"Yes, Dixon; I won't see you beat, if I can help it. What's the matter?"
"Well, I was on top o' my load las' night, gittin'—gittin' some tobacker an' matches; an' I come a buster on top o' one o' the yokes here. It's put a (adj.) set on me, any road."
With a few words of condolence, I entered the paddock, carrying my saddle and bridle. As I came in sight of Cleopatra, I was constrained to pause and reflect. The horse was feeding composedly, saddled and bridled; a pair of hobbles hanging to the saddle. The bridle was a cheap affair, but the saddle was as good as they make them in Wagga, and quite new. During the previous afternoon, I had marked something incongruous in Bum's ownership of such a piece of furniture. But being always, I trust, superior to anything like surprise, I saddled and mounted Bunyip, took Cleopatra by the rein, and joined the Ishmaelites, who, on their bare-backed horses, were hurrying contingents of cattle from different directions toward the gap of the fence, whilst the fascination of overhanging danger bore so heavily on their personal and professional dignity that every eye kept an anxious look-out toward the ram-paddock. In a few minutes more, we were all outside the fence; and the drivers immediately began yoking. I hooked Cleopatra's rein on a wool-lever, and, still riding Bunyip, kept Thompson's and Cooper's bullocks together. Mosey's dog was performing the same office for him and Price. Willoughby had n't returned with the muster; and Bum was still absent.
"Did you count my (bullocks)?" demanded Dixon, limping slowly and painfully toward his big roan horse.
"O you sweet speciment!" retorted Mosey, as he picked up his second yoke.
"Why the (compound expletive) don't you rouse roun'?"
"How the (same expression) ken I rouse roun'? I got the screwmatics in my (adj.) hip."
"Somethin' like you—Stan' over, Rodney, or I'll twist the tail off o' you—
You don't ketch me havin' nothin' wrong o' me when things is"——
"No, begad! no you don't!—take that!—ah! would you indeed!—on you go, dem you! s-s-s-s-s! get up there!" It was Willoughby's voice among the salt-bush; and, the next moment, half-a-dozen beasts leaped the wires and darted, capering and shying, past the wagons. "Quod petis hic est!" panted their pursuer triumphantly. "The mouse may help the lion, remember, according to the old"——
Then such a cataract of obscenity and invective from Price and Mosey, while Cooper remarked gravely:
"Them ain't our bullocks, Willerby; them's station cattle— shoved in that paddick for something partic'lar. Now they're off to (sheol); an' it's three good hours' work with a horse an' stockwhip, to git'em in here agen. An' that kangaroo dog ain't makin' matters much better. Lord stan' by us now! for we'll git (adv.) near hung if we're caught."