I write, there rises a vision of a cattle-camp on an open plain,
the blue sky overhead, the long grass rustling below, the great mob of
parti-coloured cattle eddying restlessly about, thrusting at each other
with their horns; and in among the sullen half-savage animals go the
light, wiry stock-riders, horse and man working together, watchful,
quick, and resolute.

A white steer is wanted that is right in the throng. Way!--make way! and
horse and rider edge into the restless sea of cattle, the man with his
eye fixed on the selected animal, the horse, glancing eagerly about him,
trying to discover which is the wanted one. The press divides and the
white steer scuttles along the edge of the mob trying to force his way
in again. Suddenly he and two or three others are momentarily eddied out
to the outskirts of the mob, and in that second the stockman dashes his
horse between them and the main body. The lumbering beasts rush hither
and thither in a vain attempt to return to their comrades. Those not
wanted are allowed to return, but the white steer finds, to his
dismay, that wherever he turns that horse and man and dreaded whip are
confronting him. He doubles and dodges and makes feints to charge,
but the horse anticipates every movement and wheels quicker than the
bullock. At last the white steer sees the outlying mob he is required to
join, and trots off to them quite happy, while horse and rider return to
cut out another.

It is a pretty exhibition of skill and intelligence, doubly pleasant to
watch because of the undoubted interest that the horses take in it. Big,
stupid creatures that they are, cursed with highly-strung nerves, and
blessed with little sense, they are pathetically anxious to do such
work as they can understand. So they go into the cutting-out camp with a
zest, and toil all day edging lumbering bullocks out of the mob, but as
soon as a bad rider gets on them and begins to haul their mouths about,
their nerves overcome them, and they get awkward and frightened. A horse
that is a crack camp-horse in one man's hands may be a hopeless brute in
the hands of another.

WHITE-WHEN-HE'S-WANTED

Buckalong was a big freehold of some 80,000 acres, belonging to an
absentee syndicate, and therefore run in most niggardly style. There was
a manager on 200 pounds a year, Sandy M'Gregor to wit--a hard-headed old
Scotchman known as "four-eyed M'Gregor", because he wore spectacles.
For assistants, he had half-a-d