Isn't
that so, Mick?"
"Yairs," said Mick. He was riding an unbroken three-year-old, and had no
time for conversation.
After a few days of "gentle exercise," Bob found himself put on to
work. He learned something of cutting out and mustering, both in cleared
country and in scrub; helped bring home young cattle to brand, and
studied at first hand the peculiar evilness of a scrub cow when
separated from her calf. They gave him jobs for himself, which
he accomplished fairly well, aided by a stock horse of superhuman
intelligence, which naturally knew far more of the work than its rider
could hope to do. Bob confided to Tommy that never had he felt so
complete a fool as when he rode forth for the first time to cut out a
bullock alone under the eyes of the experts.
"Luckily, the old mare did all the work," he said. "But I knew less
about it than I did the first time I went up alone at the flying
school!"
His teaching went on all the time. Mr. Linton and Jim were tireless in
pointing out the points of cattle, and the variations in the value of
feed on the different parts of the run, with all the details of bush
lore; and the airman's eyes, trained to observe, and backed by keen
desire to learn, picked up and retained knowledge quickly. Billabong
was, in the main, a cattle run, but Mr. Linton kept as well a flock of
high class sheep, with the usual small mob for killing for station use,
and through these a certain amount of sheep knowledge was imparted to
the new-chum.
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