ng though.

One morning, a few days after Paul and I had settled matters so very
much to our own satisfaction, the boy who brought up the milkers fell
sick, and Ben, who took his place, failed to find them. It was a thing
of not infrequent occurrence, and I turned out as usual to help him.
As usual, too, those wretched cows had turned up the creek and lost
themselves in the gullies among the ranges to the south. As the grass
grew dry-on the plains they would wander along the sheltered creek,
where in patches it was still fresh and green. And this day they had
wandered farther than usual. We rode on and on, our horses stumbling
among the rough ground, till at last we heard the cracked old cow bell
and knew they were found.

"Coming towards us too," said Ben. "I wonder what started 'em."

"They knew it was time to come home," I suggested; but Ben wouldn't
agree with me, and he knew a good deal about cattle for a boy of his
age. Then we turned a shoulder of the hill, and there were the four
wanderers making straight for us. There was something else besides, a
tent pitched on a nice green patch of grass, and a horse feeding out of
a bucket close beside it. A man at the door snatched up the bucket as we
appeared and carried it into the tent, but I saw it as clearly as I see
you now, and if I could not trust my own eyes there was Ben, and he saw
it too.

He was quicker than I too, for he had been about among the men and heard
them talk about such things.

"O my!" he said. "Here's a go! That's Vixen, Stanton's mare. She's a
regular take down, ain't she? She looks like an awful old stock horse,
don't she? Look here, Sissy, I believe they 're feeding her on the sly.
What was she drinking out of that bucket?"

We turned the cows homewards, and then went towards the little tent. It
was Vixen sure enough, and Stanton's man, Dan O'Connor--Ticket-of-leave
Dan, as they called him--was in charge. He bid us "Good morning" in
the oily, slimy tones of the old convict, and said he was just going to
bring back our stray cows.

"I seed the Yanyilla brand on 'em, and I guessed some one 'd be around
lookin' for 'em soon, as they was milkers," he said, and what could I
say.

We and our cattle were the trespassers, for this bit of country belonged
to Telowie, and Dick Stanton was only doing as others did when he sent
out his horse to a picked bit of sweet grass in order to fit her for the
coming race. She might have been drinking water