A couple of inches shorter, Jack Windsor was the heavier man. Bob’s activity gave him the chance of escape from two falls, one of which nearly finished the fray; but he failed to come so well away from a right-handed feint, which occasioned his catching finally a terrific left-hander, sending him down so decisively that he saw no particular use in coming to time. ‘I suppose I may as well give you best,’ he said, rising with some difficulty and showing an apparently fatally ensanguined countenance; ‘I didn’t begin except for a bit of chaff. It’s making a darned fuss about a —— new chum.’ With this Parthian shaft he departed, to be in readiness for the flock when cut off; while Jack Windsor amused himself whistling softly. Before he replaced his shirt he said, ‘Now, look here, boys; we don’t want to interfere with anybody, but this gentleman here is my master for the time, and any one who wants to take the change out of him will have to come to me first.’ ‘All right,’ said one of the crowd; ‘it won’t do Bouncing Bob any harm to get a floorer or two, he’s only being paid for many a dab he’s given himself.’ Just at this moment a great clatter of bells was heard, and the overseer rode in at a gallop on a barebacked steed, with all the camp horses before him. ‘Now, look alive, men, and get your sheep out. Don’t be sticking in this camp all day. Hallo! What’s the row about?’ ‘Nothing much, sir,’ returned Windsor respectfully; ‘me and that long chap they call Bob had a bit of an argument; he began it, and he’s got a black eye or two. I don’t suppose there’ll be any more of it.’ ‘Well, take care there is not, or I shall have to sack the pair of you. Quite enough to do without fighting now. Get away with your sheep, like good fellows. The carts can follow.’ A section of about the required number having been made at the time by a line of men getting behind the leading sheep and driving them forcibly forward, at the same time preventing them (if possible) from running back to the still larger lot, Jack signed to Mr. Neuchamp, and putting the dog Watch at their heels, who aided them vociferously, they found themselves in possession of eighteen or nineteen hundred sheep, which they drove for some distance at right angles to the road. ‘Now what we’ve got to do, sir,’ said Jack, ‘is to keep quietly behind these sheep all day. We must not go more than half a mile away from the road, or we’ll be ‘pounded. We can’t follow the flock in front very close or let the one behind get too near us, or we shall get boxed.’ ‘What do you mean by boxed?’ demanded Ernest. ‘Well, mixed up. You see, sir, sheep’s very fond of keeping all together. It’s their nature. If they get any way close they begin to run, the front to the back and the back to the front, and all the men and dogs in the world wouldn’t keep ’em apart.’ ‘And what harm would that be?’