At night they usually managed to reach a station, where the man
in charge would greet them effusively, and beg them to turn their
horses out and stay a week--or a year or two, just as long as they
liked. They met all sorts at these stations, from English swells
to bushmen of the roughest. Sometimes they camped out, putting
hobbles on the horses, and spreading their blankets under the buggy
on a bed of long grass gathered by Frying Pan.
As they got further out, the road became less and less defined,
stations fewer, and everything rougher. They left the sheep-country
behind them and got out into cattle-land, where "runs" are measured
by the hundred square miles, and every man is a law unto himself.
They left their buggy after a time, and pushed on with pack-horses;
and after travelling about two hundred miles, came to the outer
edge of the settled district, where they stayed with two young
Englishmen, who were living under a dray, and building their
cattle-yards themselves--the yards being a necessity, and the house,
which was to come afterwards, a luxury. The diet was monotonous--meat
"ad libitum," damper and tea. They had neighbours within sixty
miles, and got letters once in two months by riding that distance.
"Stay here a while," they said to the travellers, "and take up some
of the country near by.
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