‘We _may_ have,’ said Mr. Banks doubtfully, ‘but it don’t look likely to me. If you have noticed, it has turned cloudy and dark-looking, and all passed off again, a dozen times within the last month or two, and that’s as bad a sign as could be.’ Mr. Neuchamp revolved the unpleasing idea thus presented to him much and often in the days following this eventful dialogue. With a sudden flash of perception he saw his course of unchecked improvement and disproportionate outlay in remorseful clearness. Had he then, in despite of the respectful but marked disapproval of both of his faithful subordinates, experienced in the ways of the land, been steering obstinately on a course with a rock ahead plainly visible to their clear if not far-reaching vision? Would he really find himself landed in a labyrinth of debt, like so many unlucky squatters that he had _heard of_, from which all attempt at extrication would be vain without the total sacrifice of his investment? He felt like a reckless mariner who, having disregarded the cry of breakers ahead, had carried on madly until the fatal crash was heard, and the good ship, dreadfully immovable, lay broadside on to the remorseless billows. With returning daylight, however, the retrospective reverse having occupied the hours of a sleepless night, came firmer resolves, and even some faint signs of hope. Surely even his rigid agents would advance what money he needed upon the security of his fat stock to come. If they were not to be moved to the disbursing point, his brother Courtenay might permit him to draw upon him for a couple of thousand pounds. That would completely set him free from pressing liabilities, and would be amply sufficient to carry on with until another crop of fat stock should ripen, till this present abnormal state of matters, with the drought-bound herd of cattle, became a thing of the past. The days, the weeks, passed on without any alteration of the weather, except what might be considered a passing from bad to worse. Hot days, cool days, windy days, cloudy days, came and went, but no rainy days, although often the sky looked dark, and storm-clouds rolled up in great battalions, only, alas! to scatter, break up, and flee before the sun’s rays like a barbarian army at the sight of a dreaded enchanter. Certain effects commenced to follow the gradual and complete desiccation which pervaded the soil. The grass withered, became brittle and sapless, then blew away before the breath of the harsh hot wind, leaving the red earth bare, baked, and ‘much more like a brick-field’ (this was Jack Windsor’s simile) ‘than a first-chop cattle-run.’ The Back Lake commenced to dry up, and the weaker cattle sank by scores in the mud, and either died or were extricated with difficulty. The strange cattle came into the frontage, and strove with the _habitués_ of that locality for the very scanty pasture which was left.