As Jim said, it wouldn’t do to let the cattle out again. If calves are weaned, and have only one brand on, it is very hard for any man to swear that they are not the property of the man to whom that brand belongs. He may believe them to be his, but may never have seen them in his life; and if he has seen them on a camp or on the run, it’s very hard to swear to any one particular red or spotted calf as you would to a horse.

The great dart is to keep the young stock away from their mothers until they forget one another, and then most of the danger is past. But if calves with one man’s brand on are seen sucking another man’s cows, it is pretty plain that the brand on the calves has been put on without the consent of the owner of the cows which is cattle-stealing; a felony, according to the Act 7 and 8 George IV., No. 29, punishable with three years’ imprisonment, with labour on the roads of the colony or other place, as the Judge may direct.

There’s a lot of law! How did I learn it? I had plenty of time in Berrima Gaol—worse luck—my first stretch. But it was after I’d done the foolishness, and not before.

CHAPTER V

“Now then, you boys!” says father, coming up all of a sudden like, and bringing out his words as if it was old times with us, when we didn’t know whether he’d hit first and talk afterwards, or the other way on, “get out the lot we’ve just branded, and drive ‘em straight for that peak, where the water shines dripping over the stones, right again the sun, and look slippy; we’re burning daylight, and these cows are making row enough, blast ‘em! to be heard all the way to Banda. I’ll go on and steady the lead; you keep ‘em close up to me.”

Father mounted the old mare. The dog stopped behind; he knew he’d have to mind the tail—that is the hindmost cattle—and stop ‘em from breaking or running clear away from the others. We threw down the rails. Away the cattle rushed out, all in a long string. You’d ‘a thought no mortal men could ‘a kept ‘em in that blind hole of a place. But father headed ‘em, and turned ‘em towards the peak. The dog worried those that wanted to stay by the yard or turn another way. We dropped our whip on ‘em and kept ‘em going. In five minutes they were all a-moving along in one mob at a pretty sharpish trot like a lot of store cattle. Father knew his way about, whether the country was thick or open. It was all as one to him. What a slashing stockman he would have made in new country, if he only could have kept straight.

It took us an hour’s hard dinkum to get near the peak. Sometimes it was awful rocky, as well as scrubby, and the poor devils of cattle got as sore-footed as babies—blood up to the knee, some of ‘em; but we crowded ‘em on; there was no help for it.