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Our horses caught, we saddled as hastily as possible; and then at the top speed of our fresh and eager ponies we swept down on the chuck wagon. There we fell off our saddles and descended on the meat and bread like ravenous locusts on a cornfield. The ponies stood where we left them, "tied to the ground", the cattle-country fashion. As soon as a man had stoked up for the afternoon he rode away.
At periodical intervals a boom in cattle-country arises in the cities, and syndicates are formed to take up country and stock it. It looks so beautifully simple on paper. You get your country, thousands of miles of it, for next to nothing. You buy your breeding herd for a ridiculously small sum, on long-dated bills.
Nor were the two houses connected in any way, except that they were both white, situated on the same road, on the same side of it; also both stood a little way back from the road in grounds beautifully shaded with old trees. It was the great southern road which leads from the city of Buenos Ayres, the Argentine capital, to the vast level cattle-country of the pampas, where I was born and bred.
One of your father's men overtook us there, and, as he was coming this way and as we were anxious to see the cattle-country and " he broke off, smiling. "You see, it is hard to make it sound sensible. We just came!" She looked up at him, a little puzzled frown in her eyes. "You have friends with you?" "One friend.
Such a building as this is known throughout the length and breadth of Australia's cattle-country as "Government House". A few yards away was the "cook-house", also made of iron, where meals for the white men were served.
As the conversation developed, we gradually recognised the membership of our own roomful. I had forgotten to state that the ranch house included four chambers. Outside, the rain roared with Arizona ferocity. Inside, men congratulated themselves, or swore as leaks developed and localised. Naturally we talked first of stampedes. Cows and bears are the two great cattle-country topics.
What he saw was a tall slim young man, in chaparejos and sombrero, the inevitable "repeater" at his hip, solitarily engaged in the process of breaking a bronco. Ordinarily in this cattle-country the first time one of these wiry little ponies is ridden is on a holiday or a Sunday, whenever a company of spectators can be secured to assist or to applaud; but this was not Ben Blair's way.
In the different camps the boys told the same story "He knocks the stuffin' out of her!" The stay-at-home Briton, warm with roast beef and indigestion, will wonder that one man amongst a hundred should be suffered to ill-treat a thin, dough-faced little woman. Why did they not arise and slaughter him? Had Tom stolen a colt in the cattle-country he would have been lynched.
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