Page:On Our Selection.djvu/143

Rh wandered into our yard and surrounded the hay-stack. Dad saw them from the paddock and cooeed, and shouted for those at the house to drive them away. They did n't hear him. Dad left the plough and ran up and pelted Anderson's cows with stones and glass-bottles, and pursued them with a pitchfork till, in a mad rush to get out, half the brutes fell over the fence and made havoc with the wire. Dad spent an hour mending it; then went to the verandah and savagely asked Mother if she had lost her ears. Mother said she had n't.

"Then why the devil could n't y' hear me singin' out?"

Mother thought it must have been because Dan was playing the concertina. "Oh! damn his concertina!" Dad squealed, and kicked Joe's little kitten, that was rubbing itself fondly against his leg, clean through the house.

Dan found the selection pretty slow—so he told Mother—and thought he would knock about a bit. He went to the store and bought a supply of ammunition, which he booked to Dad, and started shooting. He stood at the door and put twenty bullets into the barn; then he shot two bears near the stock-yard with twenty more bullets, and dragged both bears down to the house and left them at the back-door. They stayed at the back-door until they went very bad; then Dad hooked himself to them and dragged them down the gully.

Somehow, Dad began to hate Dan! He scarcely ever spoke to him now, and at meal-times never spoke to any of us.