How high the rock-walls are getting above us!' he says. `I know now.
I think I heard long ago from one of the Crosbies of a place in the ranges
down towards behind the Nulla Mountain, "Terrible Hollow".
He didn't know about it himself, but said an old stockman told him about it
when he was drunk. He said the Government men used to hide
the cattle and horses there in old times, and that it was never found out.'

`Why wasn't it found out, Jim? If the old fellow "split" about it
some one else would get to know.'

`Well, old Dan said that they killed one man that talked of telling;
the rest were too frightened after that, and they all swore a big oath
never to tell any one except he was on the cross.'

`That's how dad come to know, I suppose,' said Jim. `I wish he never had.
I don't care about those cross doings. I never did. I never seen any good
come out of them yet.'

`Well, we must go through with it now, I suppose. It won't do
to leave old dad in the lurch. You won't, will you, Jim?'

`You know very well I won't,' says Jim, very soberlike. `I don't like it
any the more for that. But I wish father had broke his leg,
and was lying up at home, with mother nursing him, before he found out
this hell-hole of a place.'

`Well, we're going to get out of it, and soon too. The gully seems
getting wider, and I can see a bit of open country through the trees.'

`Thank God for that!' says Jim. `My boots'll part company soon,