour--I do n't know what the storekeeper got. Before he left we put in