"About the best I've had this season."

"We'll chance the selection," said Mosey decidedly. "Somebody can
ride on ahead, an' see the coast clear. But they won't watch
a bit of a paddick in the thick o' the shearin', when there's nobody
livin' in it."

"Squatters hed orter fine grass f'r wool teams, an' glad o' the chance,"
observed Price, with unprintable emphasis.

"Lot of sense in that remark," commented Mosey, with a similar potency
of adjective.

"Well, this is about the last place God made," growled Cooper,
the crimson thread of kinship running conspicuously through his observation,
notwithstanding its narrow provinciality.

"Roll up, Port Phillipers! the Sydney man's goin' to strike a match!"
retorted Mosey. "I wonder what fetched a feller like you on-to
bad startin'-ground. I swear we did n't want no lessons."

Cooper was too lazy to reply; and we smoked dreamily, while my kangaroo dog
silently abstracted a boiled leg of mutton from Price's tuckerbox,
and carried it out of sight. By-and-by, all eyes converged
on a shapeless streak which had moved into sight in the restless,
glassy glitter of the plain, about a mile away.

"Warrigal Alf going out on the lower track," remarked Thompson, at length.
"He was coming behind Baxter and Donovan yesterday, but he stopped