Alike to him were tide or time,Moonless midnight or matin prime,
Alike to him were tide or time,Moonless midnight or matin prime,
Alike to him were tide or time,Moonless midnight or matin prime,
Alike to him were tide or time,
Moonless midnight or matin prime,
and he had hitherto been extremely lucky, whether from his deep-seated determination ‘not to be licked,’ or from other interested quarters, so that one of his admirers went so far as to say that if he had been due at St. Thomas’s the day after that historic island had been submerged, ‘and a gull above it flying,’ Parklands would have been descried sailing about in a cutter, searching sanguinely for his I.P., and defying the elements with his customary formula.
Still, though he abstained from fencing, and did not greatly see the use of dwellings in the bush, where a blackfellow was an inexpensive and efficient substitute for one and a few sheets of bark for the other, he had so far relaxed his austere notions of outlay at Rainbar as to sanction the erection of two huts and a large, strong, well-planned stockyard. Of these improvements he had boasted on the journey to such an extent that Ernest half expected a modified Swiss chalet and a stockyard like that of the municipal cattle-yards in Melbourne, of which he had seen a photo. Aymer Brandon laughed at his grand description, declining to expect anything but a couple of broken-backed humpies; and as for the cattle-yard, he assured Ernest that at the last muster he attended at Rainbar they carried a lot of posts and rails out to the Back Lake in drays, put them up temporarily, mustered the fat cattle adjacent,by moonlight, and brought the posts and rails back with them after they had served their turn. Then Sparks emitted divers scintillations, and finally became sulky, and declined further conversation.
However, the huts turned out to be weather-proof and substantial, as huts go, and the stockyard, if not macadamised like the Melbourne Stock Exchange, or covering thirty-six acres like its Chicago cousin, was yet a roomy and many-gated enclosure, equal to the working of twice as many head of cattle as Rainbar at this time boasted.
Mr. Windsor was therefore enabled to take up his abode with the hutkeeper in the edifice which did duty for kitchen and men’s hut, while Mr. Banks secured a second bedroom in the other one with the proprietor, and professed himself to be snugly lodged. That young gentleman confided to Ernest his extreme gratification at finding himself permanently located at a ‘real first-class, fattening, plains-country cattle station’; such an establishment, since his entrance into regular employment, having been his ideal location.
‘Not a sheep near the place or likely to be for years,’ he remarked exultingly—‘that’s what I like about it; all good rightdown cattle work to look forward to: drafting, branding, camping, and, I suppose, driving the fat cattle to Melbourne some day—won’t that be jolly? As for sheep, I’m sick of the very sound of the name. When your work’s done with cattle, it’s done; but with sheep it never stops—winter and summer—all the year round.’
‘Well, I must say I share your views about sheep, Charley,’ said Mr. Neuchamp; ‘it’s the most unending grind that I know. Cattle work has the advantage of being more romantic and exciting when you are engaged in it, and of coming to a definite conclusion some time or other, when you can refresh your wearied senses. In the meantime we are not over supplied with resources at Rainbar, as yet. I have sent for some books and ordered the weekly papers. Until they arrive, I shall be rather hard-set, especially in the evenings.’
The intervening days were got over without any great difficulty, chiefly by means of a series of exploratory rides round the run, up and down the river; these last excursions offering the variety of a little shooting, a double-barrelled gun being among the valuables left by Mr. Parklands, and ‘given in,’ upon the delivery of the place.
One evening brought a black boy from Mildool with a message that their muster was done, and that they would bring over the ‘pigmeaters’ they had gathered, and would muster the Back Lake cattle next day if Mr. Neuchamp would meet them there next morning.
Charley Banks was much excited at the news. ‘You will see some riding now, and some drafting too, if the cattle are wild. All the best stockmen on the river, both up and down, were to be at Mildool this muster. There are some smart boys, I expect.’
On the following morning Mr. Neuchamp and his friend were astir long before daylight, and soon after sunrise were well on their way to the Back Lake, full of expectation.
Nor was the scene when they reached the lonely lake, with the aid of Piambook’s guidance, other than novel to Ernest’s partially-instructed vision.
The Back Lake was a grand-looking sheet of fresh water, covered with wild fowl, a thin fringe of timber surrounding its margin. On a promontory which ran into the lake for some distance was a camp, bare and stripped of herbage to an extent which denoted long and constant usage. Skeletons of cattle here and there showed where the rifle had been at work from time to time, the formidable horns which still abounded hinting that abnormal causes had been at work to bring about a state of survival of the fittest.
On the camp stood, or traversed in angry circles, about a thousand head of very mixed cattle, in every sense of the word, a number of grand animals in magnificent condition, mingled with others that the most inexperienced eye could observe to be ‘stale, flat, and unprofitable,’ except for the very exceptional market and destination previously referred to.
At the distance of a couple of hundred yards from the main body stood the smaller lot, some four or five hundred, which the stock-riding contingent had evidently brought with them. Some were guarding them. Some restrained the camp cattle from leaving their parade ground. Others, among whom Ernest recognised Jack Windsor, were riding in pairs, and separating or ‘cutting out,’ as the cattle station phrase is, divers excited animals of a fierce countenance from the herd, and guiding them into the smaller division, with which, once associated, they were by the guardians thereof prevented from leaving.
Mr. Neuchamp’s artistic mind was strongly impressed with the wild picturesque character of the scene. On every side the vast plain stretched unbrokenly as the sea. The score of stockmen, swarthy, bearded, carelessly if not wildly attired, bore in looks, and perhaps in some other respects, no slight resemblance to a party of Apaches or Comanches, the ‘Horse Indians’ of South-Western America. They were well mounted for the most part on splendidly-conditioned animals, for no living steeds enjoy richer pasture and purer air than those which range the great saltbush levels of the interior; and generally the riding was more lavish, and indeed reckless as to pace and danger, than those of any previous bushmen.
‘There goes “Desborough’s Joe,” the best stockman on the river,’ said Charley Banks admiringly. ‘Him on the roan horse,’ pointing to a slight black-bearded man on a magnificent roan horse, who, having forced an immense black bullock out of the camp, was racing neck-and-neck with him, as he tried to break back, and as he ‘blocked’ the fierce beast at every frantic effort to double and rejoin his comrades, ‘dropping’ the terrific sixteen-foot stockwhip on face or flank with terrific emphasis. ‘That half-caste boy is a rum one too. By George, he nearly jumped his horse on to that last bullock’s back, when he got him headed straight for the cut-out cattle. There’s Jack Windsor coming! they’re going to knock off for a bit.’
Mr. Windsor came over to explain to his master that he had remained at Mildool to give his assistance until their muster was finished, in accordance with use and custom; the head stockman there covenanting as soon as the fat cattle had been sent off to come over, bringing his pigmeaters, and also his following of fellow-stockmen, to give the Rainbar folks a turn, and draft their ‘Roosians’ for them.
‘So, as they was a very smart lot of coves as ever I see, sir,’ pursued Mr. Windsor, ‘I didn’t think as we could do better than get ’em all over here and skin the Back Lake camp of all the out-and-outers. We might never have such another chance for no one knows when. If you and Mr. Banks will come down to the camp, you’ll see the sort I’m having cut out, and a livelier lot of “ragers” I haven’t seen for many a day; not since I was at Mr. Selmore’s Mallee Meadows. There’s only about three hundred of these, and not another on the run. But I’m blessed ifhe’dgot anything else—wonderful man, Mr. Selmore!’
Ernest accompanied his followers to the camp, where Banks pointed out the types which all cattleholders agree in desiring to ‘get shut of,’ in Jack’s phrase, as soon as possible. After a short interval for refreshment, the stockmen, who had been in the saddle before dawn, recommenced cutting out, which tolerably violent exercise was only concluded at sunset. The moon being favourable, the whole band then closed in upon theenfans trouvés, leaving the camp cattle to go whither they listed. At some time in the night, after a tedious drive of many hours, the ample outer yards at Rainbar, with much shouting and whip volleys, received them, and the gates beingverycarefully secured, all further operations were adjourned to the morrow.
Early on the following morning Mr. Neuchamp betook himself to the yard, nervously anxious for a sight of the prey, so safely deposited there, in the uncertain light and misleading shadows of the midnight hour. Thecoup-d’œilis uncommon, wellnigh unique.
About seven hundred ultra-Bohemian bullocks, whose bodies appear to be mere appendages to their terrific horns, are safely (for themselves) yarded, many of them for the first time for the preceding ten years.
The trained bushman of Australia knows that yarding these inexpressible pariahs simply amounts to arming them for the fray. The resources, in attack or defence, developed in the confirmed ‘rager,’ are only to be learned by experience. He is the grizzly bear of Australia, and with a slight shade of odds should be my horse in a fight with that terrible plantigrade.
Mr. Neuchamp had looked forward to an exciting, perhaps dangerous encounter when they reached the station yards. But with this class of ‘shorthorn’ yarding is a much more rapid affair than with quiet station-bred cattle, which delay and resist with contemptuous disapproval born of familiarity. In such a case as the present the leaders, if not bent on flight, dash through the widely-opened gateways into the yard like soldiers storming a fort. The rest clear out with equal celerity.
If not frustrated in his first attempt at breaking back, by the sabre stroke of a sixteen-foot stockwhip dropped fair between the eyes by a cabbage-tree-hatted, black, velvet-handed native, the ‘rager’ cuts through the opposing ranks like a dragoon through Chinese infantry. No one goes after him. Perhaps five years afterwards, at another grand battue, a black boy will remark, pointing to an old broken-winded, but indomitable warrior, with horns like scythe-blades, ‘You menalu that fella? close up that fella boomalli yarraman belongi to me, long a Mr. Levison, old man muster long a Boocalthra Lake.’ The ‘rager’ is old, weak, and crippled now. The time has passed when he could tread the war-path alone. He will not leave his comrades now. He labours along painfully, but on the grand old visage is stamped indelibly the ‘hall-mark’ of courage, the possession of which he shares with the monarchs of mortality. Doubt not that he will reach the yard, and in that enclosure defy menaces, shouts, blows from the unerring waddy, from the stockman’s fire-tailed whips. He passes for the last time into what is now his graveyard. He will never leave it alive. At shut of day eight of his enslaved brethren drag him forth to the little spot of earth, his—what say I?—our only true heritage. Nature raises him a not ungraceful mausoleum of marsh-mallow. Farewell they of the unstoried herd! Like him, all unknowing of the base pangs of fear—like him, sped with a bullet through his brain, the only true death for a hero!
After the pleasant relaxation of breakfast, one of the few comparatively civilised meals encountered during the last fortnight, pipes were lit, stockwhips greased and garnished with resplendent crackers, and all hands strolled in leisurely fashion towards the stockyard. This enclosure presented on approach a tossing sea, ‘a vision of horns,’ most literally. Had there been a particle of unanimity among the imprisoned criminals, desperate and accursed in the eyes of man, a whole side of the yard might easily have been carried away upon their united horns, but they were too busy with wars of reprisal.
Unable to vent their rage on the common enemy, they rushed, gored, trampled, and bruised one another. Hair, hide, blood, and dust were the staples in present request. The weakest went to the wall, metaphorically, each individual under the average standard of strength and ferocity faring like an unwary O’Hallaghan discovered at a fair composed of O’Callaghans.
The correct thing, on first arriving at a drafting yard, is to ‘cockatoo,’ or sit on the rails, high above the tossing horn-billows, and discuss the never-ending subject of hoof and horn.
Many of the captive ‘ragers’ had personal histories. Heroes of many a camp, they had gradually been driven back to the outside boundaries of their respective runs, and, though each of fattening qualities and contumacious conduct, finally outlawed. The cattle-brand of Cain was now affixed to them. Sentenced and finally doomed to the unprejudiced stomachs of Chinamen for a consideration of thirty shillings per head, horns given in.
Presently Piambook and Boinmaroo appear carrying bundles of carefully-selected drafting sticks. Each stockman picks his favourite weapon, trying its poise and touch, like a billiard cue, and deciding with much care and deliberation. The ends are whittled to prevent splitting; passes and blows are made at imaginary foes. This part of the preparation does not last long. No mistakes are made. The cool, quiet-eyed youngsters know their weapon well, and the delicate and responsible work required of it. A desultory entry into the receiving-yard then takes place, each man picking his own panel.
The ‘ragers’ observing this movement keep wildly and excitedly ‘ringing,’ like a first-class Maëlstrom. As a matter of taste and safety, the original circular-sailing abyss would seem to be preferable. Some onedidcome out of that alive,credeEdgar Allan Poe. But no human ‘hide or hair’ would have emerged (unmanufactured) from the ‘horn-mill’ we have faintly essayed to limn.
The practised stockriders, keeping an eye on the trampling multitude, now glide down on either side of the yard, thereby preventing a simultaneous rush at the fence, which, though of unusual massiveness, is barely up to the weight of six hundred bullocks, say three hundred tons, at a high degree of momentum.
There is no question of charging as yet. Matters have not reached the personal stage between the combatants. If the ‘ring’ crowds too near the fence, the men on that side would walk along the middle rail holding on the while by the ‘cap,’ or uppermost horizontal, always of rounded and not of split timber like the lower bars. If a bullock looks at any one ‘in that tone of voice,’ he receives an admonitory tap on the nose. But the blood of the ‘ragers’ is not yet hot enough for the desperate stage when they dare everything. So they merely acknowledge the blow by a savage dig into their nearest comrade’s ribs.
Suddenly a bullock quits the outer edge at full speed, and dashes at the yard. The herd burst after him like a charge of Cossacks. As if by magic, the stockmen form in line, and without a word of warning or command each man stands in his proper place. An advance in line is made upon the flying squadron. Yells, oaths, sticks, and lumps of clay are used to expedite the progress of the maddened animals towards the smaller yards. The leaders beholding a gate, recognise a trap and essay to turn. Vain hope! They are doomed to blind progression like the leaders of a democracy. They must keep in the forefront of the movement or be trampled under foot. Lost is all pride of place; they are forced on, sideways, backwards, even heels over head, through the gate by the maddened rear ranks observant only of danger from behind. Two men creep past along the fence towards the gateway, and at the exact instant upon which the recoil takes place, the rails are put up and secured, abruptly blocking the most forward bullock, whilst undecided whether to advance or retreat. Half of the herd is now enclosed in the forcing yards; the remaining moiety, returning, form a smaller ring, and recommence horning their friends where they left off. The men again are quietly sitting upon the ‘cap,’ where pipes are relighted, preluding a hand-to-hand encounter.
During these last proceedings Mr. Neuchamp transacted a slight experience in this wise. Armed with his hunting-crop, he had chosen the centre of the line, in view of the cattle. When the panic from the van became communicated to the rear, the whole body turned and rushed frantically back to their old position. The stockmen and black boys, well used to the movement, opened on each flank, leaving free egress. Mr. Neuchamp, less prompt and agile, found himself alone and opposed to a legion of horned demons, going straight down his throat, it appeared to him, at the rate of 1 to 41. The leading bullock instantly appropriated him. Ernest, however, had ‘seen his duty, a dead, sure thing,’ and appeared truly anxious to perform it. Not to interfere with the ‘ragers’’ right to fair play, he made straight down the yard instead of cutting across at right angles.
Away, therefore, went Ernest Neuchamp, with a bullock, in sufficient training to win a moderate Derby, within two yards of him. It is admitted that a man under such circumstances always runs up to his best form. Therefore the decision ‘by a short horn,’ given by a sporting stockman seated on the fence, who kindly acted as judge on the occasion, created no surprise. Brooding over this occurrence, Ernest concluded to choose a position nearer to the fence on the occasion of the next drive.
Now another act commences. About fifty head have been run into the drafting lane and are ready for separating. The ‘lane’ is a long narrow yard about three panels wide and eight in length—a panel of fencing is not quite nine feet in length—immediately connected with the pound or final yard, and leading into it by a gate opening into the latter.
Two men have dropped down into the drafting lane, and are standing, one close to the gate, the other nearer to the cattle. The gateman wields a short drafting stick, not more than three feet in length, of approved toughness, his work being atveryclose quarters. This, the most onerous position in the yard, requires much the same qualities which the harpooner to a whaleboat must own. Quickness of eye, coolness, and daring are indispensable. His duty consists in preventing two or more cattle of different classes from passing through the gate simultaneously. He is imperatively called upon to read brands, observe ear-marks, age, sex, taking due heed to preserve his own life withal. This, for instance, may suffice for an example. Several beasts are cut off by his comrade down the lane, with one only, perhaps, belonging to a different class. He marks the superfluous individual at a glance, but does not move till they are close upon him. Then, like lightning, he encourages those required by light but rapid blows. The bullock to be ‘blocked’ receives one on the nose which arrests him for an instant, just long enough to permit his comrades to move irrevocably through the gate. As the gate closes behind them another tap causes him to turn tail and fly to the rear. Whenever this ‘pound’ holds cattle ofonly one classyou hear the deciding shouts from the cockatoo stockmen, who are doing the ‘reviewing,’ safely on the fence, of ‘Fat,’ ‘Bush,’ ‘Stranger,’ or ‘Calf-yard,’ as the case may be. At large musters for stragglers, you will also hear the further divisions of ‘Up the river,’ ‘Down the river,’ ‘Over the river,’ as well as ‘Bush,’ ring out in constant succession for hours; the last comprehensive direction being used for the station cattle. The unerring dexterity of the ‘captain of the gate,’ and his rapid disentanglement of the seemingly endless streams of violent brutes passing through the lane, fill Mr. Neuchamp with admiration, and demonstrate to him that this is a leaf of colonial experience hitherto by him unfolded. He and his mates have gathered their adroitness from a life-training, and are little less perfect with the drafting stick in their line than Cook with his miraculous cue.
‘Ragers,’ it may be explained, can only be drafted in two ways, or modes of separation—the stragglers or strayed cattle being divided from them, in the interest of the attendant stockmen from the adjoining stations, who take them home after the muster is over.
Two gates leading from the pound at the far end are now taken charge of by the black boys, Boinmaroo and Piambook—the one answering to ‘Bush,’ the other to ‘Strangers.’ The gate from the lane is opened and the ‘ragers’ invited through. The invitation is accepteden masse, and in spite of two or three going down stiffened by a judicious blow behind the horns, they rush fiercely into the pound, and herd themselves on Boinmaroo’s gate, taking it clean off the hinge and flattening out the primeval, who hangs on heroically.
Mr. Neuchamp, after ‘they have all passed by,’ over gate and boy, rushes out to recover the corpse. Before he reaches the fatal spot, however, that slippery heathen is up and flying round after the bullocks, and, indeed, after his pulverisation looking like a demon.
After a voyage of discovery round the yard at full speed, they return, best pace, into the lane, where they are permitted to calm themselves before the next attempt. When it is made, they behave better, though all the while keeping the drafters incessantly popping at the fence by truculent charges. One hand is stationed in the pound to pass the cattle through, where a gate is opened,—no sinecure, with this class of cattle, their rage and desperation being by this time beyond all bounds. Many a man has lost his life in performing this apparently simple task.
In addition to the ordinary and patent dangers to the yard, Ernest narrowly escaped, when sitting in a dignified manner upon the ‘cap’ of the pound—a substitute rail more than seven feet from the ground—being hooked off by the scythe-like horns of an infuriated incorrigible. He was then and afterwards dubious as to whether his and Piambook’s joint essay at improved cattle-drafting was a fair test of his theory, the energy and bloodthirstiness displayed by the present performers leading to a reconsideration of his system. However, with true British pluck, he will not desert his theory without further trial.
He had observed that in cases of ‘charging,’ the assaulted one merely jumped on to the bottom rail of the yard fence, held on by the top, and met the advancing foe with a seemingly unnecessarily cruel blow on the nose, in most instances causing effusion of blood. The blow, unless with a recognised ‘bravo,’ was sufficient to avert the charge.
Ernest took the first opportunity to volunteer for this post, which was freely accorded to him—the chief requisite being agility. With a light switch he betook himself into the yard. The first half-dozen shot through like cannon-balls, possibly not having cast eyes on the congenial prey. This state of affairs did not continue.
The acknowledged bully of the yard put his head down and charged into the pound like a whirlwind. The gate was shut and all hands seated upon the fence with marvellous celerity. This warrior was a very evil-looking beast—a tall, hurdle-built magpie brute, with a development of horn remarkable even in that forest of frontlets. One circle he made round the pound, tossing blood and foam from his nostrils on every side, savagely lunging at every one he passed on the fence, treating the heavy blows which, alas! from time to time fell heavily upon his bleeding face with superb contempt. As he passed Mr. Neuchamp that gentleman lightly dropped behind him and switched him on the haunch, as a hint to move through the gate held open for him by Piambook. The mighty beast swung round. For one second his glaring visage seemed to say, ‘I’ll have your blood anyhow.’ That second prevented the impalement of a hero of fiction! Ernest turned, and for the second time that day showed great pace. But when making a spring at the fence, between the pound and the lane, his foot slipped off the rail and he fell forward from the ‘cap.’ The maddened animal, seeing his victim escaping, gave a terrific bound and succeeded in planting his fore-feet on either side of Mr. Neuchamp, though his hind-quarters still rested on the ground. Here he made frantic efforts to clear the panel and Mr. Neuchamp, the agony and uncertainty of whose position were indescribable, as his gasping articulation testified.
But help was at hand. A stalwart Lachlan native sprang like a tiger at the beast’s head, and with a few crushing blows forced him to stagger back into the yard. As he turned a comparatively light tap from a wattle drafting stick on the spine, behind the horns, droppedl’enragéin his tracks, as if struck by lightning—his nostrils in the dust, his eyes turned backwards, and his huge frame quivering in every muscle. Slowly recovering his senses, he staggered to his legs, and perceiving Piambook standing in the middle of his gateway, as if inviting him to the feast, rushed blindly and with unabated fury at him. That astute aboriginal disappears from his gaze; he reels wildly through the gate on to his head, picking himself up in the next yard, where he meets with the usual sympathy from his companions.
Mr. Neuchamp is restored by the exhibition of a strongish dram. As he observes the last bullock enticed out of the lane by having a bag thrown to him, which, after savagely driving his horns through, he carried forth thereon in triumph, he confesses that nothing short of hand-grenades, prepared with nitro-glycerine, can be esteemed suitable implements for the effective drafting of ‘pigmeaters.’
The fray was finished. Enough had been done for glory, and even for some modest minimum of profit. The gates and sliprails of the yard are scrupulously secured, and all thoughts of work abandoned for the day. On the morrow a grand departure was carried out. The estrays or stragglers—a not inconsiderable drove—were escorted away by the stockrider contingent, who held a collective interest in them. And then, with much care and forethought, with horsemen in front, in flank, in rear, the gates were opened, and the swine-doomed multitude rushed forth, extremely lively, ‘you bet,’ but gradually assuming an appearance of sobriety as the purposely long day’s journeying wore on.
‘I call that a bit of first-rate luck,’ propounded Mr. Windsor, ‘getting all these rowdy old devils off the run in one muster, like this; thirty of ’em, let alone three hundred, ‘s enough to spoil the best herd in the country. There was some splendid fat bullocks—reg’lar plums—about that Back Lake camp—never saw primer cattle in my life.’
‘Nor I,’ agreed Charley Banks. ‘I never set eyes on a better-looking run than this, let alone the saltbush. It don’t appear to me to be half stocked, that’s another thing.’
‘We shall have to consider what is most necessary to be done next,’ said Ernest, with a thoughtful expression. ‘There must be many pressing things of importance, as so little appears to have been thought of hitherto. The arrangements are simple, even to barbarism.’
Mr. Neuchamp was shocked that morning, on going into the meathouse, to find that the corned beefcaskconsisted of four upright round sticks, with a hide stretched across. In the deflected centre of this not particularly clean raw hide was placed above five hundred pounds’ weight of salted beef. To this magazine the entire household resorted in its need. He at once made an item, ‘Casks,’ to be added to the tolerably long list of articles required for immediate use at Rainbar, which he trusted to obtain when the first drays should make their appearance from Sydney. He then sat down and wrote a long letter to Paul Frankston, in which he described the delivery of the station, not forgetting to chronicle his gratitude to Mr. Aymer Brandon for his exertions in his behalf, and his satisfaction at the liberal manner in which the former proprietor had behaved throughout the whole affair.
‘I feel now,’ was his concluding paragraph, ‘that I am fairly launched as a pastoral proprietor, and I trust that I shall be able to combine a fair amount of profitable management with the reform of many objectionable practices and the improvement of station life generally, as it has hitherto obtained, on such distant properties as, up to this period, Rainbar may be considered to have been. A large present outlay will be unavoidable, but I feel certain that the increased profits, under improved supervision, will amply repay this and any future disbursement.’
‘All very fine,’ remarked Mr. Frankston to his cigar, as he put his young friend’s letter into his pocket with a dissatisfied air, ‘but if he commences to spend money in accordance with his notions of what he calls improved management, he will soon run himself aground. That’s not the way young Parklands worked the place when he went into it first, I’ll be bound. It’s extraordinary how every one who comes to this country of ours will persist in thinking that he has imported the first consignment of brains ever landed upon the continent. Well, I foresee that he will have his own way. If the seasons are good and cattle rise, he may pull through.’
‘And if not, papa?’ inquired the soft voice of Antonia, who had crept up to the old man’s chair and placed her arm caressingly on his shoulder.
‘And if not, my pet,’ said that experienced colonist, with a subdued growl, into which he attempted to infuse the unfailing tenderness which invariably characterised his speech to his fondly-loved daughter, ‘if not, why in three years our young and ardent friend will have to make a living out of his “plans for reform,” for he will have nothing else left, as sure as my name is Paul Frankston.’
‘Oh, don’t say that, papa,’ said Mr. Neuchamp’s indulgent though sensible advocate; ‘surely he is far cleverer than most of the young men that come out and turn squatters with just a “little experience,” and see how well some of them have done.’
‘It is not that he has a worse head, but I doubt most of all because of his better heart. That will destroy the balance. It’s a bad thing for money-making. A man can make money, save money, or keep money, with just as few brains as will prevent him from falling into the fire. But let him have only as much more heart than his neighbours as would overbalance a nautilus, and money falls away from him like quicksilver. It’s a fatal defect, Antonia, my darling; and I’m afraid our young friend has it incurably.’
‘It’s a fault on the right side, at any rate!’ said the girl, raising her head proudly. ‘Those who think tenderly and faithfully concerning their fellow-creatures are not, perhaps, so clever with the “muck-rake” as self-seekers who bore and tunnel, like moles, all their lives, never turning their eyes towards the blue sky, the golden sun, or the glad waters. It cannot but be that those who have loftier aims should have some compensation even inthisworld; and if they are not so clever in helping themselves, why, their friends must help them all the more. Don’t you think so, pappy dearest?’
‘He—m!’ answered the capitalist warily. ‘That depends upon circumstances. Some people require a great deal of helping.’
‘The greater triumph when they are finally helped into safety and success, and then they are sure to help others. Prosperity opens the hearts of really generous people more and more. By the way, how did Paul Frankston ever come to make any money? Tell me that, sir?’
‘Have no idea, puss; all a fluke, I daresay. I don’t thinkhewould trouble his head much about it, except for the sake of a certain self-willed monkey, who ought to be in bed and asleep. Good-night, darling.’
For the first few months after Mr. Neuchamp had commenced to sit upon the throne of Rainbar, there was a large amount of station work to do, which, at the instigation of Mr. Banks and Jack Windsor, was pushed on with and completed. There were any number of calves to be branded, outlying cattle to be got in, the herd generally to be mustered and made to ‘go to camp’ properly, as well as many other things necessary on a cattle station newly purchased, and which had not been, let us say, very exactly administered for some years past.
‘It’s my belief there’s some of these LP cattle at every station within a hundred miles of Rainbar,’ said Mr. Windsor one day, as he and Mr. Banks returned from a neighbour’s muster, with a goodly number of cows, unbranded calves, and pen-branded bullocks. ‘It was these last store cattle they got that seems to have scattered and made out all over the country. They say it came on very dry after they were turned out. Their horses was that weak they couldn’t ride after ’em, so they had to let them go their own way.’
‘Indeed,’ said Ernest sympathisingly; ‘they must have lost great quantities, or did they come back again?’
‘They wouldn’t come back, because they didn’t know the run well enough to care about it over much. But they weren’t teetotally lost, ‘cause they’ve stuck at every herd they came to, and in course of time we’ll have ’em all at home again.’
‘You are sure they will not be lost?’
‘Not a bit of it,’ affirmed Mr. Windsor. ‘A brand, once well put on, is like a direction on a letter. People may steal the letter, or kill the beast. But every one who don’t go in for them tricks will help the owner of a stray beast to get him, if his brand is readable, just as he’d give you a letter addressed to you, if he was to pick it up on the road.’
‘What will you do with these strayed cattle, then, when we get them home?’
‘We must let them go again; there’s nothing else for it. And I’ll wager half of them will just turn and walk back again.’
‘I have been thinking,’ said Ernest meditatingly, ‘that if we had a large paddock put up here, it would do capitally to keep strayed stock in, and for the horses. Surely it would save time.’
Jack admitted that an enclosure of the kind would be very handy for the class of cattle referred to, so Mr. Neuchamp at once made a note of a ton or two of wire for the purpose. Thus simply and unobtrusively was the ‘Improvement Idea’ initiated at Rainbar. Once admitted, it grew and enlarged into vast and even alarming proportions.
How many an ingenuous pastoralist has for years wandered innocently by the charmed ocean-strand of Arcady the Blessed, leading the careless, untroubled life which belongs of right to all true Arcadians, ignorant alike of want or luxury, of debt, of anxious thought for the morrow! When, lo! in a luckless hour, unhallowed desire has urged him to the opening of the sealed, the forbidden casket which contained the Genie—‘Improvement.’
The baleful Djinn, accursed of Solomon and many succeeding wise men, towers aloft, darkening the summer sky, and finally demanding the life of his deliverer. In the Eastern tale, the threatened victim cajoled the monster into re-entrance and brazen bondage. Rarely, alas! does the modern enfranchiser of the Demon succeed in enforcing retrenchment and safety!
Mr. Neuchamp had a general idea, based upon Paul Frankston’s parting instructions, Mr. Levison’s warning words, ‘Don’t you waste your money,’ and even the half-careless hints of Brandon and Parklands, that his course as a squatter was to be guided by economy. At the outset, therefore, he merely ordered articles and implements absolutely necessary. He devoted his spare time to the task of instilling some glimmering rays of intellectual light into the unused but not opaque intelligence of Charley Banks. Finding that the boy had a strong taste for voyages and travels, he provided him with books of that particular department, and gradually had the satisfaction of seeing the lad settle down of an evening to steady reading, instead of to the eternal pipe, with perhaps an excursion to the kitchen and a not wholly improving gossip with Jack Windsor.
He drew him out, and invited him to the discussion of principles of action derived from the lives of his favourite heroes. He encouraged him to digest a certain daily quantity of ‘stiff’ or improving literature, and arranged that the more humorous celebrities of the day were not wanting. He sketched a combination of reading and reflection, with the hard personal exertion and keen practical attention to detail which the youngster loved. He drew his attention to distinguished persons who combined excellence in both classes of attainment; and he demonstrated how poor and mean a goal is that of material success, unrelieved by mental progress or spiritual enlightenment.
But when all the calves were branded up, so completely that no more work, in that direction, could be done until more calves were born,—when all the stragglers were got in, and there were no musters to attend; as the days grew longer, the sun hotter, the whole routine more uniform and monotonous,—life commenced to be burdensome to Ernest Neuchamp. Then the fascinating idea of works and enterprises of a new and reproductive nature, like the temptation of a hermit in the Thebaid, arose with resistless might.
‘After all,’ he argued, ‘if he were able, by his own contrivance and invention, to anticipate fortune for a few years, instead of dragging out endlessly a life, perchance meant for better things, was he not practising economy in the truest form?’
Such, after certain mental conflicts and long calculations, was the question which he answered to himself in the affirmative. From that hour he ceased to struggle with what appeared to be either a matter of destiny or the prompting of an enlightened self-interest, according to the mood in which he found himself when considering this momentous question.
The first operation foreign to the primitive, not to say barbarous, simplicity of the Rainbar establishment was the putting up of the paddock, at least double the size which Mr. Windsor had suggested, for the safe keeping of straggling cattle.Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte.After that ‘improvement’ was completed and paid for by the crisp new orders out of the book furnished to Ernest by his agents, Messrs. Oldstile and Crampton, a highly unimaginative and trustworthy firm recommended by Paul, a new four-roomed cottage, of horizontal timbers, arose on the bank of the lagoon, to the great amazement of Piambook and Boinmaroo.
By this time a considerable number of the bush labourers of the period had found their way to Rainbar. Rumour, which disdains not the far interior, but indeed seems to be additionally sonorous in the remoter haunts of man, had sounded her trumpet-blast far and wide with reference to Ernest Neuchamp’s acts and assets. The former were summed up ‘as going in for no end of improvements,’ and the latter were confidently credited with unlimited resources.
The next project possessed the merits of grandeur of conception and perfect novelty, at least in the neighbourhood of Rainbar, the inhabitants whereof might have been numbered among the most pious communities in the world, from their consistent dependence upon Providence, had their morals in other respects borne investigation.
Mr. Neuchamp had noticed that the Back Lake, as it was called, had evidently been filled recently by the overflow of the river, the waters of which had been conducted by a tortuous but plainly defined channel. The level of this inland sea, for it was of great extent, had lowered considerably since his occupation. In the event of a dry season it would doubtless become dry. Assuming this to take place, the cattle habitually watering there would be thrown upon the world—would be reduced to betake themselves to the ‘frontage.’ ‘Great inconvenience, perhaps loss,’ so said Charley Banks and Windsor, ‘would result.’
Then again, about ten miles from the Back Lake was another titular lake, dry at present, but with well-defined banks, bearing traces of having once been filled with water. This was called the Outer Lake. It was surrounded by splendid plains, but was only available for the stock during a short period in winter. This natural basin Mr. Neuchamp boldly proposed to fill from the Back Lake, after he had replenished that reservoir from the unfailing waters of the Great River.
After a careful examination and survey, he came to the conclusion that by deepening and cutting the curves of the ‘blind creek,’ or natural channel along which the waters of the flooded river had always reached the Back Lake, he could ensure the filling of that great basin in an ordinary season. Secondly, by a straight and not particularly wide or deep cutting connecting the two lakes, the outer basin could be filled as regularly and completely as the inner. Noting the levels, and computing the probable expense—considerably under its ultimate amount—Mr. Neuchamp retired to bed at an unusually late hour. But he carried with him the proud consciousness that he was destined to become the Lesseps of the Lower Darling. He slept heavily, but his dreams were troubled. At one moment Piambook approached, anxious to decorate his bosom with one of the brazen crescents which adorn the breast of confiding aboriginal royalty. At another, a group of officials and improbably well-dressed pioneer squatters gathered around him, with approving glances and well-filled bumpers of champagne. Then Hartley Selmore smilingly proposed the health of the most original and successful engineer of the age, while Antonia Frankston gave the signal to raise a floodgate, which permitted the impatient waters to connect the farthest Australias.
Ernest had no sooner ‘ciphered out’ this fascinating project, than he found ready to his hand a considerable body of labourers, who in one way or another had been employed in putting up the cottage and the paddock. More strength was speedily available, as the report gained rapidly in sensation, until nearly all the peripatetic labour of the land had heard tell of the newly-arrived proprietor of Rainbar. He was impatient, it was said, to fence, dig wells, make dams, and cut canals, in all directions. So the able-bodied swagsmen hasted towards Rainbar, with the frantic fear of being too late which characterises the stampede for a ‘new rush’ among a mining population. Mr. Banks and Jack Windsor, and above all Piambook and Boinmaroo, were wildly astonished at the unfailing stream of tramps, of all sorts, sizes, and capacities, that poured in.
The blacks began to think that the King of England had made up his mind to take away Rainbar from Mr. Noojim, and that this was the vanguard of an army sent up to enter into possession.
Charley and Jack Windsor, sharing the prejudices of old-fashioned squatters against ‘too many hands about the place,’ looked grave. Indeed the latter ventured upon a mild remonstrance, as he sent man after man to work at the canal. Rations began to be served out in such quantities, that Charley Banks, who was storekeeper, had little else to do but to distribute. He stated his conviction that the flour would soon be gone if the drain continued. ‘Then,’ he supposed, ‘they would have to live upon beef and pumpkins until the next drays came up. Getting through work was all very well, but this was making the paceratherstrong.’
‘Don’t you think, sir, excuse me,’ said Jack one day, when a bag of flour and half of the last bullock had been served out in one forenoon, ‘that we’re getting rather too many knock-about men for a small station like this? It ain’t my place, I know, to meddle with your ways of managing, and so on; but I’ve been on many a station, and I’ve never seen half, or quarter the muster we’ve got here lately.’
‘I shall always be willing to hear and consider your opinion, Jack,’ said his master, with that philosophic urbanity which distinguished him; ‘you are a shrewd, sensible fellow, and, I know, faithful to my interest. But youmustsee that the cost of employing one man for fifty days, or fifty men for one day, is precisely similar. Excepting always that you save forty-nine days in time by the latter arrangement.’
‘Well, that’s right enough, sir; but, somehow, none of the gentlemen I know as has made money out of their stations never liked to see a lot of men being fed and paid and kept about the station, except for shearing or such like.’
‘But don’t you think the canal will be a splendid thing for the run, if we can get the river water to Outer Lake?’
‘Well, sir, if it does, all very well, but somehow I don’t seem to be quite sure that it will; and if cattle keeps low, where’s the money to come from?’
‘Whether cattle sell cheaply or otherwise, if we can get five thousand pounds’ worth of water for five hundred, it pays well to lay out the money.’
‘Ah well, sir, I can’t say for that. But I think you might give it a thought whether these chaps are likely to do much of a day’s work at this cutting, or whatever you call it. As long as they have their grub and their wages they’ll hang it out, one again the other—regular Government stroke, as we say in this country.’
‘But how can I arrange it otherwise?’ inquired Ernest anxiously.
‘Give it ’em by piecework,’ replied Mr. Windsor confidently. ‘You watch, now, how much half a dozen of the best of ’em does in a day. Measure it when you’re by yourself; then run it off what it comes to at the wages and rations you pay. After that you can let it to ’em at so much a foot, or so much a rod, for them to “find themselves” out of the contract price.’
This very shrewd practical suggestion was, after consultation with Mr. Banks, finally adopted. The small army of excavators was informed that henceforth the pay would be at the rate of so much per cubic foot; that their rations, of whatever quantity, would be debited to them, as they would have to ‘find themselves.’ And that no departure from this scale of payment and charges would be permitted. After some grumbling, a little scheming, and a few departures, matters went on quietly. Mr. Neuchamp surveyed with satisfaction, week by week, the smooth-edged channel crossing the endless plain, destined, if all went well, to turn back-country into frontage, and so revolutionise custom and compel fortune.
After this great achievement was fairly on the road to completion, Mr. Neuchamp turned his mind to the dignified and fascinating science of horse-breeding. He had, in the comparative solitude of Rainbar, been revolving this vitally important question, dear to every descendant of Britons in every quarter of the globe. He had been pained and grieved, of late, to observe that so few among the countless droves of equine forms with which the land was overrun were worthy the name of horses. They bore no approximation to the gallant, delicate-limbed desert steed of Arabia—as little to the stately, swift, and powerful animal that the science of English breeders has evoked from the questionable coursers of the past.
He looked around, inhaling the dry, pure, exhilarating breeze, and marked the wide expanse of sandy levels. He felt the fervid rays of the true desert sun. ‘This,’ he exclaimed, ‘this is the climate, this the soil, the land, for the ancient royal desert blood, and no other. Here one might rear a race of gallant steeds, that would sweep tireless on from dawn to midnight.’
He recalled the magnificent performance of the two aged but high-descended mares, so wondrously described in the passage of theTalisman, when the Hakeem bears away his guest through the desert from the pursuit of the Templars. He thought with disgust of the sudden collapse, after only a couple of miles of sharp going, that his cob had treated him to, when the blue bullock thirsted for his blood. And vowing that, in days to come, no proprietor of Rainbar should suffer probability of so ignominious a doom, he was confirmed in his resolution to acclimatise a race of Australian Arabs at Rainbar, which, glorious in the present, should live in the future unsurpassable and immortal.
He ultimately arrived at the conclusion that it became the solemn duty of every man, placed by Providence in the enviable position of a pastoral proprietor, to do his best to provide the good land, to which he owed so much, with some lasting benefit or substantial legacy.
Mr. Neuchamp’s bequest to the tutelary deity of Australia—plus the most improved shorthorns, which he was determined to promote, with his heart’s blood if necessary—was to take the shape of a stud of Arab horses. In imagination, he saw them caracoling over saltbush plains and sand ridges, tossing their small expressive heads, waving their flowing manes and tails, while their clean, flat, everlasting legs and iron hoofs would be patent and admirable to every one who had sense enough to know an Angora goat from a deerhound. In the event of remounts, which were continually required for the Indian army, an entire regiment might be supplied from Rainbar in days to come.
Mr. Neuchamp gave the reins to this Arabian imagination, until he began to be oppressed with the crowds of princes and magnates of the earth, who came suing for the inestimable privilege of a charger from the Rainbar stud. Then he closed the day-dream. But the idea was fully developed, and he wrote to his agents to order a high-caste Arab sire, to be sent down at once from India. He then made arrangements for a number of well-bred brood mares, wherewith to make a commencement of the great Rainbar Austral-Arab stud.
The summer had come to an end; the autumn had fairly set in, when the time for mustering fat cattle arrived. That portion of the economy of a cattle station, so suggestive of coin, was safe to be attended to. This was perhaps the pleasantest description of work which had happened during the period of Mr. Neuchamp’s proprietorship of Rainbar.
Under the apparent leadership of Charley Banks, with the aid of Jack Windsor, the neighbouring stockmen went forth on the war-paths, and the cattle were duly mustered upon the Main camp, the Sandy camp, the Wild Horse camp, and finally at the Back Lake camp. No yarding took place. The fat cattle were to be duly separated, after approved custom, known as ‘cutting out,’ at each camp.
A muster for ‘cutting out’ is a novel and exciting scene for the stranger tourist. A cattle ‘camp’ is a rendezvous, used by a subdivision of a herd of cattle for purposes apparently of friendly gathering, converse, and social recreation—a Bovine Club. Sometimes the needful bare space, covering from an acre to half a dozen, is situated under shady trees; sometimes by the side of a river, marsh, or water-hole; sometimes on a naked sandridge, shadeless, waterless, alike destitute apparently of beauty and convenience.
The system of camp, with the aid of which the greater part of the work of every cattle station is carried on, would appear to have originated in the earliest days of colonial cattle-herding, the instinctive tendency of all cattle permitted to rove at will within certain limits being to assemble daily, generally as the heat commences to become oppressive, at a given spot, affording for the most part shade and water. Towards the decline of day the friends or acquaintances separate, each moving slowly on to its particular feeding-ground. A peculiarity of bush cattle, partly instinctive, partly the result of training, is to run to camp upon hearing alarming noises, or being disturbed at their feeding-grounds. Cattle in their natural state are exceedingly timid. Nothing is more common than for two or three hundred head, feeding at the outskirt of a large run, to start off in sudden alarm at the flight of birds, the sight of blacks, or the stampede of a mob of wild horses. At a moment’s notice they are off at full speed, which they keep up without ‘crying crack,’ as the stockmen say, until panting, and with heaving flanks, they can halt and ‘round’ up in the beloved camp.
Of this peculiarity advantage has been taken by stockmen, finding it a great aid to management, and a substitute for expensive stockyards and troublesome yard drafting. Thus one of the first things which an experienced stockman does when he is forming a cattle station, by herding the cattle upon it for the first occupation, is to regulate the camp. If he perceives that the cattle, after being turned loose, and no longer ‘tailed’ or followed daily as a shepherd does sheep of their own accord, ‘take to,’ or agree to prefer, certain suitable localities for camp, he wisely does not interfere. He merely observes and visits from time to time, but, traversing daily the outskirts of their beat, or by cracking his whip or using his dogs, rouses and alarms them, so training them to ‘run to camp.’ After a few months of this exercise he is moderately sure that on any given day he will find at a certain hour the larger proportion of each subdivision of the herd at one proper camp, and that almost every straggler will find its way to some rendezvous of the sort. If the camp be unsuitably placed, the stockman shoots a beast of no value, and leaves it upon the spot which he selects for a camp. He then makes a practice of driving the adjacent cattle to the spot two or three times a week. They are attracted by the decomposing carcass, around which they paw, roar, and trample, after the manner of their kind. Gradually the space immediately around is rendered bare. The cattle become familiarised to it as a daily lounge. They commence to run towards it, and of their own accord, and then the camp is formed.
Such is their origin and nature of formation. The advantage is patent. The driving of cattle, especially of a large herd, into a yard is always a troublesome, costly, and injurious process. The larger and fiercer cattle horn, crush, and sometimes fatally injure the weaker. Calves are hurt. Occasionally valuable cows are injured; even the strongest and fattest animals are not improved by the cruel goring and ceaseless crushing to which they are exposed during days or nights in the yard.
In camp-work there is little or no chance of oppression or hurt. After an hour’s ‘beating up,’ and ringing of whips, streams of cattle are seen pouring in from every point of the compass towards, let us say, the main camp. Generally situated at no great distance from the stockyard, this is supposed to be the central and principal trysting-place. From one side comes a long string of comparatively sober and peaceful cattle, comprising a goodly number of cows and calves. They trot leisurely, perhaps merely walk, until they reach the bare mound by the side of the long reed-covered lagoon, shaded by venerable white gums. There they halt or walk peacefully round and round. But stop—now far and faint more whips resound, which from time to time one hears like a tapping-bird or the snapping of dried sticks. Only the half-Indian sense of the bush-reared stockmen could say with certainty that these sounds were the volleying detonations of the mighty stockwhip, that terrible weapon in the hands of an Australian bushman. The sounds are louder, nearer, less ambiguous; the muffled lowing of a great concourse of cattle comes down the wind, mingled with shouts, yells, and strange cries. At length the herd gradually come—