Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 3, 2025
In the middle of the night a man crept round the corner of the veranda as silently as a black shadow. He paused near the boys, and stooped down and looked into their faces. The lads were sound asleep and did not stir. After a moment's scrutiny the native put his hand on Sax's shoulder and shook it. The tired boy only gave a restless murmur, so the man shook him harder.
He was as near death, a hideous death, as any man can possibly be who lives to tell the tale. Wild Cattle The boys woke late on their first morning in the Far North. Sax's thoughts immediately turned to his father's letter. He groped under his pillow and pulled it out and read it again: "In difficulties. Musgrave Ranges. Tell Oodnadatta trooper, but no one else. He'll understand.
From west the cattle turned to south, getting more and more tired at every stride, then east, then north, and finally they were brought up by rounding on themselves and turning in and in till they were thoroughly exhausted and only too willing to pull up. Sax's whole body was one big ache. It was his first ride on a bush horse, which he found very different from the thoroughbreds he had known.
The two white boys were lying on their backs in the sand, one of them unconscious and gasping, with his tongue swollen so much that it was too big for his mouth; the other gasping also, but still in possession of his senses. Sax's eyes opened, and a glimmer of intelligence showed in them, but he couldn't speak, and was too weak to move.
We punched cattle together for ten years, did the Boss and me." Sax's face beamed with delight. "That's my father," he said proudly. Peter's big hand shot out in greeting. "So you're Boss Stobart's son, are you? Well, well, you seem a fine lad, and you've sure got a fine father." He also shook hands with Vaughan, and added: "So we're to be mates, are we? You leave things to me.
Seems to have taken to you boys. I wonder why." "He used to work for Sax's father," explained Vaughan. "I thought you knew." "I see. That explains it. Hi! Yarloo!" he called, and when the boy came up: "You go back longa camp. Watch till piccaninny daylight. No shut um eye, mind." Yarloo grinned his understanding of the order and disappeared.
The bellowing had ceased and the mob was stringing out, the stragglers no longer being able to gallop, but lumbering along at a clumsy trot. To Sax's surprise, a black stockman, riding in the rear of the mob, kept these stragglers at the top of their pace. The drover gradually forged ahead on the wing and the boy with him, till they were level with the leaders.
The native evidently wished to impress that crippled hand on the boy's memory, for he put it on his hairy chest and then in front of Sax's face again and again. He did not say anything, for his knowledge of English was apparently limited to the name of the drover and the name of the mountain range.
But Sax stood his ground. The falling whip coiled round his legs and jerked him off his feet, sending him backwards over the body of the bound native. Mick laughed and raised the whip again; but before it came down, the lad was on his feet and had cleared Eagle's body at a bound. The lash caught Sax's right leg.
One of the black-boys, whose turn at watching had just come, was already riding round with one leg cocked lazily over the pommel of the saddle, and chanting a coroboree dirge, both to let the cattle know that he was about and because he was happy. The other boy was waiting for Sax's horse. Sax dismounted and noticed that the man standing near him was Eagle.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking