s
was his home, the land of his father, the place where perhaps he had
been actually born. The magic of the desert night bewitched him; the
half-moon, the few stars in the pale sky, the sense of limitless space
across the sand, the water-hole and the camped cattle, the quavering
voice of the chanting nigger which was now joined by another voice,
wilder and more exultant--these things and the consciousness that his
father was somewhere near, guarded by these mysterious desert forces
and desert men--thrilled him, and when he stood up again and walked
over to his swag, he knew in a way that he had never known before that
the blood of the North was in his veins, and that he was the descendant
of a race of heroes--the Australian bushmen.

The cattle were quiet all night. Mick was an old stockman and had
given strict orders to his boys not to hurry the cattle, so that they
arrived at the water-hole almost in the same mood as they would have
done if they had come for a drink of their own accord. They were on
their own country also, and there was not a strange stick or stone or
tree to frighten them. Cattle very seldom rush at night when they are
on their own feeding-grounds, and though Mick took no chances, and
double-watched them all night, he did not expect anything unpleasant to
happen. "It's better to be sure than sorry," he told the boys at
breakfast.

Immediately the meal was over they started to "handle the cattle".
That was Mick's way of expressing it, and, indeed, at one part of the
proceedings the cattle were actually "handled". But before they
reached that stage many things had to be done. Each man was mounted on
the best horse possible, and the party rode down the hill to the
water-hole, spreading out like a fan, and slowly working the cattle
away from the water till they were on an open plain about a quarter of
a mile away.

Now came one of the most difficult things that a stockman ever has to
do. It is called "cutting out". Man and horse have to be of the very
best to perform this feat properly or else the whole operation results
in confusion. Mick was mustering the north of Sidcotinga run in order
to brand all cleanskins, and there were probably not more than a
hundred unbranded cattle in that mob of nearly half a thousand. Most
of these were calves which were still running with their mothers,
though there was a sprinkling of larger stock which had been missed the
year before. The first job was t