scramble round them the best way we could.

When we got nearly up to the head of the gully--and great work it was
to force the footsore cattle along, as we couldn't use our whips
overmuch--Jim called out--

'Why, here comes old Crib. Who'd have thought he'd have seen the track?
Well done, old man. Now we're right.'

Father never took any notice of the poor brute as he came limping along
the stones. Woman or child, horse or dog, it's the same old thing--the
more any creature loves a man in this world the worse they're treated.
It looks like it, at any rate. I saw how it was; father had given Crib
a cruel beating the night before, when he was put out for some trifling
matter, and the dog had left him and run home. But now he had thought
better of it, and seen our tracks and come to work and slave, with his
bleeding feet--for they were cut all to pieces--and got the whip across
his back now and then for his pains. It's a queer world!

When we got right to the top of this confounded gully, nearly dead-beat
all of us, and only for the dog heeling them up every now and then, and
making his teeth nearly meet in them, without a whimper, I believe the
cattle would have charged back and beat us. There was a sort of rough
table-land--scrubby and stony and thick it was, but still the grass
wasn't bad in summer, when the country below was all dried up. There
were wild horses in troops there, and a few wild cattle, so Jim and I
knew the place well; but it was too far and too much of a journey for
our own horses to go often.

'Do you see that sugar-loaf hill with the bald top, across the range?'
said father, riding up just then, as we were taking it easy a little.
'Don't let the cattle straggle, and make straight for that.'

'Why, it's miles away,' said Jim, looking rather dismal. 'We could never
get 'em there.'

'We're not going there, stupid,' says father; 'that's only the line to
keep. I'll show you something about dinner-time that'll open your eyes a
bit.'

Poor Jim brightened up at the mention of dinner-time, for, boylike, he
was getting very hungry, and as he wasn't done growing he had no end of
an appetite. I was hungry enough for the matter of that, but I wouldn't
own to it.

'Well, we shall come to somewhere, I suppose,' says Jim, when father was
gone. 'Blest if I didn't think he was going to keep us wandering in
this blessed Nulla Mountain all day. I wish I'd never seen the blessed
cattle. I was only waiting for