Before We Got The Deeds Our selection adjoined a sheep-run on the Darling Downs, and boasted of few and scant improvements, though things had gradually got a little better than when we started.

A verandahless four-roomed slab-hut now standing out from a forest of box-trees, a stock-yard, and six acres under barley were the only evidence of settlement.

A few horses--not ours--sometimes grazed about; and occasionally a mob of cattle--also not ours--cows with young calves, steers, and an old bull or two, would stroll around, chew the best legs of any trousers that might be hanging on the log reserved as a clothes-line, then leave in the night and be seen no more for months--some of them never.
And yet we were always out of meat! Dad was up the country earning a few pounds--the corn drove him up when it did n't bring what he expected.

All we got out of it was a bag of flour--I do n't know what the storekeeper got.

Before he left we put in the barley.