Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/227

 struck in. It's you town larrikins that spoil the sheds—blackguardin' and gamblin' and growlin' from daylight till dark. If I was the boss I'd set bait for ye, same's the dingoes.'

'You shut up and go home to yer pumpkin patch,' retorted the card-player, with sudden animation. 'You Sydney-siders think no one can work stock but yourselves. You've no right this side of the Murrumbidgee, if it comes to that; and I'd make one of a crowd to start you back where you come from, and all your blackleg lot.'

'Put up your hands, you spieler!' said the New South Wales man, making one long stride towards the light-weight, who, standing easily on guard, appeared in no way anxious to decline the combat.

'Come, none of that, you Nepean chap,' said a good-humoured, authoritative voice; 'no scrappin' till shearin's over, or I'll stop your pay. Besides, it's a daylight start to-morrow morning. I've a paddock to clear, and the glass is rising. The weather's going to take up.' This was the second overseer, whose word was law until the 'cobbler' was shorn, and the last man with the last sheep left the shed amid derisive cheers. After a little subdued 'growling,' the combatants, there being no grog to inflame their angry passions, subsided.

'What's that old Bill was sayin' about horses and men's lives? I heard it from outside,' demanded the centurion. 'Any duffing going on?'

'Why, Joe Downey passed the remark,' made answer a wiry-looking 'old hand,' then engaged in mending one of his boots so neatly that he might have passed for a journeyman shoemaker, had it not been an open secret that he had learned the trade within the walls of a gaol, 'that if a man was to "shake" a horse here and ride him into Queensland, he'd never be copped.'

'Oh, he wouldn't, eh? And why did Bill get his hair off?'

'Well, Bill he says, "You're a d—d young fool," says he. "I've seen smarter men than you lose their lives over a ten-pound 'oss—yes, and bring better men to the same end.

'But he said something about five men,' persisted the overseer. 'What did he mean by that?'