Power nodded. "I was late back from Surprise last night. I'll be away after breakfast though. Did they get in the black horse?"
"Aye, they brought him in yesterday. He broke from the mob and showed Mick his heels for two mile. He's first rate—a bit soft maybe—and as cranky as ever. Ye must watch him or he'll pelt you this side o' the flat. Aye, aye, ye may ride above a bit, but I'm telling yer." Scandalous jerked his head.
"I'll look at him."
"Come on then."
The two men disappeared into the stable. They came to a stall at the end of a row, and there, tied to a ring in the manger, stood a grand upstanding horse, black-coated from poll to coronet, which met their coming with ears laid down and a white flash of teeth. It was an animal to fill the eye of any man. It stood at sixteen hands to an inch or so either way, ribbed up as a barrel, with great quarters and shoulders sloped for speed. Its head was delicate for all its other proportions, but there was that in the eye to tell a man to go about his business warily. It showed a fair condition for a first day's stabling.
"Yes, he's pretty right," Power said. He called out to the animal to stand over, and went to its head, and he had looked it all about before coming away.
"Mick got off with his lot?" he said.
Scandalous Jack went on speaking at a shout. "Aye, they were away be four in the marnin'. Mick says he'll be mustered and have the mob at Ten Mile midday. You're meeting him there, Guv'nor, for the cutting out, I reckon?" Power nodded his head. "Mick says to-night's camp's going up lower end of Pelican Pool." Scandalous looked very wise.
"What do you mean?"