Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/309

 wire were dropped on the sand by long lines of teams which never ceased arriving. Sheep by thousands and tens of thousands came grazing and cropping up to the erstwhile lonely sandhill—now swarming with blacksmiths, carpenters, engineers, fencers, shepherds, bullock-drivers—till the place looked like a fair on the borders of Tartary.

Meanwhile everything was moving with calculated force and cost, under the 'reign of law.' The seeming expense illustrated the economic truth of doing all necessary work at once, rather than by instalments. One hundred men for one day, rather than one man for a hundred days. Results began to demonstrate themselves. Within twelve months the dams were full, the wells sending up their far-fetched, priceless water, the wire-fences completed, the shepherds gone, and a hundred and seventy thousand sheep were cropping the herbage of Anabanco. Tuesday was the day fixed for the actual commencement of the momentous, almost solemn transaction—the pastoral Hegira, so to speak, as the time of most station events is calculated with reference to it, as happening before or after shearing. But before the first shot is fired which tells of the battle begun, what raids and skirmishes, what reconnoitring and vedette duty must take place!

First arrives the cook-in-chief to the shearers, with two assistants, to lay in a few provisions for the week's consumption of seventy able-bodied men. Now the cook of a large shearing shed is a highly paid and irresponsible official. He is chosen and provided by the shearers themselves. Payment is generally arranged on the scale of half-a-crown a head weekly from each shearer. For this sum he contracts to provide punctual and effective cooking, paying out of his own pocket as many marmitons as may be needful for that end, and must satisfy the taste of his exacting and fastidious employers.

In the present case he confers with the storekeeper, Mr. de Vere, a young gentleman of aristocratic connections, who is thus gaining an excellent practical knowledge of the working of a large station; and to this end has the store-keeping department entrusted to him during shearing.

He is not, perhaps, quite fit for a croquet party as he stands now, with a flour-scoop in one hand and a pound of tobacco in the other. But he looks like a man at work, also like a gentleman, as he is. 'Jack the Cook' thus addresses him: