‘Now, as it was Dick’s business to tail (follow) the cattle, five-hundred head, I advised him to have his musket sawed off in the barrel, so as to be a more handy size for using on horseback. He took my advice; and Charley Anvils made a very good job of it, so that he could bring it under his arm when hanging at his back from a rope sling, and fire with one hand. It was lucky I thought of it, as it turned out. ‘At length the overseer fixed on a spot for the Station. It was very well for water and grass, and a very pretty view, as he said, but it was too near a thicket where the Blacks would lie in ambush, for safety. The old Bushmen wanted it planted on a neck of land, where the waters protected it all but one side, and there a row of fence would have made it secure. ‘Well, we set to work, and soon had a lot of tall trees down. Charley put up his forge and his grindstone, to keep the axe sharp, and I staid with him. Dick went tailing the cattle, and the overseer sat on a log and looked on. The second day a mob of Blacks came down on the opposite side of the river. They were quite wild, regular _myals_, but some of our men with green branches, went and made peace with them. They liked our bread and sugar; and after a short time we had a lot of them helping to draw rails, fishing for us, bringing wild honey, kangaroos, rats, and firewood, in return for butter and food, so we began to be less careful about our arms. We gave them iron tomahawks, and they soon found out that they could cut out an opossum from a hollow in half-an-hour with one of our tomahawks, while it took a day with one of their own stone ones. ‘And so the time passed very pleasantly. We worked away. The young men and gins worked for us. The chiefs adorned themselves with the trinkets and clothes we gave them, and fished and hunted, and admired themselves in the river. ‘Dick never trusted them; he stuck to his cattle; he warned us not to trust them, and the overseer called him a bloodthirsty murdering blackguard for his pains.