hauled into the bail, propped up to prevent her throwing
herself down, and milked by sheer brute-force. After a while she
steadies down and will walk into the bail, knowing her turn and behaving
like a respectable female.

Cows and calves have no idea of sound or distance. If a cow is on the
opposite side of the fence, and wishes to communicate with her calf, she
will put her head through the fence, place her mouth against his ear as
if she were going to whisper, and then utter a roar that can be heard
two miles off. It would stun a human being; but the calf thinks it over
for a moment, and then answers with a prolonged yell in the old cow's
ear. So the dialogue goes on for hours without either party dropping
dead.

There is an element of danger in dealing with cattle that makes men
smart and self-reliant and independent. Men who deal with sheep get
gloomy and morbid, and are for ever going on strike. Nobody ever heard
of a stockman's strike. The true stockrider thinks himself just as good
a man as his boss, and inasmuch as "the boss" never makes any money,
while the stockman gets his wages, the stockman may be considered as
having the better position of the two.

Sheepmen like to think that they know all about cattle, and could work
them if they chose. A Queensland drover once took a big mob from the
Gulf right down through New South Wales, selling various lots as he
went. He had to deliver some to a small sheep-man, near Braidwood, who
was buying a few hundred cattle as a spec. By the time they arrived, the
cattle had been on the road eight months, and were quiet as milkers. But
the sheep-man and his satellites came out, riding stable-fed horses
and brandishing twenty-foot whips, all determined to sell their lives
dearly. They galloped round the astonished cattle and spurred their
horses and cracked their whips, till they roused the weary mob. Then
they started to cut out the beasts they wanted. The horses rushed and
pulled, and the whips maddened the cattle, and all was turmoil and
confusion.

The Queensland drovers looked on amazed, sitting their patient leg-weary
horses they had ridden almost continuously for eight months. At last,
seeing the hash the sheep-men were making of it, the drovers set to
work, and in a little while, without a shout, or crack of a whip, had
cut out the required number. These the head drover delivered to the
buyer, simply remarking, "Many's the time _you_ never cut-out cattle."

As