The run had been "taken up" for and on account of Captain Baxter, formerly of Her Majesty's 50th Regiment, about a year before my time, that is in 1843, by Mr. George Dumoulin, acting as overseer. This gentleman, a son of one of the early Imperial officials, and presumably of Huguenot descent, was a most amusing and energetic person. Inheriting the _legerete_ of his Gallic ancestors, his disposition led him to be _toujours gai_, even under the most unpromising circumstances. A capital manager, in the restricted sense then most appreciated, he spent no money, save on the barest necessaries, and did all the stock-keeping himself, with the occasional aid of a black boy. When I first set eyes on Yambuk station there were but two small thatched huts, no garden, no horse-paddock, and a very indifferent stock-yard. The rations had run out lately--there was no salt, for one thing--and as the establishment had then been living upon fresh veal for a fortnight, it was impressed upon me, forcibly, that no one here would look at fillets or cutlets of that "delicate meat that the soul loveth," under ordinary culinary conditions, for at least a year afterwards. Mr. Dumoulin, though wonderfully cheery as a general rule, was subject to occasional fits of despondency. They were dark, in proportion to his generally high standard of spirits. When this lowered tone set in, he generally alluded to his want of success hitherto in life, the improbability of his attaining to a station of his own, the easiest thing in those days if you had a very little money or stock. But capital being scarce and credit wanting for the use of enterprising speculators who had nothing but pluck and experience, it was hard, mostly impossible, to procure that necessary fulcrum. Regarding those things, and mourning over past disappointments, he generally wound up by affirming that "all the world would come right, but that poor Dumoulin would be left on his--beam ends--at the last." And yet what splendid opportunities lay in the womb of Time for him, for all of us! So when Captain Baxter and his wife came from their New England home to take possession and live at Yambuk "for good," there was no necessity for Mr. Dumoulin to abide there longer, the profits of a station of that size rarely permitting the proprietor and overseer to jointly administer. When the gold came we heard of him in a position of responsibility and high pay, but whether he rose to his proper status, or malignant destiny refused promotion, we have no knowledge. He was a good specimen of the pioneers to whom Australia owes so much--brave to recklessness, patient of toil, hardy, and full of endurance--a good bushman and first-class stock-rider.