Landtakers: The Story of an Epoch

The real calamity was the outcome of his quarrel with McFarlane. Dirk's disgraceful marriage only made it more urgent to retaliate against his triumphant enemies. That mob at Pat Dennis's! How they would be laughing now! He thought of compelling McFarlane at the point of his gun to give back twice as much land as he had stolen. He thought of rushing off to Brisbane and seizing Flanagan by the throat and throttling the breath out of him till he begged for mercy and signed an abject pardon that would be printed in all the papers and circulated throughout Australia. But these impracticable schemes gradually gave way to a determination to seek redress at law. Let them wait! He would go to the English courts if necessary--to the Privy Council itself. He would tell what he knew about Flanagan's early life in the Colony, about his wife and her first husband Duffy, how she was said to beat Flanagan with a stockwhip. He would publicly disgrace him, make a laughing-stock of him.

Apart from the injury to his pride, there were imperative practical considerations. The land in dispute, though furthest from the river, was among the best on the run because one of three open tracts. It had several big waterholes and a network of creeks, and in a good season carried a sheep to the acre. So in losing it he had to find room for nearly eighteen thousand sheep in other parts of the run, already well stocked. For the prudent husbandry of the last five years was just then coming to a rich fruition. With two more years of lease to run and good seasons promising a regular market for his cattle, his wool fetching high prices, a steady demand for his ewes from squatters stocking stations in the newly opened lands to the north, it was clearly the time for a last great push. To evacuate now was altogether out of the question.