When all the men retired to barracks at night, it was so crowded that where to lie down became a puzzle, and it was dirty besides. Men still kept on coming from Sydney, which made matters ten times worse. One day while in these quarters, I was sent down to one of the wharves to help unload a boat laden with produce. I worked very hard all day, and it was late in the evening before I returned to the barracks. On arrival I asked the master's permission to bake myself a "johnny cake" for supper. In due course I had the cake mixed, and placed it on the fire to cook in an old frying-pan that was more "hol(e)y than righteous." Seated beside the fire watching my cake, I felt a nasty hit with a stick from behind, and as there was no other weapon handy with which to return the compliment, I grasped the frying-pan by the handle, and, turning round, brought it down full force on to my assailant's head. Needless to say, his head was harder than the bottom of the pan, and the next thing I remember was seeing him wriggling about with the hot pan on his neck, and exclaiming, "Oh! my G--, this pan is burning me!" Then a by-stander came up with a bucket of water and poured it on him, and afterwards the pan was removed. I turned to him, and said; "The next time I am at the fire perhaps you'll leave me alone." But my feet hardly had time to touch the ground before I was landed in the lock-up, and the next day I was brought before the court and sentenced to 36 lashes, and it would have been "100" only that the overseer spoke up for me, and said that I was quite justified in my action. But even "36" was a fine cure for the "prickly heat." I got full of this and ran away to the Green Hills--15 miles distant--with a mate. When we got there, it seemed that we were to get no peace, for the aborigines came around us with their "yabber," and it was but a short time before they were off to the police and informed them of our whereabouts. Two days later we were caught, and I got "50" more to "clench the bargain." CHAPTER V. THE IRON GANG. "To what base uses we may return." --SHAKESPEARE.