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The stock-whips soon brought the animals to their senses; and we found, upon examining them all, that the dogs were the worst off for the encounter; for one had an eye wounded, and the other had a very ugly tear in his flank, which required to be sewn up.

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One evening, about ten days after our ride, I was sitting in the hut with young Harris. I had been engaged in cleaning my own gun, as well as a rifle belonging to the superintendent, who had ridden over on the previous day to the Edward River, and was expected home that night. While the barrels were drying before the fire—which occupied the centre of a hearth extending nearly the whole breadth of the hut—I put on my hat and walked down to the miamis of the blacks, two or three families of whom the superintendent allowed to camp in his paddock; the main body he kept at a distance. Old Toby's wounds were fast healing, a circumstance he seemed rather to regret, as he had been pensioned by three substantial meals daily from the kitchen, and was getting quite sleek and fat. I went from fire to fire, chatting with the occupants, Jimmy and Billy who, with their lubras, occupied two of them.