Some of ‘em was worth looking at, my word! “D’ye see that big upstanding three-year-old dark bay filly, with a crooked streak down her face,” Starlight would say, “and no brand but your father’s on? Do you know her name? That’s young Termagant, a daughter of Mr. Rouncival’s racing mare of the same name that was stolen a week before she was born, and her dam was never seen alive again. Pity, to kill a mare like that, wasn’t it? Her sire was Repeater, the horse that ran the two three-mile heats with Mackworth, in grand time, too.” Then, again, “That chestnut colt with the white legs would be worth five hundred all out if we could sell him with his right name and breeding, instead of having to do without a pedigree. We shall be lucky if we get a hundred clear for him. The black filly with the star—yes, she’s thoroughbred, too, and couldn’t have been bought for money. Only a month old and unbranded, of course, when your father and Warrigal managed to bone the old mare. Mr. Gibson offered £50 reward, or £100 on conviction. Wasn’t he wild! That big bay horse, Warrior, was in training for a steeplechase when I took him out of Mr. King’s stable. I rode him 120 miles before twelve next day. Those two browns are Mr. White’s famous buggy horses. He thought no man could get the better of him. But your old father was too clever. I believe he could shake the devil’s own four-in-hand—(coal black, with manes and tails touching the ground, and eyes of fire, some German fellow says they are)—and the Prince of Darkness never be the wiser. The pull of it is that once they’re in here they’re never heard of again till it’s time to shift them to another colony, or clear them out and let the buyer take his chance.”

“You’ve some plums here,” I said. “Even the cattle look pretty well bred.”

“Always go for pedigree stock, Fifteenth Duke notwithstanding. They take no more keep than rough ones, and they’re always saleable. That red short-horn heifer belongs to the Butterfly Red Rose tribe; she was carried thirty miles in front of a man’s saddle the day she was calved. We suckled her on an old brindle cow; she doesn’t look the worse for it. Isn’t she a beauty? We ought to go in for an annual sale here. How do you think it would pay?”