It was decided that Wilfred and the Benmohr men should mix their cattle and take the lead, followed by Churbett and the D’Oyleys, which, with Ardmillan’s and Neil’s, would make three large but not unwieldy droves. It must be borne in mind that five hundred head of cattle was considered a large number in those primitive times, and that, although the road was rough and the country mountainous, the added number of stock-riders which the co-operative system permitted gave great advantages in droving.
Fred Churbett and Gerald O’More struck up a great intimacy, dissimilar as they were in temperament and constitutional bias. The unflagging spirits and ever-bubbling mirth of the Milesian were a constant source of amusement to the observant humorist, while Fred’s tales of Australian life were eagerly listened to by the enthusiastic novice.
For days they kept the track which led from one border station to another, finding no alteration from their previous experience of wayfaring. But one evening they reached a spot where a dense and apparently interminable forest met, like a wall, the open down which they had been traversing. ‘Here’s Wargungo-berrimul,’ said Hubert Warleigh, ‘the last settled place for many a day. We strike due south now, towards that mountain peak far in the distance. A hundred miles beyond that lies the country that is to make all our fortunes.’
‘Wasn’t it here old Tom Glendinning was to join us?’ said Wilfred.
‘Yes; it was here I picked up the old fellow as I came back, with my clothes torn off my back, and very little in my belly either. He swore he would be ready, and he is not the man to fail in a thing of this sort. By Jove! here the old fellow comes.’
A man on a grey horse came down the track which led from the station huts to the deep, sluggish-looking creek. Such a watercourse often follows the windings of the outer edge of a forest, defining the geological formations with curious fidelity.
A few minutes brought the withered features of the ancient stock-rider into full view. He looked years older, and his eyes seemed unnaturally bright. His figure was bowed and shrunken since they had seen him last, but he still reined the indomitable Boney with a firm bridle-hand; and not only did Crab follow him, but two large kangaroo dogs, red and brindled as to colour, followed at his horse’s heels.
‘My sarvice to ye, Mr. Wilfred,’ he said, touching his hat with a gesture of old days. ‘So ye were bet out of Lake William and the Yass country at last. Well, ’tis a grand place ye’re bound for now. To thim that gits there, it’s a fortune—divil a less!’
‘Very glad to have you again, Tom. I hope the country will bear out its character. What a fine pair of dogs you have there!’
‘’Tis thrue for ye, Master Wilfred; they’re fast and savage divils—never choked a dingo. ’Tis little they care what they go at, from a bull to a bandicoot, and they’d tear the throat out of a blackfellow, all the same as an old-man kangaroo.’