t that
the danger comes in. I don't know whether cattle-duffing was ever done
in New South Wales before on such a large scale, or whether it will ever
be done again. Perhaps not. These wire fences stop a deal of cross-work;
but it was done then, you take my word for it--a man's word as hasn't
that long to live that it's worth while to lie--and it all came out
right; that is as far as our getting safe over, selling the cattle, and
having the money in our pockets.

We kept on working by all sorts of outside tracks on the main line of
road--a good deal by night, too--for the first two or three hundred
miles. After we crossed the Adelaide border we followed the Darling down
to the Murray. We thought we were all right, and got bolder. Starlight
had changed his clothes, and was dressed like a swell--away on a
roughish trip, but still like a swell.

'They were his cattle; he had brought them from one of his stations on
the Narran. He was going to take up country in the Northern Territory.
He expected a friend out from England with a lot more capital.'

Jim and I used to hear him talking like this to some of the squatters
whose runs we passed through, as grave as you please. They used to ask
him to stay all night, but he always said 'he didn't like to leave
his men. He made it a practice on the road.' When we got within a
fortnight's drive of Adelaide, he rode in and lived at one of the best
hotels. He gave out that he expected a lot of cattle to arrive, and
got a friend that he'd met in the billiard-room (and couldn't he play
surprisin'?) to introduce him to one of the leading stock agents there.
So he had it all cut and dry, when one day Warrigal and I rode in, and
the boy handed him a letter, touching his hat respectfully, as he had
been learned to do, before a lot of young squatters and other swells
that he was going out to a picnic with.

'My confounded cattle come at last,' he says. 'Excuse me for mentioning
business. I began to hope they'd never come; 'pon my soul I did. The
time passes so deuced pleasantly here. Well, they'll all be at the yards
to-morrow. You fellows had all better come and see them sold. There'll
be a little lunch, and perhaps some fizz. You go to the stock agents,
Runnimall and Co.; here's their address, Jack,' he says to me, looking
me straight in the eyes. 'They'll send a man to pilot you to the yards;
and now off with you, and don't let me see your face till to-morrow.'

How he carried it off