Page 60 - A Little Bush Maid

"You see, the valuable sheep were in a paddock, where this gully ended. Tt
wasn’t very near the house, and no one might see the fire before every

sheep was roasted. We had only just got them. Dad had imported some
from England and some from Tasmania, and T don’t know how much they

hadn’t cost."

"Weren’t you afraid for the house as well?" asked Harry.

"No. There was a big ploughed paddock near the house; it would have

taken a tremendous fire to get over that and the orchard and garden. We
only worried about the Shropshires.

"T got the lead away, but Dad caught me up pretty soon. Between us and the
sheep paddock there were only wire fences, which he wouldn’t take Bosun

over, so he couldn’t race away from the rest of us this time.

"We might as well take it easy,’ he said, ’for all the good we can do. The

sheep nearly live in that gully.’

"All the same, we raced. The wind had gone down by now, so the fire
couldn’t travel as fast as it had done in the open ground. There was a long
slope leading down to the gully, and as we got to this we could see the

whole of the little paddock, and there wasn’t a sheep in sight. Every blessed
one was in the gully, and the fire was three-parts of the way along it!

"Roast mutton!’ T heard Dad say under his breath.

"Then we saw Norah. She came racing on Bobs to the fence of the paddock
near the head of the gully--much nearer the fire than we were. We saw her

look at the fire and into the gully, and T reckon we all knew she was
fighting with her promise to Dad about not tackling the fire. But she saw
the sheep before we could. They had run from the smoke along the gully till

they came to the head of it, where it ended with pretty steep banks all
round. By that time they were thoroughly dazed, and there they would have

stayed until they were roasted. Sheep are stupid brutes at any time, but in
smoke they’re just idiots!