'You know very well I won't,' says Jim, very soberlike. 'I don't like it any the more for that. But I wish father had broke his leg, and was lying up at home, with mother nursing him, before he found out this hell-hole of a place.'
'Well, we're going to get out of it, and soon too. The gully seems getting wider, and I can see a bit of open country through the trees.'
'Thank God for that!' says Jim. 'My boots'll part company soon, and the poor devils of calves won't have any hoofs either, if there's much more of this.'
'They're drawing faster now. The leading cattle are beginning to run. We're at the end of the drive.'
So it was. The deep, rocky gully gradually widened into an open and pretty smooth flat; this, again, into a splendid little plain, up to the knees in grass; a big natural park, closed round on every side with sandstone rockwalls, as upright as if they were built, and a couple of thousand feet above the place where we stood.
This scrub country was crossed by two good creeks; it was several miles across, and a trifle more in length. Our hungry weaners spread out and began to feed, without a notion of their mothers they'd left behind; but they were not the only ones there. We could see other mobs of cattle, some near, some farther off; horses, too; and the well-worn track in several ways showed that this was no new grazing ground.
Father came riding back quite comfortable and hearty-like for him.
'Welcome to Terrible Hollow, lads,' says he. 'You're the youngest chaps it has ever been shown to, and if I didn't know you were the right stuff, you'd never have seen it, though you're my own flesh and blood. Jump off, and let your horses go. They can't get away, even if they tried; they don't look much like that.'
Our poor nags were something like the cattle, pretty hungry and stiff. They put their heads down to the thick green grass, and went in at it with a will.
'Bring your saddles along with you,' father said, 'and come after me. I'll show you a good camping place. You deserve a treat after last night's work.'