f calves won't have any hoofs either, if there's much more
of this.'

'They're drawing faster now. The leading cattle are beginning to run.
We're at the end of the drive.'

So it was. The deep, rocky gully gradually widened into an open and
pretty smooth flat; this, again, into a splendid little plain, up to
the knees in grass; a big natural park, closed round on every side with
sandstone rockwalls, as upright as if they were built, and a couple of
thousand feet above the place where we stood.

This scrub country was crossed by two good creeks; it was several miles
across, and a trifle more in length. Our hungry weaners spread out and
began to feed, without a notion of their mothers they'd left behind; but
they were not the only ones there. We could see other mobs of cattle,
some near, some farther off; horses, too; and the well-worn track in
several ways showed that this was no new grazing ground.

Father came riding back quite comfortable and hearty-like for him.

'Welcome to Terrible Hollow, lads,' says he. 'You're the youngest chaps
it has ever been shown to, and if I didn't know you were the right
stuff, you'd never have seen it, though you're my own flesh and blood.
Jump off, and let your horses go. They can't get away, even if they
tried; they don't look much like that.'

Our poor nags were something like the cattle, pretty hungry and stiff.
They put their heads down to the thick green grass, and went in at it
with a will.

'Bring your saddles along with you,' father said, 'and come after me.
I'll show you a good camping place. You deserve a treat after last
night's work.'

We turned back towards the rocky wall, near to where we had come in, and
there, behind a bush and a big piece of sandstone that had fallen
down, was the entrance to a cave. The walls of it were quite clean and
white-looking, the floor was smooth, and the roof was pretty high, well
blackened with smoke, too, from the fires which had been lighted in it
for many a year gone by.

A kind of natural cellar had been made by scooping out the soft
sandstone behind a ledge. From this father took a bag of flour and
corn-meal. We very soon made some cakes in the pan, that tasted well,
I can tell you. Tea and sugar too, and quart pots, some bacon in a
flour-bag; and that rasher fried in the pan was the sweetest meat I ever
ate in all my born days.

Then father brought out a keg and poured some rum into a pint pot. He
took a pretty stiff pull,