I hadn't time to tell you that I'd sacked those men half an hour before.

Found them in the lowest of the grog shanties, their horses not looked after, dray only half loaded, and the three of them--Gumsucker Steve was to have come and taken off our leaders when we got into broken country--thick with the Union delegates and sticking for higher wages.

I paid them off and filled their places on the spot with two chaps off a wool-drive....

So I left the brutes vowing vengeance, and I suppose they thought they'd lose no time in giving me a taste of it....

Well, they're no loss.' He had been explaining things in jerks while he brought the team to an harmonious jog-trot along a piece of uneven road.