‘Then we make a saving at once of say sixteen shillings a week. Guy never earned so much in his life before. He will be quite proud of his value in the labour market. You and I can begin splitting and fencing at once.’
‘But we shall want some more cattle, sir,’ suggested Dick.
‘More cattle!’ said Wilfred in amazement, to whom a hundred head was an awe-striking number. ‘What for?’
‘Why, to eat! It don’t do to buy meat every time you want a roast or a steak. Cheapest to kill your own. If we was to buy a mob of common cattle, they’d cost nothing to speak of; the bullocks soon fatten, and the cows would breed you up a fair mixed herd in no time.’
‘Well, but we have these cattle you have just let out,’ pleaded Wilfred, looking admiringly at the red, white, and roan shorthorn crosses, which, spreading over the rich meadow, were feeding quietly, as if reared there.
‘Them’s all very well, sir; but it’ll be years before you kill a bullock out of that lot; they’ve got to come, all in good time. But the quiet steers, and the worst of the cows, in a mixed herd, will be fat before you can look round, in a season like this, and your beef won’t cost you above a penny a pound.’
It was decided that Guy was to ‘tail’ or herd the new cows at present. Upon this duty being named to him, he made no objection—rather seemed to like it.
‘I suppose as long as I don’t lose them I can do anything I like,’ he said; ‘hunt ’possums, shoot, ferret out ferns for Rosamond, or even read.’
‘The more you lets the cattle alone the better, Mr. Guy,’ said Dick. ‘As long as they don’t sneak away from you, you can’t take it too easy. There’s fine feed all roads now, and after the first hour or two they’ll fill theirselves and lie down like working bullocks. But you’ll want a horse.’
‘That I shall,’ said the boy, beginning to take up the fashions of the bush, and to rebel at the idea of going on foot, as if mankind was a species of centaur.