his old bay full-extended. His spurs dripped blood, and his bitten lip was blood-spotted. On the brink the red piker pulled up with a jerk and a bellow that broke to a scream as the mob behind swamped him and pitched over with him.
On the hill-side Scott was left in charge of ninety head, whilst six men tore down the spur, slung their reins to the scrub on the rim, and went over to the cold dusk made awful by the rage of mad brutes in the hand of death. For a full hour they strove in the slippery rock-bottoms; giving the keen knife to those beyond help, gentling and beating the rest up to the gathering night on the ranges. Then came the wet saddles again, and the fierce alert ringing and wheeling and flogging that brought all at last to the jaws of the paddocks far down on the flat. Jimmie said once to Douglas:
“I — I couldn’t help it.” And Douglas made answer:
“You’ll have the chanst to say that to-night, I reckon. Git down to your work now.”
Scannell’s boys knew how to give and how to take. They usually did both crisply; rounding off the episode, and casting it behind them as a thing past. But first was the day’s work to hold up to the end; and the boys were saddle-stiff and weary and sweating before the gates swung close and the last weaner cried inside the bars.
