‘Have no idea, puss; all a fluke, I daresay. I don’t think _he_ would trouble his head much about it, except for the sake of a certain self-willed monkey, who ought to be in bed and asleep. Good-night, darling.’ CHAPTER XIX For the first few months after Mr. Neuchamp had commenced to sit upon the throne of Rainbar, there was a large amount of station work to do, which, at the instigation of Mr. Banks and Jack Windsor, was pushed on with and completed. There were any number of calves to be branded, outlying cattle to be got in, the herd generally to be mustered and made to ‘go to camp’ properly, as well as many other things necessary on a cattle station newly purchased, and which had not been, let us say, very exactly administered for some years past. ‘It’s my belief there’s some of these LP cattle at every station within a hundred miles of Rainbar,’ said Mr. Windsor one day, as he and Mr. Banks returned from a neighbour’s muster, with a goodly number of cows, unbranded calves, and pen-branded bullocks. ‘It was these last store cattle they got that seems to have scattered and made out all over the country. They say it came on very dry after they were turned out. Their horses was that weak they couldn’t ride after ’em, so they had to let them go their own way.’ ‘Indeed,’ said Ernest sympathisingly; ‘they must have lost great quantities, or did they come back again?’ ‘They wouldn’t come back, because they didn’t know the run well enough to care about it over much. But they weren’t teetotally lost, ‘cause they’ve stuck at every herd they came to, and in course of time we’ll have ’em all at home again.’ ‘You are sure they will not be lost?’ ‘Not a bit of it,’ affirmed Mr. Windsor. ‘A brand, once well put on, is like a direction on a letter. People may steal the letter, or kill the beast. But every one who don’t go in for them tricks will help the owner of a stray beast to get him, if his brand is readable, just as he’d give you a letter addressed to you, if he was to pick it up on the road.’ ‘What will you do with these strayed cattle, then, when we get them home?’ ‘We must let them go again; there’s nothing else for it. And I’ll wager half of them will just turn and walk back again.’ ‘I have been thinking,’ said Ernest meditatingly, ‘that if we had a large paddock put up here, it would do capitally to keep strayed stock in, and for the horses. Surely it would save time.’ Jack admitted that an enclosure of the kind would be very handy for the class of cattle referred to, so Mr. Neuchamp at once made a note of a ton or two of wire for the purpose. Thus simply and unobtrusively was the ‘Improvement Idea’ initiated at Rainbar. Once admitted, it grew and enlarged into vast and even alarming proportions.