Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/164

 the owners. The famous 'Jeweller's Point' was just yielding its 'untold gold,' and one sanguine individual did not overstate the case when he assured me they were 'turning it up like potatoes.' I ascertained that, with the exception of an occasional quarter from an adjoining station, the grand army was ignorant of the taste of beef, that mutton was beginning to be accounted monotonous fare, and that he who reintroduced the diggers to steaks and sirloins would be hailed as a benefactor and paid like a governor-general.

Having ascertained that this society, in which no trade was unrepresented, contained several butchers, I presented myself to these distributors, my natural enemies. I found that the abnormal conditions among which we moved had by no means lessened our antagonism. We did battle as of old. They decried the quality of my cattle, and affected to ignore the popular necessity for beef. Thinking that I was compelled to accept their ruling, they declined to buy except at a low price. I retired full of wrath and resolve.

Had I come these many leagues to be a prey to shallow greed and cunning? Not so, by St. Hubert! Sooner than take so miserable a price for my weary days and watchful nights, I would turn butcher myself. Ha! happy thought! Why not? There was no moral declension in becoming a butcher, at least temporarily; all one's morale here was bouleversé. 'Tis done. 'I will turn the flank of these knaves. Henceforth I also am a butcher. Chops and steaks! No! steaks only! Families supplied. Ha! ha!'

I returned to the cattle, which I found much refreshed by the creek side. We drove them to the bank of the great Wendouree Lake, then a shallow, reedy marsh, made a brush yard, established ourselves in the lee of a huge fallen gum, and passed cheerfully enough our first night at Ballarat.

Next morning I commenced the campaign of competition with decision. I gave Charley a lecture of considerable length upon his general deportment, and the particular duties which had now devolved upon him. He was to look after or 'tail' the cattle daily by the side of the lake; to abstain from opossum hunts and other snares of the evil one; to look out that wicked men, of whom this place was choke-full, did not steal the cattle; to rest his pony, Jackdaw, whenever he could safely; and always to bring his cattle home at sundown.