Two more young men came in, one somewhat older than Guy, the other about my own age, and I found that they also were cousins. Altogether a goodly company sat down to the evening meal. We all waited on ourselves, there being no female helps in the household.
A rattling conversation was kept up, the young men describing to their father the events of the day, while we had to give an account of our adventures from the time of our landing. They were all highly interested in hearing of Bracewell being stuck up by bushrangers and how we had rescued him.
“We must put a stop to the career of those gentlemen,” observed Mr Strong. “We have heard before this of their doings, and I have even considered it prudent not to leave the ladies alone in the house without two or three men as guards; a most abominable inconvenience, and yet, from knowing the atrocities of which they are capable, I consider it absolutely necessary.”
The blacks, he said, had also been troublesome. A large mob who had been wandering about in that part of the country, might, he thought it possible, take it into their heads, to pay the station a visit; though it was not likely that they would do harm should they find his people prepared for them.
After a pleasant evening, we were shown to the room we were to occupy in one of the other sheds where three of our cousins also slept. One of the elder ones was called in the night to mount guard, and we found that a watch was regularly kept in case either bushrangers or blacks should make their appearance.
Next morning our cousins invited us to accompany them to drive in another mob of cattle for the purpose of mustering and branding the calves. We proposed riding our own horses, but they laughed at the notion.
“You’d get run down to a certainty,” said Hector. “As we go along I’ll tell you what you’ll have to do, for there’s nothing like beginning at once.”
We were in the saddle before daylight, having first breakfasted, when we found a mob of sixty or eighty tame cattle, a short distance from the station.
“What are they for?” I asked.
“They are coaches!” answered Hector. “We use them to entice the wild ones, who take shelter among them, and then the whole are more easily driven into the stock yards.”