country whence his ancestors came. I had made his acquaintance by riding from Melbourne with him a year or so before. Having just come over from Tasmania with a faithful retainer and four horses, thence imported, he was journeying to a run which he had bought.
He rode an immense black horse, which carried him "like a pony," fifteen stone and over as his weight probably then was! I well remember speculating as to how such a horse might be bred—a grand forehand, clean fiat legs, active, powerful, blood-like, a great jumper, and a good carriage horse.
Let any one try to pick up an animal of this type, no matter what price he is prepared to give. He will then realise the correctness of my conviction then, wholly unaltered by after-experience, of his rarity and value.
The faithful retainer, whose name was William Godbold, was a grim-looking "old hand," who had, however, risked his life in a memorable flood in order to save a comrade.
Years after the faithful retainer came to work on my station, and being looked upon as "such a good man," was permitted to purchase a colt on credit. He availed himself of the credit (and the colt) by riding him across the border to Mount Gambier. There was no extradition treaty in those days. A fawn bay, with a black stripe down his back, a shoulder cross and mule markings (see Darwin), four years old, fast and sound—I never was paid for that colt, and "still the memory rankles," trifling as is the deficit! Many debts have I forgiven. Some, alas! have had to be forgiven to me. But that colt—
