The men rested themselves and their horses and watched them.
"There are pretty near fifty," said Garry. "They're a good-looking lot. It's the recent rain's done it. They've had more to eat than they've had for months past."
"It will make them the harder to mount," replied Glen.
"Suppose we give 'em a rest for a night, and try our luck to-morrow. They'll have been without food for about eighteen hours, and it may tame them down," Garry suggested.
This was agreed to and they camped for the night close to the yards.
Next morning business commenced in earnest. Likely looking horses were separated from the rest, and then the struggle began. The bulk of them were hard to saddle, still harder to mount, but it takes more than a savage, untamed buckjumper to conquer a man from the West.
There were some stiff fights, and now and again a horse more desperate than the rest managed to rid himself of his rider after a long struggle. He was at once selected by Glen as one of his lot.
Glen Leigh excited the admiration of the men by the way he rode a tremendous horse about six or seven years old. He was a rough untamed animal, probably a son of old Tear'em, Garry said. At any rate he was very like that incorrigible savage. He stood nearly seventeen hands, and had the strength of half a dozen ordinary wild horses.
It took them half an hour to get the saddle and bridle on, and Glen was another ten minutes before he got into his saddle.
The Boonara men never forgot that mighty struggle. They talked about it for years after, whenever buckjumpers were mentioned. It easily broke all records as far as they were concerned.
The huge animal was a prince among buckjumpers, and Glen had all his work cut out to keep his seat. The horse bounded up and down as though his legs were springs. One moment he was off the ground, on all fours, his back arched like a bended bow, the next his fore feet were planted firmly on the ground and his hind quarters elevated almost to the perpendicular. He twirled and twisted in an extraordinary fashion, lay down, crushed Glen's leg, rushed against the fence, did everything to throw his grim rider, but without avail. At last he stood covered in sweat, and quivering in every limb. It was then that Glen dismounted, but when he tried to get into the saddle he found the horse ready for another battle-royal.