Mr. Neuchamp of Rainbar had now reached a very important position in
his career. He had gained a fulcrum for that lever by the aid of which
he trusted to move the Australian world,―to raise or to cause to
tremble―and finally to impel upon the incline of undoubted and social
improvement―the hitherto inanimate mass of colonial society, strong in
the _vis inertiæ_ which rules primitive or unenlightened communities.
Before this happy moment of proprietorship he could but enunciate
principles and theories. Now he was enabled to demonstrate them by
practice. He would have comrades, neighbours, dependents, workmen of
his own. And concurrently with the most effective and successful
working of the station, he would show New South Wales, Australia, and
the world generally, what an Englishman of culture, with a purpose,
could effect in the way of reform. Captain Cook had discovered the
continent―proconsuls of greater or less intelligence had governed it.
It was left for him, Ernest Neuchamp, to raise it to that point of
social and industrial eminence which should make it a Pharos, a
wonder-sign, an exemplar throughout all the civilised world.
It may be gathered that Mr. Neuchamp was alone and possessed his soul
in peace, when he found sufficient time in which to indulge these grand
ideas and magniloquent reflections. Mr. Parklands’ company was not
favourable to contemplation. His very existence was an aggressively
energetic fact, wholly adverse to reverie or mental repose of any
description. He was always talking or smoking, or asserting or denying,
or going out or coming in, or preparing for his next journey or
reviewing his last one. His very correspondence was of a telegrammatic
and restless nature, full of reference to distances and routes, orders
to overseers and stockmen to go thither, or come hither, to await him
at one place or meet him at another. He went to bed defiantly and got
up noisily, full of plans and prospects, and requiring everybody to
arise and be stirring, in the most literal sense.
Aymer Brandon was constitutionally of a calm, equable, and chiefly
amiable temperament, provided that he had things mostly his own way.
But he was temporarily excited by the demon of unrest which abode in
Parklands, so that between practical jokes, contradictions,
reminiscences of adventures, revelries, and the like, no peace, in the
true sense of the word, was possible until their departure from
Rainbar.
Not until several days after that event did Mr. Neuchamp realise that
he was clothed with real and undisputed sovereignty.
Then with sudden afflatus arose in his brooding mind the thought of the
elevated duties and deep responsibility of his position. It was the
hour of the evening meal. This frugal meal―damper, hard corned beef,
and very black astringent tea―the same served in a very black quart
pot―Ernest had enjoyed in solitude. Humble as was the fare, it was
amply sufficient for a man in the pride of vigorous youth. The
indifferent Bohea had power to stimulate delicately, yet positively,
the nerves of Mr. Neuchamp’s, perhaps, hypersensitive brain.
The night was calm and clear. The starry heavens held no cloud. The
long lagoon lay darkly metallic, or broke into phosphoric ripples. The
mysterious sounds of the desert were rare and as yet unfamiliar to the
listener. All things afforded a startling contrast to his English name
and surroundings, even to his later metropolitan habitudes. Yet as he
sat there by the light of the stars, amid the tremendous solitude of
the wilderness, his heart swelled with the thought that he was the
virtual ruler of a territory larger than his ancestral country―larger
than any member of the house of Neuchamp had owned since the first
baronial fiefs in their blood-bought Normandy.
‘What are the chief and foremost needs of this waste empire of
mine―this desert city?’ soliloquised he. ‘Here I have land enough to
satisfy the earth hunger of the most ravenous aspirant of _la terre_.
Water in reasonable though perhaps insufficient quantity. What is the
great absent factor? Population, a yeoman class, a race of Vavasours,
who could use these great levels for the growth of certain
semi-tropical crops, who might rear upon them a limited number of
stock, who would secure homes for themselves and food for their working
oxen; who would remain loyal to me, their powerful yet philosophic
ally; who would work for me at reasonable rates at ordinary station
work, or any reproductive improvements which I might suggest, and who
would thus entirely sweep away the present undesirable relations which
have hitherto subsisted between Australian country labourers and their
employers. It would not be expensive to provide a school and a teacher
for their children, to be paid by results. I should be enabled, by a
steady supply of labour, to cultivate a reasonable area. Gardens and
experimental industries would of course spring up. The carrying
capabilities of Rainbar might be enormously increased by cutting a
narrow canal, as Parklands suggested, between the waters of the river
and the chain of deep, yet dry lakes at the back of the run. The
advantages of labour on one side, of wages on the other, would be
mutual. Simultaneously an improvement in the character and quality of
the herd would take place. Scientific experiments might be regularly
made and recorded as to rainfall and other important matters. The
culture of the vine, the orange, even the silkworm, might be
introduced; and finally, after a few years, the semi-co-operative
community at Rainbar, self-contained, happy, and prosperous, might be
pointed out as at least _one_ instance where enlightened theory and
successful practice had accomplished an advance in civilisation, had
solved the problem of the harmonious interchange of labour and capital,
and had interpolated at least one Arcadian chapter in the sad history
of mankind.’
As these and other fair and fascinating trains of ideas passed through
the mind of Ernest Neuchamp―while outside of his lonely and humble
dwelling the silent stars burned in the still wondrous firmament, and
nought but the monotonous and half-boding sound of the night-bird broke
the profound primeval silence―he passed instinctively from the stage of
triumphant justification of his plans to a half-felt distrust as to
their practicability; and with the thought of failure came a vision of
the calm questioning gaze of Antonia Frankston, before which his ardent
scheme and aspirations for the perfectibility of the race had more than
once appeared dreamy and Quixotic. The fancied questioning of old Paul,
cool as kindly, yet keen as a cross-examiner, seemed adverse to the
Utopian infant. But Ernest’s strong enthusiasm of humanity, his
generally sanguine temperament, carried him for that night over all
obstacles, and he retired to a _very_ lowly couch, fully determined
that the Rainbar community should enjoy every advantage which
co-operative life and labour had ever yielded to intelligent guidance.
With regard to the ordinary working of the station, he felt at a
disadvantage in the absence of Jack Windsor. He had been so much in the
habit of relying upon that ready-witted and helpful personage in the
executive department, that he felt comparatively helpless when solely
responsible. He considered also that his life would be now almost
unendurably solitary without the companionship of some one nearly
approaching his own grade, who would be at once an assistant and a
companion.
In this extremity, he bethought himself of his late associates at
Garrandilla. None of these young gentlemen was absolutely necessary at
that ovine university. They had taken their degrees, so to speak. Their
places were perhaps waiting to be filled by other alumni, some of whom
paid a fair sum for the privilege of fulfilling, very literally, the
position of the subordinates of Jairus, to that rather exacting
centurion Mr. Doubletides.
This point being settled, he essayed to make choice of a probable
companion. Grahame was obviously devoted to sheep. The merino had
‘marked him for his own,’ and it would have been wrong to have
withdrawn so promising a woolsorter from the establishment. Moreover,
he was not interesting or sympathetic as a companion.
Fitzgerald Barrington was interesting and amusing, if not sympathetic.
Mr. Neuchamp was much minded to invite him to Rainbar. But in his way
he was as unlikely as Grahame to take himself to any scheme for the
improvement of the common people. With all the _bonhomie_ of his
country, he despised and disbelieved in the people, and would not have
put forth his hand to save them from a fate quite commensurate with
their deserts.
The remaining cadet then was Charley Banks. In this youngster Ernest
had always recognised a manly and self-reliant nature, by no means
beneficially indebted to early training, and having come off
indifferently in the matter of book-learning. Still he thought him
improvable from certain indications which led him to think him not
wholly unsuitable as a companion. He had often expressed his dislike to
sheep and his anxiety to live on a cattle station. Mr. Neuchamp,
finally coming to the conclusion that he might do the boy a service,
and at the same time provide himself with a companion in his solitude,
wrote a letter to Mr. Jedwood, in which he described his purchase and
gave a short sketch of the capabilities of the run, winding up with a
fair offer of employment for Mr. Banks if he had no objection to his
leaving Garrandilla, and if the youngster himself cared to come.
He was not long left in suspense concerning the intentions of Charley
Banks. He received, as soon as the somewhat indifferent postal
arrangements permitted, a letter from Jedwood, informing him that he
was heartily welcome both to Mr. Banks and to Mr. Fitzgerald
Barrington, if it pleased him to take a brace of cadets. But that,
perhaps, it would be safer and more profitable to take one, who could
do more work and be less trouble (on the well-known principle of two
boys being only equal to half a boy) than a couple.
From Charley Banks himself he received a short but enthusiastic letter,
setting forth his gratitude for being remembered by him, and his
intention of starting for Rainbar in company with Jack Windsor, who, it
was reported, was on the road up from town, and not very far from
Garrandilla at the date of writing.
Much pleased with the idea of having shortly the companionship of Mr.
Banks, and the aid of Jack Windsor, upon whose ready and practical
counsel he had learned to place a high value, Mr. Neuchamp, after a few
purposeless rides round his territory, conceived the bold idea of
mustering and drafting a portion of the herd, with the aid of the
aboriginals whom Mr. Parklands had bequeathed to him. A general muster
he of course knew that, without a considerable force of volunteer
assistants, he was powerless to undertake. But a portion of the herd he
thought he could get in. ‘It will familiarise them with going through
the yards,’ said he to himself, ‘and if there are any calves to put the
new brand on, we can manage _them_.’ Like most inexperienced
purchasers, he had immediately changed the LP brand, known from
Queensland to Adelaide, to one of his own invention, viz. ƎNE (a
conjoined hieroglyph), which, as combining the initials of his
Christian name and surname with the second letter of the latter, he
thought ingenious and attractive, whereas, in point of fact, it took
years to gain the widespread association with Rainbar which the old
brand already possessed.
During former musters Mr. Neuchamp’s constructive faculties had been
busy with projects for improving the accepted mode of drafting cattle.
Much to his own satisfaction, he had arranged his system beforehand. He
was confident that it would work without a hitch. His humane tendencies
had been outraged by the unsparing use of the ruthless stockwhip,
keenest when unheard, as well as of the long, pliant, wattle-drafting
stick, not apparently a weapon upon which to depend your life, but in
skilful hands―and such are not wanting at every important
muster―sufficient to drop, as by a thunderbolt, the most formidable
beast. This Mr. Neuchamp had remarked with pain and displeasure.
Hitherto he had seen in drafting-yards only men used to managing
breeding cattle, among which the calf of a week old, given to stagger
wildly between your legs, and the wary and still more dangerously
sudden ‘Micky,’ a two-year-old bull. Thus, to his eye, cattle drafting
was less a difficult art than one which could obviously be conducted on
a more æsthetic basis.
That portion of the Rainbar herd which Mr. Neuchamp inveigled into the
stockyard, then and there, with the assistance of the black boys,
consisted almost wholly of the well-bred station ‘crawlers,’ as the
stockmen term them from their peaceable and orderly habits. These
guileless animals he managed, with but slight driving, to impel into
the large receiving yards.
Beyond gazing with mild disapprobation on this proceeding they entered
no protest. Indeed, when once in the yard, upon seeing the rails put
up, they had all lain down and commenced the pleasing and reflective
task of rumination. They had evidently made up their minds to a day’s
‘post and rails’―a matter to be borne with educated bovine philosophy.
Mr. Neuchamp then armed himself and black boys with light hunting crops
having slender thongs. With these merely suggestive scourges they did
not find it difficult to urge the indifferent animals into the smaller
forcing-yards. Having got thus far, switches which would sting but not
bruise were substituted. These seemed sufficiently intimidating to
cause the steady steers and mild old cows to stroll calmly into the
drafting lane.
So far the unsophisticated heathen, though wondering much at the
manifold precautions taken with station pets, carried out all orders,
in momentary expectation of some miracle being performed. That
consummation being slow in arriving, Piambook protested, ‘Mine thinkit
pyam nerangi fellow carp now,’ head and pluck standing out in bold
relief in his mind’s eye as he made the suggestion.
‘Open that gate, Piambook,’ said Ernest gravely, pointing to the one
which led into the ‘run-about’ yard. Piambook, snuffed out, obeyed, and
wonderingly observed his master switch beast after beast into the
various receptacles for cattle beyond. They were then released into the
bush. Upon regaining their liberty, after an inquiring backward gaze,
as who should say, ‘Is that all?’ they lay down a few yards from the
slip-rails and gravely ruminated, much wondering, doubtless, at this,
to them, wholly unprecedented experience. That night in camp Piambook
remarked to Mrs. P., before coiling under his blanket, ‘Mine thinkit
Mister Noojin wompi-wompi long a cobbra.’
Ernest came to the conclusion that man was not born to live alone, in a
gradual, leisurely, and very decided manner, before he was gladdened
one day by the arrival of Mr. Charley Banks, accompanied, to his
further satisfaction, by Jack Windsor.
‘The old woman had got all right, bless her heart,’ Jack explained,
‘and he had come up in hot haste, after he had heard Mr. Neuchamp had
bought Rainbar. He found, when as far on his road as Garrandilla, that
Mr. Banks was just starting, so they had joyfully joined company.’
Charley Banks was of opinion that he had got to the right shop at last.
‘Everybody he had heard speak of the run had said,’ he informed Ernest,
‘that Rainbar was an out-and-out fattening run; that it was not half
stocked; that the cattle were mostly very good, except a lot out at the
Back Lake, and the best thing he could do was to clear them off for
pigmeaters. The Mildool people were sending off a mob next week, and
they would take all there were at Rainbar of the same description, and
share expenses.’
‘Pigmeaters!’ exclaimed Ernest; ‘what kind of cattle do you call those?
Do bullocks eat pigs in this country?’
‘No, but pigs eat them, and horses too,’ affirmed Jack Windsor; ‘and a
very good way of getting rid of rubbish; all that’s a turn too good for
making slaughter-yard bacon―does for the Chinamen; they ain’t over
particular.’
‘Oh! that’s it,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, reassured; ‘but what price will
such cattle fetch?’
‘Thirty shillings to two pounds, and well sold at that,’ said Jack.
‘But would they not fatten, with time and careful management?’ inquired
Ernest, loath to lose his probable profits.
‘Wouldn’t fatten in a hundred years; not in a lucerne paddock, not if
you poured melted fat down their throats! They’re mostly old savage
devils, all horn and hide; only fit for killing people and spoiling the
rest of the herd. Now’s a first-rate chance to get ’em away with the
Mildool lot to Melbourne.’
Charley Banks followed on the same side, observing that the cattle
referred to were thoroughly bad and unprofitable animals to keep or
feed, and the sooner they were off the run and sold at however small a
price the better. ‘But I suppose you got something allowed in the price
for them, didn’t you, by Mr. Parklands?’
Ernest now recollected that this must have been the particular
denomination alluded to by Aymer Brandon as those Back Lake ‘ragers,’
and in reference to which he had calmly decided to knock off a hundred
and fifty pounds from the amount of the purchase-money.
‘Oh yes, I remember now,’ he said. ‘I suppose I can afford to sell them
at a moderate price.’
It was finally arranged that Jack Windsor should go on the next day to
their neighbours at Mildool, and induce them to come to in force with
all their available hands, as soon as they had mustered their own
outlaws, to help them to get in and draft the Back Lake mob.
‘I don’t apprehend that they will be so very difficult to manage,’ said
Mr. Neuchamp, with a modest but slightly experienced air. ‘That is, if
they are taken quietly. I put through a good-sized lot of cattle a few
days since, and had only Piambook and Boinmaroo with a hunting-crop
each.’
Mr. Windsor and Charley Banks looked meaningly at each other. The
slightest approach to a contraction might have been observed in the
former’s left eye as he made answer―
‘There’s cattle and cattle, sir. I don’t think we had any regular
out-and-outers at Garrandilla when we used to go and spend a week with
old Mr. Hasbene. He told me to give you his best wishes most
particular. But they say these Back Lakers has been, in a manner of
speaking, neglected. Mr. Parklands was always scraping the run bare as
he could for fat stock, and let these old guns have their fling till
he’d got time to make up a mob and clear ’em all out. But he is a
gentleman as never has a minute to spare; always comin’ up without
notice, and rushin’ off as if another day at home would ruinate him out
and out, so they all say, and the long and the short of it is, it’s
fell upon us to make a clean sweep of ’em―and a tidy job it is.
However, there’s some smart boys from up the river, at Mildool now, and
I think we can’t have a better chance to tackle ’em. Isn’t that so, Mr.
Banks?’
Mr. Banks nodded, and Mr. Neuchamp having signified approval, Jack
Windsor was accredited as plenipotentiary for the Mildool embassy, and
the council terminated.
The improvements were not extensive at Rainbar, Mr. Parklands being a
foe to station expenditure, except where horses and traps were
concerned. In outlay for these necessaries of life, as he called them,
his enemies asserted that he spent a small fortune annually. Certainly
his travelling arrangements needed to be complete. He was continually
on the road. He accomplished wonderful distances, and when once he had
made an appointment, whatever the weather, the roads, the season, or
the pastime, men knew that they could depend upon him to keep his tryst
to the day, almost to the hour.
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 if
_he’d_ got 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 the _enfans 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 being _very_ carefully
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. The
_coup-d’œil_ is 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 one _did_ come out of that alive, _crede_ Edgar 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 at _very_ close 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 of _only
one class_ you 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 accepted _en 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, dropped
_l’enragé_ in 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 beef _cask_ consisted 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 in _this_ world; 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 think _he_ would
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.’