As he spoke he touched the colt’s side, and he moved off after the sheep in a steady and confident manner, more like an old horse than a young one. He occasionally stopped and sidled, or indulged in a playful plunge or kick. Of course these little irregularities were only amusing to Mr. Windsor, who was in truth a matchless rough-rider, and wellnigh impossible to be thrown by horses of good family or bad. By the end of the day Osmund was apparently as quiet as a trooper, and when unsaddled and turned out seemed quite at home with the cart-horses.
‘Now,’ said Mr. Windsor, as they sat at their evening meal, ‘you’ve got, sir, what everybody is always a-talkin’ about and never seems to get, an out-and-out good hack, fast and easy and well bred, and a stunner to look at. I’ll forfeit my month’s wages if he ain’t a sticker, as well. These quiet ones are just as game as the savages, and indeed more so, in my opinion, because they can eat and rest themselves better. And I wouldn’t sell him, if I was you, if I was offered double what you gave for him.’
‘I don’t think I will,’ said Ernest; ‘but surely good horses are easily picked up in this country, if one is a fair judge. There must be such thousands upon thousands.’
‘So there are,’ replied the Australian, ‘but we might be gray before you dropped on another nag like this, ‘specially for ten notes. Look at his shoulder, how it goes back; see what loins he has; good ribs; with out-and-out legs and feet. He’s more than three-parts bred; and if he don’t gallop and jump a bit I’m much deceived. He’s a bottler, that’s what he is; and if you ever go for to sell him, you’ll be sorry for it.’
‘Well, I don’t think I will, Jack,’ asserted Mr. Neuchamp. ‘I shall always want a horse while I’m in the country, and I think I shall make a pet of this one.’
For the remaining days, before the ‘reporter’ entered the Garrandilla gate, to give legal notice of the invading army of fleece-bearing locusts, Osmund was ridden daily, and became more docile and obedient to the manège day by day.
As the long lines of sheep, flock after flock, fed up and finally mingled at the Garrandilla gate, a big man, with a distinctly northern face, rode up on a powerful horse and looked keenly at the array of sheep, horses, men, and dogs.
‘Where’s the person in charge?’ he asked of one of the shepherds.
‘I believe he has gone to the township,’ said the man; ‘he’ll be here to-night.’
‘Have you seen anything of a young gentleman coming up to my station? I am Mr. Jedwood.’