Well, the long and short of it is that we mustered the cattle quite comfortably, nobody coming anext or anigh us any more than if we’d taken the thing by contract. You wouldn’t have thought there was anybody nearer than Bathurst. Everything seemed to be in our favour. So it was, just at the start. We drafted out all the worst and weediest of the cattle, besides all the old cows, and when we counted the mob out we had nearly eleven hundred first-rate store cattle; lots of fine young bullocks and heifers, more than half fat—altogether a prime well-bred mob that no squatter, or dealer could fault in any way if the price was right. We could afford to sell them for a shade under market price for cash. Ready money, of course, we were bound to have.

Just as we were starting there was a fine roan bull came running up with a small mob.

“Cut him out, and beat him back,” says father; “we don’t want to be bothered with the likes of him.”

“Why, I’m dashed if that ain’t Hood’s imported bull,” says Billy the Boy, a Monaro native that we had with us. “I know him well. How’s he come to get back? Why, the cove gave two hundred and fifty notes for him afore he left England, I’ve heard ‘em say.”

“Bring him along,” said Starlight, who came up just then. “In for a penny, in for a pound. They’ll never think of looking for him on the Coorong, and we’ll be there before they miss any cattle worth talking about.”

So we took “Fifteenth Duke of Cambridge” along with us; a red roan he was, with a little white about the flank. He wasn’t more than four year old. He’d been brought out from England as a yearling. How he’d worked his way out to this back part of the run, where a bull of his quality ain’t often seen, nobody could say. But he was a lively active beast, and he’d got into fine hard fettle with living on saltbush, dry grass, and scrub for the last few months, so he could travel as well as the others. I took particular notice of him, from his little waxy horns to his straight locks and long square quarters. And so I’d need to—but that came after. He had only a little bit of a private brand on the shoulder. That was easily faked, and would come out quite different.

Chapter XII

CHAPTER XII