Just for the first moment or two Pip felt a little disinclined to quit the stronghold of his horse’s back.  The thunder of hoofs and horns, the wild charges made by the desperate animals against the fence, made him expect to see it come crashing down every minute.

But everybody else had gone to “cockatoo”—­to sit on the top rail of the enclosure and look down at the maddened creatures, so at length he fastened his bridle to a tree and proceeded gingerly to follow their example.

At a sudden signal from Mr. Hassal the men dropped down inside, half along, one side and half the other.  The object was to get a hundred or two of the cattle into the forcing-yard adjoining, the gate to which was wide open.  Pip marvelled at the courage of the men; for a moment his heart had leaped to his mouth as bullock after bullock essayed to charge them, but the air resounded with cracks from the mighty stock whips and drafting-sticks, and beast after beast retreated towards the centre with its face dripping with blood.

Then one huge black creature, with a bellow that seemed to shake the plain, made a wild rush to the gate, the whole herd at his heels.  Like lightning, the men made a line behind, shouting, yelling, cracking their whips to drive them onward.  Pip stood up and halloed, absolutely beside himself with excitement.  Then he held his breath again.

Mr. Hassal and one of the black boys were creeping cautiously up near the gateway through which the tumultuous stream of horns and backs was pouring.  Half a dozen mighty blows from the men, and the last leader fell back for an instant, driving the multitude back behind him.

In that second the two had slipped up the rails and the herd was in two divisions.

Two lines of stockmen again, whip-crackings, bellows, blood, horns, hide and heels in the air, and some forty or fifty were secure in a third yard, a long narrow place with a gate at the end leading into the final division.

Pip learnt from Mr. Gillet the object of these divisions:  some of the beasts were almost worthless things, and had been assigned to a buyer for a couple of pounds a head, just for the horns, hides, and what might be got for the flesh.  Others were prime, fat creatures, ready for the butcher and Sydney market.  And others again were splendid animals, of great value for prize and breeding purposes, and were to be made into a separate draft.

The man at the last gateway was doing the all important work of selecting.  He was armed with a short thick stick, and, as the other men drove the animals down towards him, decided with lightning speed to which class they belonged.  A heavy blow on the nose, a sharp, rapid series of them between the eyes, and the most violent brute plunged blindly whither the driver sent him.  All the day work went on, and just as the great hot purple shadows began to fall across the plain they secured the last rail, the battle was over, and the animals in approved divisions.