for Patsey Daly and his three brothers, that lived on the creek higher up,
were as much on the cross as men could be, and many a time
I've seen them ride to chapel and attend mass, and look as if
they'd never seen a `clearskin' in their lives. Patsey was hanged afterwards
for bush-ranging and gold robbery, and he had more than one man's blood
to answer for. Now we weren't like that; we never troubled the church
one way or the other. We knew we were doing what we oughtn't to do,
and scorned to look pious and keep two faces under one hood.

By degrees we all grew older, began to be active and able to do
half a man's work. We learned to ride pretty well -- at least,
that is we could ride a bare-backed horse at full gallop
through timber or down a range; could back a colt just caught and have him
as quiet as an old cow in a week. We could use the axe and the cross-cut saw,
for father dropped that sort of work himself, and made Jim and I
do all the rough jobs of mending the fences, getting firewood,
milking the cows, and, after a bit, ploughing the bit of flat
we kept in cultivation.

Jim and I, when we were fifteen and thirteen -- he was bigger for his age
than I was, and so near my own strength that I didn't care
about touching him -- were the smartest lads on the creek, father said --
he didn't often praise us, either. We had often ridden over to help
at the muster of the large cattle stations that were on the side of the range,
and not more than twenty or thirty miles from us.

Some of our young stock used to stray among the squatters' cattle,
and we liked attending the muster because there was plenty of
galloping about and cutting out, and fun in the men's hut at night,
and often a half-crown or so for helping some one away