The Otto Bin Empire Read Online Free PDF

was the property’s overseer. A tough outback man, Alfred would know what to do. But even as she spoke, her father’s arm began to shudder. The action was not deliberate, she knew, but a series of involuntary muscular spasms, and it frightened her.
    â€˜Do as you’re told, Emily.’ James tried once again to sound authoritative, but he was starting to convulse and his throat was swelling. His larynx restricted, his voice was only a painful rasp. Soon paralysis would set in and he would be unable to speak at all. ‘Go home and fetch Alfred. Be quick now.’ They had set out in the late afternoon to avoid the heat of the day, but she had a good hour of light still ahead of her, he told himself, and the homestead was only a two-mile ride away. So long as she doesn’t get lost, James prayed, so long as she doesn’t …
    â€˜Head east,’ he said with the last few words he could push out, ‘keep the sun behind you. Head east …’ Then as his throat restricted further his voice failed him altogether.
    Emily stood, her chest heaving, her breath coming in frantic, fevered gasps. Her father’s body was starting to shake uncontrollably, but his eyes were still upon her, very much alive and ordering her to go.
    Half blinded by tears of sheer terror, she turned from him and ran to where the horses were tethered twenty yards away. She must save her father. ‘My daughter canride like the wind!’ She could hear his laughter and the proud boast to his friends; he delighted in her skill as a horsewoman. She tightened the girth strap and mounted the hardy little mare. She could hear him now, urging her on. ‘Ride like the wind, Emily! Ride like the wind!’ Well, she would ride as she had never ridden before. There was still time: there had to be. She must save her father’s life.
    James tried to watch her go, his eyes rolling in their sockets, but he couldn’t see her. He couldn’t move his head. He couldn’t move any part of himself. Brain and body were disconnected, no longer his to command. All that remained was thought. And thought said, There is no road to the homestead, not even a track, and I didn’t think to teach her the landmarks. Then a further thought … I should have told her to let the mare have her head – the mare will sense the way home. Then all that was left as the venom overtook him was a terrible guilt and self-recrimination.
    How could I have let this happen ?
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    James Angus McQuillan, only son of Angus Donald McQuillan, gentleman, farmer and Director of the Bank of Scotland, was born in 1820 in Dundee, Scotland on 21 August, a birthday, he often remarked, that he shared with King William IV.
    After migrating to Adelaide in 1854 to appraise and report on his father’s already-established land-holdings in South Australia, James had formed a business partnership with lawyer and fellow Scot, Edwin Moss. The two presented an odd couple in appearance, James ginger-bearded and burly, Edwin moustachioed, lean and lanky, but a strong friendship developed between the Scotsmen, a friendship based on mutual respect, for they were similarly shrewd when it came to business.
    In 1859 McQuillan, Moss & Co invested with Elder, Stirling & Co to finance the Wallaroo and MoontaCopper Mines. After initial risks, the investment brought them a handsome return, and over the ensuing years James and Edwin went from strength to strength, acquiring vast tracts of land that spread further and further into the untouched wastes of South Australia and the territory to the north known as Alexandra Land. In tackling the problems presented by the outback, they spent thousands of pounds on fencing and the sinking of bores until finally their pastoral properties constituted a land mass far larger than the whole of their native Scotland. James McQuillan and Edwin Moss had become wealthy men.
    James lived a happy, fulfilled life. He had fallen in love