stockyard, in three sections, water to gather even in small with rails about nine feet high deposits. in the last of these. This yard I may mention was actually required for cattle work, but the boss decided that it should serve another purpose at the outset. The sections were connected by massive swing gates, and leading out from the entrance we constructed stout post-and-rail fences to form a huge V, the ends of which were perhaps a hundred yards wide and concealed amongst bushes. From one side we then ran out a long stake and calico "brake" for nearly a milethat is to say, almost but not quite long enough to intersect the brumbies' usual path towards the water. The boss now arranged the disposition of his men so as to be ready for action at the favourable moment. Though at the outset the suspecting brumbies had come in to water only under cover of darkness, they had gradually grown reassured, and after a few days were arriving at the pool about sunset. But our activities at the stockyard had rearoused their suspicions, and they reverted for a while to coming in to drink at night. However, reassurance came again after a few days. Of course had it rained heavily our plans would have been frustrated, but we had to risk that, and, as I have mentioned, the new stockyard was needed in any event. But only two light showers fell-not sufficient to cause Nearly three weeks had elapsed before our scout reported that the brumbies' movements were auspicious-from our point of view. All hands were mustered, and about four o'clock one cloudless afternoon twenty odd horsemen met at a rendezvous in Goondawindi and received their " operation orders" from the boss. By five five o'clock our team was "placed." The boss and two others took up a position amongst a clump of trees a hundred yards to the side of the pool opposite the brumbies' usual approach. Two were armed with heavy calibred rifles. Eight more men were stationed, in pairs, about 300 yards apart in a line roughly parallel with the brumbie pads, but some fifteen chains to the eastward. This line of stockriders reached nearly to the point at which the calico tape would intersect the pads-for it was to be extended at the right moment. As soon as the wild horses had passed over this section on their way to the pool, the tape was hastily to be continued to the east, so as to cross the pads-at a sharp angle and extend for some distance on the other side. Three horsemen were then to take up positions in a "spread " across the pads, and the remainder were strung out along the tape line leading to the fenced " "wings" that met at the yard gate. The opposite end of the V was also manned. In no instance was any stockrider alone during the waiting period a horse is less likely to neigh when it has the companionship of another animal. The brumbies were to be allowed to approach the water. The stallion leading the herd would then be shot, and the boss and his two companions would gallop from their cover, startling the wild horses, which would wheel about and follow their tracks back towards the bendi scrubs. But fresh horsemen would swing into the chase at short intervals, and a furious pace would be maintained mile after mile. And so we waited, very much on the qui vive. The sun sank slowly towards the horizon, assuming a dull red glow as it was obscured by the bluish smokeladen atmosphere, for there had been a bush fire to the far westward that day. The stillness of approaching night was broken only by occasional bird calls-the harsh cawing of crows, the musical notes of galahs, the rasping screeches of cockatoos, as they flew overhead to favourite resting-places. Kookaburras hailed the cool of evening with their joyous raucous laughter, taken up from tree to tree, and echoing and reverberating through the lonely bush until the evening fairly rollicked to their mirth. The sun disappeared. In half an hour it would be dark, for there is little twilight in those latitudes. The boss and his two companions, both old hands, waited in tense anticipation, their rifles ready to cover the edge of the pool. The scattered trees permitted the eye to scan only a limited field of vision, and any system of signals would have alarmed the brumbies. So the three had just to wait in vigilant patience. A quarter of an hour after sunset the leading brumbies appeared, seemingly all unsuspecting. "Well, I'll be damned! It was the boss who hoarsely whispered this pious ejaculation, astonishment and delight struggling to find expression within its limited intonation. "Look who's leading 'em!" The boss had unconsciously personified a magnificent black stallion-a blood horse that figured in every stud-book in the land! "It's Ivanhoe ! was the excited whispered chorus. This stallion, once the pride of the station, had mysteriously vanished from his loose-box at the homestead five years gone by, and at the same time a disgruntled sub-overseer had disappeared, after a stormy interview with the boss. This man was traced to a coastal town, and was there closely questioned by the police; but Ivanhoe seemed to have vanished into thin air, and nothing had since been seen or heard of him until this evening. Apparently he had been led out to Goondawindi and turned loose a spiteful revenge for some real or fancied grievance. shooting at all events," said the boss, with a trace of relief in his voice-for what decent man does not loathe to kill a horse, or a dog. "Ivanhoe 'll lead 'em, and if we get him we'll get the lot." The herd, about thirty-five animals, including foals, had now reached the pool, and most of them were drinking when the boss and his two men sallied forth from behind the screen of trees, their mounts springing into an eager gallop, and their stockwhips ringing out like machine-gun fire. Ivanhoe threw his splendid head back with a defiant snort of warning, neck arched, eyes startled, nostrils widely dilated, paused for the fraction of a second, swung round on his hind-legs, and was off like the wind, followed by the remainder of the herd. There were no other fullgrown male horses among them -Ivanhoe had seen to that. At first the stallion tried to shepherd his followers, but the old mares and foals were soon overhauled by the boss and his men, whose stockwhips were keeping up a merry din, and Ivanhoe and the stronger of his followers were forced to make the best use of their heels. Of course, they were able easily to outdistance the mounted men, whose horses could not compete with the unencumbered brumbies; but as fast as Ivanhoe and his herd out-galloped one lot of stockriders, another pair entered into the chase from a flank, and they made made the pace a continuous welter. Those stockmen who dropped out of the main hunt turned their attention to the slower-moving mares and foals, which also were kept going at their best speed. Naturally, Ivanhoe followed the direction of the pads as being the shortest route to the bendi, and so the supply of fresh stockriders and the furious pace were maintained. In a few minutes the leading brumbies were approaching the now intersecting tape, only to be confronted with three more stockriders, who deflected the panic-stricken herd to their right, where the tape came into view. The wild horses, keeping this at a respectful distance, raced madly along in the direction of the stockyard's wing fences, which would be their undoing, followed closely by the relay riders. Half a dozen quiet horses had been turned loose to graze in the V, and, at the approaching thunder of hoofs and running fire of stockwhips, they turned tail and galloped into the yard. The brumbies followed in a wild mêlée. The heavy gates swung to, and the hunt was over! companions had been herded into the final section of the yard and the gate closed. The rest, mares and foals, were soon in the first section. Now we had all expected that the majority of the brumbies, as the result of inbreeding, would be poorly shaped, weedy, ill-favoured brutes with impossible temperaments; but we had reckoned without the knowledge that five years of the Ivanhoe blood (that ran in more than one Melbourne cup winner) had been distributed throughout this herd. In actual fact the majority of the animals were fine-looking horses of a type ideally suited to station work. But it was one thing to have these brumbies in a stockyard. How to get them out of the countryside they knew so well and to drive them in to the head station, twenty miles distant, was another problem. A few of the herd had managed to make their escape during the chase, but of those yarded at least twenty would be worth breaking in; and there were several good-looking foals and old mares. After a deal of trouble we succeeded in getting Ivanhoe into a section of the yard by himself. He was roped, and finally secured with a greenhide head-stall. The boss, with one of the men, decided to camp at the yard, and the rest of us returned to the head station that night, with instructions to come out again on the third morning to follow. In the meantime Ivanhoe was handled daily, until at last he remembered what it was to be led. The brumbies proper were kept without food and water for the intervening three nights and two days. This was, of course, cruel, but it had the virtue of being necessary, because it was only by thus weakening them that there was any possibility of their submitting to being driven to the head station. Of course, we had not got all the Goondawin di brumbies, but, within a few years, the great paddock was subdivided into much smaller acreages, when the yarding of the remaining brumbies was quite a simple matter. Back in his loose-box Ivanhoe readapted himself to civilised ways quite as readily as he had forgotten them five years earlier. Included in the "catch" were four of the mares which had strayed from camp, so the "campaign "had been an unexpected success. VOL. CCXXII.-NO. MCCCXLV. 2 B2 EZRA AND THE KING. BY CHARLES RAWLINSON. For cursion of the little Jew into swashbucklery, the three-day enthronement of the wild and obscure marsh-boy, the expedients of His Britannic Majesty's High Commissioner to eke out an incredible truth by tactics not far removed from blackmail. Therefore, divested of all possible irrelevant matter, political and personal, and of the local colour whereby it might too easily be garnished and expanded, the story shall be told in all simplicity and indiscretion. UNUSUAL as it is to publish secret Court history only a few years after its occurrence, I cannot feel that the usual objections apply to the publication of this narrative. Of the persons to whom it might be offensive or damaging, two -and those the most augustare dead, one is illiterate and uninterested, two more have subsided into obscurity. the rest, the story is harmless to the dynasty, country, and individuals concerned. Moreover, I have reasons for wanting to make it public. The episode lasted but three days in all; but its immediate result was a volte-face in one important matter of Nahraini policythe education of the king. Of this sudden and most welcome reversal of previous intention, even I, who can give the full and true reasons (mysterious at the time and since to all ceeded, under the regency of but half a dozen persons), can- the Amir Sha'lan, seventy-yearnot foresee the whole future old uncle of the late King. At significance, which may be pro- the time of this episode, the found; but at least it gives boy-king Jasim was nine, as the incident a definite historical pretty and intelligent a child place. Secondly, it seems desir- as was ever threatened with able to forestall any less faith- the ignorance and enervations ful or less instructed account of adolescence in an Oriental than mine, such as the pen of court. He had taken no part malice or mere sensationalism in public affairs, which the might compose. Thirdly, and peculiar constitution and conapart from history and high ditions of Nahrain left almost politics, it has its elements of entirely-subject to the elevatthe bizarre the amateur ex- ing influences and good advice The Middle Eastern kingdom of Nahrain, to whose Arab monarchy Great Britain found herself as a result of the war in such close relations as amounted almost to dyarchy, was deprived by death in 19of its sovereign, King Abdullah. His infant son suc |