along the stones. Woman or child, horse or dog, it's the same old thing --
the more any creature loves a man in this world the worse they're treated.
It looks like it, at any rate. I saw how it was; father had given Crib
a cruel beating the night before, when he was put out for some
trifling matter, and the dog had left him and run home. But now
he had thought better of it, and seen our tracks and come to work and slave,
with his bleeding feet -- for they were cut all to pieces --
and got the whip across his back now and then for his pains.
It's a queer world!

When we got right to the top of this confounded gully, nearly dead-beat
all of us, and only for the dog heeling them up every now and then,
and making his teeth nearly meet in them, without a whimper,
I believe the cattle would have charged back and beat us.
There was a sort of rough table-land -- scrubby and stony and thick it was,
but still the grass wasn't bad in summer, when the country below
was all dried up. There were wild horses in troops there,
and a few wild cattle, so Jim and I knew the place well;
but it was too far and too much of a journey for our own horses to go often.

`Do you see that sugar-loaf hill with the bald top, across the range?'
said father, riding up just then, as we were taking it easy a little.
`Don't let the cattle straggle, and make straight for that.'

`Why, it's miles away,' said Jim, looking rather dismal.
`We could never get 'em there.'

`We're not going there, stupid,' says father; `that's only the line to keep.
I'll show you something about dinner-time that'll open your eyes a bit.'