Joe Kermode had once been a hutkeeper on a station.  The hut was erected about forty yards from the stockyard, to which the sheep were brought every evening, to protect them from attack by dingoes or blackfellows.  If the dingoes and blackfellows had been content with one sheep at a time to allay the pangs of hunger, they could not have been blamed very much; but after killing one they went on killing as many more as they could, and thus wasted much mutton to gratify their thirst for blood.

Joe and the shepherd were each provided with a musket and bayonet for self-defence.

The hut was built of slabs, and was divided by a partition into two rooms, and Joe always kept his musket ready loaded, night and day, just inside the doorway of the inner room.  Two or three blacks would sometimes call, and ask for flour, sugar, tobacco, or a firestick.  If they attempted to come inside the hut, Joe ordered them off, backing at the same time towards the inner door, and he always kept a sharp look-out for any movement they made; for they were very treacherous, and he knew they would take any chance they could get to kill him, for the sake of stealing the flour, sugar, and tobacco.  Two of them once came inside the hut and refused to go out, until Joe seized his musket, and tickled them in the rear with his bayonet, under the “move on” clause in the Police Offences Statute.

Early one morning there was a noise as of some disturbance in the stockyard, and Joe, on opening the door of his hut, saw several blacks spearing the sheep.  He seized his musket and shouted, warning them to go away.  One of them, who was sitting on the top rail with his back towards the hut, seemed to think that he was out of range of the musket, for he made most unseemly gestures, and yelled back at Joe in a defiant and contemptuous manner.  Joe’s gun was charged with shot, and he fired and hit his mark, for the blackfellow dropped suddenly from the top rail, and ran away, putting his hands behind him, and trying to pick out the pellets.

One day a white stockman came galloping on his horse up to the door of the hut, his face, hands, shirt and trousers being smeared and saturated with blood.  Joe took him inside the hut, and found that he had two severe wounds on the left shoulder.  After the bleeding had been stanched and the wounds bandaged, the stranger related that as he was riding he met a blackfellow carrying a fire-stick.  He thought it was a good opportunity of lighting his pipe, lucifer matches being then unknown in the bush; so he dismounted, took out his knife, and began cutting tobacco.  The blackfellow asked for a fig of tobacco, and, after filling his pipe, the stockman gave him the remainder of the fig he had been cutting, and held out his hand for the firestick.  The blackfellow seemed disappointed; very likely expecting to receive a whole fig of tobacco—­and, instead of handing him the firestick he threw it on the ground.  At the first moment the stockman