Their most flagrant robbery was committed on Mr. John Cox's Mount Napier station, whence a flock of maiden ewes was driven, and the shepherd maltreated. These young sheep were worth nearly two pounds per head, besides being impossible to replace. Mr. Cox told me himself that they constituted about a third of his stock in sheep at the time. He therefore armed a few retainers and followed hot on the trail. He had unusual facilities for making successful pursuit. In his house lived a tame aboriginal named Sou'wester, who had a strong personal attachment for Mr. Cox. Like most of his race, he had the true bloodhound faculty when a man-hunt was in question. He led the armed party, following easily the trampling of the flock in the long grass until they reached the edge of the Rocks. Into this rugged region the flock had been driven. Before long Sou'wester's piercing eye discovered signs of their having been forced along the rocky paths at the point of the spear. It was evident to him that they were making for the lake, which was in the centre of the lava country. By and by he pointed out that, by the look of the tracks, they were gaining upon the robbers. And shortly too sure an indication of the reckless greed and cruelty of the savage was furnished. Passing round an angular ridge of boulders, suddenly they came upon about a hundred young sheep, which had been left behind. "But why are they all lying down?" said one of the party. The tracker paused, and, lifting a hind-leg of one of the helpless brutes, showed without speech that the limb was useless. _The robbers had dislocated the hind-legs_ as a simple preventive of locomotion; to insure their being in the same place when it should please their captors to return and eat them. "I never felt so wolfish in my life," said Mr. Cox to me, afterwards, "as when I saw the poor things turn up their eyes reproachfully as they lay, as if imploring our assistance." A few more miles brought them up with the main body. They opened fire upon the tolerably large body of blacks in possession, directly they came within range. "It was the first time I had ever levelled a gun at my fellow-man," John Cox remarked. "I did so without regret or hesitation in this instance. I never remember having the feeling that I could not miss so strong in me--except in snipe-shooting. I distinctly remember knocking over _three_ blacks, two men and a boy, with one discharge of my double barrel." Sou'wester had a good innings that day, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He fired right and left, raging like a demoniac. One huge black, wounded to death, hastened his own end by dragging out his entrails, meanwhile praising up the weapons of the white man as opposed to those of the black. Sou'wester cut short his death-song by blowing out his brains with the horse-pistol of the period. A few of the front-rankers were shot on this occasion; but most of the others saved themselves by precipitately taking to the lake.