After this amalgamation everything went prosperously. We had plenty of driving power, and the cattle strung along the road daily with comparatively nimble feet. Something of this cheerfulness may be attributed to the fact that we had ceased to camp or watch them. Judging correctly that after so long a trail they would be indisposed to ramble, we left them out at night, and slept the sleep of the just. At daylight they were always well within view, generally lying down, and half-an-hour's work put them all together. Fred was always averse to early exercise, so we compromised matters by his lending me his one-eyed cob, "The Gravedigger," so called from a partial resemblance to the animal incautiously acquired by the Elder in "Sam Slick" at a Lower Canadian horse fair. "They're a simple people, those French; they don't know much about horses; their priests keeps it from 'em." This quotation Fred had always in his mouth, and as "The Gravedigger" was not quite what he appeared to be, a perfectly-shaped and well-mannered cob, there certainly was a resemblance. One of his peculiarities, probably arising from defective vision, was an occasional paroxysm of unreasonable fear, accompanied by backjumping, which had occasionally unseated his master and others. One day, however, Fred rode into camp with a triumphant expression, having just had a stand-up fight with "The Gravedigger." "He tried all he knew, confound him!" he explained, "but he couldn't shift me an inch. I had too much mud on my boots." This novel receipt for horsemanship was comprehensible when we glanced at the amount of solid western mud disposed not only on the boots, but upon his whole person and apparel. I had no compunction, therefore, in taking it out of "The Gravedigger" in those early morning gallops, and he was decidedly less unsocial for the rest of the day in consequence. The only bad night we had was just before we came to the Leigh River. There we were amid "purchased land," that bane of the old-world pastoralist, so had to watch all night and keep our horses in hand, which was unprecedented. When daylight broke my comrade said, with an air of tremendous deliberation, "The men can bring on the cattle well enough now, Rolf; suppose you and I go and breakfast at the Leigh Inn?" I caught at the idea, and we rode on the seven miles as happy as schoolboys at the idea of a real breakfast with chops and steaks, eggs and buttered toast, on a clean tablecloth. After a night's watching, too, our appetites were something marvellous. Fred related to me how on a previous occasion he had originated this "happy thought," and, not to be deficient of every adjunct to luxurious enjoyment, had ordered a bath, and borrowed a clean shirt from the landlord. We contented ourselves with the bath on this turn.