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All the shearers were fast asleep in the men's hut, whilst every available nook and corner was filled with the spare hands; the musterers, branders, yard-keepers, and many others, whose duties were less-defined.
Fortune favouring the musterers, by midday all was peace and order; the drovers, placid and contented, had retired to their tents once more, reprieved from taking delivery for another day and night, and after dinner, as the "boys" tailed the bullocks and mixed cattle on the outskirts of the camp, to graze them, we settled down to "celebrate our Sabbath" by resting in the warm, dry shade.
Every one of the company had his special work to attend to; but every one's work was concerned with cattle, and cattle only. The musterers were to work every area of country again and again, and the Dandy's work began in the building of the much-needed yard to the north-west. We breakfasted at the Springs all together, had dinner miles apart, and all met again at the Stirling for supper.
"Never saw a dog makin', its own chain before," he said to the Maluka as I sat among billows of calico and mosquito netting. But the homemaking instinct is strong in a woman, and the musterers went out west without the missus. The Dandy being back at the Bitter Springs superintending the carting of new posts for the stockyard there, the missus was left in the care of Johnny and Cheon.
"Their cash does," the Maluka corrected, to Dan's huge delight; and, leaving the musterers to go on with their branding work, culling each mob of its prime bullocks as they mustered, he set about finding some one to "watch the cash," and four days later rode into the Katherine Settlement, with Brown and the missus, as usual, at his heels.
There was no need to tell me about the lost children. I could see it all. She and the half-caste rushing towards where the children were seen last, with Old Peter after them. The hurried search in the nearer scrub. The mother calling all the time for Maggie and Wally, and growing wilder as the minutes flew past. Old Peter's ride to the musterers' camp.
The time was not yet ready for the offer of a helping hand. At four in the morning we were roused by a new camp reveille of Star-light. "Nothing like getting off early when mustering's the game," Dan announced. By sun-up the musterers were away, and by sundown we were coming in to Bitter Springs, driving a splendid mob of cattle before us.
But Dan's scorn turned to blazing wrath, when the drovers refusing to replace the "strays" with cows from the mixed cattle in hand, and refusing also to take delivery of the bullocks, two beasts short the musterers had to turn out to gather in a fresh mob of cattle for the sake of two bullocks. "Just as I was settling down to celebrate Sunday, too," Dan growled, as he and Jack rode out of camp.
Sax and Vaughan had been at Sidcotinga for eleven days, and were not only feeling recovered from their "perish", but were also beginning to wish that they had something to do, when the musterers returned one afternoon with well over a thousand head of cattle.
After so much excitement Cheon feared a relapse, and was for prompt, preventive measures; but even the Maluka felt there was a limit to the Rest Cure, and the musterers coming in with Happy Dick's bullocks and a great mob of mixed cattle for the yards, Dan proved a strong ally; and besides, as the musterers were in and Happy Dick due to arrive by midday, Cheon's hands were full with other matters.
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