that her only chance of safety lay in mounting too.  No sooner thought than done.  She doubled, sprang on old Dan’s tail and fastened her claws in his hinder parts.  Dan not approving of such treatment, set to bucking.  First Pat went off, then the saddle bags and parcels, followed by puss.  Old Dan finding himself free, ran for his life, the cat after him, and the dog after the cat, leaving poor Pat on the ground to watch the trio as they disappeared from sight.

[Illustration:  PAT AND HIS MAIL-BAG DISLODGED BY A CAT.]

Pat had over ten miles to travel and carry the bags and parcels as best he could, and return the next day for the saddle.  The story of how the cat robbed H.M.  Mail was long laughed over on the Ashburton, and Paddy was unmercifully chaffed for his part in the performance.

I was busily employed till late in the following autumn finishing the works I had in hand, and lived a portion of the time at Glent hills, Mr. Rowley’s hill station, where I had a considerable contract for wire fencing with which Mr. Rowley was dividing up into extensive sections the wide valley in which lay the lakes Emma and Clearwater.

[Illustration:  GLENT HILLS STATION.]

During the summer I joined once again in the general mustering, and lived on the mountain sides for days and nights together.  It was here I contrived to catch some cold which caused a singing like the bleating of sheep in my right ear, and for which I subjected myself to the very doubtful advice and care of old “Blue Gum Bill,” the shepherd who was for the time being my comrade.  “Blue Gum” was a “lag,” that is, a ticket-of-leave convict, from Australia.  One of his hands, I forget which, had been amputated, and in lieu thereof he had affixed a stump of blue gum wood, with an iron hook inserted at the end.  As is not unusual in such cases, “Blue Gum” could do more with this iron hook than many men could accomplish with a hand.  He was a character in his way, and whatever may have been the cause of his enforced exile from the Old Country many years before, he was now a most exemplary old fellow, for whom I entertained a great respect and liking.

He said he could cure my ear, into which he assured me some small animal had entered, and it would be necessary, in the first place to kill it, when the noise would naturally cease.  He made me lie down with my bleating ear uppermost, and proceeded to fill it with as much strong tobacco juice as it would hold.  This operation he repeated several times, and appeared greatly disappointed on my complaining that the animal still continued musical.  The ear troubled me for a long time, and eventually the hearing became impaired.  Whether the fact that I never more than half recovered my hearing in that ear, and that for many years it has been almost completely deaf, is due to “Blue Gum’s” doctoring or not, is scarcely worth entering into now.