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Pawing and snorting at the noise, he suddenly slewed round, and headed down the steep bank, through the undergrowth, straight for the crowd, as he had been wont to do after many a mob of weaners on his native plains.
Sometimes I felt as if I ought to understand what the parson tried to hammer into my head; but I couldn't do anything but make a jumble of it. It came natural to me to do some things, and I did them. If I had stopped dead and bucked at father's wanting me and Jim to help duff those weaners, I really believe all might have come right.
Well, heverybody Muster Magomery his self, no less heverybody ses, 'Ole hon t' we gits a holt of 'em fellers' mongreals! bin leavin' three o' hour gates hopen; an' the yowes an' weaners is boxed; an' puttin' a file through Nosey Half's 'oss-paddick, an' workin' hon it with 'er steers! 'Stiddy! ses Hi 'w'e's y'r proofs? Way it war, Collings; 'ere come a dose o' rain jis' harter, an' yer could n't track.
We went up Nulla Mountain the same way as we remembered doing when Jim and I rode to meet father that time he had the lot of weaners. We kept wide and didn't follow on after one another so as to make a marked trail. It was a long, dark, dreary ride. We had to look sharp so as not to get dragged off by a breast-high bough in the thick country. There was no fetching a doctor if any one was hurt.
And a mighty good haul it was. Father said we should share the weaners between the three of us; that meant 50 Pounds a piece at least. The devil always helps beginners. We put through a couple of days pleasantly enough, after our hardish bit of work. Jim found some fish-hooks and a line, and we caught plenty of mullet and eels in the deep, clear waterholes.
Put a pretty girl and a young and impressionable bushman together, and in the twinkling of an eye you have a Sir Galahad ready to do anything for the service of his lady. Lightheartedly they consented to stay the night, in the hope of seeing Hugh, to deliver their message about the weaners they seemed to have satisfactorily arranged the question of mustering.
Naturally Dan's cattle-tussle reminded him of other tussles with ringing cattle; then the cattle-camp suggesting other cattle-camp yarns, he settled down to reminiscences until he had us all cold thrills and skin-creeps, although we were gathered around a blazing fire. Tale after tale he told of stampedes and of weaners piling up against fences.
The sharp-edged rocks, too, overhung low enough to knock your brains out if you didn't mind. It was far into the night when we got to the old yard. There it stood, just as I recollect seeing it the time Jim and I and father branded the weaners. It had only been used once or twice since. It was patched up a bit in places, but nobody seemed to have gone next or nigh it for a long time.
"I've left Poss at home clearing the sheep out of that big paddock at the Crossing. There's five thousand sheep, and no water there; I'll have to go back and help him. I only came over to tell Hugh there were some of his weaners in the river paddock. I must go straight back, or Poss'll make a row. We've a lot of work to do." "I think Poss is here," said Mrs. Gordon. "Poss is here, is he?
This scrub country was crossed by two good creeks; it was several miles across, and a trifle more in length. Our hungry weaners spread out and began to feed, without a notion of their mothers they'd left behind; but they were not the only ones there.
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