What was the noise at that hour of the night?
It was a hollow, faint, distant roaring that gradually kept getting louder. It was the strange mournful bellowing that comes from a drove of cattle forced along an unknown track. As we listened the sound came clearly on the night wind, faint, yet still clearly coming nearer.
“Cattle being driven,” Jim cried out; “and a big mob too. It’s father—for a note. Let’s get our horses and meet him.”
IV
“All right,” said I, “he must have got there a day before his time. It is a big mob and no mistake. I wonder where they’re taking them to.” Aileen shrugged her shoulders and walked in to mother with a look of misery and despair on her face such as I never saw there before.
She knew it was no use talking to me now. The idea of going out to meet a large lot of unknown cattle had strongly excited us, as would have been the case with every bush-bred lad. All sorts of wonders passed through our minds as we walked down the creek bank, with our bridles in our hands, towards where our horses usually fed. One was easy to catch, the other with a little management was secured. In ten minutes we were riding fast through the dark trees and fallen timber towards the wild gullies and rock-strewed hills of Broken Creek.
It was not more than an hour when we got up to the cattle. We could hear them a good while before we saw them. “My word,” said Jim, “ain’t they restless. They can’t have come far, or they wouldn’t roar so. Where can the old man have touched for them?”
“How should I know?” I said roughly. I had a kind of idea, but I thought he would never be so rash.
When we got up I could see the cattle had been rounded up in a flat with stony ridges all round. There must have been three or four hundred of them, only a man and a boy riding round and wheeling them every now and then. Their horses were pretty well knocked up. I knew father at once, and the old chestnut mare he used to ride—an animal with legs like timbers and a mule rump; but you couldn’t tire her, and no beast that ever was calved could get away from her. The boy was a half-caste that father had picked up somewhere; he was as good as two men any day.
“So you’ve come at last,” growled father, “and a good thing too. I didn’t expect to be here till tomorrow morning. The dog came home, I suppose—that’s what brought you here, wasn’t it? I thought the infernal cattle would beat Warrigal and me, and we’d have all our trouble for nothing.”
“Whose cattle are they, and what are you going to do with them?”
“Never you mind; ask no questions, and you’ll see all about it tomorrow. I’ll go and take a snooze now; I’ve had no sleep for three nights.”
With our fresh horses and riding round so we kept the cattle easily enough. We did not tell Warrigal he might go to rest, not thinking a half-caste brat like him wanted any. He didn’t say anything, but went to sleep on his horse, which walked in and out among the angry cattle as he sat on the saddle with his head down on the horse’s neck. They sniffed at him once or twice, some of the old cows, but none of them horned him; and daylight came rather quicker than one would think.
Then we saw whose cattle they were; they had all Hunter’s and Falkland’s brands on, which showed that they belonged to Banda and Elingamah stations.
“By George!” says Jim, “they’re Mr. Hunter’s cattle, and all these circle dots belong to Banda. What a mob of calves! not one of them branded! What in the world does father intend to do with them?”
Father was up, and came over where we stood with our horses in our hands before we had time to say more. He wasn’t one of those that slept after daylight, whether he had work to do or not. He certainly could work; daylight or dark, wet or dry, cold or hot, it was all one to father. It seems a pity what he did was no use to him, as it turned out; for he was a man, was old dad, every inch of him.
“Now, boys,” he said, quite brisk and almost good-natured for him, “look alive and we’ll start
