Norah flushed.
“Never did,” she said shortly, and untruthfully. “Don’t know why you can’t talk sense, Jim!”—at which that maligned youth laughed excessively, until first the other boys, and then Norah, joined in, perforce.
After again climbing over the sheep-proof fence of the smaller paddock they came out upon a wide plain, almost treeless, save for the timber along the creek, where their cattle track still led them. Far as they could see no fence broke the line of yellow grass. There were groups of cattle out on the plain. These were store bullocks, Jim explained, a draft recently arrived from Queensland, and hardly yet acclimatised.
“It takes a good while for them to settle down,” Norah said, “and then lots of ’em get sick—pleuro and things; and we inoculate them, and their tails drop off, and sometimes the sick ones get bad-tempered, and it’s quite exciting work mustering.”
“Dangerous?” asked Wally.
“Not with a pony that knows things like Bobs,” said Bobs’ mistress. “He always keeps his weather eye open for danger.”
“Not a bad thing, as you certainly don’t,” laughed Jim.
“Well—do you?”
“Certainly I do,” said Jim firmly, whereat Norah laughed very heartily.
“When I leave school, Dad says I can go on the roads with the cattle for one trip,” said Jim. “Be no end of fun—takes ever so long to bring them down from Queensland, and the men have a real good time—travel with a cook, and a covered buggy and pair to bring the tucker and tents along.”