and every now and then there was a break in the fence,
when one of us had to go outside and hunt them until we came to the next bit.
At last we came to a little open kind of flat, with the scrub
that thick round it as you couldn't hardly ride through it,
and, just as Jim said, there was the yard.

It was a `duffing-yard' sure enough. No one but people who had cattle to hide
and young stock they didn't want other people to see branded
would have made a place there.

Just on the south side of the yard, which was built of great heavy
stringy-bark trees cut down in the line of the fence, and made up
with limbs and logs, the range went up as steep as the side of a house.
The cattle were that tired and footsore -- half their feet were bleeding,
poor devils -- that they ran in through the sliprails and began to lay down.

`Light a fire, one of you boys,' says father, putting up the heavy sliprails
and fastening them. `We must brand these calves before dark. One of you
can go to that gunyah, just under the range where that big white rock is,
and you'll find tea and sugar and something to eat.'

Jim rushed off at once, while I sulkily began to put
some bark and twigs together and build a fire.

`What's the use of all this cross work?' I said to father; `we're bound
to be caught some day if we keep on at it. Then there'll be no one left
to take care of mother and Aileen.'

He looked rather struck at this, and then said quietly --