Ernest now recollected that this must have been the particular denomination alluded to by Aymer Brandon as those Back Lake ‘ragers,’ and in reference to which he had calmly decided to knock off a hundred and fifty pounds from the amount of the purchase-money. ‘Oh yes, I remember now,’ he said. ‘I suppose I can afford to sell them at a moderate price.’ It was finally arranged that Jack Windsor should go on the next day to their neighbours at Mildool, and induce them to come to in force with all their available hands, as soon as they had mustered their own outlaws, to help them to get in and draft the Back Lake mob. ‘I don’t apprehend that they will be so very difficult to manage,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, with a modest but slightly experienced air. ‘That is, if they are taken quietly. I put through a good-sized lot of cattle a few days since, and had only Piambook and Boinmaroo with a hunting-crop each.’ Mr. Windsor and Charley Banks looked meaningly at each other. The slightest approach to a contraction might have been observed in the former’s left eye as he made answer― ‘There’s cattle and cattle, sir. I don’t think we had any regular out-and-outers at Garrandilla when we used to go and spend a week with old Mr. Hasbene. He told me to give you his best wishes most particular. But they say these Back Lakers has been, in a manner of speaking, neglected. Mr. Parklands was always scraping the run bare as he could for fat stock, and let these old guns have their fling till he’d got time to make up a mob and clear ’em all out. But he is a gentleman as never has a minute to spare; always comin’ up without notice, and rushin’ off as if another day at home would ruinate him out and out, so they all say, and the long and the short of it is, it’s fell upon us to make a clean sweep of ’em―and a tidy job it is. However, there’s some smart boys from up the river, at Mildool now, and I think we can’t have a better chance to tackle ’em. Isn’t that so, Mr. Banks?’ Mr. Banks nodded, and Mr. Neuchamp having signified approval, Jack Windsor was accredited as plenipotentiary for the Mildool embassy, and the council terminated. The improvements were not extensive at Rainbar, Mr. Parklands being a foe to station expenditure, except where horses and traps were concerned. In outlay for these necessaries of life, as he called them, his enemies asserted that he spent a small fortune annually. Certainly his travelling arrangements needed to be complete. He was continually on the road. He accomplished wonderful distances, and when once he had made an appointment, whatever the weather, the roads, the season, or the pastime, men knew that they could depend upon him to keep his tryst to the day, almost to the hour. Alike to him were tide or time, Moonless midnight or matin prime,