Look out,"
until Dan's revolver rang out above the din.
Jack turned at the shot and saw the bulls, but too late. Right through
his mob they galloped, splitting it up into fragments, and in a moment
pack-horses, cattle, riders, bulls, were part of a surging, galloping
mass - boys galloping after bulls, and bulls after boys, and the white
folk after anything and everything, peppering bulls with revolver-shots
(stock-whip having no effect), shouting orders, and striving their utmost
to hold the mob; pack and loose horses galloping and kicking as they
freed themselves from the hubbub; and the missus scurrying here and there
on the outskirts of the melee, dodging behind bushes and scrub in her
anxiety to avoid both bulls and revolver-shots. Ennui forsooth! Never
was a woman farther from death by ennui.
Finally the horses gathered themselves together in the friendly shelter
of some scrub, and as the woman sought safety among them, the Maluka's
rifle rang out, and a charging bull went down before it. Then out of the
thick of the uproar Sambo came full gallop, with a bull at his horse's
heels, and Dan full gallop behind the bull, bringing his rifle to his
shoulder as he galloped, and as all three galloped madly on Dan fired, and
the bull pitching blindly forward, Sambo wheeled, and he and Dan galloped
back to the mob to meet another charging outlaw and deal with it.
Then in quick succession from all sides of the mob bulls darted out with
riders at THEIR heels, or riders shot forward with bulls at their heels,
until the mob looked like a great spoked wheel revolving on its own axis.
Bull after bull went down before the rifles, old Roper, with the Maluka
riding him, standing like a rock under fire; and then, just as the mob
was quieting down, a wild scrub cow with a half-grown calf at her heels
shot out of the mob and headed straight for the pack team, Dan galloping
beside her and cracking thunderclaps out of a stock-whip.
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