CHAPTER X
OLD PORT FAIRY
Mr. Burchett was rather famous for combining pleasure with business when travelling on the road with stock. At times his experiments were thought un peu risqués. It was related of him and Mr. Alick Kemp (I think) that finding themselves so near Melbourne as the Saltwater River, in sole charge of a mob of fat cattle from "The Gums," they held council, and decided that the cattle would be all right in a bend of the river till the morning, being quiet and travel-worn. The friends then started for Melbourne, where they went to the theatre and otherwise enjoyed themselves. They came back the first thing in the morning, to find the cattle peacefully reposing, and as safe as houses. It might well have been otherwise. There was a dismal tale current in the district of the first mob of fat cattle from Eumeralla—magnificent animals, elephants in size, and rolling fat—stampeding at the sight of a pedestrian, on the road to market, being lost, and, as to the greater part, never recovered.
This time we decided to take "the Frenchman's"
