and saying nothing -- how much better it would have been for all of us,
the old man as well as ourselves; but it seemed as if it wasn't to be.
Partly from use, and partly from a love of danger and something new,
which is at the bottom of half the crime in the bush districts,
I turned my horse's head after the cattle, which were now beginning
to straggle. Jim did the same on his side. How easy is it for chaps
to take the road to hell! for that was about the size of it,
and we were soon too busy to think about much else.

The track we were driving on led along a narrow rocky gully
which looked as if it had been split up or made out of a crack in the earth
thousands of years ago by an earthquake or something of that kind.
The hills were that steep that every now and then some of the young cattle
that were not used to that sort of country would come sliding down and bellow
as if they thought they were going to break their necks.

The water rushed down it like a torrent in wet winters,
and formed a sort of creek, and the bed of it made what track there was.
There were overhanging rocks and places that made you giddy to look at,
and some of these must have fallen down and blocked up the creek
at one time or other. We had to scramble round them the best way we could.

When we got nearly up to the head of the gully -- and great work it was
to force the footsore cattle along, as we couldn't use our whips overmuch --
Jim called out --

`Why, here comes old Crib. Who'd have thought he'd have seen the track?
Well done, old man. Now we're right.'

Father never took any notice of the poor brute as he came limping