Page:On Our Selection.djvu/193

Rh Johnson and Dwyer that Eastbrook dairy cattle were to be sold at auction, he said he would go down and buy one.

Very early. The stars had scarcely left the sky. There was a lot of groping and stumbling about the room. Dad and Dave had risen and were preparing to go to the sale.

I don't remember if the sky was golden or gorgeous at all, or if the mountain was clothed in mist, or if any fragrance came from the wattle-trees when they were leaving; but Johnson, without hat or boots, was picking splinters off the slabs of his hut to start his fire with, and a mile further on Smith's dog was barking furiously. He was a famous barker. Smith trained him to it to keep the wallabies off. Smith used to chain him to a tree in the paddock and hang a piece of meat to the branches, and leave him there all night.

Dad and Dave rode steadily along and arrived at Eastbrook before mid-day. The old station was on its last legs.

"The flags were flying half-mast high." A crowd of people were there. Cart-horses with harness on, and a lot of tiredlooking saddle-hacks, covered with dry sweat, were fastened to cart-wheels, and to every available post and place. Heaps of old iron, broken-down drays and buggies and wheelbarrows, pumps and pieces of machinery, which Dad reckoned were worth a lot of money, were scattered about. Dad yearned to gather them all up and cart them home. Rows of unshaven men were seated high on the rails of the yards.