Qu? amissa, salva.  
The parlour of the ‘Woolpack’ was full of men in from their stations for ‘Land Court Day.’ A babel of talk was toward—mostly ‘shop.’ ‘Footrot!’ shouted a small energetic looking man, ‘I’ll tell you how I cure my sheep! You boil vinegar, and arsenic, and blue-stone up—No, Polly, I ordered lager. And then—’ ‘Worms,’ my dear fellow, another was saying, ‘You can’t cure ’em! Don’t tell me! You go and make an infernal chemist’s shop of your sheep’s stomach, ruin the wool and constitution; and, after all your trouble, up bobs the little worm serenely as ever.’ ‘Strike,’ came from another corner of the big room. ‘No fear! No strike this year if we hang together like we mean to do. I think we’re pretty right in this district, anyhow. Everybody’s joined, bar M‘Pherson, and he’ll come-to presently. By jingo, here he is! Touch the bell, Bob, and let’s have ’em again.’ As the speaker finished, a burly, grey-whiskered man entered with, in his wake, another person who had evidently been closely pressing his 106companion with argument and persuasion, for the latter was saying irritably,—
 
‘Once for a’, I tell ye, no. I’ll nae join. I’ll just stan’ on my ain bottom, an’ employ wha I like. When I want my wool aff, aff it comes; an’ wha takes it aff I dinna care a damn, so it’s taken off to my satisfaction! Will that do ye?’
 
‘The gospel of selfishness according to M‘Pherson,’ said a voice from out the smoke-clouds. ‘The assessment ’d drive him mad.’ ‘Bang went saxpence!’ sang out someone else, as the Scotch squatter turned angrily round with a dim idea that he was being baited.
 
But the older men quietened the youngsters who threatened to break bounds.
 
They still hoped—stubborn and untouchable, except by way of his pocket, though he was—to gain M‘Pherson to the cause.
 
He was the largest sheepowner in the district, and that was saying a good deal when the smallest shore 40,000. Palkara shed was one of the shearing prizes of the colony, and the A.S.7 union officials viewed the defection of its owner with joy.
 
‘So I hear you bought the “Duke” down at the sales, Mac?’ said one presently, as the old man, his wrath subsiding, sipped his whisky and water.
 
‘Ay,’ responded he, ‘it was a stiff price to gie, but I’m no regrettin’ it. He’s a wonnerfu’ fine beast.’
 
They were sitting with their backs to the open 107windows, which gave on to a many-seated crowded verandah, and from this came,—
 
‘That you may lose him before you’ve had him a week, unless you join the Association!’
 
‘If I do, I’ll join, and ask it to help me find him,’ retorted M‘Pherson angrily into the hot outside night, and would fain have risen and gone in search of the speaker, but that his friend, whose name was Park, a neighbouring squatter, pulled him back, saying,—
 
‘Never mind these youngsters, Mac. They’re getting a bit sprung, I fancy. It’s no use making a row. When’ll the “Duke” be up?’
 
‘He’s due here on Tuesday,’ replied the other, ‘an’, if ye’ll be in, ye can see him. He’s weel worth the lookin’ at. He’ll come by rail to Burrtown, an’ then by coach on.
 
Two bachelor brothers, the Blakes, who owned a run not far from Palkara, were close to the window at which the pair sat.
 
The younger brother it was who had fired the remark inside about losing the great ram for which M‘Pherson had just paid 700 guineas.
 
.        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .
 
‘Well, Jack, what passengers to-night?’ asked the overseer of Blake’s Tara Station, as Cobb & Co.’s coach drew slowly up in the pouring rain close to the homestead door.
 
‘Nary one, bar a cussed ole brute of a ram,’ replied the driver, as he stiffly dismounted, and handed out the mail. ‘I got him at the railway, and I’ve bin more cautious with him than if he’d bin a Lord Bishop 108He’s for M‘Pherson up at Palkara. Hold the light please, Mr Brown, till I see if the beggar’s all serene.’
 
‘He’s right enough,’ said the overseer, after a glance at the aristocrat, resting luxuriously on pillows, half buried in hay, and with his legs tied by silk handkerchiefs. ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘slip inside and have a snack and a drop of hot grog. I’ll stand by the horses.’
 
‘You’re a Christian, Mr Brown,’ remarked the driver gratefully, as he pulled off his gloves and blew on his numbed fingers. ‘It’s the coldest rain for this time o’ the year as ever I felt.’
 
Scarcely had his dripping figure entered the open kitchen door, when, from behind a clump of bushes, came two figures bearing something between them. Lifting the ‘Duke’ with scant ceremony out of his couch, they deposited their burden in his place, and after a few whispered words to Brown, still at the horses’ heads, disappeared. Presently the driver returned, and, with a cheery ‘Good-night,’ started the coach rolling once more through the forty miles of mud and water between Tara and Combington.
 
.        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .
 
‘Coach in, Edwards?’ asked M‘Pherson the next afternoon as he drove up to the ‘Woolpack,’ accompanied by his friend Park.
 
‘Yes, sir. It’s a bit late, though,’ replied the landlord. ‘Roads terrible heavy after the rain. I had the ram untied an’ put in the stable, an’ gave him some green stuff.’
 
109‘That’s right, Edwards,’ said the squatter. ‘How does he look after the trip—pretty well?’
 
The other hesitated before answering,—
 
‘Why, yes, sir; he seems hearty enough. But I’m no judge of sheep.’
 
‘S’pose ye wouldna care about givin’ 700 guineas for him, eh, Edwards?’ chuckled M‘Pherson.
 
‘No, sir,’ replied the landlord with emphasis, ‘I’m damned if I would.’
 
‘Ha, ha!’ laughed the other, as he drove into the yard, ‘and yet, mon, I wouldna swap him for the auld “Woolpack.” Come,’ he added impatiently, ‘unlock the door an’ let us hae a look at His Grace.’
 
By this time there was quite a crowd on the scene. A couple of stock and station agents, a bank manager, the P.M., some drovers, everybody, in fact, who thought they knew a sheep from a goat, had assembled to have a look at ‘the big ram.’
 
‘Keep awa’ frae the door,’ quoth M‘Pherson. ‘Ye’ll all be able to hae a good sight o’ him presently. Let him come right out into the yaird, Edwards.’
 
As he finished, up the lane of spectators stalked a nondescript kind of animal, at which M‘Pherson just glanced, and then sang out to Edwards, appearing in the doorway,—
 
‘Ye never tauld me there was twa. Whaur’s the ither?’
 
‘There’s only the one, sir,’ answered the landlord. ‘That’s he.’
 
‘What!’ and M‘Pherson fairly gasped as he stared at 110the brute, which—from the muleish head, down the sparsely ‘broken woolled’ back, and slab-sided flanks, to the bare, kangaroo-like legs—bore the impress all over of ‘rank cull.’
 
Then turning to the grinning landlord, and with accent intensified by excitement, he shouted, ‘What’s yon thing? Whaur’s my ram? D’ye think I ped my money for sic a brute as that? What ha’ ye done wi’ the “Duke”? If this is a wee bit joke o’ yer ain, Mister Edwards, time’s up, I do assure ye, sir.’ And he advanced threateningly towards the publican, who nimbly retreated into the crowd, whilst protesting,—
 
‘I can swear to you, sir, that’s the very same sheep Jack Burns brought in the coach this mornin’. I helped to take him out, an’ I sez to Jack, “Well, he ain&rsqu............