Explore "The Shepherds' Dance: with the Lamb Markers of the Paroo" by Edward S. Sorenson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
As there is very little hard work about it, boys and old men figure largely in the complement of hands put on for the occasion. It is one of the acceptable billets that remain for the old shepherd, who laments the fencing of runs and consequent passing of the shepherding days. A few flocks are still shepherded at times in that region, on what is known as the open country, which nobody pays rent for, but everybody around uses when there is good feed there and a scarcity on their own pasturages; but these employ no more than about one per cent of the former members who tended flocks on salt-bush hills and wind-swept plains.
Men come from the gold diggings around Mount Browne, from the opal fields at White Cliffs, from the battlers' havens on the Darling banks, and the shores of Bulloo Lake, and from the three or four convenient stock routes that are followed by most travellers looking for work. For miners who have had a run of bad luck, it offers an agreeable change and a pound or two for the grocer. For the boys it means pocket money and new clothes. Local boys soon become widely known; and if they are known for ability and smartness they soon acquire a monopoly on the runs in their district.