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The squatting-station of which Mr. Stevenson was the superintendent was of very considerable size, extending for twenty miles along one side of the Murray, and for nearly the same distance back from the stream, which there flows through a level country, consisting of open plains alternating with belts and forests of timber, the latter giving place in many parts to patches, more or less extensive, of mallee scrub. Three-fourths of the run were reserved for sheep, the remainder for cattle, the head station huts being placed on the river banks, not far from the crossing-place. Besides the superintendent, the only other occupant of his hut was a young gentleman named Harris, who acted as overseer, and who was fitting himself for one day being able to manage a station of his own.

I had been some weeks on the run when Stevenson invited me to accompany him and the overseer on a visit of inspection they were about to make round to the different out-stations. The main object of this ride round was to supply the hut-keepers and shepherds with some strychnine he had just received from Melbourne, and with which he intended, if possible, to destroy the dingoes, or warrigals (wild dogs), whose ravages amongst the sheep had of late been frightful, twenty, thirty, and in one instance thirty-seven sheep of a flock being bitten in a single night. And as every sheep bitten, however slightly, dies (pining away as imprisoned by the wound), and as there were eight or nine out-stations, each equally exposed to attack, the losses may be imagined. Four hundred were killed, or died, during the first fortnight of my visit; indeed, the gentleman who formed the station some two years previously had sold it solely on account of this pest. Stevenson had determined to try what systematic poisoning of the run would do to diminish if not destroy this nuisance.[ssss1]