lves.

When they stole stock, they moved them on through the mountains
as quickly as possible, always having a brother or uncle, or a
cousin--Terry or Timothy or Martin or Patsy--who had a holding "beyant."
By these means they could shift stolen stock across the great range, and
dispose of them among the peaceable folk who dwelt in the good country
on the other side, whose stock they stole in return. Many a good horse
and fat beast had made the stealthy mountain journey, lying hidden in
gaps and gullies when pursuit grew hot, and being moved on as things
quieted down.

Another striking feature was the way in which they got themselves mixed
up with each other. Their names were so tangled up that no one could
keep tally of them. There was a Red Mick Donohoe (son of the old
publican), and his cousin Black Mick Donohoe, and Red Mick's son Mick,
and Black Mick's son Mick, and Red Mick's son Pat, and Black Mick's son
Pat; and there was Gammy Doyle (meaning Doyle with the lame leg), and
Scrammy Doyle (meaning Doyle with the injured arm), and Bosthoon Doyle
and Omadhaun Doyle--a Bosthoon being a man who never had any great
amount of sense to speak of, while an Omadhaun is a man who began life
with some sense, but lost most of it on his journey. It was a common
saying in the country-side that if you met a man on the mountains you
should say, "Good-day, Doyle," and if he replied, "That's not my name,"
you should at once say, "Well, I meant no offence, Mr. Donohoe."

One could generally pick which was which of the original stock, but
when they came to intermarry there was no telling t'other from which.
Startling likenesses cropped up among the relatives, and it was widely
rumoured that one Doyle who was known to be in jail, and who was
vaguely spoken of by the clan as being "away," was in fact serving an
accumulation of sentences for himself and other members of the family,
whose sins he had for a consideration taken on himself.

With such neighbours as these fighting him for every block of land,
Andrew Gordon soon came to the end of his resources, and it was then
that he had to take in his old manager as a partner. Before Bully Grant
had been in the firm long, he had secured nearly all the good land, and
the industrious yeomanry that the Land Act was supposed to create were
hiding away up the gullies on miserable little patches of bad land,
stealing sheep for a living. Bully fought them stoutly, impounded their
sheep and catt