‘Yes,’ said Mr Hatton presently, ‘I was the first to put sheep on Boorookoorora, and they do well. Yes, the two graves are untouched at the old homestead still. Carstairs and Neville! I’ve heard the story, or a version of it. Poor fellows! I had their graves freshly fenced in a couple of years ago. And so you were the third partner. Will you tell us the story of your escape? I should much like to hear it at first hand.’ ‘Do you know the Grand Stand?’ asked Standish, without replying directly. The other shook his head. ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Why, the big rock, close to the Black Waterhole, on your own run,’ replied Standish. ‘Oh,’ said his new acquaintance, ‘you mean Mount Lookout. That’s just at the bottom of the orchard now. You see, we’ve shifted the head station from where you and Warner and Adams and the rest had it.’ ‘Well, well,’ replied the other, ‘Grand Stand, or Mount Lookout, or whatever you like to call it, I had a very rough time on its top.’ ‘Ah,’ remarked the owner of Boorookoorora, ‘I’ve had the top levelled and an anemometer erected on it; also a flight of steps cut. In fact, it is a sort of observatory on a small scale.’ ‘The devil it is!’ exclaimed Standish. ‘Well, if you’ll listen, I’ll tell you what I observed once from its top.’ * * * * * ‘There were three of us. We were all young and healthy, and each had a little money. Foregathering (the first time was in this very room), we determined to become partners, and take up country. We would go out in person—far out, beyond even, as poor Neville put it, the “furthest paling of civilisation.” ‘There we would acquire a territory, expressible not in poor, miserable acres, but in square miles—thousands of ’em. ‘There we would breed sheep and cattle, increasing yearly in multitude, so that the sands upon the sea-shore shouldn’t be a circumstance to them. We would plant in that far country our own vines and our own fig-trees, and sit under their shade in the good days to come—we and our children, and our children’s children after us—in that wide and pleasant heritage of our founding. Alas, the glamour of youth and confidence, and health and strength over a bottle or two of good wine! Five-and-twenty years ago, gentlemen, in this same old room!