Rejecting chosen bullocks,
recalling rejected bullocks, and comparing every bullock accepted with
every bullock rejected. Bulk was what they searched for - plenty for
their money, as they judged it, and finally gathered together a mob of
coarse, wide-horned, great-framed beasts, rolling in fat that would drip
off on the road as they travelled in.
"You'd think they'd got 'em together for a boiling-down establishment,
with a bone factory for a side line," Dan chuckled, secretly pleased that
our best bullocks were left on the run, and, disbanding the rejected
bullocks before "they" could "change their minds again," he gathered
together the mixed cattle and shut them in the Dandy's new yard, to keep
them in hand for later branding.
But the "little Chinese darlings" had counted on the use of that yard for
themselves, and finding that their bullocks would have to be "watched" on
camp that night, they stolidly refused to take delivery before morning,
pointing out that should the cattle stampede during the night, the loss
would be ours, not theirs.
"Well, I'm blowed!" Dan chuckled, but the Maluka cared little whether the
papers were signed then or at sun-up; and the drovers, pleased with
getting their way so easily, magnanimously offered to take charge of the
first "watch" - the evening watch - provided that only our horses should be
used, and that Big Jack and Jackeroo and others should lend a hand.
