Hales was born at Kent Town, Adelaide, the son of Frederick Greenwood Hales, a wood-turner, and his wife Sarah Leigh, "née" Veal. He had the ordinary primary education of his time, and after being apprenticed to a carpenter began a wandering career by going to the country. For years he worked as a farm hand and rouseabout and became a magnificent rider. He occasionally contributed to country newspapers, never staying long in one place, until he came to Broken Hill, New South Wales, where he was a mining reporter for some years. There he wrote his first book, "The Wanderings of a Simple Child", which was published in 1890. This went into a third edition in the following year. Hales then visited America and England and returning to Adelaide started the Adelaide Standard. He next went to the goldfields in Western Australia and started the "Coolgardie Mining Review". A fire destroyed his plant and he was penniless, but after working for some time as a dry-blower he went to Boulder and with his brother Frank started the "Boulder Star" and later the "Boulder Miner's Right". Hales stood as a labour candidate for parliament but was defeated, and when the South African war broke out became a war correspondent for the "London Daily News". For a time he wrote fearlessly and critically of the way in which the British were conducting their operations, but was wounded and made a prisoner by the Boers, and was not released until the end of the war.