Nippers and I looked at each other in astonishment.  Of course we wanted to sign on as cattlemen.  No doubt some of the men hired at Sydney had failed to show up at the wharf.

The ship’s book was pushed before us.

“Sign here!” I signed “John Gregory” with satisfaction.  Nippers signed after, laboriously.

“And now get aft with you, you ——!” cursed the captain, dismissing us with a parting volley that beat about our ears.

“Gawd, but the skipper’s a right man enough!” worshipped Nippers.

We hurried down the ladder to gobble up what was left of the cornbeef and potatoes....  Nippers looked up at me, with a hunk of beef sticking from his mouth, which he poked in with the butt-end of his knife....  “Say, didn’t the old man cuss wonderful, and him lookin’ like such a lady!”

* * * * *

There was plenty of work to do in the few days it took to reach Brisbane, where the cattle were to be taken aboard.  The boat was an ordinary tramp steamer, and we had to make an improvised cattleboat out of her.  Already carpenters had done much to that effect by erecting enclosures on the top deck, the main deck, by putting up stalls in the hold.  Every available foot was to be packed with the living flesh of cattle.

We gave the finishing touches to the work, trying to make the boarding and scantling more solid—­solid enough to withstand the plunging, lurching, and kicking of fear-stricken, wild Queensland steers unused to being cooped up on shipboard....

* * * * *

We had made fast to a dock down the Brisbane River, several miles out from Brisbane ... nearby stood the stockyards, with no cattle in them yet.

In a day’s time of lusty heaving and running and hauling we had taken on the bales of compressed fodder that were to feed the cattle for the twenty-day trip to Taku, China.

Then the little, fiery, doll-like skipper made the tactical error of paying each man a couple of bob advance on his forthcoming wages.

In a shouting, singing mob we made for Brisbane, like schoolboys on a holiday.

Two shilling apiece wasn’t much.  But a vagabond can make a little silver go far.  And there are more friends to be found by men in such a condition, more good times to be had—­of a sort—­than a world held by more proper standards can imagine.

In both brothel and pub the men found friends.  There were other sailors ashore, there were many swagmen just in from the bush—­some with “stakes” they had earned on the ranches out in the country ... and in their good, simple hearts they were not averse to “standing treats.”

* * * * *

As if by previous appointment, one by one we drifted together, we cattlemen of the South Sea King—­we drifted together and found each other in the fine park near the Queensland House of Parliament.