Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/183

, and finally hooked it. I know country where a three-toed horse would come in very handy. But Joe's horse showed now he hadn't mistaken his character. He gave a snort as if he had just seen a man for the first time, propped dead, and in a couple of seconds was bucking away, as you may swear he did the very first time he was crossed. I thought it served Joe right, and nobody was uneasy, as he could sit anything with a horse's skin on. But this one kept bucking sideways, front ways, every way, rearing and kicking, and what I never saw any horse but a wild one do, biting and snapping like a dog at Joe's foot every time he turned his head round. Joe, of course, kicked him in the mouth when he got a chance, and the horse was just done when he caught his jaw accidentally in the stirrup-iron—his under jaw. Here he was fixed. He swung round and round with his head all on one side till he got giddy, and fell with a crash before any one could get to him. It was a hard bare place, as luck would have it. Joe was underneath him. We lifted him with his thigh smashed, and a couple of ribs broken. Here was a pretty thing—ten miles from home, and our best man with his leg in two. However, there was no help for it. We let go his horse, put the saddle under his head for a pillow (and, except that this one was rather hot, it isn't such a bad one), left a black boy with him till we could send a cart from the station, and started on.

After this none of the cattle gave any trouble till we were quite within sight of the yards. There was a large receiving paddock outside of these again, into which I intended to put the mob for the night, as I fancied we could get them into the drafting yards better by daylight. But anything of the nature of post and rails is very terrifying to the uneducated 'Mickies' and 'clear-skins.' They are always likely to bolt directly they see a fence. The bullocks might follow them, and if much confusion arose and there was a little timber there, we might lose the lot. So our troubles were not over yet.

But for the wild young bulls and the unbranded heifers born and bred in the thick covert of the 'Cage' and the 'Snuff-box,' both belonging to the infernal regions, I had a different kind of help. As the mob now moved slowly on, the old cows roaring, the calves chiming in, the bullocks occasionally giving a deep low bellow, making, like all cattle off their