skilful work as well.

The two white boys kept out of the way while scruffing was going on.
They would only have been a hindrance, so they sat together on the
stock-yard fence and looked on, never missing a twist or a turn, and
learning, learning, learning all the time.

At last all young calves had been branded and had rejoined their
mothers. There still remained about thirty unbranded steers which were
too big to scruff. One or two of them were nearly four years old, wild
creatures which had refused to be mustered year after year until now.
The ropes were brought into use for these cattle. The big cleanskins
were driven out of the branding yard into an adjoining one, and
admitted back again one by one. As soon as a beast rushed through the
gate a green-hide lasso was thrown. The loop fell over its horns or
neck. Four or five strong niggers were holding the end of the lasso
outside the yard, and they pulled the captured animal up to the rails.
Front and back leg ropes were flung on and hitched round posts, and the
beast fell helplessly in the sand. After a couple had been done in
this way, Dan Collins signalled to the white boys to lend a hand.
Their job sounded simple, but it needed all their strength and
watchfulness to do it properly. If they failed at any point, the
prostrate animal would be free, and the work would have to be done all
over again.

The cleanskin was lassoed and pulled to the rails, the leg ropes were
fixed and hitched, and then the front rope was handed to Sax and the
back one to Vaughan. They had to hang on and keep the ropes tight;
that was all, but only those who have worked in stock-yards, hour after
hour, know how difficult such an apparently simple task really is.

The work went on. The hard green-hide ropes blistered the unaccustomed
hands of the new-chum white boys, but they set their teeth and held on.
Beast after beast fell with a bellowing roar, the red-hot T.D.3 was
pressed on its near-side shoulder till the mark was seared right into
the skin, so that it could never wear out. Then the ropes were pulled
off and the dazed animal scrambled to its feet and was hustled out of
the yard, while another one was being caught and thrown.

A big roan-coloured steer was being saved till last. He was a fully
matured animal, very powerful and wild. His bellow had been heard all
night, and he had been more difficult to draft than any other animal in
the yards. Everybody was lookin