The manager had considered the situation before it actually arose. He now rapidly took in the remaining points of debate. The shearers had signed a specific agreement for a stipulated rate of payment, irrespective of the weather. By the letter of the law they had no case. Whether they made little or much profit was not his affair. But he was a just and kindly man, as well as reasonably politic. They had shorn well, and the weather had been discouraging. He knew, too, that an abrupt denial might cause a passive mutiny, if not a strike. If they set themselves to thwart him, it was in their power to shear badly, to shear slowly, and to force him to discharge many of them. He might have them fined, perhaps imprisoned by the police court. Meanwhile how could shearing go on? Dust and grass-seeds would soon be upon them. He resolved on a compromise, and spoke out at once in a decided tone, as the men gathered yet more closely around him.
'Look here, all of you! You know well that I'm not bound to find you in good shearing weather. Still, I'm aware that the season has been against you; you have shorn pretty well, so far, though I've had to make examples, and am quite ready to make more. What I am willing to do is this: to every man who works on till the finish, and shears to my satisfaction, I will make a fair allowance in the ration account. That is, I will make no charge for the beef. Does that suit you? There was a chorus of 'All right, sir, we're satisfied.' 'Mr. Gordon always does the fair thing,' etc. And work was immediately resumed with alacrity.
The clerk of the weather, too gracious even in these regions, as far as the absence of rain is concerned, became steadily propitious.
Cloudless skies and a gradually ascending thermometer were the signs that spring was changing into summer. The splendid herbage ripened and dried; patches of bare earth began to be discernible amid the late thick-swarded pastures, dust to rise, and cloud-pillars of sand to float and eddy—the desert genii of the Arab. But the work went on at a high rate of speed, outpacing the fast-coming summer; and before any serious disaster arose, the last flock was 'on the battens,' and amid ironical congratulations the 'cobbler' (or last sheep) was seized, and stripped of his dense and difficult fleece. In ten minutes the vast woolshed, lately echoing with the ceaseless
