"Well, it's a half day's contract I'll git some breakfast ready, while you (fellows) unloosens the ropes."
Thompson and I released the bullocks from the pole, unfastened the ropes, and brought the wagon down to its wheels again. Then Cooper summoned us to breakfast.
"You'll jist take sort o' pot-luck, Collins," he remarked. "I should 'a' baked some soda bread an' boiled some meat last night, on'y for bein' too busy doin' nothing. Laziness is catchin'. That's why I hate a lot o' fellers campin' together; it's nothing but yarn, yarn; an' your wagon ain't greazed, an' your tarpolin ain't looked to; an' nothin done but yarn, yarn; an' you floggin' in your own mind at not gittin' ahead o' your work. That's where women's got the purchase on us (fellows). When a lot o' women gits together, one o' them reads out something religious, an' the rest all wires in at sewin', or knittin', or some (adj.) thing. They can't suffer to be idle, nor to see anybody else idle—women can't." Cooper was an observer. It was pleasant to hear him philosophise.
The work of reloading was made severe and tedious by the lack of any better skids than the poles of the two wagons—was, indeed, made impossible under the circumstances, but for Cooper's enormous and wellsaved strength. Our toil was enlivened, however, by an argument as to the esoteric cause of the capsize. Cooper maintained that nothing better could have been hoped for, after leaving Kenilworth shed on a Friday; Thompson, untrammelled by such superstition, contended that the misadventure was solely due to travelling on Sunday; whilst I held it to be merely a proof that Cooper, in spite of his sins, wasn't deserted yet. Each of us supported his argument by a wealth of illustrative cases, and thus fortified his own stubborn opinion to his own perfect satisfaction. Then, descending to more tangible things, we discussed Cleopatra. Here we were unanimous in deciding that the horse had, as yet, disclosed only two faults, and these not the faults of the Irishman's horse in the weary yarn. One of them, we concluded, was to buck like a demon on being first mounted, and the other was to grope backward for the person who went to catch him after delivery of loading.
In the meantime, four horsemen, with three pack-horses, went by; then two horse teams, loaded outward; then Stewart, of Kooltopa, paused to give a few words of sympathy as he drove past; then far ahead, we saw two wool teams, evidently from Boolka, converging slowly toward the main track; then more wool came in sight from the pine-ridge, five or six miles behind. By this time, it was after mid-day; and Cooper, having tied the last levers, looked round before descending from the load.
"Somebody on a grey horse comin' along the track from the ram-paddick, an' another (fellow) on a brown horse comin' across the plain," he remarked. "Wonder if one o' them's Martin-an' he's rose a horse at the station?"
"I was thinking about to-night," replied Thompson. "I'd forgot Martin.
Duffing soon comes under the what-you-may-call-him."
"Statute of Limitations?" I suggested.
"Yes. Come and have a drink of tea, and a bit of Cooper's pastry.
His cookery does n't fatten, but it fills up."
"O you (adj.) liar," gently protested the Cornstalk, as he seated himself on the ground beside the tucker-box. "Is this Martin?"—for the man on the grey horse was approaching at a canter.