Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/181

 go neck and neck together for a hundred yards, at a pace that would win the Hack Stakes at a country meeting. Wallaroo's shoulder is jammed against the bullock, his head just behind the brute's great horns. At the batt Greyface is going, of course, he is occasionally on the balance. As I rush the game little horse against him, again and again, I can feel his huge bulk tremble and shake. I am too near for him to horn me, unless he had time to stop and turn, which, of course, I take care that he has not. After a while he edges round a bit, then a little more, then he sees the cattle and makes straight for them as they are moving past in the original direction in front of him. I slacken pace for an instant, and as I do so, drop the twelve foot stockwhip on to him with a right and left, which sends him right up among the tail cattle. He breaks no more for a while, and we are getting on pretty well. We know our direction now. Some of the cattle have got rather blown, and their tongues are out. We round them up, and let them stand for a bit to recover breath.

Off we go again. Can't stay here all night. They can run for miles in the scrub, and why not now? Much more steady this time. Begin to give it up. 'Hullo, what's that?' 'The brindled leader has doubled on us this time.' This was another regular outlaw. He was called 'Leader' because he was never far from the two or three foremost cattle wherever he was. Many a camp had he been on. Many a man had had a turn at him. But the inside of a yard he hadn't seen for years. He generally waited till the mob had gone some distance; when he did turn there was no stopping him. Joe Barker to-day must have a try at him. Away he went. His horse had not been behaving quite the fair thing, and Master Joe was in a great rage accordingly. Away he went, as I said, driving his spurs into the horse, and nearly jumping on to the brindled bullock's back, when he caught him up. He flogged for a bit without trying to turn him, and no man in these parts could use a whip with Joe Barker; he always had it in great order, oiled and lissom, with first-rate hide fall, and the exact thing in crackers. As the whip rose and fell, every cut marking itself in blood on the brindle's quarters, we all knew that he hadn't had such a scarifying for years, if he ever had. This was only to let him taste what the whip, in