Chapter XI
Mains was mustering for shearing, and only the man who has tramped a month through on a hundred-thousand-acre hill-run begins to understand what that means. And his explanations, though entirely vivid, are not always clear to the lay mind. It was Ted Douglas alone who knew absolutely the value of the work done and to do, and who drove the boys through the days on a straight bit, with a special wire-whip for the man who balked.
Through cold days and hot muggy days, and days of sudden tempers of sleet on the bare tops, and days of close-wrapping fog that made distance very blind and foothold unstable, and that brought clinging wet to soak each man to the chilled skin. And by the long hours that began and ended under the stars that stern mother that bred them tested and tortured and tempted them, and the slow brown mobs drew in to the low country and the gaping yards on the homestead block.
Moody said openly that Ted Douglas was a devil this muster. For he had no mercy where country was bad and sheep were slug-
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