Price and Mosey had just got under way. Willoughby was trying to yoke Dixon’s leaders, while Dixon, owing to his screwmatics, could do nothing but sit on his horse, cursing with wearisome tautology, and casting glances of frantic apprehension toward the ram-paddock. His anxiety was not unreasonable, for there had just come into sight an upright speck, too small to be a horseman; and it was easy to guess who was the likeliest person to be coming on foot from that direction. There is a limit to the dignified sufficiency even of a bullock driver; and the unhappy conjecture of circumstances had driven Dixon past this point.

“Stiddy, now; go stiddy, an’ keep yer (adj.) mouth shut. Now lay right (adv.) bang up to him; jam him agen the offsider, so’s he can’t shift. There! block him! (Sheol)! Let him rip now. O may the⁠—” etc., etc.

“Dixon! Dixon! I must protest⁠—”

“Purtest be (verbed). Fetch ’em up agen. Don’t be frightened; they ’on’t bite. Yoke on yer other (adj.) shoulder. Right. Git well up agen him this time. Lay yer whole (adj.) weight onto him, an’ jam him, so’s he can’t budge if it was to save his (adj.) life.”

Willoughby, with the yoke on his shoulder, and the offside bow in his hand, gingerly approached the excited bullocks, essaying a light touch on the near-sider’s shrinking shoulder. The next moment, he was reeling backward, and both bullocks were gone. Eve’s curse on Cain, in Byron’s fine drama, is mere balderdash to what followed on Dixon’s part.

“Dem your soul, you uncultivated savage! you force me to inform you that your helpless condition was my incentive to these well-meant efforts on your behalf⁠—as, begad! it is now the only consideration which restrains⁠—”

“O, go to (sheol). You’re no (adj.) good. You ain’t fit to (purvey offal to Bruin). An’ here’s them (adj.) sneaks gone; an’ Martin he’ll be on top o’ me in about two (adj.) twos; an’ me left by my own (adj.) self, like a (adj.) natey cat in a (adj.) trap. May the holy⁠—” etc., etc. “If I’d that horse,” he continued, glancing furiously at Cleopatra, “I’d make him smell (adj. sheol).”

“Nonsense, Dixon,” said I pleasantly; “the horse is not annoying you. Ah! Willoughby; Ne ultra-no, let’s see⁠—Ne sutor ultra crepidam. Let me try my hand there. I took my degree of B.D.⁠—which doesn’t always signify Bachelor of Divinity⁠—before you took your B.A. Will you just bring up the unspeakables as Dixon points them out.”

“Palmam qui meruit ferat,” responded Willoughby, instantly recovering his temper. “Smoker⁠—Nelson⁠—dem your skins, come up once more!”

Dixon’s bullocks were exceptionally docile, for that uncultivated animal was one of the most humane and skilful drivers in Riverina; therefore, about twenty-five minutes sufficed to place his team in readiness for a start.

“You might as well come along o’ me for a change,” said he to Willoughby. “We’ll git on grand together. I’m a quiet, agreeable sort o’ (person), though I say it myself; an’ I wouldn’t wish for better (adj.) company nor you. Come on; you won’t be sorry after.”

“Quocunque trahunt fata sequamur,” rejoined Willoughby, bowing gaily to me. Then taking up the whip⁠—Dixon was a virtuoso in whips, and always carried one with six feet of handle and twelve feet of lash⁠—he aimed at the team, collectively, a clip which, in the most literal sense, recoiled on himself. And so the officer’s son and the sojer’s son took their way together; to become, as I afterward learned, the most attached and mutually considerate friends on the track. Such is life.

Thompson and Cooper, now ready for the road, were repairing the fence as well as they could. This being done, and the relics of the fire kicked about, they put their teams in motion, leaving little trace of the camp, except Bum’s mare, standing asleep outside the fence. The ominous speck on the plain had approached much nearer, but had taken definite form as an emu; and now the negative blessing of escape seemed like a positive benefaction. “If,” says Carlyle, “thou wert condemned to be hanged⁠—which is probably less than thou deservest⁠—thou wouldest esteem it happiness to be shot.”

Serene gratitude therefore shone in the frank faces of the outlaws; tempered, however, in Thompson’s case, by salutary remorse, for his companion had reproachfully asked him what the (adj. sheol) good his swearing had done.

We could see Price’s teams stopped, half a mile away; one of the loads appearing low, and canted over to the off side; bogged, evidently. Dixon’s wagon was close in front of us; Willoughby was zealously flogging himself, and occasionally we could hear Dixon’s voice in encouragement and counsel.

The place where Price’s wagon was stuck was not a creek, but merely a narrow belt of treacherous ground. Mosey hadn’t gone down six inches, but Price had happened on a bad place, and his wagon had found the bottom. All Mosey’s team, except the polers, had been hooked on, but with no result beyond the breaking of a well-worn chain.

“Ain’t got puddin’ enough, Thompson,” said Mosey, as my companions stopped their teams and went on to survey the place. “The (adv.) thunderin’ ole morepoke he goes crawlin’ into the rottenest place he could fine. You shove your team in nex’ the polers, an’ I’ll hook our lot on in front. Your chains’ll stan’ to fetch (sheol) out by the (adj.) roots. Please the pigs, we’ll git out o’ sight afore that ole (overseer) comes.”

Thompson did as desired; and the first pull brought the wagon on to solid ground. Meanwhile Dixon and Willoughby had taken their team through, and were hurrying along. Cooper, growling maledictions on everything connected with Port Phillip⁠—roads in particular⁠—had selected his route, and started his team. Thompson hooked on to his own wagon, and crossed safely, but with very little to spare.

“Touch-and-go,” he remarked to me; “another bale would have anchored her. Ah! Cooper’s in it, with all his cleverness.”

Cooper was in it. The two-ton Hawkesbury, with seven-and-a-half tons of load, was down to the axle-beds; and the Cornstalk was endeavouring, by means of extracts from the sermons of Knox’s soundest followers, to do something like justice to the contingency. Thompson sighed, glanced toward the ram-paddock, and hooked his team in front of Cooper’s. Mosey, who had been mending his broken chain with wire, now came over with Price.

“We’ll give you a lend of our whips,” said he with cheap complaisance. “Take the leaders yerself, Thompson. Stiddy now, till I give the word, or we’ll be fetching the (adj.) handle out of her. Now⁠—pop it on⁠—to ’em!”

Then thirty-six picked bullocks planted their feet and prised, and a hundred and seventy feet of bar chain stretched tense and rigid from the leaders’ yoke to the pole-cap. The wagon crept forward. A low grumble, more a growl than a bellow, passed from beast to beast along the team⁠—sure indication that the wagon wouldn’t stop again if it could be taken through. The off front wheel rose slowly on harder ground; the off hind wheel rose in its turn; both near wheels ploughed deeper beneath the top-heavy weight of thirty-eight bales⁠—

“She’s over!” thundered Cooper. “Keep her goin’⁠—it’s her on’y chance!”

Then the heavy pine whipsticks bent like bulrushes in the drivers’ skilful hands, while a spray of dissevered hair, and sometimes a line of springing blood, followed each detonation⁠—the libretto being in keeping. A few yards forward still, while both off wheels rose to the surface, and both near wheels sank till the naves burrowed in the ground; then the wagon swung heavily over on its near side.

“Goodbye, John,” said Cooper, with fine immobility. “Three-man job, by rights. Will you give us a hand, Collins?” For Price and Mosey were silently returning to their teams.

“Certainly, I will.”

“Well, it’s a half day’s contract I’ll git some breakfast ready, while you (fellows) unloosens the ropes.”

Thompson and I released the bullocks from the pole, unfastened the ropes, and brought the wagon down to its wheels again. Then Cooper summoned us to breakfast.

“You’ll jist take sort o’ potluck, Collins,” he remarked. “I should ’a’ baked some soda bread an’ boiled some meat last night, on’y for bein’ too busy doin’ nothing. Laziness is catchin’. That’s why I hate a lot o’ fellers campin’ together; it’s nothing but yarn, yarn; an’ your wagon ain’t greazed, an’ your tarpolin ain’t looked to; an’ nothin done but yarn, yarn; an’ you floggin’ in your own mind at not gittin’ ahead o’ your work. That’s where women’s got the purchase on us (fellows). When a lot o’ women gits together, one o’ them reads out something religious, an’ the rest all wires in at sewin’, or knittin’, or some (adj.) thing. They can’t suffer to be idle, nor to see anybody else idle⁠—women can’t.” Cooper was an observer. It was pleasant to hear him philosophise.

The work of reloading was made severe and tedious by the lack of any better skids than the poles of the two wagons⁠—was, indeed, made impossible under the circumstances, but for Cooper’s enormous and wellsaved strength. Our toil was enlivened, however, by an argument as to the esoteric cause of the capsize. Cooper maintained that nothing better could have been hoped for, after leaving Kenilworth shed on a Friday; Thompson, untrammelled by such superstition, contended that the misadventure was solely due to travelling on Sunday; whilst I held it to be merely a proof that Cooper, in spite of his sins, wasn’t deserted yet. Each of us supported his argument by a wealth of illustrative cases, and thus fortified his own stubborn opinion to his own perfect satisfaction. Then, descending to more tangible things, we discussed Cleopatra. Here we were unanimous in deciding that the horse had, as yet, disclosed only two faults, and these not the faults of the Irishman’s horse in the weary yarn. One of them, we concluded, was to buck like a demon on being first mounted, and the other was to grope backward for the person who went to catch him after delivery of loading.

In the meantime, four horsemen, with three packhorses, went by; then two horse teams, loaded outward; then Stewart, of Kooltopa, paused to give a few words of sympathy as he drove past; then far ahead, we saw two wool teams, evidently from Boolka, converging slowly toward the main track; then more wool came in sight from the pine-ridge, five or six miles behind. By this time, it was after midday; and Cooper, having tied the last levers, looked round before descending from the load.

“Somebody on a grey horse comin’ along the track from the ram-paddick, an’ another (fellow) on a brown horse comin’ across the plain,” he remarked. “Wonder if one o’ them’s Martin-an’ he’s rose a horse at the station?”

“I was thinking about tonight,” replied Thompson. “I’d forgot Martin. Duffing soon comes under the what-you-may-call-him.”

“Statute of Limitations?” I suggested.

“Yes. Come and have a drink of tea, and a bit of Cooper’s pastry. His cookery doesn’t fatten, but it fills up.”

“O you (adj.) liar,” gently protested the Cornstalk, as he seated himself on the ground beside the tucker-box. “Is this Martin?⁠—” for the man on the grey horse was approaching at a canter.

“No,” I replied; “he’s a stranger to me.”

“But that’s Martin on the brown horse,” said Thompson, with rising vexation. “Keep him on a string, Tom, if you can. Don’t let him drive us into a lie about last night, for, after all, I’ll be hanged if I’m man enough to tell him the truth, nor won’t be for the next fortnight or three weeks.”

By this time, the man on the grey horse was passing us. In response to Thompson’s invitation, he stopped and dismounted.

“Jist help yourself, an’ your friends’ll like you the better, as the sayin’ is,” said Cooper, handing him a pannikin.

“Thanks. I’ll do so; I didn’t have any breakfast this morning,” replied the stranger, picking up a johnnycake (which liberal shepherds give a grosser name), and eating it with relish, while the interior lamina of dough spued out from between the charred crusts under the pressure of his strong teeth. “Been having a little mishap?”

“Yes; nothing broke, though.”

“How long since my lads passed? I see their tracks on the road.”

“About three hours,” replied Thompson. “Did you meet an old man and a young fellow, with wool-grey horse behind one of the wagons? Good day, Mr. Martin. Have a drink of tea?”

“Yes, I met them,” replied the stranger. “Old Price’s teams, I think⁠—Good day, Martin⁠—six or seven miles from here; Dixon travelling behind, with another fellow driving his team⁠—long-lost brother, apparently.”

“Where did you fellows have your bullocks last night?” demanded Martin, his eye resting on the sun-cracked stucco which covered three-fourths of Damper’s colossal personality.

“And did you see a dark chestnut horse; bang tail; star and snip; white hind feet; saddle and bridle on?” I asked. “I ran across Moriarty this morning,” I continued, turning politely to Martin; “and he told me he was after a horse of that description; but he was in a hurry⁠—”

“Dark chestnut horse; bang tail; star and snip; white hind feet; JR near shoulder; like 2 in circle off thigh,” said the stranger reflectively. “Yes; I saw the horse this morning, but the owner has got him again⁠—redheaded young fellow; tweed pants, strapped with moleskin. I met him at the Nalrooka boundary shortly after sunrise⁠—thirty miles from here, I should say. I was speaking to him. He told me the horse had slung him and got away from him last night, and he had found him by good luck before daylight this morning. He came down on his hand, poor beggar; it’s swelled like a boxing-glove. But he’s taking it out of the horse.”

Now, in the Riverina of that period, it was considered much more disgraceful to be had by a scoundrel than to commit a felony yourself; therefore Martin, partly grasping the situation, assumed an oblivious, and even drowsy, air.

“Did the young fellow say where he was going?” I asked, pitying Martin’s dilemma, and admiring his greatness of soul, for I had more than once been there myself.

“No; he only wanted to borrow a pipe of tobacco; but after we parted I saw him strike out across the plain to the right.”

Martin yawned, turned his horse, and rode slowly toward the selection. Very slowly, so that the stranger might overtake him soon. Come weal, come woe, he wouldn’t trail his honour in the dust before three cynical onlookers.

“Well, I’ll push on,” said the stranger, setting down his pannikin. “I want to pull my chaps, and I’m thinking about my horse. I say”⁠—glancing after Martin, and lowering his voice⁠—“you fellows have a devil of a bad show for tonight.”

“You’re right,” replied Thompson.

“Tell you what you’ll do: Camp at the belars, and they’ll think you’re on for the ration-paddock; then, between the two lights, just scoot for the Dead Horse Swamp.”

“Never any grass there,” said Thompson.

“That’s the beauty of it,” replied the stranger. “They’ve been putting down a tank in the middle of the swamp this winter; and the contractor had about a dozen young fellows, every one of them with a horse and a dog, kicking up (sheol)’s delight. There hasn’t been a smell of a sheep within coo-ee of the swamp for the last three months; and the paddock was mustered for shearing just before the contractor left. It’s into your hand for tonight. Well, I must⁠—”

“I beg your pardon,” said Thompson hesitatingly⁠—“Are you coming direct from Hay?”

“Well, I left on Saturday morning.”

“The mailman was telling me,” continued Thompson wistfully, “that Permewan and Wright had three ton of dynamite for Broken Hill. Do you know is it gone yet?”

“Not when I left,” replied the Encyclopedia Australiensis. “They’re offering eighty, and I’ve no doubt they’ll spring to a hundred. Extra-hazardous tack; and there’s not a blade of grass once you pass the Merowie. Good day, boys.” And, nodding to us collectively, he departed.

“Steve,” said I; “are you a man to go fooling with high explosives⁠—considering the thing that’s on you?”

“Well,” replied Thompson doggedly, “it’s come to this with me, that I must make a spoon or spoil a horn; and if that infernal thing would only keep off till I got the stuff delivered, I’d be right. My bullocks are fit for any track in Australia.”

“Let’s git down to Hay fust,” interposed Cooper; “then you can do as you like; but I’ll be wantin’ a waybill that’ll take me safe out o’ Port Phillip. Say, Collins; I’ll buy that new saddle off o’ you. Mine’s all in splinters, for my horse he’s a beggar to roll.”

“I’d hardly feel justified in selling it,” I replied. “But I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll sell you my own saddle cheap⁠—say, three notes⁠—and give you Bum’s bridle in.”

Cooper agreed to the proposal. Then, as Pup had been eating about ten pounds of salt mutton, stolen from the bullock drivers’ stores, I enticed him to take a good drink of water, knowing he would need it before the day was over. It was absolutely imperative that I should go thirty miles, and then, if possible, camp alone. So I shook hands with the outlaws, and started; leading Bunyip till he should become accustomed to his new companion.

If the unmannerly reader wishes to know why I was bound to a stage of exactly thirty miles, I have no objection to state that, knowing the geography of Riverina as well as if I had laid out the whole territory myself, I was aware of a sandhill composed of material unstable as water; an unfavourable place for a bucking horse, and a favourable place for a man to dismount head foremost if the worst came; and that sand-hill was my destination.