if they chose. A Queensland drover once took a big mob from the Gulf
right down through New South Wales, selling various lots as he went.
He had to deliver some to a small sheep-man, near Braidwood,
who was buying a few hundred cattle as a spec. By the time they arrived,
the cattle had been on the road eight months, and were quiet as milkers.
But the sheep-man and his satellites came out, riding stable-fed horses and
brandishing twenty-foot whips, all determined to sell their lives dearly.
They galloped round the astonished cattle and spurred their horses
and cracked their whips, till they roused the weary mob. Then they started
to cut out the beasts they wanted. The horses rushed and pulled,
and the whips maddened the cattle, and all was turmoil and confusion.

The Queensland drovers looked on amazed, sitting their patient
leg-weary horses they had ridden almost continuously for eight months.
At last, seeing the hash the sheep-men were making of it,
the drovers set to work, and in a little while, without a shout,
or crack of a whip, had cut out the required number.
These the head drover delivered to the buyer, simply remarking,
"Many's the time YOU never cut-out cattle."

As I write, there rises a vision of a cattle-camp on an open plain,
the blue sky overhead, the long grass rustling below,
the great mob of parti-coloured cattle eddying restlessly about,
thrusting at each other with their horns; and in among
the sullen half-savage animals go the light, wiry stock-riders,
horse and man working together, watchful, quick, and resolute.

A white steer is wanted that is right in the throng. Way! -- make way!
and horse and rider edge into the restless sea of cattle,
the man with his eye fixed on the selected animal, the horse,