ceaseless clicking of the shears—the stern earnestness of the men, toiling with a feverish and tireless energy—the constant succession of sheep shorn and let go, caught and commenced—the occasional savage oath or passionate gesture, as a sheep kicked and struggled with perverse delaying obstinacy—the cuts and stabs, with brief decided tones of Mr Gordon, in repression or command—all told the spectator that tragic action was introduced into the performance. Indeed, one of the minor excitements of shearing was then and there transacted. Mr Gordon had more than once warned a dark sullen-looking man that he did not approve of his style of shearing. He was temporarily absent, and on his return found the same man about to let go a sheep whose appearance, as a shorn wool-bearing quadruped, was painful and discreditable in the extreme.

"Let your sheep go, my man," said Gordon, in a tone which somehow arrested the attention of nearly all the shearers, "but don't trouble yourself to catch another!"

"Why not?" said the delinquent, sulkily.

"You know very well why not!" replied Gordon, walking closely up to him, and looking straight at him with eyes that began to glitter, "you've had fair warning. You've not chosen to take it. Now you can go!"

"I suppose you'll pay a man for the sheep he's shorn?" growled out the ruffian.

"Not one shilling until after shearing. You can come then if you like," answered Gordon, with perfect distinctness.

The cowed bully looked savagely at him; but the tall powerful frame and steady eye were not inviting for personal arbitration of the matter in hand. He put up his two pairs of shears, put on his coat, and walked out of the shed. The time was passed when Red Bill or Terrible Dick (ruffians whom a sparse labour-market rendered necessary evils) would have flung down his shears upon the floor and told the manager that if he didn't like that shearing he could shear his———sheep himself and be hanged to him; or, on refusal of instant payment, would have proposed to bury his shears in the intestines of his employer by way of adjusting the balance between Capital and Labour. Many wild tales are told of woolshed rows. I knew of one squatter stabbed mortally with that fatal and convenient weapon, a shear-blade.

The man thus summarily dealt with could, like most of his companions, shear very well if he took pains. Keeping to a moderate number of sheep, his workmanship could be good. But he must needs try and keep up with Billy May or Abraham Lawson, who can shear from 100 to 130 sheep per day, and do them beautifully. So in "racing" he works hastily and badly, cuts the skin of his luckless sheep nearly as often as the wool, and leaves wool here and there on them, grievous and exasperating to behold. So sentence of expulsion goes forth fully against him. Having arrayed himself for the road he makes one more effort for a settlement and some money wherewith to pay for board and lodging on the road. Only to have a mad carouse at the nearest township, however; after which he will tell a plausible story of his leaving the shed on account of Mr Gordon's temper, and avail himself of the usual free hospitality of the bush to reach another shed. He addresses Mr Gordon with an attempt at conciliation and deference.

"It seems very 'ard, sir, as a man can't get the trifle of money coming to him, which I've worked 'ard for."

"It's very hard you won't try and shear decently," retorts Mr Gordon, by no means conciliated. "Leave the shed!"

Ill-conditioned rascal as the shearer is, he has a mate or travelling-companion in whose breast exists some rough idea of fidelity. He now takes up the dialogue.

"I suppose if Jim's shearing don't suit, mine won't either."

"I did not speak to you," answered Mr Gordon, as calmly as if he had expected the speech, "but of course you can go."

He said this with an air of studied unconcern, as if he would rather like a dozen more men to knock off work. The two men walk out, but the epidemic does not spread, and several take the lesson home and mend their ways accordingly.

The weather now was splendid; not a cloud specked the bright blue sky. The shearers continue to work at the same express-train pace; fifty bales of wool roll every day from the wool-presses; as fast as they reach that number they are loaded upon the numerous drays and wagons which have been waiting for weeks. Tall brown men have been recklessly cutting up hides for the last fortnight, wherewith to lash the bales securely. It is considered safer practice to load wool as soon as may be; fifty bales represent about a thousand pounds sterling. In a building, however secure, should a fire break out, a few hundred bales are easily burned; but once on the dray, this much-dreaded "edax rerum" in a dry country has little chance. The driver, responsible to the extent of his freight, generally sleeps under his dray; hence both watchman and insulation are provided.

The unrelaxing energy with which the work was pushed at this stage was exciting and contagious; at or before daylight every soul in the great establishment was up. The boundary-riders were always starting off for a twenty or thirty mile ride, and bringing tens of thousands of sheep to the wash-pen. At that huge lavatory there was splashing and soaking all day with an army of washers; not a moment is lost from daylight till dark, or used for any purpose save the all-engrossing work and needful food. At nine o'clock p.m. luxurious dreamless sleep, given only to those whose physical powers have been taxed to the utmost and who can bear without injury the daily tension.

Everything and everybody were in splendid working order, nothing out of gear. Rapid and regular as a steam-engine the great host of toilers moved onward daily with a march which promised an unusually early completion. Mr Gordon was not in high spirits, for so cautious and far-seeing a captain rarely felt himself so independent of circumstances as to indulge in that reckless mood—but much satisfied with the prospect. Whew! The afternoon darkens, and the night is delivered over to water-spouts and hurricanes, as it appears. Next day was raw, gusty, with chill heavy showers; drains had to be cut, roofs to be seen to; shorn sheep were shivering, washers all playing pitch-and-toss, shearers sulky; everybody but the young gentlemen wearing a most injured expression of countenance. "Looks as if it would rain for a month," says Long Jack. "If we hadn't been delayed might have had the shearing over by this." Reminded that there are 50,000 sheep yet remaining to be shorn, and that by no possibility could they have been finished, he answers, "Suppose so, always the same, everything sure to go agin the poor man." The weather did not clear up. Winter seemed to have taken thought, and determined to show even this land of eternal summer that he had his rights. The shed would be filled, and before the sheep so kept dry were shorn, down would come the rain again. Not a full day's shearing for ten days. Then the clouds disappeared as if the curtain of a stage had been rolled up, and lo! the golden sun, fervid and impatient to obliterate the track of winter.

The first day after the recommencement, matters went much as usual. Steady work and little talk, as if everyone was anxious to make up for the lost time. But on the second morning after breakfast, when the bell sounded, instead of the usual cheerful dash at the sheep, every man stood silent and motionless in his place. Someone uttered the words "roll up!". Then the seventy men converged, and slowly, but with one impulse, walked up to the end of the shed where stood Mr Gordon.

The concerted action of any body of men bears with it an element of power which commands respect. The weapon of force is theirs; it is at their option to wield it with or without mercy. At one period of Australian colonisation a superintendent in Mr Gordon's position might have had good ground for uneasiness. Mr Jack Bowles saw in it an EMEUTE of a democratic and sanguinary nature,