"Come! A'll bate ye fifty poun' A'm betther rairt nor you! Houl' an'!-- A'll bate ye a hundher'--two hundher', if ye lek, an' stake the money down this minit"----

"Stiddy, now! draw it mild, you fellers there!" thundered Cooper from behind.

"Must n't have no quarrellin' while I'm knockin' round."

"Ye'll be late gittin' to the ram-paddock, Tamson," remarked M'Nab, treating Cooper with the silent contempt usually lavished upon men of his physique. "Axpect thon's where ye're makin' fur?"

"I say--you better camp with us to-night," suggested Thompson, evading the implied inquiry.

Without replying, the contractor put his horse into a canter, and, accompanied by his esquire, went on his way, pausing only to speak to Mosey for a few minutes as he pa.s.sed the foremost team.

"Curious sample o' (folks) you drop across on the track sometimes,"

remarked Rufus, who remained with us.

"No end to the variety," I replied. Then lowering my voice and glancing furtively round, I asked experimentally, "Haven't I seen you before, somewhere?"

"Queensland, most likely," he conjectured, whilst finding something of interest on the horizon, at the side farthest from me.

"Native o' that district, I am. Jist comin' across for the fust time.

What's that bloke's name with the nex' team ahead--if it's a fair question?"

"Bob Dixon."

"Gosh, I'm in luck!" He spurred his mare forward, and attached himself to Dixon for the rest of the afternoon.

But time, according to its deplorable habit, had been pa.s.sing, and the glitter had died off the plain as the sun went on its way to make a futile attempt at purifying the microbe-laden atmosphere of Europe.

At last we reached the spot selected as a camp. Close on our left was the clump of swamp box which covered about fifty acres of the nearer portion of the selection, leaving a few scattered trees outside the fence. On our right, the bare plain extended indefinitely.

I ought to explain that this selection was a mile-square block, which had been taken up, four years previously, by a business man of Melbourne, whose aim was to show the public how to graze scientifically on a small area.

Now Runnymede owned the selection, whilst its former occupier was vending sixpenny parcels of inferior fruit on a railway platform.

The fence--erected by the experimentalist--was of the best kind; two rails and four wires; sheep-proof and cattle-proof.

The wagons drew off the track, and stopped beside the fence in the deepening twilight. The bullocks were unyoked with all speed, and stood around waiting to see what provision would be made for the night.

"Look 'ere," said Mosey, taking a dead pine sapling from the stock of firewood under his wagon, and, of course, emphasising his address by an easy and not ungraceful clatter of the adjective used so largely by poets in denunciation of war--"we ain't goin' to travel these carrion a mile to the gate, an' most likely fine it locked when we git there.

Hold on till I git my internal machine to work on the fence.

Dad! Where's that ole morepoke? O, you're there, are you? Fetch the jack off o' your wagon--come! fly roun'! you're (very) slow for a young fellow.

b.u.m," (abbreviation of "b.u.mmer," and applied to the red-headed fellow) "you surround them carrion, or we'll be losin' the run o' them two steers."

A low groan from b.u.m's mare followed the heavy stroke of the ruffian's spurs.

"Some o' you other (fellows) keep roun' that side," said he; "I'll go this road. Up! you Red Roverite! "--No use...

The mare had had enough for one day; she stumbled, and fell, rolling heavily over her rider. "What the (quadruple expletive)'s the matter with her?" he continued, extricating himself, and kicking the beast till she staggered to her feet. "Come on agen, an' don't gimme no more o' your religiousness." He remounted, and the mare, under the strong stimulus of his spurs, cantered laboriously out into the dark.

Meanwhile, Mosey had taken a hand-saw from its receptacle on his wagon, and had cut the pine spar to a length of about eighteen inches less than a panel of the fence. "Lash this 'ere saplin' hard down on the top rail,"

he now commanded. Price and Dixon obeyed, and Mosey laid his powerful bottlejack on the rail, filling up the s.p.a.ce, and began to turn it with a long bolt, by way of lever. "You see, Tom," he remarked to me; "this fixter'll put the crooked maginnis on any fence from ere to 'ell.

It's got to come. No matter how tight rails is shouldered, they'll spring some; an' if every post'll give on'y half a inch, why then, ten posts makes five or six inches; an' that's about all you want.

Then in the mornin', you can fix the fence so's the ole-man divil his self could n't ball you out. Ah!----! That's what comes o' blowin'."

For the post, being wild and free in the grain, had burst along the two mortices; one half running completely off, just above the ground.

"Serve people right for puttin' in rails when wire would do,"

he continued, removing the screwjack. "Accidents will happen-- best reg'lated famblies. 'Tain't our business, anyhow. Now, chaps, round up yer carrion, an' shove 'em in."

The four wires in the lower part of the fence rung like harp strings as the cattle stepped into or over them, and in a few minutes the whole live stock of the caravan-eighty-four bullocks and seven horses-- were in the selection, but too thirsty to feed. Then whilst Thompson, Mosey, Willoughby and I tailed them toward the tank, Dixon hurried on ahead with his five-gallon oil-drum, in order to replenish it before the water was disturbed; and Price, by Mosey's orders, accompanied him on the same business. We steadied the bullocks at the tank till all were satisfied, then headed them back to within fifty yards of the wagons, where we hobbled all the horses, except b.u.m's mare.

"Steve," said I to my old schoolmate: "of course, you and I are seized of the true inwardness of duffing; but to those who live cleanly, as n.o.blemen should, this would appear a dirty transaction."

"The world's full of dirty transactions, Tom," replied the bullock driver wearily. "It's a dirty transaction to round up a man's team in a ten-mile paddock, and stick a bob a head on them, but that's a thing that I'm very familiar with; it's a dirty transaction to refuse water to perishing beasts, but I've been refused times out of number, and will be to the end of the chapter; it's a dirty transaction to persecute men for having no occupation but carting, yet that's what nine-tenths of the squatters do, and this Montgomery is one of the nine.

You're a bit sarcastic. How long is it since you were one of the cheekiest gra.s.s-stealers on the track?"

"Never, Steve. You've been drinking."

"Anyway, you need n't be more of a hypocrite than you can help,"

grumbled Thompson. "If you want a problem to work out, just consider that G.o.d constructed cattle for living on gra.s.s, and the gra.s.s for them to live on, and that, last night, and to-night, and to-morrow night, and mostly every night, we've a choice between two dirty transactions-- one is, to let the bullocks starve, and the other is to steal gra.s.s for them.

For my own part, I'm sick and tired of studying why some people should be in a position where they have to go out of their way to do wrong, and other people are cornered to that extent that they can't live without doing wrong, and can't suicide without jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. Wonder if any allowance is made for bullock drivers?-- or are they supposed to be able to make enough money to retire into some decent life before they die? Well, thank G.o.d for one good camp, at all events."

"How's the water?" asked Cooper, meeting us at the fence.

"Enough for to-night," replied Thompson; "but very little left for posterity."

"After us, the Deluge," observed Willoughby.

"I hope so," replied Cooper devoutly. "Lord knows, it's badly wanted; and I'm sure we don't grudge n.o.body the benefit. Turnin' out nice an' cool, ain't it? The bullocks'll be able to do their selves some sort o' justice."

It was a clear but moonless night; the dark blue canopy spangled with myriad stars--grandeur, peace, and purity above; squalor, worry, and profanity below. Fit basis for many an ancient system of Theology-- unscientific, if you will, but by no means contemptible.

Price and Cooper, being cooks, had kindled an un.o.btrusive fire in a crabhole, where three billies were soon boiling. And the tea, when cool enough, needed no light to escort a due proportion of simple provender into that mysterious laboratory which should never be considered too curiously.

After supper, we lay around, resting ourselves; everyone smoking tranquilly except Willoughby. Dixon and b.u.m were evidently old friends; they reclined with their heads together, occasionally laughing and whispering--a piece of bad manners silently but strongly resented by the rest of the company.

"I'll jist go an' have a squint at the carrion," remarked Mosey, at length, with the inevitable adjective; and, pa.s.sing through the broken fence, he disappeared in the timber and old-man salt-bush.

"Wants some o' the flashness took outen him," remarked Price, in arrogant a.s.sertion of parental authority, yet glancing apprehensively after Mosey as he spoke.

"Should 'a' thought about that before," observed Cooper gravely.

"Too late now. You ain't good enough."

A few minutes silence ensued, while each member of the company thought the matter over in his own way. Then Mosey returned.

"Gra.s.s up over yer boots, an' the carrion goin' into it lemons," he remarked.

"I do like to give this Runnymede the benefit o' the act.

'On't ole Martin be ropeable when he sees that fence! Magomery's as hard as nails, his own self; but he ain't the cla.s.s o' feller that watches from behine a tree--keeps curs like Martin to do his dirty work.

But he'd like to nip every divil of us if he got half a slant. I notice, the more swellisher a man is, the more miserabler he is about a bite o' gra.s.s for a team, or a feed for a traveller. Magomery's got an edge on you, Thompson--you an' Cunningham--for workin' on Nosey Alf's horse-padd.i.c.k, an' for leavin' some gates open. Moriarty, the storekeeper, he told me about it."

"Well, we did n't work on Alf's horse-paddock, and we did n't leave any gates open," replied Thompson. "We lost the steers from the ram-paddock, here, and we found them away in the Sedan paddock. Certainly, we camped them all night in the Connelly paddock, but we never touched Alf's gra.s.s, and we left no gates open."

"Chorus, boys!" said Mosey flippantly.

"O, what a (adj.) lie!" echoed Dixon, b.u.m, and the precentor himself.

Thompson sighed; Cooper growled; and Willoughby coughed deprecatingly.