“What use? It’s a summonsing match already. Look at the fence! And Martin lives in the hut after all. He’s between us and the bullocks now—laughing at us. What business had we to travel on”
“Demmit suggest something. Make use of me in this emergency, I beg of you. Shall I”
“Port Phillip, all over. Jist let me deliver this (adj.) load. That’s all I”
“Comes o’ young pups knowin’ heverythink. I kep’ misdoubtin’ all the (adj.) time”
“Are you fellows mad?” shouted the young storekeeper, as he dashed past the group, and pulled his blown horse round in a circle. “Out with those bullocks as quick as the devil’ll let you! Martin’s on top of you! I’ve just given him the slip! We were sent from the station expressly to nip you. Fly round! blast you, fly round!”
At the word, Cooper and Thompson snatched up their bridles and darted off, followed by Price and Willoughby. Dixon and Bum were not in the crowd, but no one had leisure just then to notice their absence.
“Len’s yer horse, like a good feller,” said Mosey hastily.
“To (sheol) with your cheek!” snapped Moriarty. “What next I wonder?” Mosey snatched up his bridle, and went off at a run. “Hello, Collins! I didn’t notice you in the hurry. Bright cards, ain’t they? Nothing short of seven years’ll satisfy them. You’ve been travelling all night?”
“No; I camped here with the teams.”
“I thought when I saw the saddled horse, that you had just turned him in to get a bite.”
“He’s not saddled. There’s my saddle.”
“I thought that was your horse—that black one with the new saddle on.” (I should explain that Moriarty, being mounted, could see across the old-man salt-bush, which I could not.) “But I say,” he continued; “what do you mean by stopping here instead of making for the station? I’ve a dash good mind to tell Mrs. Beaudesart. Why, it’s two months since you parted from her.”
“Where’s Martin?” I asked.
“I left him at the ram-paddock, trying to track his horse. I suppose you haven’t heard that he lives here now?”
“Well, we heard that some one was being sent to live here. By the way, Moriarty, you better keep out of sight of that fellow at the hut.”
“No odds. It’s only Daddy Montague; he can’t see twenty yards. But I say—Mrs. Beaudesart is sorting out her own old wedding toggery; she knows you’ll never have money enough to”
“How does Martin come to be at the ram-paddock, if he lives here?” I interrupted.
“I’ll tell you the whole rigmarole,” replied the genial ass. “Martin was at the station yesterday, crawling after Miss King, when up comes a sandy-whiskered hound of a contractor, name of M’Nab, to see about the specifications of the new fence between us and Nalrooka; and this (fellow)’s idea of getting on the soft side of Montgomery, about the fence, was to
