Ironbark Ike bent a searching look upon his interrogator before he answered. ‘Wild? Well, I suppose you might call ’em that, and make no mistake. They’d come off a very far outrun, where they’d been, as one might say, neglected. Never see a yard for years, some on ’em. They was that wild, that as we drove along, if they came to the fresh track of a “footman,” they’d stop and smell it and paw the ground and roar for ever so long. We’d hard work to get ‘em by it. As to seein’ people on foot, there wasn’t much of that; and any travellers they kept clear enough of us, if they’d ever heard of the DD cattle. ‘Well, we’d dodged them along pretty fair, that is me and a Narran black boy and a young Fish River native chap, that was pretty nigh as unbroken as the black boy; he could ride the best, but the black boy had twice as much savey.’ ‘Some o’ them darkies is pretty smart,‘ interposed the host, gradually becoming less respectful to his ancient guest, of whom he apparently stood in considerable awe. ‘Smartest chaps ever I had on the road was blackfellows when they’re wild; as long as they can ride a bit, the wilder the better, and get ’em off their own ground, then they’re afraid to bolt.’ ‘I should have supposed when they have had the benefit of education they would have been more valuable assistants,’ mildly asserted Mr. Neuchamp. ‘Ruins ’em, bodily and teetotally,’ asserted Ike, with iron decision. ‘No educated blackfellow was ever worth a curse. But tame or wild they’ve all one fault, and it drops ’em in the end.’ ‘Indeed, how singular!’ said Ernest, ‘how strange that this sub-variety of the human race should have one pronounced weakness! And what may it be?’ ‘Drink!’ shouted the veteran, draining his glass. ‘We can do another round, Joe. Never knew one of ’em that didn’t take to drink, sooner or later; and, in course, that cooked ’em,’ he added, with an impressive moral air. ‘Sure to do,’ echoed the landlord, appearing with fresh rummers. ‘I have no doubt,’ assented Mr. Neuchamp blandly, but much in the dark as to the real nature of the culinary process described. ‘Well,’ proceeded Mr. Isaac, settling himself calmly down to his fourth tumbler, ‘where was I? with those blank cattle, oh! at the top of the road where it used to make in, at the top of Mount Victoria. By gum! it makes me feel as if there was no rheumatism in these blessed old bones of mine when I think how we rode all that blessed day. All the night before we’d been on our horses, round and round the cattle, in a scrub full of rocks; it rained in buckets and tubs, thundering and lightning, and pitch dark; and I, knowing that if the cattle broke loose, we’d never see half of ’em again.’ ‘Why, bless my soul!’ ejaculated Mr. Neuchamp, completely dislodged from his previous conviction that cattle were a more pleasing and interesting description of stock than sheep, ‘how did you ever succeed in keeping them?’