had work to do or not. He certainly COULD work;
daylight or dark, wet or dry, cold or hot, it was all one to father. It
seems a pity what he did was no use to him, as it turned out; for he was
a man, was old dad, every inch of him.

'Now, boys,' he said, quite brisk and almost good-natured for him, 'look
alive and we'll start the cattle; we've been long enough here; let 'em
head up that gully, and I'll show you something you've never seen before
for as long as you've known Broken Creek Ranges.'

'But where are you going to take 'em to?' I said. 'They're all Mr.
Hunter's and Mr. Falkland's; the brands are plain enough.'

'Are the calves branded, you blasted fool?' he said, while the black
look came over his face that had so often frightened me when I was a
child. 'You do what I tell you if you've any pluck and gumption about
you; or else you and your brother can ride over to Dargo Police Station
and "give me away" if you like; only don't come home again, I warn you,
sons or no sons.'

If I had done what I had two minds to do--for I wasn't afraid of him
then, savage as he looked--told him to do his own duffing and ridden
away with Jim there and then--poor Jim, who sat on his horse staring at
both of us, and saying nothing--how much better it would have been for
all of us, the old man as well as ourselves; but it seemed as if it
wasn't to be. Partly from use, and partly from a love of danger and
something new, which is at the bottom of half the crime in the bush
districts, I turned my horse's head after the cattle, which were now
beginning to straggle. Jim did the same on his side. How easy is it for
chaps to take the road to hell! for that was about the size of it, and
we were soon too busy to think about much else.

The track we were driving on led along a narrow rocky gully which looked
as if it had been split up or made out of a crack in the earth thousands
of years ago by an earthquake or something of that kind. The hills were
that steep that every now and then some of the young cattle that were
not used to that sort of country would come sliding down and bellow as
if they thought they were going to break their necks.

The water rushed down it like a torrent in wet winters, and formed a
sort of creek, and the bed of it made what track there was. There were
overhanging rocks and places that made you giddy to look at, and some
of these must have fallen down and blocked up the creek at one time or
other. We had to