“I see the swell chap first—him as made out he was the owner, and gammoned all the Adelaide gentlemen so neat. There was a half-caste chap with him as followed him about everywhere; then there was another man as didn’t talk much, but seemed, by letting down slip-rails and what not, to be in it. I heard this Starlight, as he calls hisself now, say to him, ‘You have everything ready to break camp by ten o’clock, and I’ll be there to-morrow and square up.’ I thought he meant to pay their wages. I never dropped but what they was his men—his hired servants—as he was going to pay off or send back.”

“Will you swear,” our lawyer says, “that the young prisoner is the man you saw at Adelaide with the cattle?”

“Yes; I’ll swear. I looked at him pretty sharp, and nothing ain’t likely to make me forget him. He’s the man, and that I’ll swear to.”

“Were there not other people there with the cattle?”

“Yes; there was an oldish, very quiet, but determined-like man—he had a stunnin’ dorg with him—and a young man something like this gentleman—I mean the prisoner. I didn’t see the other young man nor the half-caste in court.”

“That’s all very well,” says our lawyer, very fierce; “but will you swear it, sir, that the prisoner Marston took any charge or ownership of the cattle?”

“No, I can’t,” says the chap. “I see him a drafting ‘em in the morning, and he seemed to know all the brands, and so on; but he done no more than I’ve seen hired servants do over and over again.”

The other witnesses had done, when someone called out, “Herbert Falkland,” and Mr. Falkland steps into the court. He walks in quiet and a little proud; he couldn’t help feeling it, but he didn’t show it in his ways and talk, as little as any man I ever saw.

He’s asked by the Crown Prosecutor if he’s seen the bull outside of the court this day.

“Yes; he has seen him.”

“Has he ever seen him before?”

“Never, to his knowledge.”

“He doesn’t, then, know the name of his former owner?”

“Has heard generally that he belonged to Mr. Hood, of Momberah; but does not know it of his own knowledge.”

“Has he ever seen, or does he know either of the prisoners?”

“Knows the younger prisoner, who has been in the habit of working for him in various ways.”

“When was prisoner Marston working for him last?”

“He, with his brother James, who rendered his family a service he shall never forget, was working for him, after last shearing, for some months.”

“Where were they working?”

“At an out-station at the back of the run.”

“When did they leave?”

“About April or May last.”