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Robbery under Arms; a story of life and adventure in the bush and in the Australian goldfields by Rolf Boldrewood
page 49 of 678 (07%)
`Now then, you boys!' says father, coming up all of a sudden like,
and bringing out his words as if it was old times with us,
when we didn't know whether he'd hit first and talk afterwards,
or the other way on, `get out the lot we've just branded,
and drive 'em straight for that peak, where the water shines
dripping over the stones, right again the sun, and look slippy;
we're burning daylight, and these cows are making row enough, blast 'em!
to be heard all the way to Banda. I'll go on and steady the lead;
you keep 'em close up to me.'

Father mounted the old mare. The dog stopped behind; he knew
he'd have to mind the tail -- that is the hindmost cattle -- and stop 'em
from breaking or running clear away from the others. We threw down the rails.
Away the cattle rushed out, all in a long string. You'd 'a thought
no mortal men could 'a kept 'em in that blind hole of a place.
But father headed 'em, and turned 'em towards the peak.
The dog worried those that wanted to stay by the yard or turn another way.
We dropped our whip on 'em, and kept 'em going. In five minutes
they were all a-moving along in one mob at a pretty sharpish trot
like a lot of store cattle. Father knew his way about,
whether the country was thick or open. It was all as one to him.
What a slashing stockman he would have made in new country,
if he only could have kept straight.

It took us an hour's hard dinkum to get near the peak. Sometimes it was
awful rocky, as well as scrubby, and the poor devils of cattle
got as sore-footed as babies -- blood up to the knee, some of 'em;
but we crowded 'em on; there was no help for it.

At last we rounded up on a flat, rocky, open kind of a place;
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