Out to gather in a fresh mob of cattle for the sake
of two bullocks. "Just as I was settling down to celebrate Sunday, too,"
Dan growled, as he and Jack rode out of camp.
Forty years out-bush had not been enough to stamp generations of
Sabbath-keeping out of Dan's blood, although he was not particular which
day of the week was set apart for his Sabbath. "Two in a fortnight" was
all he worried about.
Fortune favouring the musterers, by midday all was peace and order; the
drovers, placid and contented, had retired to their tents once more,
reprieved from taking delivery for another day and night, and after
dinner, as the "boys" tailed the bullocks and mixed cattle on the
outskirts of the camp, to graze them, we settled down to "celebrate our
Sabbath" by resting in the warm, dry shade.
Here and there upon the grassy incline that stretched between the camp
and the Yellow Hole, we settled down each according to his taste; Dan
with his back against a tree trunk and far-reaching legs spread out
before him; the Maluka, Jak [sic], and the Dandy flat upon their backs,
with bent-back folded arms for pillows, and hats drawn over eyes to
shade them from the too dazzling sunlight; dogs, relaxed and spread out,
as near to their master as permitted, and the missus "fixed up" in an
opened-out, bent-back grassy tussock, which had thus been formed into a
luxurious armchair.
