A sweltering summer’s afternoon. A heat that curled and withered the very weeds. The corn-blades drooping, sulking still. Mother and Sal ironing, mopping their faces with a towel and telling each other how hot it was. The dog stretched across the doorway. A child’s bonnet on the floor — the child out in the sun. Two horsemen approaching the slip-rails.

Dad had gone down the gully to Farmer, who had been sick for four days. The ploughing was at a standstill in consequence, for we had only two draught-horses. Dad erected a shelter over him, made of boughs, to keep the sun off. Two or three times a day he cut greenstuff for him — which the cows ate. He humped water to him which he sullenly refused to drink; and did all in his power to persuade Farmer to get up and go on with the ploughing. I don’t know if Dad knew anything of mesmerism, but he used to stand for long intervals dumbly staring the old horse full in the eyes till in a commanding voice he would bid him, “Get up!” But Farmer lacked the patriotism of the back-block poets. He was obdurate, and not once did he “awake,” not to mention “arise”.

This afternoon, as Dad approached his dumb patient, he suddenly put down the bucket of water which he was carrying and ran, shouting angrily. A flock of crows flew away from Farmer and “cawed” from a tree close by. Dad was excited, and when he saw that one of the animal’s eyes was gone and a stream of blood trickled over its nose he sat down and hid his face in his big rough hands.

“CAW, CAW!” came from the tree.

Dad rose and looked up.

“CURSE you!” he hissed —“you black wretches of hell!”

“CAW, CAW, CAW”

He ran towards the tree as though he would hurl it to the ground, and away flew the crows.

Joe arrived.

“W-w-wuz they at him, Dad?”

Dad turned on him, trembling with rage.

“Oh, YOU son of the Devil!” he commenced. “YOU worthless pup, you! Look there! Do you see that?” (He pointed to the horse.) “Didn’t I tell you to mind him? Did n’—”

“Yes,” snivelled Joe; “but Anderson’s dog had a k-k-k-angaroo bailed up.”

“DAMN you, be off out of this!” And Dad aimed a block of wood at Joe which struck him on the back as he made away. But nothing short of two broken legs would stop Joe, who the next instant had dashed among the corn like an emu into a scrub.

Dad returned to the house, foaming and vowing to take the gun and shoot Joe down like a wallaby. But when he saw two horses hanging up he hesitated and would have gone away again had Mother not called out that he was wanted. He went in reluctantly.

Red Donovan and his son, Mick, were there. Donovan was the publican, butcher, and horse-dealer at the Overhaul. He was reputed to be well-in, though some said that if everybody had their own he wouldn’t be worth much. He was a glib-tongued Irishman who knew everything — or fondly imagined he did — from the law to horse-surgery. There was money to be made out of selections, he reckoned, if selectors only knew how to make it — the majority, he proclaimed, didn’t know enough to get under a tree when it rained. As a dealer, he was a hard nut, never giving more than a “tenner” for a twenty pound beast, or selling a ten pound one for less than twenty pounds. And few knew Donovan better than did Dad, or had been taken in by him oftener; but on this occasion Dad was in no easy or benevolent frame of mind.

He sat down, and they talked of crops and the weather, and beat about the bush until Donovan said:

“Have you any fat steers to sell?”

Dad hadn’t. “But,” he added, “I can sell you a horse.”

“Which one?” asked Donovan, for he knew the horses as well as Dad did — perhaps better.

“The bay — Farmer.”

“How much?”

“Seven pounds.” Now, Farmer was worth fourteen pounds, if worth a shilling — that is, before he took sick — and Donovan knew it well.

“Seven,” he repeated ponderingly. “Give you six.”

Never before did Dad show himself such an expert in dissimulation. He shook his head knowingly, and enquired of Donovan if he would take the horse for nothing.

“Split the difference, then — make it six-ten?”

Dad rose and looked out the window.

“There he is now,” he remarked sadly, “in the gully there.”

“Well, what’s it to be — six-ten or nothing?” renewed Donovan.

“All right, then,” Dad replied, demurely, “take him!”

The money was paid there and then and receipts drawn up. Then, saying that Mick would come for the horse on the day following, and after offering a little gratuitous advice on seed-wheat and pig-sticking, the Donovans left.

Mick came the next day, and Dad showed him Farmer, under the bushes. He wasn’t dead, because when Joe sat on him he moved. “There he is,” said Dad, grinning.

Mick remained seated on his horse, bewildered-looking, staring first at Farmer, then at Dad.

“Well?” Dad remarked, still grinning. Then Mick spoke feelingly.

&ld............