His headquarters were at Goora, a settlement of some twenty houses; besides the barracks in which the constabulary force, consisting of a sergeant, eighteen constables, and two native trackers, were quartered.

The sergeant, a north-country Irishman named O'Connor, was somewhat surprised when Reuben rode up to the station; for the officers previously in command had been much older men.
Reuben's own quarters were in a cottage, close to the main building, and he asked the sergeant to come, in the evening.
"Now, sergeant," he said, after a little preliminary talk, "I have been sent up by Captain Wilson, with instructions to root out these bands of bush rangers." The sergeant smiled grimly.
"We have been doing our best for the last three years, sir, but we have not made much of a hand at it." "No," Reuben agreed, "and I don't suppose, of course, that I am going to succeed all at once.

In the first place, tell me frankly, what sort of men have we got ?" "The men are good enough, sir, but they have certainly got disheartened, lately.

One way and another, we have lost something like ten men in the last two years; and of course, that last affair with poor Mr.Thomas was a bad one." "I understand," Reuben said quietly, "some of them are not quite so eager to meet the bush rangers as they used to be." "Well, that is perhaps about it, sir; but I must say the men have been tremendously hardly worked--pretty nigh night and day in the saddle, often called out by false news to one end of the district; and then to find, when they return, that those scoundrels have been down playing their games at some station at the other end.

It's enough to dishearten a man." "So it is, sergeant.