‘Howsomever, out we goes—him an’ me an three others; an’ in time we gets there all right, an’ musters the cattle, which was bein’ tailed at the head station—as they calls ’arf-a-dozen bark humpies on a waterhole. Then we drafts ’em into four mobs, an’ each on us takes one away out to blazes into the bush, where the old chap shows us our runs, which was about six or seven mile apart.
‘Us herders had each a little hut to himself; so you see, mates, a feller warn’t likely to quarrel with his neighbours.
‘“Now, Wilson,” sez old Davies, as he gits ready to start, arter puttin’ the things out o’ the waggonette at my hut—sez he, “Now, Wilson, take good care of them cattle in your charge, an’ mind none o’ them black rascals come sneakin’ about ’em. If you sees any, pepper ’em well. You’ve got a gun, an’ lots of ammunition.”
‘You’ll obsarve, mates, that, like a good many more of his sort, he never thinks o’ the man. It’s only the dashed stock as troubles ’em.
[53]
]‘Howsomever, off he drives, an’ presently I catches a horse, as it was gettin’ close to sundown, an’ roun’s up the mob an’ puts ’em on camp, ties the dog up, lights a fire, an’ tries to make myself at home ’s well ’s I could.
‘So a week or two slips away quiet enough, an’ I was gettin’ awful tired of the game. The cattle didn’t hardly want any lookin’ after, an’ all I could find to do was cuttin’ up green-hide an’ plaiting whips. I thought that the month ’d never go by till rations—such as they was—was due from the head station on Wild Horse Lagoon, nigh on thirty miles away.
‘Up to this I’d never heard a bird singin’ out after dark. But one night, as I was just a-fallin’ off to sleep, mopokes begins cryin’ like anything in the scrub close to the clear patch where the hut was. Suddently the dog starts barkin’ like mad, an’ I gets up an’ gives him a cut with the whip. Back I goes to the bunk, an’ lies down a-listenin’ to them birds, an’ thinkin’ to myself as all the mopokes in Australy had got roun’ the hut that night. Well, I cussed an’ swore at ’em no end for kickin’ up such a shine; an’ Towzer a-growlin’, an’ a-snappin’, an’ pullin’ at his chain all the time. In a bit, up I gets agen, and catches hold of the ole gun, opens the door, an’ lets her off, both barrels. It was a moonlight night, an’ I could see the backs of a few of the cattle from where I stood, as, scared by the row, they gets off their camp, an’ I hears the horse-bell just over in the scrub. No more mopokes that night. But the next, at it they goes agen. Now one’d call, it seemed like close to the [54] ]chimbly, then another, right at the head o’ my stretcher—outside, o’ course—“mopoke!” “more-pork!” “mo-po!” till I’m blessed if I didn’t get properly on my tail, an’ takin’ the gun, I lets Towzer off o’ the chain, and runs out an’ bangs away, as fast as I could load her, at the scrub, where I reckoned them blasted fowls was a-roostin’. An’ Towzer, he tears away into the bushes, barkin’ most furious. No more mopokin’ that night, but Towzer he never comes back agen. Thinkin’ he’d took arter a kangaroo-rat, I goes inside, makes up the fire, boils a quart o’ tea, an’ waits for daylight, which I know’d couldn’t be long.
‘“I never did hear yet,” I says to myself, “of a feller bein’ harnted by a pack o’ birds; but I’m blessed if this game don’t ’pear somethin’ like it.”
‘You see, mates, I never dropped to the meanin’ o’ the racket; for though I’ve been stock-keepin’ an’ drovin’ pretty near five-an’-twenty year now, I never had no experience afore o’ the kind o’ gutter-snipes as was disturbin’ me these last two nights.
‘At bird-twitter, out I goes, ’spectin’ to see Towzer under his sheet o’ bark. I seen no Towzer; an’, what’s more, I seen no cattle neither. They never moved off camp afore sunrise; an’, fearin’ les’ they’d made a clean break of it, I runs into the hut, collars my bridle, an’ off after the mokes.