‘The old woman had got all right, bless her heart,’ Jack explained, ‘and he had come up in hot haste, after he had heard Mr. Neuchamp had bought Rainbar. He found, when as far on his road as Garrandilla, that Mr. Banks was just starting, so they had joyfully joined company.’
Charley Banks was of opinion that he had got to the right shop at last. ‘Everybody he had heard speak of the run had said,’ he informed Ernest, ‘that Rainbar was an out-and-out fattening run; that it was not half stocked; that the cattle were mostly very good, except a lot out at the Back Lake, and the best thing he could do was to clear them off for pigmeaters. The Mildool people were sending off a mob next week, and they would take all there were at Rainbar of the same description, and share expenses.’
‘Pigmeaters!’ exclaimed Ernest; ‘what kind of cattle do you call those? Do bullocks eat pigs in this country?’
‘No, but pigs eat them, and horses too,’ affirmed Jack Windsor; ‘and a very good way of getting rid of rubbish; all that’s a turn too good for making slaughter-yard bacon—does for the Chinamen; they ain’t over particular.’
‘Oh! that’s it,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, reassured; ‘but what price will such cattle fetch?’
‘Thirty shillings to two pounds, and well sold at that,’ said Jack.
‘But would they not fatten, with time and careful management?’ inquired Ernest, loath to lose his probable profits.
‘Wouldn’t fatten in a hundred years; not in a lucerne paddock, not if you poured melted fat down their throats! They’re mostly old savage devils, all horn and hide; only fit for killing people and spoiling the rest of the herd. Now’s a first-rate chance to get ’em away with the Mildool lot to Melbourne.’
Charley Banks followed on the same side, observing that the cattle referred to were thoroughly bad and unprofitable animals to keep or feed, and the sooner they were off the run and sold at however small a price the better. ‘But I suppose you got something allowed in the price for them, didn’t you, by Mr. Parklands?’
Ernest now recollected that this must have been the particular denomination alluded to by Aymer Brandon as those Back Lake ‘ragers,’ and in reference to which he had calmly decided to knock off a hundred and fifty pounds from the amount of the purchase-money.