‘Well done, Jack!’ shouted Mr. Banks, as he finished the concluding editorial reflection; ‘and well done, Ben Bolt! He must have polished off that hundred and eighty miles, or else Jack would never have been up to time. It’s a good deal to depend on a horse’s legs. Well, Carry Walton’s a stunning girl, and it will be the making of Jack. He’ll go as straight as a die now.’
‘I must say I feel much gratified also,’ assented Ernest. ‘I should have been afraid of some of the old reckless spirit prevailing over him, if he had lost our friend Carry. How I feel assured of his future prosperity. He is a fine, manly, intelligent fellow, and wants nothing but a sufficient object in life to make him put out his best energies.’
‘Jack’s as smart an all-round man as ever stepped,’ said Mr. Banks, ‘and with a real good headpiece too, though there’s not much book-learning in it. He’d fight for you to the last drop of his blood, too. I know that.’
‘It is well to have a faithful retainer at times,’ said Mr. Neuchamp thoughtfully. ‘It carries a mutual benefit, often lost sight of in these days of selfish realism.
‘How shall we manage with the cattle without him?’ queried Mr. Banks.
‘I must take the two black boys,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, ‘and you must do the best you can on the run by yourself; for business renders it absolutely necessary that I should visit Sydney.’
‘I daresay I’ll manage, somehow,’ said Mr. Banks. ‘I must get Tottie Freeman to help me, if I’m hard pushed. She’s the smartest hand with cattle of the lot.’
‘I do not think that arrangement would quite answer,’ quoth Mr. Neuchamp gravely.
Within a fortnight after this conversation Mr. Neuchamp and his sable retainers might have been observed making the usual stages with a most satisfactory drove of fat cattle in front of them. They were not, perhaps, equal to the first lot he recollected despatching from Rainbar; but ‘cattle were cattle’ now, in the language of the butchers. There were plenty more coming on, and it was not thought advisable to wait longer for the ultimate ‘topping up’ of the beeves. They were good enough. The demand was prodigious; and purchasers did not make half the critical objections that were used in the old days, when cattle were not half the price.