Mr. Aymer Brandon was presently introduced with great and joyous empressement by Mr. Parklands, who hung about him with schoolboy abandon. He was so considerably above six feet in height that Mr. Neuchamp and his friend, both well-built, middle-sized men, looked abnormally short beside him. Broad-shouldered, deep-chested, strong-limbed, his vast symmetrical frame seemed equally adapted to feats of strength or of activity.
‘We are in luck, Neuchamp; Brandon happens to be going down to one of his stations below Rainbar, and we can join forces—that is horses—and tool down luxuriously, four-in-hand. Can’t lick us! I had a presentiment we should come out double sixes when I started.’
Mr. Neuchamp thought it would be most pleasant travelling.
‘You see, your cob can go with the spare horses, which the boys will drive after us. Couldn’t improve on the caravan if we’d planned for a month.’
Ernest would have modified his anticipation of comfort had he been aware that the larger proportion of the horses depended upon for this rapid and efficient journeying were, at that very moment, wholly unbroken to harness, having, so to speak, never seen a collar.
But this uncertainty of the future was as yet hidden from him, and the whole party proceeded to lunch, which, in consequence of much exhortation, with promises, and even threats, from Mr. Brandon and his friend, was, with the help of the omnipotent bitter beer of Tennant, by no means to be scorned in the wilderness.
‘What’s your waggon like, Sparks?’ queried Mr. Brandon privately.
‘Slap-up!’ answered he with confidence. ‘There’s no brake; but that won’t matter, as two of the horses have been in harness before, somewhere. We’ll do the hundred miles to Rainbar in two days comfortably.’
‘Nothing more complete could be hoped for on the Darling,’ pronounced his friend calmly, ‘so that’s settled. I subscribe the black boy and five horses, which we can break in on the road. I hope the I. P. (intending purchaser) is a good plucked one, or he is like to turn back before reaching Rainbar, if he journeys with us in the waggon.’
An early start was arranged for next morning. Accordingly the half uplifted disc of the red sun of the desert irradiated the whole party on the farther bank of the river fully equipped for the road.