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And now the joy of the game of dawn was great, for selection came in and the skill of the game. To-day I wanted Mischief and Black Jack and the grey mare. So as I galloped, still with swinging and reverberating whip, I edged up and put my knees into Beeswing. As she answered and sprang forward, with a rush I was within whip length of Mischief and Tom, with Mischief on the outside. One flick of the lash and the mare outpaced Tom, leaving him last of the seven. Had I edged up outside of him Beeswing might have doubted whether I wanted him or not, but I sent her up on his near side, and when I flicked him he plunged back and out and she let him go. There were six to deal with, though he came after us whinnying; yet not being urged he presently stayed, and then I shot forward again and cut off two that I did not want, and now among the four there was but one I wished to leave behind. They were well aware that one or more of them was not to work to-day, for I still hung upon them with some eager discrimination. They knew the final shout of victory as well as I who sent it up. But Lachlan, the horse I wished to leave, was the fastest of the four and kept ahead. So I ran them hard for a quarter of a mile and then edged out a little, and slowed down till they slowed and left a space betwixt the three and Lachlan. I suddenly spoke to Beeswing and shook her up till she came swiftly abreast of my three galloping like horses in a Roman chariot. Then left-handed I cut Lachlan in the flank, and with a swift turn Beeswing swept between him and the others. They stayed and turned while disparted Lachlan ran wildly. And now my three, being turned, ran back for the others; and Beeswing followed them like fire and came up with them, and once more turned them and sent them for home. To keep them going while the others whinnied meant urging; it meant filling their minds, occupying their attention. So once more, with a great shout, I was upon them and swung the whip, letting it fall with a crack first on this side and then on that, and now in the growing daylight the dust rose up as we galloped. And presently I saw the little “tin” house where the out-station boss lived, and the tent I shared with my chum the “rouseabout.” And as we went fast and faster (for it was morning and I was young) the sun thrust up a shoulder behind me and it was day in Australia, day in the Lachlan back-blocks. And I could see Long Clump, a patch of dwarf-box, over my shoulder as I turned loosely in the saddle to note whether the other horses still followed. I laughed at the day (for it was dawn), and yet I knew as I ran my three into the yard that ere the day was done I should have ridden sixty miles, and have mustered 20,000 sheep in Long Clump Paddock. And when I stayed outside the stock-yard and put up the slip panels and patted Beeswing on the neck the one great pleasure of the day was over. The rest was not to be accomplished in the dusk of dawn and under the morning star, but had to be wrought out in flying dust, amid the plague of flies and the fierce heat of an Austral noon, whose heat increased with the slow sun’s decline. But that swift sweet hour of the morning had been my very own. The remainder of the day belonged to the world, to duty, to the man who paid me a pound a week and “tucker” for my hands and arms and as much brains as work with sheep demanded. Yet through these hours sometimes the glory of the morning remained.