Soon after breakfast-time Happy Dick was across “To see how you’ve fared,” he said, and then, to the diversion of Brown of the Bulls, Cheon and Happy Dick rejoiced together over the brimming water-butts, and mourned because the billabong had not done better, regretting the while that the showers were so “patchy.”

Then while Happy Dick was assuring us that “both Warlochs were bankers,” the Sanguine Scot rode in through the slip-rails at the North track, waving his hat in greeting and with Bertie and Bertie’s Nellie tailing along behind him.

“Back again!” Mac called, light-hearted as a schoolboy just escaped from drudgery, while Bertie’s Nellie, as a matter of course, was overcome with ecstatic giggles.

With Mac and the showers with us, we felt there was little left to wish for, and told Brown of the Bulls that he might now prepare to enjoy himself, and with a chuckle of anticipation Brown “hoped” the entertainment would prove “up to samples already met with,” as he could “do with a little enjoyment for a change.”

CHAPTER XXII

As a matter of course, Bertie’s Nellie quietly gathered the reins of management into her own hands, and as a matter of course, Jimmy’s Nellie indulged in ear-splitting continuous protest, and Brown of the, Bulls expressed himself as satisfied, so far, with the entertaining powers of the homestead.

As a matter of course, we left the servant problem to work out its own solution, and, also as a matter of course, the Sanguine Scot was full of plans for the future but particularly bubbling over with the news that he had secured Tam-o’-Shanter for a partner in the brumby venture.

“He’ll be along in a few days,” he explained, confident that he was “in luck this time all right,” and remembering Tam among the horses at the Katherine, we congratulated him.

As a matter of course, our conversation was all of brumbies, and Mac was also convinced that “when you reckoned everything up there was a good thing in it.”

“Of course it’ll take a bit of jumping round,” he agreed.  But the Wet was to be devoted to the building of a strong holding-yard, a “trap,” and a “wing,” so as to be able to get going directly the Wet lifted; and knowing the run well, and the extent of the brumby mobs on it, Mac then and there set to work to calculate the “sized mob” that could be “got together after the Wet,” listening with interest to the account of our brumby encounters out east.

But long before we had done with brumbies Cheon was announcing dinner in his own peculiar way.

“Din-ner!  Mis-sus!  Boss!  All about!” he chanted, standing in the open doorway nearest to us; and as we responded to his call, he held the door of the dining-net and glided into the details of his menu:  “Veg-e-table Soooup!” he sang:  “Ro-oast Bee-ef!  Pee-es!  Bee-ens!  Too-mar-toos!  Mar-row!” and listening, we felt Brown of the Bulls was being right royally welcomed with as many vegetables as were good for him.  But the sweets shrank into a simple “bakee custard!”