‘Best dog from here to Bourke. I’ll take two pounds for him.’ ‘No you won’t. I’ll chance a note for him, and that’s about our last shilling, isn’t it?’ added he, looking at Ernest. ‘Well, the dog’s worth a couple of notes, young feller,’ said the shepherd reflectively, ‘but as you’re a-goin’ to take the sheep, and down on your luck, why, you can have him.’ Ernest nodded assent as purse-bearer. ‘Will you give us chain and collar in the camp to-night? I’ll pay you there,’ said the negotiator. ‘I suppose you won’t clear out till to-morrow?’ ‘No fear—it’s a good way to Nubba, and Bill and I are going back to the timber country; we’ve had enough of these blasted plains, ha’n’t we, Bill? Enough to burn a blessed man’s blessed eyes out. Five-and-twenty bob a week don’t pay a cove for that. I mean to stick to the green grass country for a spell now.’ At nightfall the fifteen flocks of sheep were all brought in, and ‘boxed,’ or mixed together, to Ernest’s astonishment. ‘How in the world do they ever get them into the same flocks again?’ he asked. ‘They don’t try,’ it was explained. ‘They just cut them up into fifteen equal lots in the morning, as near as they can, a hundred or two more or less makes no great difference, and away they go along the road stealing as much grass as the squatters are soft enough to let them.’ ‘And will they stay quietly here all night?’ ‘Safe as houses. Sheep ain’t like cattle; they don’t like skirmishing about in the dark. So after tea a man can light his pipe, roll his blanket round him, and make believe to watch till daylight. It’s a very off chance if e’er a sheep stirs any more than himself.’ ‘It doesn’t seem a hard life,’ said Ernest, as they sat on a log and ate chops fried in a pan, using a large flat piece of damper partly as plate, partly as _entrée_, while the pint of quart-pot tea tasted better and was more refreshing than the highest priced Souchong in the daintiest china. ‘Well, it’s a long way from hard work, but six months of it at a time, as I’ve had now and then, makes you feel you’ve had enough for a while; besides, it’s Sunday and workday; not an hour’s change week in, week out.’ ‘I daresay that makes a difference,’ admitted Ernest, ‘but I wonder what a Buckinghamshire field labourer would think if he were suddenly offered twenty-five shillings a week, with all the bread and mutton he could eat, and a small bag of tea.’ ‘And half rations for the dawg,’ put in the Australian, throwing their new purchase about half a pound of mutton. ‘By the way,’ said Ernest, ‘what is his name? and yours too, for I don’t know yet? I suppose he will be very useful. I’m glad you bought him.’ ‘My name’s Jack Windsor; his name’s Watch; he’s that useful that three men with two pairs of legs each couldn’t do the work that he’ll do for us with these crawling sheep. He’s a cheap pound’s worth, and that you’ll find before we go far.’