Explore "Landtakers: The Story of an Epoch" by Brian Penton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
How differently everything might have turned out if the wheel of the dray had not broken, if the bullocks had not died, if the rain had held off for another ten days, if he had not met that Scotchman, and if, also, he had never gone to the shanty at Pyke's Crossing. Afterwards--for years afterwards--there were times when he thought: "Better to have died in that bush. Better to have been lost and forgotten. ."
But that was far in the future when he awoke in the morning and found that the pippin faces were real enough. There were fifteen of them on Timberinga station, besides their father, Mickey--all shepherds, even Danny, who was just about big enough to see over a sheep's back.