full-speed into the great butt at his elbow, forty pounds worth of bullocks would go—twice that, and perhaps more. For this was Purdey’s best team, and Purdey was a hard man. Without any doubt Lou would disappear before payment was called, and Maiden——— The thoughts ran with the swiftness of a mainspring unloosed. Then the message of the bush went home. Steve jumped for his team, cut the whip on the rumps, on the quivering flanks, on the nozzles that dripped and blew wide with terror. The log canted and groaned as the brutes sprang; swayed to a clumsy trot; to a canter, and blundered down the steep grade with the grip live-leaping behind. Steve half-swung to the yoke, grimly beating a laggard about the head.
“Ten ter one he’ll git pinched ef they strike—comin’ that pace, too. He must be holdin’ ter ’em. Gosh! He kin swear!”
The off-leader pecked, and Steve’s whip snarled under the wrist-work that had peeled skin in straight lines from more than one bolting piker. The sidling was greasy in clay. Now again it was corduroy that jarred Steve’s spine, and rough-rolling stones giving no foothold. Steve’s breath came in groans, and sweat ran down his face. Yet—because of that something in man which forces him to be true against his will—he flung all power of body and mind to his labour.
