when you're foolin' with this run. She's hair-trigger at the best o' times,
an' she's on full cock this year. Best watched station on the track.
It's risk whatever way you take it. We're middlin' safe to be collared
in the selection, an' we're jist as safe to be collared in the ram-paddick.
Choice between the divil an' the dam. An' there's too big a township o' wagons
together. Two's enough, an' three's a glutton, for sich a season as this."

"I think Cooper and I had better push on to the ram-paddock,"
suggested Thompson. "You three can work on the selection.
Division of labour's the secret of success, they say."

"Secret of England's greatness," mused Dixon. "I forgit what
the (irrelevant expletive) that is."

"The true secret of England's greatness lies in her dependencies,
Mr. Dixon," replied Willoughby handsomely; and straightway the serene,
appreciative expression of the bullock driver's face, rightly interpreted,
showed that his mind was engaged in a Graeco-Roman conflict
with the polysyllable, the latter being uppermost.

"Well, no," said Mosey, replying to Thompson; "no use separatin' now;
it's on'y spreadin' the risk; we should 'a' separated yesterday.
I would n't misdoubt the selection, on'y Cunningham told me the other day,
Magomery's shiftin' somebody to live there. If that's so, it's up a tree,
straight. The ram-paddick's always a risk--too near the station."

"The hut on the selection was empty a week ago," I remarked.
"I know it, for I camped there one night."

"Good grass?" inquired a chorus of voices.