‘Ay,’ replied the old fellow, glaring suspiciously at the pair. ‘Just thet. I’m wantin’ to see whaur Beelzebub, here, gangs. If he’s gotten a hame, which I muckle doot, mebbe he’ll mek back.’ But a couple of miles on, Beelzebub struck a patch of clover, and stuck to it. The darkey watched him for three days, and, after he had finished every vestige, the old ram paused irresolutely, scratched his ear with his hind foot, and meandered calmly back to the township. So M‘Pherson returned with him to Palkara. A bit of the garden was fenced off, and here he used to sit and smoke and stare for hours at Beelzebub, until his friends began to think his loss had affected his brain. Like many of his countrymen, M‘Pherson was superstitious, and, deep down in his heart, was a lurking suspicion of _diablerie_ that would not be exorcised. ‘It’s no earthly use watching that beast, Mac,’ said Park, riding up one day, and finding his neighbour at his usual occupation. ‘Look as hard as you like, and that won’t turn him into the Duke. Now, take my advice, and I think you stand a show of getting him back again. You remember you said that night at the Woolpack, that, if you lost him, you’d join the Association and trust it to recover him for you, or something to that effect. Well, my notion is that some of the boys have had a finger in the pie. And I solemnly believe that, if you don’t soon make your mind up, you’ll never see the Duke any more. Come, now’s the time! Shearing will start presently. Besides, I know you want him badly for those Coonong stud ewes.’ Park, himself a prominent member, used all his powers of persuasion, and to such good purpose, that in the next issue of the local paper appeared the announcement,— ‘Palkara will start shearing on —— under Conference rules.’ * * * * * A morning or so afterwards, M‘Pherson going out for his before-breakfast smoke and usual look at Beelzebub, to his astonishment saw him not. He had gone. But in his stead stood a stately, almost perfect animal, the _beau ideal_ of what a ‘Champion’ should be. Around his neck he bore a card, on which the old squatter presently read,— ‘I am a fully paid-up member of the Pastoralists’ Association of Australasia. ‘(Signed) Silversheen.’ THE OFFICER IN CHARGE. A Far Inland Sketch. ‘A rising township of some four hundred inhabitants, situated on the Trickle Trickle River. Distance from Sydney, north-west, six hundred and fifty miles.’