"I'm ironing. Mother's down at the fowl-house seeing after some chickens.
What do you want?"

It was my father who addressed me. Time, 2 o'clock p.m. Thermometer hung
in the shade of the veranda registering 105 1/2 degrees.

"I see Blackshaw coming across the flat. Call your mother. You bring the
leg-ropes--I've got the dog-leg. Come at once; we'll give the cows another
lift. Poor devils--might as well knock 'em on the head at once, but there
might be rain next moon. This drought can't last for ever."

I called mother, got the leg-ropes, and set off, pulling my sun-bonnet
closely over my face to protect my eyes from the dust which was driving
from the west in blinding clouds. The dog-leg to which father had
referred was three poles about eight or ten feet long, strapped together
so they could be stood up. It was an arrangement father had devised to
facilitate our labour in lifting the cows. A fourth and longer pole was
placed across the fork formed by the three, and to one end of this were
tied a couple of leg-ropes, after being placed round the beast, one
beneath the flank and one around the girth. On the other end of this pole
we would put our weight while one man would lift with the tail and
another with the horns. New-chum cows would sulk, and we would have great
work with them; but those used to the performance would help themselves,
and up they'd go as nice as a daisy. The only art needed was to draw the
pole back quickly before the cows could move, or the leg-ropes would pull
them over again.

On this afternoon we had six cows to lift. We struggled manfully, and got
five on their feet, and then proceeded to where the last one was lying,
back downwards, on a shadeless stony spot on the side of a hill. The men