The town of Nubba was a fair specimen of Australian settlement that gradually grows and bourgeons on a favourable spot, where highroads pass and converge. Here there had been, primarily, a ford of the occasionally flooded river. The teams, bound from or for the far interior, camped upon the broad flat made by the semicircular sweep of the river, and so established it as a stage and a resting-place. Then a reflective mail-driver built a public-house, doubtful but inevitable precursor in all colonial communities of civilisation, even of the organised teaching of Christianity. Then a blacksmith’s shop, a butcher’s, a baker’s, followed; in due course a second inn, a pound, appeared; finally a bridge was built; and Nubba represented an established fact, named, inhabited, and fairly started in the competitive race with other Anglo-Saxon cities, walled and unwalled.

Still further progress. Anon it boasted a full-blown municipality, with a mayor, aldermen, a town clerk, ratepayers, all the ordinary British machinery for self-government. The streets were aligned, metalled, and culverted; the approaches to the town cleared and levelled; several stores, two flour mills, three banks, four churches, ten hotels, and scores of intermediate edifices, including a massive gaol, all built of stone, arose. A resident police magistrate reigned, having jurisdiction over three hundred square miles, assisted by neighbouring country justices. Strict, not stern, they were a terror to evildoers, and no particular laxity of legal obligation was permitted the lieges on account of their distance from the metropolis. Let but so much as a Chinaman or a blackfellow be slain by chance, medley, or otherwise, or a calf stolen, at the extreme limit of this far-stretching territory, and all actors and participators were tried, committed, or discharged, as the case might be. The costly and august machinery of the law was put in motion with the same impassive exactitude as if the offenders resided in Middlesex or Devonshire.

‘There,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, possessed of these facts, and indeed having experienced in his own person the unrelaxing grip of the law, ‘is the precise point of difference between the state of society in English and other communities. In other lands, notably in America, the vast distances and what are superficially called the rude circumstances of early settlement, are permitted to condone infringements upon the social rights. When these become too flagrant Judge Lynch interferes, and rude justice, or injustice, is done. In the meantime, right has often suffered irrevocably at the hands of might. But an Englishman, in what far land soever under the flag of his country, suffers under no such policy of expediency. He carries his law with him. He relies for protection of life and property upon the Queen’s Government, to which he has for his life long appealed in his hour of need, and never in vain; and he generally receives justice, whether he be in the heart of a continent or in a populous and accessible seaport.’

Southward of the future city, Mr. Neuchamp observed farms, orchards, enclosed pasture-lands—all the signs of a thriving agricultural district,—great stacks of grain and hay, fields of maize, pigs, and poultry in profusion; while the steam flour mills, whose mechanical whirr and throb ceased not, night or day, showed that the supply of the staff of life was large and continuous. Every farm had been but recently occupied, and yet on all sides fencing, building, girdling trees, the manifold acts of agriculture combined with pasture, were proceeding energetically. The land was richer, the timber more dense, and possibly the climate more temperate and humid than the northerly division following the downward course of the river exhibited.

In this direction the metalled road after a couple of miles abruptly terminated, the way thenceforth continuing by a broad Indian-like trail, which led towards the fervid north. Few trees were seen after this immediate vicinity of the town was quitted, and the immense plain lost itself in a soft and silvery haze which enveloped the far distance and spread to the horizon.

‘Well,’ soliloquised Ernest, ’this is perhaps not exactly the place a half-pay officer would come to or a reduced merchant’s family, anxious to discover cheap living, good society, efficient teaching, musical tuition, and an agreeable climate, in perfect combination. But even they might do worse. The great secret of steady, inevitable prosperity here is the wonderful cheapness of land combined with its abundance.

‘What a rush would there be in Buckinghamshire, if “persons about to marry,” or others, could “take up,” that is merely mark out and occupy, as much land as they pleased up to a square mile in extent, previously paying down “five shillings the acre”—save the mark!

‘And the land is as good here, if you except the choicest meadow farms. The climate is benign and healthful—say it is hot during the summer, fewer clothes are wanted; the water is pure and plentiful; firewood costs nothing. The forest is clear of underwood, and park-like; you do not need to hew yourself an opening out of an impenetrable wood, as in Canada. The climate and natural advantages of the land constitute an income in themselves. When I think of the severely tasked lives, the scanty, often dismal, outlook of our labouring classes, I am filled with wonder that they do not emigrate in a body. “To the northward all is” plain.’

Here therefore Mr. Neuchamp observed but faint signs of civilisation. The pastoral age had returned. Great droves of cattle, vast flocks of sheep, alone travelled this endless trail. The mail, of course, dusty and of weather-beaten aspect, occasionally rattled in with sunburned and desert-worn passengers from the inner deserts. But few stock were visible on the plain, ’grassy and wild and bare’ within sight of the town. Still, by all classes, Ernest heard this apparently wild and trackless region spoken of as a rich pastoral district, equal in profitable trade to the agricultural division, and indeed perhaps superior in the average of returns for investment.

‘I am a great believer in the plough myself,’ he thought, ‘but I suppose these people know something about their own affairs.’

Mr. Neuchamp was beginning to derive practical benefit from his experiences. This was a great concession for him.

Next morning, having ascertained his line of route, and that Garrandilla was about two hundred and fifty miles distant, Ernest shouldered his knapsack and prepared to finish his little walk.

‘It’s a lucky thing that there are no Red Indians or wild beasts on this particular war-path,’ thought he, as he left the town behind him and was conscious of becoming a speck upon the vast and lonely plain. ‘I feel horribly unprotected. Even an old shepherd might rob me, if he had a rusty gun. I might as well have carried my revolver, but the weight was a consideration. How grand this sandy turf is to walk upon. I feel as if I could walk all day. Not a hill in sight either, or, apparently, a stone. I can imagine some people thinking the scene monotonous.’

Such a thought would have occurred to many minds; but there was no likelihood of such a feeling possessing Ernest Neuchamp. To him the strange salsolaceous plants, so succulent and nutritive, were of constant interest and admiration. The new flowers of the waste were freshly springing marvels. The salt lake, strewn with snowy crystals and with a floor like an untrodden ice-field, was a magical transformation. The crimson flags of the mesembryanthemum cast on the sand, the gorgeous desert flower, the strutting bustard, the tiny scampering kangaroo, were all dramatic novelties. As he strode on, mile after mile, at a telling elastic pace, he thought that never in his whole life had he traversed a land so interesting and delightful. All the day across the unending plains, sometimes intersected by small watercourses. Towards nightfall, however, this very unrelieved landscape became questionable. Ernest began to speculate upon the chance of finding a night’s lodging. Not that there was any great hardship in sleeping out in the mild autumnal season, but the not having even a tree to sleep under was a condition of things altogether unaccustomed, unnatural, and weird in his eyes.

Just as the sun was sinking behind the far, clear, delicately drawn sky line, a deep fissure was visible in the plain, at the bottom of which lay plantÉ la, a rough but not uninviting hostelry. There he succeeded in bestowing himself for the night. He was perhaps more fatigued than at any previous time. He had been excited by the prairie-like nature of the landscape, and had covered more ground than on any day since he started.

The food was coarse and not well cooked, but hunger and partial fatigue are unrivalled condiments. Bread, meat, and the wherewithal to quench thirst are amply sufficient for the real toiler, not overborne, like the luxurious children of civilisation, by multifarious half-digested meals. Mr. Neuchamp, therefore, on the following morning, having slept magnificently and eaten a truly respectable breakfast, surveyed the endless plain from the back of the ravine with undiminished courage.

He amused himself by considering what sort of mental existence the family who kept this wayside caravanserai could possibly lead. ‘They must feel a good deal like Tartars,’ decided he. ‘Here they are deposited, as if dropped from the sky upon this featureless waste. They have no garden, not even a cabbage or a climbing rose; no cows, no sheep; of course they have half a dozen horses. I saw no books. They do not take a newspaper. The landlady and her two daughters occupy themselves in doing the housework, certainly, in a very perfunctory manner. The man of the house moves in and out of the bar, smokes continually, and sleeps on the bench in the afternoons. When travellers come, occupation, profit, society, and information are provided for the whole household till the next invasion. What are their hopes—what their social aims? Some day to sell out and live in Nubba, the landlord informed me. How little of life suffices for the millions who possess it in this curiously fashioned world of ours!’

Mr. Neuchamp took his departure from this uninteresting lodge in the wilderness, and commenced another day’s travel, not altogether dissatisfied with the idea that the end of another week would bring his pilgrimage to a close.

Mid-day found him still tramping onward over ground so accurately resembling that he crossed during his previous day’s journey, that if he had been carried back he could not have detected the difference. A feeling of great loneliness came over him, and despite the doubtful success of his chance acquaintanceship, he began to wish for another travelling companion, of whatever character or condition in life. He had not shaped this desire definitely for many minutes before, as if the attendant friend was watchful, a man debouched from a shallow watercourse, and walked towards him.

The new-comer carried, like himself, a species of pack strapped to his shoulders, but it was rolled up after the country fashion, in a form commonly known as a ‘swag,’ containing apparently a pair of blankets and a few articles of necessity.

Ernest saw in the traveller a good-looking, powerful young man, patently of the ordinary type of bush natives of the lower rank—a stockman, station hand, horsebreaker or what not. Then his expression of countenance was determined, almost stern. When Ernest accosted him, and asked him if he were travelling ‘down the river,’ like himself, his features relaxed and his soft low voice, a very general characteristic of Australian youth, sounded respectful and friendly in answer.

He was therefore considerably astonished when the young man promptly produced a revolver, and presenting it full at Mr. Neuchamp’s person, called upon him in an altered voice, rounded off with a ruffianly oath, to give up his watch and money.

The watch was easily seen, as part of the chain was visible, but much marvelled Ernest Neuchamp that the robber, or any other man, should know that he had money with him. It was indeed a chance shot. The young marauder, having judged him to be a gentleman not long in the country, who was fool enough to travel on foot when he had plenty of money to buy a good hack, also decided that he must have a five-pound note or two wherewith to negotiate in time of need.

Ernest Neuchamp was brave. The action of his heart was unaltered. His pulse quickened not as he stood before an armed and lawless man. He did not, of course, particularly care to lose a valuable family gold watch, or ten pounds sterling. But far more deeply than by personal loss or danger was he impressed by the melancholy fact that here was a fine intelligent young fellow, physically speaking, one of the grandest specimens of Caucasian type anywhere procurable, dooming himself, merely by this silly act, with, perhaps, another, to long years of lonely, degrading, maddening prison life. He did not look like a hardened criminal. It may be that a single act of sullen despair, derived from others’ guilt, had driven him to this course, which, once entered upon, held no retreat.

There were few cooler men than Ernest. He became so entirely possessed with a new idea, that circumjacent circumstances, however material to him personally, rarely affected him.

‘My good fellow,’ he commenced, sitting down deliberately, ‘of course you can have my watch and a tenner, that I happen to have about me. I don’t say you are welcome to them, either. But what principally strikes me is, that you are an awful fool to exchange your liberty, your youth, your good name, your very life, for trifles like these. Did this ever occur to you?’ asked Ernest with much gravity, handing out the watch and one five-pound note, and feeling anxiously for the other, as if he hoped he hadn’t lost it. ‘Why, hang it all, man, you put me in mind of a savage, who sells himself for a few glass beads, a tomahawk, and a Brummagem gun. Surely you can’t have considered this view of the subject, so deeply important to you?’

‘It’s devilish important to you too,’ said the bushranger grimly, though he looked uneasy. ‘You’re a rum cove to go talking and preaching to a chap with a revolver at your head.’

‘I don’t suppose that you would shoot a man in cold blood for giving you good advice! A watch and a few pounds are no great loss to me, but the taking of them means death and destruction to you—a living death, worse a hundredfold than if you were lying there with a bullet through your heart. That’s what I really feel at this moment. You are taking your own life with your own hand! Think, do think, like a good fellow, before it is too late!’

‘That you may go straight back to the Nubba police station as soon as I slope,’ said the robber. ‘I could stop that, you know.’

‘I never intended it—not that your threat prevents me. But once entered on the trade of bushranger, I am not the only man you will rob. Others, of course, will inform, and in a week your description—age, height, hair, scar on the forehead and all—will be at every police station in the four colonies. You may have a month’s run, or two, and then you are——’

‘Shot like a dog, or walled up for life, and driven about like brutes that are called men.’

‘Perfectly right. I am glad you agree with my view,’ said Ernest eagerly; ‘then why don’t you retreat while you have time, and the chance is open? Look at this blue sky; think of a good horse between your legs on this broad plain, of a day’s shooting, of waking full of life and vigour and going cheerfully to work on your own farm. Such a deuced good-looking, upstanding fellow as you are—what devil put it into your head to give every enemy you have in the world such a chance to laugh at you?’

‘Perhaps the devil did. Anyhow, I have been hunted about and falsely accused by the police, about horses and cattle that I never saw a head of; so I turned out.’

‘Just to put them thoroughly in the right,’ said Ernest. ‘They will thank you for that, and say they always knew it from the first. For God’s sake, if you have a grain of sense in your composition, if you have the least wish to live a man’s life and stand erect like a man before your fellows, for the sake of the mother that bore you’ (here the robber ground his teeth), ‘give up this stupid, stale trick of highway robbery, and you will cheat Old Nick yet.’

‘Well, I begin to think I was an infernal fool to turn out. It seems a trifle now to be vexed at, but what can I do? I’ve gone too far to turn back.’

‘Have you attempted to stop any one but me?’ asked Ernest.

‘No! I was waiting for the coach, which ought to have been here by this time, when I met you. Ha! there it comes.’

‘Take your resolution now,’ said Ernest solemnly, springing to his feet and standing before him. ‘Your fate for life or death is in your own hand: the life of a hunted, half-starved wolf, with perhaps a dog’s death, on one side; life, health, youth, liberty, perhaps a happy home, on the other. Are you mad, that you hesitate? or does God suffer the enemy to deceive and destroy in the dark hour a lost soul?’

As Ernest spoke, he fixed his clear blue eyes upon the face of the robber, now working as if torn by strong emotion.

Suddenly the latter strode a pace forward, and casting the revolver away as far as he could throw it in the dull green grass, said, ‘Damn the —— squirt! I wish I had never seen it. Here’s your two fives, sir, and my best thanks, for I ain’t much of a talker, but I feel it. Good-bye.’

‘Stop!’ cried Ernest, ‘where are you going, and what do you intend to do, and have you any money?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t a copper; it was being chaffed about that by a girl I was fond of that made me think of this. I suppose I’ll drop across work before long. God knows! it’s never hard to get in the bush.’

‘The deeper shame on him who takes to evil courses in such a country,’ said Ernest; ‘but I don’t intend to preach to you. You have acted like a man, and I will stand to you as far as I can. I can perhaps get you work on a station I am bound for. So come along with me, and we shall be fellow-travellers after all.’

The coach passed just then, filled with passengers, who looked with idle curiosity at the wayfarers.

‘Those chaps would have had a different look in their eyes about this time, only for you,’ said the ex-brigand grimly. ‘A little thing makes all the difference. I might have shed blood or got hit before this. However, all that’s past and gone, I hope. I can work, as you’ll see, and I’ll keep square for the future if I haven’t a shirt to my back.’

The armistice completed, the two curiously-met comrades recommenced their march. When Mr. Neuchamp, once more in possession of his timekeeper and cash, had sufficient leisure to return to his usual observing habit, he could not but be struck with the fine form and splendid proportions of Mr. ‘First robber,’ who went singing and whistling along the road with an elastic step, as if care and he had parted company for ever and a day. He was a brown-haired, bright-eyed, good-natured-looking fellow of five or six and twenty. His natural expression seemed to be that of mischievous, unrestrained fun, though the lower part of his face in moments of gravity showed firmness and even obstinacy of purpose. He stood nearly six feet in height, with the build of an athletic man of five feet eight. His broad shoulders, deep chest, and muscular arms showed to considerable advantage in contrast with his light, pliant, and unusually active lower limbs.

‘A dangerous outlaw,’ thought Mr. Neuchamp; ’roused by resistance, whetted with the taste of blood, and desperate from a foreknowledge of heavy punishment, he would have ended his life on the scaffold, with perhaps on his head the blood of better men; and it looks as if I, Ernest Neuchamp, have this day been the instrument of turning this man’s destiny, at the point of amendment or ruin. “So mote it be.”’

The day was spent, and Mr. Neuchamp had begun to entertain transient thoughts of moderate roadside comforts and the like, when his companion stopped and pointed to a cloud of dust almost at right angles to the road.

‘Travelling sheep,’ he said, ‘and coming this way—a big lot, too.’

‘Are they?’ inquired Mr. Neuchamp. ‘What are they doing out there?’

‘Travelling for grass, most likely; or for sale. Perhaps short of feed or water, or both; they’re “out on the wallaby” until the rain comes.’

‘What is the meaning of “out on the wallaby”?‘ asked Ernest.

‘Well, it’s bush slang, sir, for men just as you or I might be now, looking for work or something to eat; if we can’t get work, living on the country, till things turn round a little.’

‘Oh! that’s it—well, don’t be afraid, things are sure to turn round a little, if we wait long enough. Who’s this, coming galloping at such a rate?’

‘Looks like the overseer. He’s coming to see if there’s any water in the creek. They’ll camp here most likely. He’s in a hurry.’

The individual thus criticised was a stout man, past middle age, who bore himself with an air of great responsibility and anxiety.

‘Hallo!’ he said, pointing to the creek, ‘is there any water there?’

‘Lots,’ said the pene-felonious traveller—‘good place to camp.’

‘How do you know?’ cautiously inquired the overseer.

‘Because I’ve been this road often, and know every water-hole and camping-place and feeding-ground from this to Wentworth.’

‘All right, you’re the very man I want; that is, I want two men for one of the flocks. I’ve just sacked a couple of idle rascals, and run short—will you and your mate come?’

‘He’s not used to droving work,’ pleaded the experienced one, doubtful of Ernest’s wish for occupation of that sort.

‘Oh, never mind; any fool can drive travelling sheep; you’re sharp enough, at any rate. I’ll give you five-and-twenty shillings a week each. You can join when they come into camp. What do you say?’

‘Very well,’ said Ernest, ‘I will engage for a month—not longer, as I have to go to a station called Garrandilla then.’

‘All right,’ said the overseer, ‘we pass it; it will be something to get hands so far;’ and away the man of many troubles galloped.

‘What do you say now? Here we are provided with easy, honest, and well-paid employment for as long as we please, with high wages, unlimited food, and sleeping accommodation. I shall rather take them in at Garrandilla.’

The army of sheep—about thirty thousand, in fifteen flocks—at length reached the valley before dark, and the overseer, pointing to a flock of two thousand more or less, said, ‘There’s your mob—if either of you want to go, you must give me a week’s notice. If I sack either of you, I shall pay him one week in advance.’

As the sheep approached, feeding in a leisurely manner, and gradually converging towards the flat, the two men walked towards the leading flock.

‘Hallo!’ said the ex-brigand to one of the shepherds, ‘are you the two chaps that the cove has sacked, because we are to take your flock?’

‘All right—you’re welcome, mates, to my share,’ said an elderly colonist; ‘that super’s a growlin’, ignorant beggar as runs a feller from daylight to dark for nothing at all. If all the other men was of my mind we’d leave him to drive his —— sheep himself.’

‘That’s the talk!’ said the highwayman cautiously, ‘but we’re hard up, and that makes the difference; we go on till we pick up something better. What will you take for that dog of yours? I suppose he can hunt ’em along.’

‘Best dog from here to Bourke. I’ll take two pounds for him.’

‘No you won’t. I’ll chance a note for him, and that’s about our last shilling, isn’t it?’ added he, looking at Ernest.

‘Well, the dog’s worth a couple of notes, young feller,’ said the shepherd reflectively, ‘but as you’re a-goin’ to take the sheep, and down on your luck, why, you can have him.’

Ernest nodded assent as purse-bearer.

‘Will you give us chain and collar in the camp to-night? I’ll pay you there,’ said the negotiator. ‘I suppose you won’t clear out till to-morrow?’

‘No fear—it’s a good way to Nubba, and Bill and I are going back to the timber country; we’ve had enough of these blasted plains, ha’n’t we, Bill? Enough to burn a blessed man’s blessed eyes out. Five-and-twenty bob a week don’t pay a cove for that. I mean to stick to the green grass country for a spell now.’

At nightfall the fifteen flocks of sheep were all brought in, and ‘boxed,’ or mixed together, to Ernest’s astonishment. ‘How in the world do they ever get them into the same flocks again?’ he asked.

‘They don’t try,’ it was explained. ‘They just cut them up into fifteen equal lots in the morning, as near as they can, a hundred or two more or less makes no great difference, and away they go along the road stealing as much grass as the squatters are soft enough to let them.’

‘And will they stay quietly here all night?’

‘Safe as houses. Sheep ain’t like cattle; they don’t like skirmishing about in the dark. So after tea a man can light his pipe, roll his blanket round him, and make believe to watch till daylight. It’s a very off chance if e’er a sheep stirs any more than himself.’

‘It doesn’t seem a hard life,’ said Ernest, as they sat on a log and ate chops fried in a pan, using a large flat piece of damper partly as plate, partly as entrÉe, while the pint of quart-pot tea tasted better and was more refreshing than the highest priced Souchong in the daintiest china.

‘Well, it’s a long way from hard work, but six months of it at a time, as I’ve had now and then, makes you feel you’ve had enough for a while; besides, it’s Sunday and workday; not an hour’s change week in, week out.’

‘I daresay that makes a difference,’ admitted Ernest, ‘but I wonder what a Buckinghamshire field labourer would think if he were suddenly offered twenty-five shillings a week, with all the bread and mutton he could eat, and a small bag of tea.’

‘And half rations for the dawg,’ put in the Australian, throwing their new purchase about half a pound of mutton.

‘By the way,’ said Ernest, ‘what is his name? and yours too, for I don’t know yet? I suppose he will be very useful. I’m glad you bought him.’

‘My name’s Jack Windsor; his name’s Watch; he’s that useful that three men with two pairs of legs each couldn’t do the work that he’ll do for us with these crawling sheep. He’s a cheap pound’s worth, and that you’ll find before we go far.’

When the evening meal was finished Mr. Neuchamp and his henchman went over to one of four fires which had been lighted at opposite sides of the woolly multitude. Jack Windsor lighted his pipe and lay down upon his blanket, where he smoked luxuriously and dozed by turns. Ernest reclined in the same fashion, and after a short struggle with his very natural drowsiness fell fast asleep.

At daylight next morning Mr. Neuchamp awoke without it being necessary for any one to call him. The bosom of great mother Hertha was harder than any resting-place which he had hitherto tried; but youth and an adventurous disposition being on his side, he found when dressed that the mental thermometer registered an altitude fully above the average. The sheep were still lying down and appeared by no means to be anxious to crop the dewy grass, or whatever somewhat wiry and infrequent herbage did duty for that traditional description.

‘Yonder’s the cook’s fire,’ explained Mr. Windsor, pointing to a rising smoke; ‘we’d better get our breakfast to begin with.’

Round a blazing fire, the warmth of which, in the sharp autumn morning, was decidedly pleasant, were grouped thirty or forty men engaged in talking, warming themselves, and in a leisurely way partaking of a substantial breakfast. From a pyramid of chops, replenished from an immense frying-pan, with a handle like a marlin-spike, each man abstracted whatever he chose. Wedges of damper (or bread baked in hot ashes) were cut from time to time from great circular flat loaves of that palatable and wholesome but somewhat compressed-looking bread, while gallons of hot tea were procurable from buckets full of the universal bush beverage.

The overseer and some of the horse drivers were absent, as the hacks and cart-horses had wandered during the night rather farther than usual. Ernest and his companion applied themselves to the serious business of the hour, the former conscious that he was being subjected to a searching inspection from his fellow-employees. His rough tweed suit was sufficiently different from the blue serge shirts and peajackets of the others to mark his different social position, had not his hands, fresh complexion, and general appearance denoted him to be a ‘new arrival,’ and more or less a swell. Swells out of luck are unfortunately by no means rare as ordinary bush hands in Australia, and such a phenomenon would not ordinarily have excited curiosity or hostile criticism. Still a little rough jesting is not to be avoided sometimes when an obviously raw comrade joins a bush brigade.

It was natural enough then that a tall, dissipated-looking fellow with a whiskerless face and long hair, a leader and wit of the community, should step forward and address Mr. Neuchamp.

‘Well, Johnny, and what do you think of travelling with store sheep in this blessed country? You didn’t do none o’ that in the blessed old country as you’ve just come from, did ye now?’

‘My name is not Johnny,’ replied Ernest, arresting mastication and looking calmly at his interlocutor. ‘As for driving sheep, it would be pleasant enough if people didn’t ask impudent questions.’

There was a shout of laughter from the crowd at this retort, which was held to have rather turned the tables upon the provincial humorist.

‘Come, come, Johnny! don’t cut up rusty,’ he continued; ‘you may as well tell us what sort of work you bolted from to turn knock-about-man; counter-jumping, or something in the figs line, by the look of your ’ands, eh?’

Mr. Neuchamp had a reasonably good temper, but he had not as yet been accustomed to aught but extreme civility from the lower classes. He had not slipped on too recently the skin of a knock-about-man to realise how it felt to be chaffed as an equal by a fellow-servant.

‘You’re an insolent scoundrel,’ said he, dashing down the remainder of his breakfast, ‘whom I will soon teach to mind his own business. Put up your hands.’

Ernest, though not above the middle size, was strongly knit, and had received the ordinary fisti-culture which enables the average English gentleman to hold his own so creditably against all comers. He was a hard hitter when roused, and doubtless would have come out of the encounter with honour. But his antagonist was three inches taller, longer in the reach, a couple of stones heavier, and being in top wind and condition after six months’ road-work, and withal a sort of second-rate bruiser, might have inconvenienced and would certainly have marked Mr. Neuchamp in any case.

Just as his late tormentor had lounged forward into a careless guard and an insolent oath, Ernest felt himself quickly but firmly pushed aside, while Jack Windsor stood like a lion in the path.

‘Take it out of me, ye cursed infernal bully; what the devil is it to you if a gentleman likes to have his colonial experience this way? You’re a deal too fond of showin’ off and taking the change out of men that isn’t your match. Now you’ve dropped in for it lucky. Mind yourself.’

The crowd closed in with great though unspoken delight at this prospect of a real good fight. They intended to interfere directly the new chum, as they called him, and ’Bouncing Bob’ had had the first flutter. But here was a ‘dark horse,’ evidently good for a close heat. What a glorious relief from the monotony of their daily dodging along the road with stubborn and impoverished sheep!

‘Bouncing Bob,’ though a smart fellow enough with his hands, liked a small allowance of weight, science, or pluck; he was better at a winning than an uphill fight. He now distinctly felt that the chances in the contest would be likely to be the other way.

Mr. John Windsor did not leave him long in doubt. Quick as lightning his left was in, and though by a rapid counter Bob managed to score a smack that counted for first blood, it was apparent that he was no match for the stranger, who was at once stronger, more active, and more scientific.

A couple of inches shorter, Jack Windsor was the heavier man. Bob’s activity gave him the chance of escape from two falls, one of which nearly finished the fray; but he failed to come so well away from a right-handed feint, which occasioned his catching finally a terrific left-hander, sending him down so decisively that he saw no particular use in coming to time.

‘I suppose I may as well give you best,’ he said, rising with some difficulty and showing an apparently fatally ensanguined countenance; ‘I didn’t begin except for a bit of chaff. It’s making a darned fuss about a —— new chum.’

With this Parthian shaft he departed, to be in readiness for the flock when cut off; while Jack Windsor amused himself whistling softly. Before he replaced his shirt he said, ‘Now, look here, boys; we don’t want to interfere with anybody, but this gentleman here is my master for the time, and any one who wants to take the change out of him will have to come to me first.’

‘All right,’ said one of the crowd; ‘it won’t do Bouncing Bob any harm to get a floorer or two, he’s only being paid for many a dab he’s given himself.’

Just at this moment a great clatter of bells was heard, and the overseer rode in at a gallop on a barebacked steed, with all the camp horses before him.

‘Now, look alive, men, and get your sheep out. Don’t be sticking in this camp all day. Hallo! What’s the row about?’

‘Nothing much, sir,’ returned Windsor respectfully; ‘me and that long chap they call Bob had a bit of an argument; he began it, and he’s got a black eye or two. I don’t suppose there’ll be any more of it.’

‘Well, take care there is not, or I shall have to sack the pair of you. Quite enough to do without fighting now. Get away with your sheep, like good fellows. The carts can follow.’

A section of about the required number having been made at the time by a line of men getting behind the leading sheep and driving them forcibly forward, at the same time preventing them (if possible) from running back to the still larger lot, Jack signed to Mr. Neuchamp, and putting the dog Watch at their heels, who aided them vociferously, they found themselves in possession of eighteen or nineteen hundred sheep, which they drove for some distance at right angles to the road.

‘Now what we’ve got to do, sir,’ said Jack, ‘is to keep quietly behind these sheep all day. We must not go more than half a mile away from the road, or we’ll be ‘pounded. We can’t follow the flock in front very close or let the one behind get too near us, or we shall get boxed.’

‘What do you mean by boxed?’ demanded Ernest.

‘Well, mixed up. You see, sir, sheep’s very fond of keeping all together. It’s their nature. If they get any way close they begin to run, the front to the back and the back to the front, and all the men and dogs in the world wouldn’t keep ’em apart.’

‘And what harm would that be?’

‘Well, we should have four thousand sheep to manage instead of two, and they wouldn’t drive so well or feed so well, and as these sheep are as poor as crows already, that wouldn’t suit.’

‘I see,’ replied Ernest. ‘I think I understand the principle of the thing.’

‘All right, sir,’ assented Jack. ‘Now, we’ve got the day before us, and nothing to think about till dinner-time but the sheep. Did you bring any grub with you?’

‘Not I—don’t we stop?’

‘Not a stop till sundown. You see, sir, the days are short now, and it’s more fair and straightforward like to the sheep to let ’em go nibbling and feeding all day, just keeping their right distance from one another, till camping time, then they draw in together, and they can camp till further orders.’

To keep slowly walking up and down, back and forward, behind a flock of sheep, from 7 or 8 A.M. till 5 P.M., the rate of speed and progress being considerably under a mile an hour, did not seem likely to turn out a cheerful occupation for three weeks. Mr. Neuchamp’s heart sank under the contemplation for a moment. But after all he considered that he was doing a good deed in the conversion of a weak brother (morally) from a criminal career to honesty and a good reputation. This was a result which would have overpaid him for considerably more inconvenience than he was liable to suffer now. Besides, he was picking up colonial experience practically with greater speed and thoroughness than he was likely to do at any station; therefore he stifled all unworthy feelings of impatience, and trudged steadily behind his sheep, at the opposite side from Windsor, as if he had been born and bred for the task, like the dog Watch.

That sagacious animal excited his astonishment and respectful admiration. The livelong day he kept trotting backward and forward behind the flock, always keeping at a certain distance, and merely intimidating the lingerers and weakly ones without harshness or violence. If a sufficiently lively crawl was not pursued, he occasionally, by a gentle make-believe bite, gave a hint as to what he could do if necessary. His half-human instinct had plainly convinced him that loudness of bark and general assertion were amply sufficient in the woolly as in the human world to produce the most gratifying submission and acknowledgment of superiority.

About noon the fresh air, the continuous though not violent exercise and healthy appetite of youth, combined to produce a feeling of deep regret that he had not been more provident about lunch. However, Mr. Jack Windsor, drawing over, produced a large parcel containing corned mutton and bread enough for an English labourer’s family for a week.

‘I thought, sir, as you’d like a snack, so I muzzled enough grub for two; I’ve got some cold tea in the billy.’

Ernest noticed that his retainer had commenced to carry a small camp kettle containing probably two quarts, which he nothing doubted held water. This repast was now complete. The friends munched away at the very substantial luncheon as they strolled along behind the ever-nibbling sheep, and after giving Watch a very ample supply, washed it down with nectar in the shape of cold tea.

‘Well,’ quoth Mr. Neuchamp, with a deep sigh of contentment, ’how comparative are all things! I never remember to have enjoyed a mid-day meal more in my life. This fresh day air must be a wonderful tonic; or is it the early rising and Arcadian simplicity of life? I believe that they insist upon a lot of virtuous behaviour at a cold-water establishment such as the people would never stand in their ordinary lives. But because it’s an “establishment” they let the doctor bully them to bed at nine, get up at six, eat early dinners of mutton chops and rice puddings (how I laughed at a guardsman’s face at Ben Rhydding once when the bell rang at 1 P.M. and he was marshalled to such a repast), and unexpectedly find themselves placed in possession of an appetite and health again.

‘It’s something of the same sort of thing here. If I had gone a trip with a drover from Tillyfour to London with West Highland cattle, I daresay I should have doubled my appetite and general vitality. There, however, it is not “the thing” to do. Here it is not the best form apparently—but you may carry it off without any accusation of insanity. One thing is certain, I shall never respect good cooking so much again. The cook to cultivate is yourself unquestionably. Guard your appetite, keep it in a state of nature, and the rudest materials, if wholesome, provide us with a daily feast, and a measure of enjoyment of which over-civilised, latter-day men are wholly ignorant and incapable.’