It took a long time before the sheep were quite cured of the distemper and the flocks were allowed to mingle as before.
Sam and Bob and old Mat had worked very hard, but they could not have got on alone, if Tom Wells had not been sent to help them. Tom was a first-rate rider, and a fair stockman, so he was sent to look after the cattle. He was lodged in old Mat’s house. He had been thus employed only a day or two, when Peach managed to meet him.
“Stock keeping better than bullock driving, lad, eh?” were the first words Peach uttered.
“I should think so, mate,” said Tom.
“More profit to be made of it,” observed Peach.
“Wages is wages,” observed Tom. “If I agree for so much, I take it, and must be content; if I take more than that, it’s robbery to my mind, and with that I’ve no business.”
“Oh those are Rudge’s notions, he’s been putting you up to that sort of stuff,” remarked Peach, with a look of contempt; and then he muttered, “But I’ll be even with him and you too.”
“They are the notions of all decently honest men,” said Wells, turning away from the tempter.
Peach was not a man to give up a plan he had once formed. As he could not get the help of Rudge and Wells, he tried other means to get possession of his master’s cattle. He had always made friends, as far as he could, with the blacks, a tribe of whom often pitched their tents near his hut. He was a sober man, and did not mind parting with his rum. All sober men are not good men, though drunkenness rarely fails to lead to crime and punishment. He had looked out for the blacks, and had told them that they must help him to get the cattle. They had managed from time to time to drive off a few calves.
As has been said, cattle have a fear of blacks, and, scenting them at a long distance, scamper off as soon as they draw near.