He was going to take up country in the Northern Territory.
He expected a friend out from England with a lot more capital.' Jim and I used to hear him talking like this to some of the squatters whose runs we passed through, as grave as you please.

They used to ask him to stay all night, but he always said 'he didn't like to leave his men.

He made it a practice on the road.' When we got within a fortnight's drive of Adelaide, he rode in and lived at one of the best hotels.

He gave out that he expected a lot of cattle to arrive, and got a friend that he'd met in the billiard-room (and couldn't he play surprisin' ?) to introduce him to one of the leading stock agents there.
So he had it all cut and dry, when one day Warrigal and I rode in, and the boy handed him a letter, touching his hat respectfully, as he had been learned to do, before a lot of young squatters and other swells that he was going out to a picnic with.
'My confounded cattle come at last,' he says.

'Excuse me for mentioning business.