“I’ll lend you my stockwhip,” said Steve. “All you have to do is ride behind the mob and crack the whip. And it’s so easy to crack a stockwhip.”
“Now I know you’re fibbing,” she said accusingly. “Because uncle warned me, one day I had his, that I might cut my head off with it. Didn’t you, uncle?”
“Maybe no cut it off a’thegither,” said Scottie, “but ye can gie yersel’ a nasty bit slash wi’t.”
“Then I’ll cut you a long pole, and you can prod them in the ribs, and punch them up with it,” said Steve.
“Why prod them and crack whips at them?” asked Ess. “Is there any need to hurry them?”
“Need enough,” said Steve. “See here....” He dropped on one knee and picked up a stick, and scratched lines in the sand: “Here’s the camp, here’s the line of the hills, and here’s the valley leading to the Ridge. The hills in the back of the Ridge have the most feed left, and have some fairly level patches, so we’re pushing the sheep for there. You know how far it is to the valley leading to the Ridge, and you know there’s no water between here and there. And the sheep are weak enough now, and they’re getting weaker every day, and the longer they take to get there, the more will die on the road. So you see there is some need to hurry them. You’ll see some mighty unpleasant and apparently cruel work this next day or two, and I don’t know but what your uncle is making up his mind to send you to the station till it’s over.”
He glanced at Scottie as he spoke, but Ess spoke quickly.
“Uncle is going to do nothing of the sort,” she said. “I want to go right through this thing and see everything. I’m not going to be chased away when I don’t want to go.”
“We’ll let you do one day,” said Scottie, “and then you’ll mebbe go on ahead. I’ll likely be sending Blazes back to the Ridge then.”
“What time do we start, uncle?”