This second range, however, seemed to mark the extreme limits of
pastoral country; and it was here, at a small and newly founded station,
that I was received as a cadet, and soon regularly employed. I was then
just twenty-two years old.
I was delighted with the country and the manner of life. It was my daily
business to go up to the top of a certain high mountain, and down one of
its spurs on to the flat, in order to make sure that no sheep had crossed
their boundaries. I was to see the sheep, not necessarily close at hand,
nor to get them in a single mob, but to see enough of them here and there
to feel easy that nothing had gone wrong; this was no difficult matter,
for there were not above eight hundred of them; and, being all breeding
ewes, they were pretty quiet.
There were a good many sheep which I knew, as two or three black ewes,
and a black lamb or two, and several others which had some distinguishing
mark whereby I could tell them. I would try and see all these, and if
they were all there, and the mob looked large enough, I might rest
assured that all was well. It is surprising how soon the eye becomes
accustomed to missing twenty sheep out of two or three hundred.
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