‘What a brute that Rakes must be,’ said Will Henton. ‘Fancy a fellow going against his own side. You say he’s gone to sea? I hope he won’t come over here; we want none of his sort.’
‘I’d like to meet Will Brown,’ said Ben Brody. ‘Suppose you ask him to come up here and try his luck? He’ll not make a fortune very quick, but it will keep him out of mischief.’
‘I’ll write to his ship in Sydney when she arrives, and ask him,’ said Edgar; ‘I think it would just suit him.’
‘We can always find room for an extra hand or two on Yanda,’ said Brody, with a wink, ‘provided they’re the right sort.’
‘You’ll find Will all right,’ said Edgar.
‘If he comes up to your standard he’ll do,’ replied Brody.
There was not much variety in the life at Yanda, but it was new to Edgar, and he found much to interest him. He had the usual experience with a buck-jumper, and felt the peculiar sensation of being hurled into the air, with no certainty as to where he would come down. This is how Edgar described his first throw from a buck-jumper to his father:
‘You suddenly feel his back arch, and it nearly cuts you in two. Then you discover he has all four legs off the ground at the same time. Finally you are shot into space, much in the same way as you would go if a gigantic catapult propelled you. The sensation is not pleasant, and the knowledge that all your mates are enjoying the undignified manner in which you are unseated adds to the general discomfiture. However, I am a fair rough-rider now, although there’s one horse—“Brody’s buck-jumper,” he’s called—I cannot tackle, and no other man on the place with the exception of Brody himself. There’s a history attached to this animal which you may hear some day. Brody once got him into a horse-box, I believe, and the passengers on the train sent a deputation to the guard at the first stopping-place to have the horse removed. Someone suggested the animal ought to be shot, but Brody’s wrath was so great when he heard this that no further mention was made of it. Anyhow, Brody’s buck-jumper had his own way, as he always has, for the remainder of the journey.’
Yacka the black had taken to Edgar Foster from the moment he took his hand, and during the six months that had passed he was constantly about the homestead asking what he could do for him.
‘Bless me if I don’t think you’ll civilize Yacka in time!’ said Brody. ‘I never knew him come round here so much before. It’s all that handshake did it.’