Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/239

Rh and up to weight, he was difficult to match. The area from Kerang northwards was known as 'salt-bush' country. But little grass showed except on the edges of watercourses. Bare patches of red sandy loam between the salsolaceous plants did not lead the early explorers to consider it first-rate pasturage. Varieties, however, were plentiful, from the 'old-man salt-bush,' seven to ten feet high, to the dwarf-growing but fattening plants on the plain. The cotton-bush, too, known to indicate first-class fattening country, was plentiful. Perhaps the best testimony to the quality of the herbage, however, and which I was sufficiently experienced to appreciate, was the uniform high health and condition of every flock of sheep that we saw. Nothing could be finer than their general appearance, as indeed is always the case in reasonably-stocked salt-bush country; no foot-rot, no fluke, and, absit omen, no sheep-scab. This dire disease was then, unhappily, common in Western Victoria. It had been a fair season. Everything was fit to bear inspection. The wether flock looked like donkeys for size, the breeding ewes were fit for market, the weaners precociously fat and well-grown. Nothing could look better than the whole array.

Besides the salt-bush country, plains chiefly, and a large dry lake, there was an important section of the run known as 'The Reed-beds,' which I was anxious to visit. This tract lay between Lake Boga, a large fresh-water lake on one side, the Murrabit, an anabranch, and the south bank of the Murray. In order to ride over this it was arranged that we should camp at the hut of a shepherd, known as 'Towney,' on Pental Island, thence explore the reed-beds and see the remaining sheep on the morrow.

Pental Island, formed by the Murrabit, a deep wide stream, which leaves the main river channel and re-enters lower down, we found to be a long, narrow strip of land, having sound salt-bush ridges in the centre, with reed-beds on either side. Crossing by a rude but sufficient bridge, we discovered Mr. 'Towney' living an Alexander Selkirk sort of life, monarch of all he surveyed, and with full charge of some ten or twelve thousand sheep turned loose. The bridge being closed with hurdles, they could not get away. His only duty was to see that no enterprising dingo swam over from Murray Downs on the opposite side and ravaged the flock.