the whole bulk took the slope together in a grand wild break that stirred Scannell’s blood.
By the yards Jimmie’s fires burnt blue in the sunlight. The branding-muster was heavy work on Mains, with three sets of irons going at once, and the scrub-land to clean up when all was done. The wings of the yard stretched wide, high, and unbending. Unthinkingly Scannell’s fingers closed for a short whip-handle that was not there. Then he pulled his cob back, and the taste of his years was insipid on the tongue, for there was no salt left in them.
The very air sang with life and wide sound, and the smell of new blood, and sweat and cow-breath. Conlon was mad with the delight of it, and Ted Douglas turned reckless Tod from certain death by a well-delivered cut on his mare’s quarter. The quickness of eye and limb on a foot-ball field falls before the swift craft of the stockman. Scannell drew in his breath as he saw the boys handle the run, blocking them, ringing them, wheeling them ever nearer and nearer with swaying bodies and lashes that spun dripping red in the light, and cunning horses that raced and swung to the knee-grip.
An angry mother chased Moody thrice round the yards. He brought her back with some sleeve and flesh gone, and rode in the first
