CHAPTER XVII.
Dad's "Fortune." Dad used to say that Shingle Hut was the finest selection on Darling Downs; but WE never could see anything fine about it--except the weather in drought time, or Dad's old saddle mare.

SHE was very fine.
The house was built in a gully so that the bailiffs (I suppose) or the blacks--who were mostly dead--could n't locate it.

An old wire-fence, slanting all directions, staggered past the front door.

At the rear, its foot almost in the back door, sloped a barren ridge, formerly a squatter's sheep-yard.

For the rest there were sky, wallaby-scrub, gum-trees, and some acres of cultivation.