down the gully now. It's a terrible steep, rough track,
worse than the other. If Starlight's hurt bad he'll never ride down.
But he has the pluck of the devil, sure enough.'

We rode over to the other side, where there was a kind of gully
that came in, something like the one we came in by, but rougher,
and full of gibbers (boulders). There was a path, but it looked as if cattle
could never be driven or forced up it. We found afterwards that they had
an old pack bullock that they'd trained to walk up this, and down, too,
when they wanted him, and the other cattle followed in his track,
as cattle will.

Father showed us a sort of cave by the side of the track,
where one man, with a couple of guns and a pistol or two,
could have shot down a small regiment as they came down one at a time.

We stayed in there by the track, and after about half-an-hour
we heard the two horses coming down slowly, step by step,
kicking the stones down before them. Then we could hear a man groaning,
as if he couldn't bear the pain, and partly as if he was trying to smother it.
Then another man's voice, very soft and soothing like,
trying to comfort another.

`My head's a-fire, and these cursed ribs are grinding against one another
every step of this infernal ladder. Is it far now?' How he groaned then!

`Just got the bottom; hold on a bit longer and you'll be all right.'

Just then the leading horse came out into the open before the cave.
We had a good look at him and his rider. I never forgot them.