me when he'd done with him. The pony he rode
to-night would just trot off, and never put his nose to the ground
almost till he got wind of home.

We humped our saddles and swags ourselves; a stiffish load too, but the
night was cool, and we did our best. It was no use growling. It had to
be done, and the sooner the better. It seemed a long time--following
father step by step--before we came to the place where I thought the
cattle were going to be driven over the precipice. Here we pulled up for
a bit and had a smoke. It was a queer time and a queer look-out.

Three o'clock in the morning--the stars in the sky, and it so clear
that we could see Nulla Mountain rising up against it a big black lump,
without sign of tree or rock; underneath the valley, one sea of mist,
and we just agoing to drop into it; on the other side of the Hollow, the
clear hill we called the Sugarloaf. Everything seemed dead, silent, and
solitary, and a rummier start than all, here were we--three desperate
men, driven to make ourselves a home in this lonesome, God-forsaken
place! I wasn't very fanciful by that time, but if the devil had risen
up to make a fourth amongst us I shouldn't have been surprised. The
place, the time, and the men seemed regularly cut out for him and his
mob.

We smoked our pipes out, and said nothing to each other, good or bad.
Then father makes a start, and we follows him; took a goodish while, but
we got down all right, and headed for the cave. When we got there our
troubles were over for a while. Jim struck a match and had a fire going
in no time; there was plenty of dry wood, of course. Then father rolls
a keg out of a hole in the wall; first-rate dark brandy it was, and we
felt a sight better for a good stiff nip all round. When a man's cold
and tired, and hungry, and down on his luck as well, a good caulker of
grog don't do him no harm to speak of. It strings him up and puts him
straight. If he's anything of a man he can stand it, and feel all the
better for it; but it's a precious sight too easy a lesson to learn, and
there's them that can't stop, once they begin, till they've smothered
what brains God Almighty put inside their skulls, just as if they was
to bore a hole and put gunpowder in. No! they wouldn't stop if they were
sure of going to heaven straight, or to hell next minute if they put the
last glass to their lips. I've heard men say it, and knew they meant it.
Not the worst sort of men, either.

We were n