As soon as I was fit, we rode over the run inspecting--I and Ninnis and Moongarr Bill.

There's a lot of riding over one thousand square miles, and we didn't get our inspection done quickly.

Day after day we travelled through desolation--grass withered to chips, creeks and waterholes all but empty, cattle staggering like drunken men, only it was for WANT of drink.

The trees were dying in the wooded country; and in the plains the earth was crumbling and shrinking, and great cracks like crevasses were gaping in the black soil where there used to be beautiful green grass and flowers in spring.
The lagoon was practically dried up, and the little drain of water left was undrinkable because of the dead beasts that had got bogged and dropped dead in it.

They were short of water at the head-station, and we had to fetch it in from a waterhole several miles off that we fenced round and used for drinking--so long as it lasted.