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'Oh yeah, I see him now.' Erin held her hand up next to her chin and waggled her fingers.

Shelby gasped. Clint had instructed them not to move. His exact words were, 'Don't move, don't sneeze, don't lean forward, and don't scratch. Especially you, Erin.'

'Two three it is,' said the auctioneer. 'Do I hear two four?'

'I think you just bid on a horse,' murmured Lindsey through scarcely parted lips.

'Really? For how much?' asked Erin.

'Two thousand three hundred dollars,' Lindsey replied.

'Omigod!' Erin slapped her hands across her mouth.

'Two four to the young lady,' called the auctioneer, pointing to her. 'She thinks the horse is so great she's bidding against herself.'

Muffled laughter rippled through the crowd. Shelby saw Clint close his eyes and shake his head.

'I didn't mean to!' Erin cried in a shrill voice. Shelby blushed.

'Very good. Do I hear a real two three? Yes, madam in the green shirt.' The auctioneer turned his attention to an older woman standing at the edge of the yard.

'Phew, that was close!' Erin put her hand on her chest.

'Erin! Stop moving!' Lindsey hissed through the side of her mouth.

'Oops!' Erin giggled.

'You're so hopeless,' Shelby sighed.

The horse on which Erin had bid was sold and then the whole crowd shuffled sidewards to the next yard and the next horse being sold.

Shelby looked along the line of yards with their metal fences and cement floors. She thought it was clever how the gates to each of the yards were the same width as the aisles, so that when the gate was open, it blocked off the aisle perfectly.

At the end of each of the lanes there were loading ramps. Earlier in the day she had watched the trucks pull up to unload. The handlers coordinated the gates so that each of the horses would run down the loading ramps and then, by having some gates open and some closed, move straight into their individual yards.

Most of the horses looked so thin and frightened that she wanted to take them home and give them a good feed. Many of them had bites, bumps and scratches all over from the rough trip to the sale yards. The younger ones in particular had such fragile, twig-like legs they looked as though they could snap in a strong breeze. She had overheard two of the older stockmen saying that most of the horses came from studs out west that couldn't afford to feed them in the drought.

Shelby was amazed how cheaply they were selling. The one on which Erin had bid was the most expensive so far. Some of them had been sold for less than a hundred dollars. Shelby wished she had ten thousand dollars in her pocket. She would buy them all.

Clint wended his way through the crowd until he reached them.

'The next ones are the Dog Man's horses. I'm going to get a coffee from the canteen. I won't be long. Are you happy to stay here?'

The girls nodded. 'We'll be OK here,' said Lindsey. 'Thanks, Clint.'

'Don't bid on any horses while I'm away, Erin.'

Erin giggled. 'I won't.'

After he had gone Shelby turned to Lindsey. 'What does he mean the "Dog Man"?'

'The Dog Man buys horses by the kilo,' she explained.

Erin put her hand over her mouth. 'That's awful!'

Lindsey shrugged. 'If a horse has a broken leg, or an incurable illness, then he will take it away. We dogged a horse last year. Do you remember Swift? He went blind. He kept hurting himself and he was frightened all the time.' She shook her head. 'That's not a good life. We could have paid the vet to put him down, but then you need to hire a backhoe to bury him. You have to bury them deep otherwise it's unhygienic. The Dog Man will pay you and take it away. I know it sounds mean, but it works out for everyone.'

Lindsey was a farm girl, used to the practicalities of death.

'So why are they here?' Shelby asked.

'Sometimes when the Dog Man gets the horse back to his yards he'll find that its illness isn't incurable after all, or that, with a bit of retraining, a mad horse is useful again. For whatever reason, if he thinks he can get more money for