the morning to be level
with chaps like father and Starlight, let alone Warrigal, who's as good
by night as day? Then there's you and me. Don't try and make us out
better than we are, Dick; we're all d----scoundrels, that's the truth
of it, and honest men haven't a chance with us, except in the long
run--except in the long run. That's where they'll have us, Dick
Marston.'

'That's quite a long speech for you, Jim,' I said; 'but it don't matter
much that I know of whose fault it is that we're in this duffing racket.
It seems to be our fate, as the chap says in the book. We'll have a
jolly spree in Adelaide if this journey comes out right. And now let's
finish this evening off. To-morrow they're going to yard the first mob.'

After that we didn't talk much except about the work. Starlight and
Warrigal were out every day and all day. The three new hands were some
chaps who formed part of a gang that did most of the horse-stealing in
that neighbourhood, though they never showed up. The way they managed it
was this. They picked up any good-looking nag or second-class racehorse
that they fell across, and took them to a certain place. There they met
another lot of fellows, who took the horses from them and cleared out to
another colony; at the same time they left the horses they had brought.
So each lot travelled different ways, and were sold in places where they
were quite strange and no one was likely to claim them.

After a man had had a year or two at this kind of work, he was good, or
rather bad, for anything. These young chaps, like us, had done pretty
well at these games, and one of them, falling in with Starlight, had
proposed to him to put up a couple of hundred head of cattle on Outer
Back Momberah, as the run was called; then father and he had seen that
a thousand were as easy to get as a hundred. Of course there was a risky
feeling, but it wasn't such bad fun while it lasted. We were out all day
running in the cattle. The horses were in good wind and condition now;
we had plenty of rations--flour, tea, and sugar. There was no cart,
but some good packhorses, just the same as if we were a regular station
party on our own run. Father had worked all that before we came. We had
the best of fresh beef and veal too--you may be sure of that--there was
no stint in that line; and at night we were always sure of a yarn from
Starlight--that is, if he was in a good humour. Sometimes he wasn't, and
then nobody dared speak to