quart pots, range them in a row where they
will boil soonest, set our saddles and saddle-
cloths to dry, and pick the softest and smoothest
places we can find, to windward of the fire,
to lie upon.  A handful of tea is thrown into
each quart as it boils, and supper commences;
salt beef and damper disappearing with much
rapidity.  The water for tea is thick with
clay, the beef is hard and salt, but we enjoy
our supper vastly, and are silent during its
consumption, after the manner of hungry men.
Then, pipes are lighted, and yarns are spun,
about the marvellous performances of certain
stock-horses in "cutting out" cattle, or
running wild mobs; about wonderful bargains in
horse-flesh, or knowing devices for
circumventing rival drovers.  The black boys, at a little
fire of their own, are crooning their monstrous
corroborry songs, or shouting with laughter at
some aboriginal joke, the point of which no
white man ever could make out.  A supply of
firewood being collected, the horses looked at,
a bell attached to one or two of them, and their
hobbles shortened, very soon every one is asleep,
each man with his head in his saddle, his feet
to the fire, and his blanket drawn over his face.
Now and then, some one wakes and listens.
The bush is very silent at night, and the horse-
bell can be heard a long way off; the only sound
breaking the stillness, excepting perhaps the
unearthly wailing howl of a wild dog, or the
cuckoo-note of a mopoke owl.  Towards
morning, when the night is darkest, and every one
else in their soundest sleep, our energetic
friend, F., whose cattle we are gathering,
wakes up; he notices that the eastern stars are
becoming pale, and hears the twittering of an
early bird, or the scream of a cockatoo.  He
knows by these signs and tokens that daylight
is not far off; so he pulls on his boots, throws
some wood on the fire, and sings out the bush
réveillé", "Now then, lads, turn out here; don't
let the sun burn your eyes out!"  Thus adjured,
the white men arise and light their pipes,
yawning and warming themselves at the sparkling fire.
Then the quart pots are refilled for breakfast,
the black boys are roused out, and the
appearance of a red streak in the east is hailed by a
chorus of croaks from the crows, and an insane
cachinnation from a pair of laughing jackasses
located in the trees near us.  We swallow our
breakfast in haste, and are off, bridles in hand,
to find our horses.  It is still dim twilight, but
we know in what direction to seek them, and
soon hear the bell and clink of hobble-chains;
as the light brightens, we see them scattered
over the plain in twos and threes, some of them
a mile or more away; that notorious old rogue,
"Rocket," comes jumping along towards his
home at a wonderful pace, in spite of his short
hobbles, and followed by all the "up-the-river"
nags.  Archie starts after him, on the first horse
he can catch, and soon brings him cantering
back to camp.

By the time the red sun has shown his fiery face
over the rim of the horizon, we are all mounted
and ready, the spare horses are consigned
to a black boy, to be driven loose to the
rendezvous, and our general, F, divides his forces,
and instructs his lieutenants.  "Bill, you take
three or four with you, and ride down the plains
until you sight the lake timber; start all the
cattle you see to your right, and send some one
after them to see that they don't run to the
Red Hill.  You fetch the cattle from the scrubs,
and don't let them gallop more than you can
help."  I am sent in another direction, with
Archie and Jim, to the Abecrombie and
Wantigong, for the bullocks and cows that there do
congregate.  F. rides away eastward with the
black boys, to sweep together all the cattle that
feed in that direction.  Old Warry, the stock-
horse, with F.'s red blanket strapped across his
back, jogs off towards the rendezvous, followed
in a string by the rest of our spare stud, whose
services will be required later in the day.  The
old horse knows his way to every camp on the
run, and is supposed to be a very fair judge of a
bullock.  Arrived at the bald red sand-hill, worn
bare by thousands of hoofs, and scattered with
the white skeletons of many defunct bullocks,
which is the gathering-place for the many groups
(or mobs) of cattle, he can see, shining white in
the morning sun, for miles around.  Billy-go-
Nimble, the black boy, succeeds, by dint of much
tact and contrivance, in catching most of his
equine charges, taking off their packs, and
hobbling them.

As the sun mounts higher, and the grey line
of the distant river timber disappears in his
glare, white moving clouds of dust begin to
arise all around the horizon, merging into one
another, and approaching the place where Billy
sits smoking his pipe and watching the grazing
horses.  Soon the galloping cattle themselves
become visible, as they stop and assemble for a
moment on the top of some sand-hill in their
course.  Presently the strong leading bullocks,
with dusty faces and tongues hanging out, trot
on to the camp, and stand there panting, well
pleased to arrive at, what they seem to consider,
a haven of refuge.  They are followed by a long
string of horned beasts of every age, sex, and
colour, the rear being brought up by a bevy of
matronly old cows, their young calves
staggering along beside them. Behind all, and riding
in a cloud of dust, from which issue from time
to time the reports of their long heavy whips,
come some of the men who left us in the
morning, their horses white with dust and sweat.
From every quarter, more and more cattle stream
on to the camp; the dust raised by the hoofs of
a couple of thousand of half-wild cattle, flies in
clouds; and the noise of bellowing becomes
almost deafening.  All our party having
reassembled, we let our tired horses go, and catch
and saddle the fresh ones.  The work of
drafting out the cattle we want, to take home to the
station, fat bullocks and cows for market, calves
that require branding, and stock strayed from
other "runs" has now to begin; and for it we
have reserved the seasoned stock-horses, old
stagers that know their work, and are used to
"cutting out."   "We send men to ride round the