An Outback Marriage by Andrew Barton Paterson

There are few countries in the world with such varieties of climate as / Australia, and though some stations are out in the great, red-hot, / frying wastes of the Never-Never, others are up in the hills where a / hot night is a thing unknown, where snow falls occasionally, and where / it is no uncommon thing to spend a summer's evening by the side of a / roaring fire. In the matter of improvements, too, stations vary / greatly. Some are in a wilderness, with fittings to match; others have / telephones between homestead and out-stations, the jackeroos dress for / dinner, and the station hands are cowed into touching their hats and / saying "Sir." Also stations are of all sizes, and the man who is / considered quite a big squatter in the settled districts is thought / small potatoes by the magnate "out back," who shears a hundred and / fifty thousand sheep, and has an overdraft like the National Debt.

Kuryong was a hill-country station of about sixty thousand acres all / told; but they were good acres, as no one knew better than old Bully / Grant, the owner, of whose history and disposition we heard something / from Pinnock at the club. It was a highly improved place, with a fine / homestead-thanks to Bully Grant's money, for in the old days it had / been a very different sort of place-and its history is typical of the / history of hundreds of others.