‘Why, “the cove” ain’t bought ‘em, surely?’ said Joe Freeman, with a look of much distrust and disapproval. ‘Where’s he to get the sugar, I want to know; or else it’s a “plant” between him and old Levison.‘
‘When the stock’s counted and branded you’ll get your cheque,’ said the imperturbable manager; ‘that’s all you’ve got to bother your head about. It’s no business of yours, if you’re paid, whether Levison chooses to sell ’em, or boil ’em, or put ’em in a glass case.’
‘Well, I’m blowed,’ said Bill Freeman, ‘if we ain’t regularly sold. If I’d a-known as they was a-comin’ here, I’d have seen Levison in the middle of a mallee scrub with his tongue out for water before I’d have sold him a hoof. One comfort: the cash is all right, and half of these crawlers will die before spring.‘
‘Not if rain comes within a month,’ said Mr. Cottonbush cheerily. ‘You’d be surprised what a fortnight will do for stock in these places, and the grass grows like a hotbed. These cattle are smallish and weak, but not so badly bred. They’ll fill out wonderfully when they get their fill. You’d better wait and see them counted, and then you can have your cheque.’
Jack Windsor and Charley Banks worked with a will, so did the younger members of the yeomanry plantation. The grown cattle were of course pen-branded. By night-fall every one was marked very legibly and counted out. Four hundred and seventy head of cattle over six months old, eighty-four horses, and twelve hundred mixed sheep, principally weaners. These last were fire-branded on the side of the face, provided with a shepherd, and kept near home.
The necessary preliminaries being concluded, Mr. Cottonbush handed a cheque, at the prices arranged, to Abraham Freeman, and turned the horses and cattle out of the yard.
‘You haven’t a horn or a hoof on Rainbar now,’ said he composedly; ‘perhaps you have ’em in a better place, in your breeches pockets; and remember I’ll be up here next November, or else Mr. Levison, to take up your selections as agreed. Then, I suppose, you’ll be fixing yourself down upon some other miserable squatter. You’re bound not to stop here, you know.’
Having thus accomplished his mission clearly and unmistakably, Mr. Cottonbush, whose acquaintance Ernest had first made at Turonia when he took delivery of Mr. Drifter’s cattle, declared his intention of starting at daybreak. Waste of time was never laid to the charge of Mr. Levison’s subordinates. ‘Like master like man’ is a proverb of unquestionable antiquity. There is more in it than appears upon the surface. Whatever might have been the moulding power, it is certain that his managers, agents, and overseers attached great importance to those attributes of punctuality, foresight, temperance, and thrift which were dear to the soul of Abstinens Levison.
‘I’m glad these crawlers of cattle are branded up and done with while it’s dry, likewise the horses. All this kind of work is so much easier and better done in dry weather,’ said the relaxing manager. ‘They’re not a very gay lot to look at now. But I shouldn’t wonder to see you knocking ten pounds a head out of some of those cats of steers before this day two years.’
‘Ten pounds a head!’ echoed Ernest. ‘Why not say twenty, while you’re about it?’