squatter of a class very different from that to which Heathcote
belonged. He had begun his life in the colonies a little under a
cloud, having been sent out from home after the perpetration of some
peccadillo of which the law had disapproved.

In colonial phrase, he was a "lag"--having been transported; but this
was many years ago, when he was quite young; and he had now been a
free man for more than thirty years. It must be owned on his behalf
that he had worked hard, had endeavored to rise, and had risen. But
there still stuck to him the savor of his old life. Every one knew
that he had been a convict; and even had he become a man of high
principle--a condition which he certainly never achieved--he could
hardly have escaped altogether from the thralldom of his degradation.
He had been a butcher, a drover, part owner of stock, and had at last
become possessed of a share of a cattle-run, and then of the entire
property, such as it was. He had four or five sons, uneducated, ill-
conditioned, drunken fellows, who had all their father's faults
without his energy, some of whom had been in prison, and all of whom
were known as pests to the colony. Their place was called Boolabong,
and was a cattle-run, as distinguished from a sheep-run; but it was a
poor place, was sometimes altogether unstocked, and was supposed to
be not unfrequently used as a receptable for stolen cattle.

The tricks which the Brownbies played with cattle were notorious
throughout Queensland and New South Wales, and by a certain class of
men were much admired. They would drive a few head of cattle, perhaps
forty or fifty, for miles around the country, across one station and
another, traveling many hundreds of miles, and here and there, as
they passed along, they would sweep into their own herd the bullocks
of the victims whose lands they passed. If detected on the spot, they