stumbling, exhausted and lame, through the snow-grass. “It’s illigant hayros we are an’ all not to be runnin’ from the work cut out on us wid our tails down betune our legs—more be chance that Ted wud be afther us wid the big fisht of him, too.”
“’Twouldn’t hev taken him long ter hev catched me,” said Steve, going by with his waistcoat strapped round his bare foot by flax-withes. “Is that Buck wi’ the tents over by the whare, or is it the top of the Dome come down for an airin’?”
It was the tents glimmering like moths on the dark, and Buck came from the sod hut at the shout, leaving three billies sputtering on the leaping flames, and a damped turning black in the ashes. With the fear of all things in his mouth he cast himself upon the van, demanding how many were killed in the slip, how many sheep they had brought down, how many hours———
Here Mogger took him by the collar.
“Rouse up all the feed an’ drink yer kin fin’ while we gits the sheep inter the gully,” he said. “An’ jes’ be rememberin’ as we wants fillin’ from our toe-nails up ter our back-teeth.”
The gully-mouth was stoppered by tied dogs, spent and foot-sore, but unconquered yet. Then the boys stormed the whare; stripping their soaked clothes to the heat, and singing the song of the Homeward Bound when the
