Mr. Neuchamp of Rainbar had now reached a very important position in his career. He had gained a fulcrum for that lever by the aid of which he trusted to move the Australian world,—to raise or to cause to tremble—and finally to impel upon the incline of undoubted and social improvement—the hitherto inanimate mass of colonial society, strong in the vis inertiÆ which rules primitive or unenlightened communities. Before this happy moment of proprietorship he could but enunciate principles and theories. Now he was enabled to demonstrate them by practice. He would have comrades, neighbours, dependents, workmen of his own. And concurrently with the most effective and successful working of the station, he would show New South Wales, Australia, and the world generally, what an Englishman of culture, with a purpose, could effect in the way of reform. Captain Cook had discovered the continent—proconsuls of greater or less intelligence had governed it. It was left for him, Ernest Neuchamp, to raise it to that point of social and industrial eminence which should make it a Pharos, a wonder-sign, an exemplar throughout all the civilised world.

It may be gathered that Mr. Neuchamp was alone and possessed his soul in peace, when he found sufficient time in which to indulge these grand ideas and magniloquent reflections. Mr. Parklands’ company was not favourable to contemplation. His very existence was an aggressively energetic fact, wholly adverse to reverie or mental repose of any description. He was always talking or smoking, or asserting or denying, or going out or coming in, or preparing for his next journey or reviewing his last one. His very correspondence was of a telegrammatic and restless nature, full of reference to distances and routes, orders to overseers and stockmen to go thither, or come hither, to await him at one place or meet him at another. He went to bed defiantly and got up noisily, full of plans and prospects, and requiring everybody to arise and be stirring, in the most literal sense.

Aymer Brandon was constitutionally of a calm, equable, and chiefly amiable temperament, provided that he had things mostly his own way. But he was temporarily excited by the demon of unrest which abode in Parklands, so that between practical jokes, contradictions, reminiscences of adventures, revelries, and the like, no peace, in the true sense of the word, was possible until their departure from Rainbar.

Not until several days after that event did Mr. Neuchamp realise that he was clothed with real and undisputed sovereignty.

Then with sudden afflatus arose in his brooding mind the thought of the elevated duties and deep responsibility of his position. It was the hour of the evening meal. This frugal meal—damper, hard corned beef, and very black astringent tea—the same served in a very black quart pot—Ernest had enjoyed in solitude. Humble as was the fare, it was amply sufficient for a man in the pride of vigorous youth. The indifferent Bohea had power to stimulate delicately, yet positively, the nerves of Mr. Neuchamp’s, perhaps, hypersensitive brain.

The night was calm and clear. The starry heavens held no cloud. The long lagoon lay darkly metallic, or broke into phosphoric ripples. The mysterious sounds of the desert were rare and as yet unfamiliar to the listener. All things afforded a startling contrast to his English name and surroundings, even to his later metropolitan habitudes. Yet as he sat there by the light of the stars, amid the tremendous solitude of the wilderness, his heart swelled with the thought that he was the virtual ruler of a territory larger than his ancestral country—larger than any member of the house of Neuchamp had owned since the first baronial fiefs in their blood-bought Normandy.

‘What are the chief and foremost needs of this waste empire of mine—this desert city?‘ soliloquised he. ‘Here I have land enough to satisfy the earth hunger of the most ravenous aspirant of la terre. Water in reasonable though perhaps insufficient quantity. What is the great absent factor? Population, a yeoman class, a race of Vavasours, who could use these great levels for the growth of certain semi-tropical crops, who might rear upon them a limited number of stock, who would secure homes for themselves and food for their working oxen; who would remain loyal to me, their powerful yet philosophic ally; who would work for me at reasonable rates at ordinary station work, or any reproductive improvements which I might suggest, and who would thus entirely sweep away the present undesirable relations which have hitherto subsisted between Australian country labourers and their employers. It would not be expensive to provide a school and a teacher for their children, to be paid by results. I should be enabled, by a steady supply of labour, to cultivate a reasonable area. Gardens and experimental industries would of course spring up. The carrying capabilities of Rainbar might be enormously increased by cutting a narrow canal, as Parklands suggested, between the waters of the river and the chain of deep, yet dry lakes at the back of the run. The advantages of labour on one side, of wages on the other, would be mutual. Simultaneously an improvement in the character and quality of the herd would take place. Scientific experiments might be regularly made and recorded as to rainfall and other important matters. The culture of the vine, the orange, even the silkworm, might be introduced; and finally, after a few years, the semi-co-operative community at Rainbar, self-contained, happy, and prosperous, might be pointed out as at least one instance where enlightened theory and successful practice had accomplished an advance in civilisation, had solved the problem of the harmonious interchange of labour and capital, and had interpolated at least one Arcadian chapter in the sad history of mankind.’

As these and other fair and fascinating trains of ideas passed through the mind of Ernest Neuchamp—while outside of his lonely and humble dwelling the silent stars burned in the still wondrous firmament, and nought but the monotonous and half-boding sound of the night-bird broke the profound primeval silence—he passed instinctively from the stage of triumphant justification of his plans to a half-felt distrust as to their practicability; and with the thought of failure came a vision of the calm questioning gaze of Antonia Frankston, before which his ardent scheme and aspirations for the perfectibility of the race had more than once appeared dreamy and Quixotic. The fancied questioning of old Paul, cool as kindly, yet keen as a cross-examiner, seemed adverse to the Utopian infant. But Ernest’s strong enthusiasm of humanity, his generally sanguine temperament, carried him for that night over all obstacles, and he retired to a very lowly couch, fully determined that the Rainbar community should enjoy every advantage which co-operative life and labour had ever yielded to intelligent guidance.

With regard to the ordinary working of the station, he felt at a disadvantage in the absence of Jack Windsor. He had been so much in the habit of relying upon that ready-witted and helpful personage in the executive department, that he felt comparatively helpless when solely responsible. He considered also that his life would be now almost unendurably solitary without the companionship of some one nearly approaching his own grade, who would be at once an assistant and a companion.

In this extremity, he bethought himself of his late associates at Garrandilla. None of these young gentlemen was absolutely necessary at that ovine university. They had taken their degrees, so to speak. Their places were perhaps waiting to be filled by other alumni, some of whom paid a fair sum for the privilege of fulfilling, very literally, the position of the subordinates of Jairus, to that rather exacting centurion Mr. Doubletides.

This point being settled, he essayed to make choice of a probable companion. Grahame was obviously devoted to sheep. The merino had ‘marked him for his own,’ and it would have been wrong to have withdrawn so promising a woolsorter from the establishment. Moreover, he was not interesting or sympathetic as a companion.

Fitzgerald Barrington was interesting and amusing, if not sympathetic. Mr. Neuchamp was much minded to invite him to Rainbar. But in his way he was as unlikely as Grahame to take himself to any scheme for the improvement of the common people. With all the bonhomie of his country, he despised and disbelieved in the people, and would not have put forth his hand to save them from a fate quite commensurate with their deserts.

The remaining cadet then was Charley Banks. In this youngster Ernest had always recognised a manly and self-reliant nature, by no means beneficially indebted to early training, and having come off indifferently in the matter of book-learning. Still he thought him improvable from certain indications which led him to think him not wholly unsuitable as a companion. He had often expressed his dislike to sheep and his anxiety to live on a cattle station. Mr. Neuchamp, finally coming to the conclusion that he might do the boy a service, and at the same time provide himself with a companion in his solitude, wrote a letter to Mr. Jedwood, in which he described his purchase and gave a short sketch of the capabilities of the run, winding up with a fair offer of employment for Mr. Banks if he had no objection to his leaving Garrandilla, and if the youngster himself cared to come.

He was not long left in suspense concerning the intentions of Charley Banks. He received, as soon as the somewhat indifferent postal arrangements permitted, a letter from Jedwood, informing him that he was heartily welcome both to Mr. Banks and to Mr. Fitzgerald Barrington, if it pleased him to take a brace of cadets. But that, perhaps, it would be safer and more profitable to take one, who could do more work and be less trouble (on the well-known principle of two boys being only equal to half a boy) than a couple.

From Charley Banks himself he received a short but enthusiastic letter, setting forth his gratitude for being remembered by him, and his intention of starting for Rainbar in company with Jack Windsor, who, it was reported, was on the road up from town, and not very far from Garrandilla at the date of writing.

Much pleased with the idea of having shortly the companionship of Mr. Banks, and the aid of Jack Windsor, upon whose ready and practical counsel he had learned to place a high value, Mr. Neuchamp, after a few purposeless rides round his territory, conceived the bold idea of mustering and drafting a portion of the herd, with the aid of the aboriginals whom Mr. Parklands had bequeathed to him. A general muster he of course knew that, without a considerable force of volunteer assistants, he was powerless to undertake. But a portion of the herd he thought he could get in. ‘It will familiarise them with going through the yards,’ said he to himself, ‘and if there are any calves to put the new brand on, we can manage them.’ Like most inexperienced purchasers, he had immediately changed the LP brand, known from Queensland to Adelaide, to one of his own invention, viz. ?NE (a conjoined hieroglyph), which, as combining the initials of his Christian name and surname with the second letter of the latter, he thought ingenious and attractive, whereas, in point of fact, it took years to gain the widespread association with Rainbar which the old brand already possessed.

During former musters Mr. Neuchamp’s constructive faculties had been busy with projects for improving the accepted mode of drafting cattle. Much to his own satisfaction, he had arranged his system beforehand. He was confident that it would work without a hitch. His humane tendencies had been outraged by the unsparing use of the ruthless stockwhip, keenest when unheard, as well as of the long, pliant, wattle-drafting stick, not apparently a weapon upon which to depend your life, but in skilful hands—and such are not wanting at every important muster—sufficient to drop, as by a thunderbolt, the most formidable beast. This Mr. Neuchamp had remarked with pain and displeasure. Hitherto he had seen in drafting-yards only men used to managing breeding cattle, among which the calf of a week old, given to stagger wildly between your legs, and the wary and still more dangerously sudden ‘Micky,’ a two-year-old bull. Thus, to his eye, cattle drafting was less a difficult art than one which could obviously be conducted on a more Æsthetic basis.

That portion of the Rainbar herd which Mr. Neuchamp inveigled into the stockyard, then and there, with the assistance of the black boys, consisted almost wholly of the well-bred station ‘crawlers,’ as the stockmen term them from their peaceable and orderly habits. These guileless animals he managed, with but slight driving, to impel into the large receiving yards.

Beyond gazing with mild disapprobation on this proceeding they entered no protest. Indeed, when once in the yard, upon seeing the rails put up, they had all lain down and commenced the pleasing and reflective task of rumination. They had evidently made up their minds to a day’s ‘post and rails’—a matter to be borne with educated bovine philosophy.

Mr. Neuchamp then armed himself and black boys with light hunting crops having slender thongs. With these merely suggestive scourges they did not find it difficult to urge the indifferent animals into the smaller forcing-yards. Having got thus far, switches which would sting but not bruise were substituted. These seemed sufficiently intimidating to cause the steady steers and mild old cows to stroll calmly into the drafting lane.

So far the unsophisticated heathen, though wondering much at the manifold precautions taken with station pets, carried out all orders, in momentary expectation of some miracle being performed. That consummation being slow in arriving, Piambook protested, ‘Mine thinkit pyam nerangi fellow carp now,’ head and pluck standing out in bold relief in his mind’s eye as he made the suggestion.

‘Open that gate, Piambook,’ said Ernest gravely, pointing to the one which led into the ‘run-about’ yard. Piambook, snuffed out, obeyed, and wonderingly observed his master switch beast after beast into the various receptacles for cattle beyond. They were then released into the bush. Upon regaining their liberty, after an inquiring backward gaze, as who should say, ‘Is that all?’ they lay down a few yards from the slip-rails and gravely ruminated, much wondering, doubtless, at this, to them, wholly unprecedented experience. That night in camp Piambook remarked to Mrs. P., before coiling under his blanket, ‘Mine thinkit Mister Noojin wompi-wompi long a cobbra.’

Ernest came to the conclusion that man was not born to live alone, in a gradual, leisurely, and very decided manner, before he was gladdened one day by the arrival of Mr. Charley Banks, accompanied, to his further satisfaction, by Jack Windsor.

‘The old woman had got all right, bless her heart,’ Jack explained, ‘and he had come up in hot haste, after he had heard Mr. Neuchamp had bought Rainbar. He found, when as far on his road as Garrandilla, that Mr. Banks was just starting, so they had joyfully joined company.’

Charley Banks was of opinion that he had got to the right shop at last. ‘Everybody he had heard speak of the run had said,’ he informed Ernest, ‘that Rainbar was an out-and-out fattening run; that it was not half stocked; that the cattle were mostly very good, except a lot out at the Back Lake, and the best thing he could do was to clear them off for pigmeaters. The Mildool people were sending off a mob next week, and they would take all there were at Rainbar of the same description, and share expenses.’

‘Pigmeaters!’ exclaimed Ernest; ‘what kind of cattle do you call those? Do bullocks eat pigs in this country?’

‘No, but pigs eat them, and horses too,’ affirmed Jack Windsor; ‘and a very good way of getting rid of rubbish; all that’s a turn too good for making slaughter-yard bacon—does for the Chinamen; they ain’t over particular.‘

‘Oh! that’s it,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, reassured; ‘but what price will such cattle fetch?’

‘Thirty shillings to two pounds, and well sold at that,’ said Jack.

‘But would they not fatten, with time and careful management?’ inquired Ernest, loath to lose his probable profits.

‘Wouldn’t fatten in a hundred years; not in a lucerne paddock, not if you poured melted fat down their throats! They’re mostly old savage devils, all horn and hide; only fit for killing people and spoiling the rest of the herd. Now’s a first-rate chance to get ‘em away with the Mildool lot to Melbourne.’

Charley Banks followed on the same side, observing that the cattle referred to were thoroughly bad and unprofitable animals to keep or feed, and the sooner they were off the run and sold at however small a price the better. ‘But I suppose you got something allowed in the price for them, didn’t you, by Mr. Parklands?’

Ernest now recollected that this must have been the particular denomination alluded to by Aymer Brandon as those Back Lake ‘ragers,’ and in reference to which he had calmly decided to knock off a hundred and fifty pounds from the amount of the purchase-money.

‘Oh yes, I remember now,’ he said. ‘I suppose I can afford to sell them at a moderate price.’

It was finally arranged that Jack Windsor should go on the next day to their neighbours at Mildool, and induce them to come to in force with all their available hands, as soon as they had mustered their own outlaws, to help them to get in and draft the Back Lake mob.

‘I don’t apprehend that they will be so very difficult to manage,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, with a modest but slightly experienced air. ‘That is, if they are taken quietly. I put through a good-sized lot of cattle a few days since, and had only Piambook and Boinmaroo with a hunting-crop each.’

Mr. Windsor and Charley Banks looked meaningly at each other. The slightest approach to a contraction might have been observed in the former’s left eye as he made answer—

‘There’s cattle and cattle, sir. I don’t think we had any regular out-and-outers at Garrandilla when we used to go and spend a week with old Mr. Hasbene. He told me to give you his best wishes most particular. But they say these Back Lakers has been, in a manner of speaking, neglected. Mr. Parklands was always scraping the run bare as he could for fat stock, and let these old guns have their fling till he’d got time to make up a mob and clear ‘em all out. But he is a gentleman as never has a minute to spare; always comin’ up without notice, and rushin’ off as if another day at home would ruinate him out and out, so they all say, and the long and the short of it is, it’s fell upon us to make a clean sweep of ‘em—and a tidy job it is. However, there’s some smart boys from up the river, at Mildool now, and I think we can’t have a better chance to tackle ‘em. Isn’t that so, Mr. Banks?’

Mr. Banks nodded, and Mr. Neuchamp having signified approval, Jack Windsor was accredited as plenipotentiary for the Mildool embassy, and the council terminated.

The improvements were not extensive at Rainbar, Mr. Parklands being a foe to station expenditure, except where horses and traps were concerned. In outlay for these necessaries of life, as he called them, his enemies asserted that he spent a small fortune annually. Certainly his travelling arrangements needed to be complete. He was continually on the road. He accomplished wonderful distances, and when once he had made an appointment, whatever the weather, the roads, the season, or the pastime, men knew that they could depend upon him to keep his tryst to the day, almost to the hour.

and he had hitherto been extremely lucky, whether from his deep-seated determination ‘not to be licked,’ or from other interested quarters, so that one of his admirers went so far as to say that if he had been due at St. Thomas’s the day after that historic island had been submerged, ‘and a gull above it flying,’ Parklands would have been descried sailing about in a cutter, searching sanguinely for his I.P., and defying the elements with his customary formula.

Still, though he abstained from fencing, and did not greatly see the use of dwellings in the bush, where a blackfellow was an inexpensive and efficient substitute for one and a few sheets of bark for the other, he had so far relaxed his austere notions of outlay at Rainbar as to sanction the erection of two huts and a large, strong, well-planned stockyard. Of these improvements he had boasted on the journey to such an extent that Ernest half expected a modified Swiss chalet and a stockyard like that of the municipal cattle-yards in Melbourne, of which he had seen a photo. Aymer Brandon laughed at his grand description, declining to expect anything but a couple of broken-backed humpies; and as for the cattle-yard, he assured Ernest that at the last muster he attended at Rainbar they carried a lot of posts and rails out to the Back Lake in drays, put them up temporarily, mustered the fat cattle adjacent, by moonlight, and brought the posts and rails back with them after they had served their turn. Then Sparks emitted divers scintillations, and finally became sulky, and declined further conversation.

However, the huts turned out to be weather-proof and substantial, as huts go, and the stockyard, if not macadamised like the Melbourne Stock Exchange, or covering thirty-six acres like its Chicago cousin, was yet a roomy and many-gated enclosure, equal to the working of twice as many head of cattle as Rainbar at this time boasted.

Mr. Windsor was therefore enabled to take up his abode with the hutkeeper in the edifice which did duty for kitchen and men’s hut, while Mr. Banks secured a second bedroom in the other one with the proprietor, and professed himself to be snugly lodged. That young gentleman confided to Ernest his extreme gratification at finding himself permanently located at a ‘real first-class, fattening, plains-country cattle station’; such an establishment, since his entrance into regular employment, having been his ideal location.

‘Not a sheep near the place or likely to be for years,’ he remarked exultingly—‘that’s what I like about it; all good rightdown cattle work to look forward to: drafting, branding, camping, and, I suppose, driving the fat cattle to Melbourne some day—won’t that be jolly? As for sheep, I’m sick of the very sound of the name. When your work’s done with cattle, it’s done; but with sheep it never stops—winter and summer—all the year round.‘

‘Well, I must say I share your views about sheep, Charley,’ said Mr. Neuchamp; ‘it’s the most unending grind that I know. Cattle work has the advantage of being more romantic and exciting when you are engaged in it, and of coming to a definite conclusion some time or other, when you can refresh your wearied senses. In the meantime we are not over supplied with resources at Rainbar, as yet. I have sent for some books and ordered the weekly papers. Until they arrive, I shall be rather hard-set, especially in the evenings.’

The intervening days were got over without any great difficulty, chiefly by means of a series of exploratory rides round the run, up and down the river; these last excursions offering the variety of a little shooting, a double-barrelled gun being among the valuables left by Mr. Parklands, and ‘given in,’ upon the delivery of the place.

One evening brought a black boy from Mildool with a message that their muster was done, and that they would bring over the ‘pigmeaters’ they had gathered, and would muster the Back Lake cattle next day if Mr. Neuchamp would meet them there next morning.

Charley Banks was much excited at the news. ‘You will see some riding now, and some drafting too, if the cattle are wild. All the best stockmen on the river, both up and down, were to be at Mildool this muster. There are some smart boys, I expect.’

On the following morning Mr. Neuchamp and his friend were astir long before daylight, and soon after sunrise were well on their way to the Back Lake, full of expectation.

Nor was the scene when they reached the lonely lake, with the aid of Piambook’s guidance, other than novel to Ernest’s partially-instructed vision.

The Back Lake was a grand-looking sheet of fresh water, covered with wild fowl, a thin fringe of timber surrounding its margin. On a promontory which ran into the lake for some distance was a camp, bare and stripped of herbage to an extent which denoted long and constant usage. Skeletons of cattle here and there showed where the rifle had been at work from time to time, the formidable horns which still abounded hinting that abnormal causes had been at work to bring about a state of survival of the fittest.

On the camp stood, or traversed in angry circles, about a thousand head of very mixed cattle, in every sense of the word, a number of grand animals in magnificent condition, mingled with others that the most inexperienced eye could observe to be ‘stale, flat, and unprofitable,’ except for the very exceptional market and destination previously referred to.

At the distance of a couple of hundred yards from the main body stood the smaller lot, some four or five hundred, which the stock-riding contingent had evidently brought with them. Some were guarding them. Some restrained the camp cattle from leaving their parade ground. Others, among whom Ernest recognised Jack Windsor, were riding in pairs, and separating or ‘cutting out,’ as the cattle station phrase is, divers excited animals of a fierce countenance from the herd, and guiding them into the smaller division, with which, once associated, they were by the guardians thereof prevented from leaving.

Mr. Neuchamp’s artistic mind was strongly impressed with the wild picturesque character of the scene. On every side the vast plain stretched unbrokenly as the sea. The score of stockmen, swarthy, bearded, carelessly if not wildly attired, bore in looks, and perhaps in some other respects, no slight resemblance to a party of Apaches or Comanches, the ‘Horse Indians’ of South-Western America. They were well mounted for the most part on splendidly-conditioned animals, for no living steeds enjoy richer pasture and purer air than those which range the great saltbush levels of the interior; and generally the riding was more lavish, and indeed reckless as to pace and danger, than those of any previous bushmen.

‘There goes “Desborough’s Joe,” the best stockman on the river,‘ said Charley Banks admiringly. ‘Him on the roan horse,’ pointing to a slight black-bearded man on a magnificent roan horse, who, having forced an immense black bullock out of the camp, was racing neck-and-neck with him, as he tried to break back, and as he ‘blocked’ the fierce beast at every frantic effort to double and rejoin his comrades, ‘dropping’ the terrific sixteen-foot stockwhip on face or flank with terrific emphasis. ‘That half-caste boy is a rum one too. By George, he nearly jumped his horse on to that last bullock’s back, when he got him headed straight for the cut-out cattle. There’s Jack Windsor coming! they’re going to knock off for a bit.’

Mr. Windsor came over to explain to his master that he had remained at Mildool to give his assistance until their muster was finished, in accordance with use and custom; the head stockman there covenanting as soon as the fat cattle had been sent off to come over, bringing his pigmeaters, and also his following of fellow-stockmen, to give the Rainbar folks a turn, and draft their ‘Roosians’ for them.

‘So, as they was a very smart lot of coves as ever I see, sir,’ pursued Mr. Windsor, ‘I didn’t think as we could do better than get ‘em all over here and skin the Back Lake camp of all the out-and-outers. We might never have such another chance for no one knows when. If you and Mr. Banks will come down to the camp, you’ll see the sort I’m having cut out, and a livelier lot of “ragers” I haven’t seen for many a day; not since I was at Mr. Selmore’s Mallee Meadows. There’s only about three hundred of these, and not another on the run. But I’m blessed if he’d got anything else—wonderful man, Mr. Selmore!‘

Ernest accompanied his followers to the camp, where Banks pointed out the types which all cattleholders agree in desiring to ‘get shut of,’ in Jack’s phrase, as soon as possible. After a short interval for refreshment, the stockmen, who had been in the saddle before dawn, recommenced cutting out, which tolerably violent exercise was only concluded at sunset. The moon being favourable, the whole band then closed in upon the enfans trouvÉs, leaving the camp cattle to go whither they listed. At some time in the night, after a tedious drive of many hours, the ample outer yards at Rainbar, with much shouting and whip volleys, received them, and the gates being very carefully secured, all further operations were adjourned to the morrow.

Early on the following morning Mr. Neuchamp betook himself to the yard, nervously anxious for a sight of the prey, so safely deposited there, in the uncertain light and misleading shadows of the midnight hour. The coup-d’oeil is uncommon, wellnigh unique.

About seven hundred ultra-Bohemian bullocks, whose bodies appear to be mere appendages to their terrific horns, are safely (for themselves) yarded, many of them for the first time for the preceding ten years.

The trained bushman of Australia knows that yarding these inexpressible pariahs simply amounts to arming them for the fray. The resources, in attack or defence, developed in the confirmed ‘rager,’ are only to be learned by experience. He is the grizzly bear of Australia, and with a slight shade of odds should be my horse in a fight with that terrible plantigrade.

Mr. Neuchamp had looked forward to an exciting, perhaps dangerous encounter when they reached the station yards. But with this class of ‘shorthorn’ yarding is a much more rapid affair than with quiet station-bred cattle, which delay and resist with contemptuous disapproval born of familiarity. In such a case as the present the leaders, if not bent on flight, dash through the widely-opened gateways into the yard like soldiers storming a fort. The rest clear out with equal celerity.

If not frustrated in his first attempt at breaking back, by the sabre stroke of a sixteen-foot stockwhip dropped fair between the eyes by a cabbage-tree-hatted, black, velvet-handed native, the ‘rager’ cuts through the opposing ranks like a dragoon through Chinese infantry. No one goes after him. Perhaps five years afterwards, at another grand battue, a black boy will remark, pointing to an old broken-winded, but indomitable warrior, with horns like scythe-blades, ‘You menalu that fella? close up that fella boomalli yarraman belongi to me, long a Mr. Levison, old man muster long a Boocalthra Lake.’ The ‘rager’ is old, weak, and crippled now. The time has passed when he could tread the war-path alone. He will not leave his comrades now. He labours along painfully, but on the grand old visage is stamped indelibly the ‘hall-mark’ of courage, the possession of which he shares with the monarchs of mortality. Doubt not that he will reach the yard, and in that enclosure defy menaces, shouts, blows from the unerring waddy, from the stockman’s fire-tailed whips. He passes for the last time into what is now his graveyard. He will never leave it alive. At shut of day eight of his enslaved brethren drag him forth to the little spot of earth, his—what say I?—our only true heritage. Nature raises him a not ungraceful mausoleum of marsh-mallow. Farewell they of the unstoried herd! Like him, all unknowing of the base pangs of fear—like him, sped with a bullet through his brain, the only true death for a hero!

After the pleasant relaxation of breakfast, one of the few comparatively civilised meals encountered during the last fortnight, pipes were lit, stockwhips greased and garnished with resplendent crackers, and all hands strolled in leisurely fashion towards the stockyard. This enclosure presented on approach a tossing sea, ‘a vision of horns,’ most literally. Had there been a particle of unanimity among the imprisoned criminals, desperate and accursed in the eyes of man, a whole side of the yard might easily have been carried away upon their united horns, but they were too busy with wars of reprisal.

Unable to vent their rage on the common enemy, they rushed, gored, trampled, and bruised one another. Hair, hide, blood, and dust were the staples in present request. The weakest went to the wall, metaphorically, each individual under the average standard of strength and ferocity faring like an unwary O’Hallaghan discovered at a fair composed of O’Callaghans.

The correct thing, on first arriving at a drafting yard, is to ‘cockatoo,’ or sit on the rails, high above the tossing horn-billows, and discuss the never-ending subject of hoof and horn.

Many of the captive ‘ragers’ had personal histories. Heroes of many a camp, they had gradually been driven back to the outside boundaries of their respective runs, and, though each of fattening qualities and contumacious conduct, finally outlawed. The cattle-brand of Cain was now affixed to them. Sentenced and finally doomed to the unprejudiced stomachs of Chinamen for a consideration of thirty shillings per head, horns given in.

Presently Piambook and Boinmaroo appear carrying bundles of carefully-selected drafting sticks. Each stockman picks his favourite weapon, trying its poise and touch, like a billiard cue, and deciding with much care and deliberation. The ends are whittled to prevent splitting; passes and blows are made at imaginary foes. This part of the preparation does not last long. No mistakes are made. The cool, quiet-eyed youngsters know their weapon well, and the delicate and responsible work required of it. A desultory entry into the receiving-yard then takes place, each man picking his own panel.

The ‘ragers’ observing this movement keep wildly and excitedly ‘ringing,’ like a first-class MaËlstrom. As a matter of taste and safety, the original circular-sailing abyss would seem to be preferable. Some one did come out of that alive, crede Edgar Allan Poe. But no human ‘hide or hair’ would have emerged (unmanufactured) from the ‘horn-mill’ we have faintly essayed to limn.

The practised stockriders, keeping an eye on the trampling multitude, now glide down on either side of the yard, thereby preventing a simultaneous rush at the fence, which, though of unusual massiveness, is barely up to the weight of six hundred bullocks, say three hundred tons, at a high degree of momentum.

There is no question of charging as yet. Matters have not reached the personal stage between the combatants. If the ‘ring’ crowds too near the fence, the men on that side would walk along the middle rail holding on the while by the ‘cap,’ or uppermost horizontal, always of rounded and not of split timber like the lower bars. If a bullock looks at any one ‘in that tone of voice,’ he receives an admonitory tap on the nose. But the blood of the ‘ragers’ is not yet hot enough for the desperate stage when they dare everything. So they merely acknowledge the blow by a savage dig into their nearest comrade’s ribs.

Suddenly a bullock quits the outer edge at full speed, and dashes at the yard. The herd burst after him like a charge of Cossacks. As if by magic, the stockmen form in line, and without a word of warning or command each man stands in his proper place. An advance in line is made upon the flying squadron. Yells, oaths, sticks, and lumps of clay are used to expedite the progress of the maddened animals towards the smaller yards. The leaders beholding a gate, recognise a trap and essay to turn. Vain hope! They are doomed to blind progression like the leaders of a democracy. They must keep in the forefront of the movement or be trampled under foot. Lost is all pride of place; they are forced on, sideways, backwards, even heels over head, through the gate by the maddened rear ranks observant only of danger from behind. Two men creep past along the fence towards the gateway, and at the exact instant upon which the recoil takes place, the rails are put up and secured, abruptly blocking the most forward bullock, whilst undecided whether to advance or retreat. Half of the herd is now enclosed in the forcing yards; the remaining moiety, returning, form a smaller ring, and recommence horning their friends where they left off. The men again are quietly sitting upon the ‘cap,’ where pipes are relighted, preluding a hand-to-hand encounter.

During these last proceedings Mr. Neuchamp transacted a slight experience in this wise. Armed with his hunting-crop, he had chosen the centre of the line, in view of the cattle. When the panic from the van became communicated to the rear, the whole body turned and rushed frantically back to their old position. The stockmen and black boys, well used to the movement, opened on each flank, leaving free egress. Mr. Neuchamp, less prompt and agile, found himself alone and opposed to a legion of horned demons, going straight down his throat, it appeared to him, at the rate of 1 to 41. The leading bullock instantly appropriated him. Ernest, however, had ‘seen his duty, a dead, sure thing,’ and appeared truly anxious to perform it. Not to interfere with the ‘ragers’’ right to fair play, he made straight down the yard instead of cutting across at right angles.

Away, therefore, went Ernest Neuchamp, with a bullock, in sufficient training to win a moderate Derby, within two yards of him. It is admitted that a man under such circumstances always runs up to his best form. Therefore the decision ‘by a short horn,’ given by a sporting stockman seated on the fence, who kindly acted as judge on the occasion, created no surprise. Brooding over this occurrence, Ernest concluded to choose a position nearer to the fence on the occasion of the next drive.

Now another act commences. About fifty head have been run into the drafting lane and are ready for separating. The ‘lane’ is a long narrow yard about three panels wide and eight in length—a panel of fencing is not quite nine feet in length—immediately connected with the pound or final yard, and leading into it by a gate opening into the latter.

Two men have dropped down into the drafting lane, and are standing, one close to the gate, the other nearer to the cattle. The gateman wields a short drafting stick, not more than three feet in length, of approved toughness, his work being at very close quarters. This, the most onerous position in the yard, requires much the same qualities which the harpooner to a whaleboat must own. Quickness of eye, coolness, and daring are indispensable. His duty consists in preventing two or more cattle of different classes from passing through the gate simultaneously. He is imperatively called upon to read brands, observe ear-marks, age, sex, taking due heed to preserve his own life withal. This, for instance, may suffice for an example. Several beasts are cut off by his comrade down the lane, with one only, perhaps, belonging to a different class. He marks the superfluous individual at a glance, but does not move till they are close upon him. Then, like lightning, he encourages those required by light but rapid blows. The bullock to be ‘blocked’ receives one on the nose which arrests him for an instant, just long enough to permit his comrades to move irrevocably through the gate. As the gate closes behind them another tap causes him to turn tail and fly to the rear. Whenever this ‘pound’ holds cattle of only one class you hear the deciding shouts from the cockatoo stockmen, who are doing the ‘reviewing,’ safely on the fence, of ‘Fat,’ ‘Bush,‘ ‘Stranger,’ or ‘Calf-yard,’ as the case may be. At large musters for stragglers, you will also hear the further divisions of ‘Up the river,’ ‘Down the river,‘ ‘Over the river,’ as well as ‘Bush,’ ring out in constant succession for hours; the last comprehensive direction being used for the station cattle. The unerring dexterity of the ‘captain of the gate,’ and his rapid disentanglement of the seemingly endless streams of violent brutes passing through the lane, fill Mr. Neuchamp with admiration, and demonstrate to him that this is a leaf of colonial experience hitherto by him unfolded. He and his mates have gathered their adroitness from a life-training, and are little less perfect with the drafting stick in their line than Cook with his miraculous cue.

‘Ragers,’ it may be explained, can only be drafted in two ways, or modes of separation—the stragglers or strayed cattle being divided from them, in the interest of the attendant stockmen from the adjoining stations, who take them home after the muster is over.

Two gates leading from the pound at the far end are now taken charge of by the black boys, Boinmaroo and Piambook—the one answering to ‘Bush,’ the other to ‘Strangers.’ The gate from the lane is opened and the ‘ragers’ invited through. The invitation is accepted en masse, and in spite of two or three going down stiffened by a judicious blow behind the horns, they rush fiercely into the pound, and herd themselves on Boinmaroo’s gate, taking it clean off the hinge and flattening out the primeval, who hangs on heroically.

Mr. Neuchamp, after ‘they have all passed by,’ over gate and boy, rushes out to recover the corpse. Before he reaches the fatal spot, however, that slippery heathen is up and flying round after the bullocks, and, indeed, after his pulverisation looking like a demon.

After a voyage of discovery round the yard at full speed, they return, best pace, into the lane, where they are permitted to calm themselves before the next attempt. When it is made, they behave better, though all the while keeping the drafters incessantly popping at the fence by truculent charges. One hand is stationed in the pound to pass the cattle through, where a gate is opened,—no sinecure, with this class of cattle, their rage and desperation being by this time beyond all bounds. Many a man has lost his life in performing this apparently simple task.

In addition to the ordinary and patent dangers to the yard, Ernest narrowly escaped, when sitting in a dignified manner upon the ‘cap’ of the pound—a substitute rail more than seven feet from the ground—being hooked off by the scythe-like horns of an infuriated incorrigible. He was then and afterwards dubious as to whether his and Piambook’s joint essay at improved cattle-drafting was a fair test of his theory, the energy and bloodthirstiness displayed by the present performers leading to a reconsideration of his system. However, with true British pluck, he will not desert his theory without further trial.

He had observed that in cases of ‘charging,’ the assaulted one merely jumped on to the bottom rail of the yard fence, held on by the top, and met the advancing foe with a seemingly unnecessarily cruel blow on the nose, in most instances causing effusion of blood. The blow, unless with a recognised ‘bravo,’ was sufficient to avert the charge.

Ernest took the first opportunity to volunteer for this post, which was freely accorded to him—the chief requisite being agility. With a light switch he betook himself into the yard. The first half-dozen shot through like cannon-balls, possibly not having cast eyes on the congenial prey. This state of affairs did not continue.

The acknowledged bully of the yard put his head down and charged into the pound like a whirlwind. The gate was shut and all hands seated upon the fence with marvellous celerity. This warrior was a very evil-looking beast—a tall, hurdle-built magpie brute, with a development of horn remarkable even in that forest of frontlets. One circle he made round the pound, tossing blood and foam from his nostrils on every side, savagely lunging at every one he passed on the fence, treating the heavy blows which, alas! from time to time fell heavily upon his bleeding face with superb contempt. As he passed Mr. Neuchamp that gentleman lightly dropped behind him and switched him on the haunch, as a hint to move through the gate held open for him by Piambook. The mighty beast swung round. For one second his glaring visage seemed to say, ‘I’ll have your blood anyhow.’ That second prevented the impalement of a hero of fiction! Ernest turned, and for the second time that day showed great pace. But when making a spring at the fence, between the pound and the lane, his foot slipped off the rail and he fell forward from the ‘cap.’ The maddened animal, seeing his victim escaping, gave a terrific bound and succeeded in planting his fore-feet on either side of Mr. Neuchamp, though his hind-quarters still rested on the ground. Here he made frantic efforts to clear the panel and Mr. Neuchamp, the agony and uncertainty of whose position were indescribable, as his gasping articulation testified.

But help was at hand. A stalwart Lachlan native sprang like a tiger at the beast’s head, and with a few crushing blows forced him to stagger back into the yard. As he turned a comparatively light tap from a wattle drafting stick on the spine, behind the horns, dropped l’enragÉ in his tracks, as if struck by lightning—his nostrils in the dust, his eyes turned backwards, and his huge frame quivering in every muscle. Slowly recovering his senses, he staggered to his legs, and perceiving Piambook standing in the middle of his gateway, as if inviting him to the feast, rushed blindly and with unabated fury at him. That astute aboriginal disappears from his gaze; he reels wildly through the gate on to his head, picking himself up in the next yard, where he meets with the usual sympathy from his companions.

Mr. Neuchamp is restored by the exhibition of a strongish dram. As he observes the last bullock enticed out of the lane by having a bag thrown to him, which, after savagely driving his horns through, he carried forth thereon in triumph, he confesses that nothing short of hand-grenades, prepared with nitro-glycerine, can be esteemed suitable implements for the effective drafting of ‘pigmeaters.’

The fray was finished. Enough had been done for glory, and even for some modest minimum of profit. The gates and sliprails of the yard are scrupulously secured, and all thoughts of work abandoned for the day. On the morrow a grand departure was carried out. The estrays or stragglers—a not inconsiderable drove—were escorted away by the stockrider contingent, who held a collective interest in them. And then, with much care and forethought, with horsemen in front, in flank, in rear, the gates were opened, and the swine-doomed multitude rushed forth, extremely lively, ‘you bet,’ but gradually assuming an appearance of sobriety as the purposely long day’s journeying wore on.

‘I call that a bit of first-rate luck,’ propounded Mr. Windsor, ‘getting all these rowdy old devils off the run in one muster, like this; thirty of ‘em, let alone three hundred, ‘s enough to spoil the best herd in the country. There was some splendid fat bullocks—reg’lar plums—about that Back Lake camp—never saw primer cattle in my life.‘

‘Nor I,’ agreed Charley Banks. ‘I never set eyes on a better-looking run than this, let alone the saltbush. It don’t appear to me to be half stocked, that’s another thing.’

‘We shall have to consider what is most necessary to be done next,’ said Ernest, with a thoughtful expression. ‘There must be many pressing things of importance, as so little appears to have been thought of hitherto. The arrangements are simple, even to barbarism.’

Mr. Neuchamp was shocked that morning, on going into the meathouse, to find that the corned beef cask consisted of four upright round sticks, with a hide stretched across. In the deflected centre of this not particularly clean raw hide was placed above five hundred pounds’ weight of salted beef. To this magazine the entire household resorted in its need. He at once made an item, ‘Casks,’ to be added to the tolerably long list of articles required for immediate use at Rainbar, which he trusted to obtain when the first drays should make their appearance from Sydney. He then sat down and wrote a long letter to Paul Frankston, in which he described the delivery of the station, not forgetting to chronicle his gratitude to Mr. Aymer Brandon for his exertions in his behalf, and his satisfaction at the liberal manner in which the former proprietor had behaved throughout the whole affair.

‘I feel now,’ was his concluding paragraph, ‘that I am fairly launched as a pastoral proprietor, and I trust that I shall be able to combine a fair amount of profitable management with the reform of many objectionable practices and the improvement of station life generally, as it has hitherto obtained, on such distant properties as, up to this period, Rainbar may be considered to have been. A large present outlay will be unavoidable, but I feel certain that the increased profits, under improved supervision, will amply repay this and any future disbursement.’

‘All very fine,’ remarked Mr. Frankston to his cigar, as he put his young friend’s letter into his pocket with a dissatisfied air, ‘but if he commences to spend money in accordance with his notions of what he calls improved management, he will soon run himself aground. That’s not the way young Parklands worked the place when he went into it first, I’ll be bound. It’s extraordinary how every one who comes to this country of ours will persist in thinking that he has imported the first consignment of brains ever landed upon the continent. Well, I foresee that he will have his own way. If the seasons are good and cattle rise, he may pull through.’

‘And if not, papa?’ inquired the soft voice of Antonia, who had crept up to the old man’s chair and placed her arm caressingly on his shoulder.

‘And if not, my pet,’ said that experienced colonist, with a subdued growl, into which he attempted to infuse the unfailing tenderness which invariably characterised his speech to his fondly-loved daughter, ‘if not, why in three years our young and ardent friend will have to make a living out of his “plans for reform,” for he will have nothing else left, as sure as my name is Paul Frankston.‘

‘Oh, don’t say that, papa,’ said Mr. Neuchamp’s indulgent though sensible advocate; ‘surely he is far cleverer than most of the young men that come out and turn squatters with just a “little experience,” and see how well some of them have done.‘

‘It is not that he has a worse head, but I doubt most of all because of his better heart. That will destroy the balance. It’s a bad thing for money-making. A man can make money, save money, or keep money, with just as few brains as will prevent him from falling into the fire. But let him have only as much more heart than his neighbours as would overbalance a nautilus, and money falls away from him like quicksilver. It’s a fatal defect, Antonia, my darling; and I’m afraid our young friend has it incurably.’

‘It’s a fault on the right side, at any rate!’ said the girl, raising her head proudly. ‘Those who think tenderly and faithfully concerning their fellow-creatures are not, perhaps, so clever with the “muck-rake” as self-seekers who bore and tunnel, like moles, all their lives, never turning their eyes towards the blue sky, the golden sun, or the glad waters. It cannot but be that those who have loftier aims should have some compensation even in this world; and if they are not so clever in helping themselves, why, their friends must help them all the more. Don’t you think so, pappy dearest?’

‘He—m!‘ answered the capitalist warily. ‘That depends upon circumstances. Some people require a great deal of helping.’

‘The greater triumph when they are finally helped into safety and success, and then they are sure to help others. Prosperity opens the hearts of really generous people more and more. By the way, how did Paul Frankston ever come to make any money? Tell me that, sir?’

‘Have no idea, puss; all a fluke, I daresay. I don’t think he would trouble his head much about it, except for the sake of a certain self-willed monkey, who ought to be in bed and asleep. Good-night, darling.’