Bob set his lips obstinately.
“I don't think anything yet,” he said. “I don't know enough. Wait until I've learned a bit more—if you're not sick of teaching such an idiot.”
“Yerra, ye're no ijit,” said Murty under his breath.
Education developed as the weeks went on. Wally had gone to Queensland, to visit married brothers who were all the “people” he possessed; and Jim, bereft of his chum, threw himself energetically into the training of the substitute. Bob learned to slaughter a bullock and kill a sheep—being instructed that the job in winter was not a circumstance to what it would be in summer, when flies would abound. He never pretended to like this branch of learning, but stuck to it doggedly, since it was explained to him that the man who could not be his own butcher in the bush was apt to go hungry, and that not one hired hand in twenty could be trusted to kill.
More to Bob's taste were the boundary riding expeditions made with Jim to the furthest corners of the run; taking a pack horse with tucker and blankets, and camping in ancient huts, of which the sole furniture was rough sacking bunks, a big fireplace, and empty kerosene cases for seats and tables. It was unfortunate, from the point of view of Bob's instruction, that the frantic zeal of Murty and the men to have everything in order for “the Boss” had left no yard of the Billabong boundary unvisited not a month before. Still, winter gales were always apt to bring down a tree or two across the wires, laying a few panels flat; the creeks, too, were all in flood, and where a wire fence crossed one, floating brushwood often damaged the barrier, or a landslip in a water-worn bank might carry away a post. So Jim and his pupil found enough occupation to make their trips worth while; and Bob learned to sink post holes, to ram a post home beyond the possibility of moving, and to strain a wire fence scientifically. He was not a novice with an axe, though Jim's mighty chopping made him feel a child; still, when it was necessary to cut away a fallen tree, he could do his share manfully. His hands blistered and grew horny callouses, even as his muscles toughened and his shoulders widened; and all the time the appeal of the wide, free country called to his heart and drew him closer and closer to his new life.
“But he's too comfortable, you know,” David Linton said to Jim one night. “He's shaping as well as anyone could expect; but he won't always have Billabong at his back.”
Jim nodded wisely.
“I know,” he said. “Been thinking of that. If you can spare me for a bit we'll go over and lend ourselves as handy men to old Joe Howard.”
His father whistled.
“He'll make you toe the mark,” he said, laughing. “He won't have you there as gentlemen boarders, you know.”