never the draught horse's knees gave way and he stumbled
forward, he jerked the lighter horse back into the plough, and something
would break. Then Tom would blaspheme till he was refreshed, mend up
things with wire and bits of clothes-line, fill his pockets with stones
to throw at the team, and start again. Finally he hired a dummy's child
to drive the horses. The brat did his best he tugged at the head of the
team, prodded it behind, heaved rocks at it, cut a sapling, got up his
enthusiasm, and wildly whacked the light horse whenever the other showed
signs of moving--but he never succeeded in starting both horses at one
and the same time. Moreover the youth was cheeky, and the selector's
temper had been soured: he cursed the boy along with the horses, the
plough, the selection, the squatter, and Australia. Yes, he cursed
Australia. The boy cursed back, was chastised, and immediately went home
and brought his father.

Then the dummy's dog tackled the selector's dog and this precipitated
things. The dummy would have gone under had his wife not arrived on the
scene with the eldest son and the rest of the family. They all fell foul
of Tom. The woman was the worst. The selector's dog chawed the other and
came to his master's rescue just in time---or Tom Hopkins would never
have lived to become the inmate of a lunatic asylum.

Next year there happened to be good grass on Tom's selection and nowhere
else, and he thought it wouldn't be a bad idea--to get a few poor
sheep, and fatten them up for market: sheep were selling for about
seven-and-sixpence a dozen at that time. Tom got a hundred or two, but
the squatter had a man stationed at one side of the selection with dogs
to set on the sheep directly they put their noses through the fence
(Tom's was not a sheep fence). The dogs chased the sheep across the
selection and into the run again on the other side, where another man
waited ready to pound them.

Tom's dog did his best; but he fell sick while chawing up the fourth
capitalistic canine, and subsequently died. The dummies had robbed that
cur with poison before starting it across--that was the only way they
could get at Tom's dog.

Tom thought that two might play at the game, and he tried; but his
nephew, who happened to be up from the city on a visit, was arrested
at the instigation of the squatter for alleged sheep-stealing, and
sentenced to two years' hard; during which time the selector himself got
six months for ass