Mustering
If the boys expected that the night alarm would be the chief subject of
conversation next day they were quite mistaken, for the matter was
hardly referred to at all. Sidcotinga was as far away from
civilization as could possibly be, and its position under the dreaded
and mysterious Musgrave Ranges made it the object of repeated attacks
by little bands of warragul blacks. Consequently the manager was quite
used to turning out in the middle of the night to guard one portion or
another of the station property, and the mere pulling out of the plugs
from the watering-troughs was forgotten almost as soon as the affair
was over.
Important business was afoot--the chief business of a
cattle-station--mustering. Station blacks were sent out early in the
morning after working-horses; packs, saddles, canteens, hobbles, and
horse-gear generally were carefully overhauled by Mick, and tucker-bags
were filled with flour, sugar, tea, dried salt meat, and a tin or two
of jam. Before sunset everything was ready for an early start next
day, for about fifty working-horses had been brought in, out of which
number Mick and the manager chose thirty for the mustering plant.
Dan Collins had sent four station boys to round up the horses: Calcoo,
whose real name went into about ten syllables and was quite impossible
for a white man to pronounce; Uncle, a thoroughly reliable
black-fellow, who was somewhat older than the others; Fiddle-Head, so
called because of his long thin face; and Jack Johnson, a native of
splendid physique from one of the great rivers which flow into the Gulf
of Carpentaria. Another black stockman had stayed behind to help Mick
Darby and the white boys with the packs. His name was Poona, and he
understood station ways better than the others, because Dan Collins had
taken him in hand when he was a piccaninny, and taught him to be very
useful.
Just before dinner, when Mick was busy mending a pack-bag and Sax and
Vaughan were having their first lesson in making waxed thread for
sewing leather, Poona came up to the drover with another black-fellow.
His companion was naked except for a rope of hair tied round his waist
from which a small apron hung down. Sax looked up and recognized him
immediately; it was the native with the mutilated hand who had been
such a good friend to the white boy. Stobart was about to call out,
when the man put his finger on his thick black lips and pointed to the
Musgraves. He did this three times, and shook his head so earnestly
that Sax knew that, for some reason or another, the black did not want
to be recognized.
Mick Darby finished a row of stitching and then paid attention to the
two men who were standing so silently in front of him, waiting the
pleasure of the white man. He knew Poona, but the presence of the
other native needed explaining. "What name, Poona?" he asked.
"You want um 'nother boy go mustering?" asked Poona, pointing to his
companion.
Mick looked at the naked man for a moment, and then asked: "Is he any
good?"
"Yah. Him bin good fella," replied Poona eagerly. "Him bin ride like
blazes. Him work one time longa Eridunda," mentioning a famous station
farther north. This was not true. The warragul black had never worked
on a station in his life and knew very little of the ways of white men.
He was a Musgrave nigger who had recently come down from the Ranges.
Mick wanted as many helpers as he could get, for the muster was to be a
big one, and he engaged the newcomer without further inquiries.
"All right," he said. "What's his name?"
Poona grinned and pronounced a name which he knew was quite impossible
for a white man's tongue to manage. Everybody laughed, including the
newcomer, who put up his mutilated hand to cover his grinning mouth.
Mick noticed the deformity at once. The man's hand, with its three
fingers set wide apart, from which long hard nails stuck out, resembled
the claw of some bird, so the drover turned to the white boys and said:
"What d'you think of that for a name? They've nearly all got names
like that. We'll shorten this one down a bit and call him 'Eagle'.
Look at his hand." He turned to Poona. "We call that one black-fella
Eagle. See? His hand aller same eagle's hand. Take um round Boss
Collins. P'raps him give it trouser, shirt, tobac."
In a few minutes the warragul black, duly enrolled as a stockman of
Sidcotinga Station, was strutting about in front of a group of native
women, dressed in a pair of khaki trousers and a striped store shirt,
and was puffing at a new clay pipe. The novelty of his occupation and
attire made up for their discomfort, and he would probably have been
willing to force his broad feet into boots if they had been given to
him, although he had never worn clothes in his life before, and must
have found that they hindered his movements at every stride.
Next morning, although it was summer and the sun rose very early, the
men had breakfast by the light of a hurricane-lantern, and the
mustering plant was all ready to start out before dawn. There were
Mick, the two white boys, six niggers, eight packed horses and the rest
spares, making thirty in all. The white boys were naturally interested
in the horses they were to ride. Sax had a grey mare named Fair Steel
to ride in the mornings, and Ginger, a gelding, for the afternoons.
Vaughan's two were both geldings: Boxer, a brown, and Don Juan, a tall
black. All four horses were well-bred and thoroughly suitable for the
month's hard work which lay ahead of them.
The plant made straight for the Musgraves. It was a brilliantly clear
day, and when the sun rose the range of mountains ahead of them seemed
to be only a day's ride away. But at the end of the second day, when
the packs were pulled off near a water-hole, the Musgraves did not look
to be any nearer. Mick and the white boys rode in the lead all day,
and the plant, driven by the black-boys, followed behind; this is the
method of travel all over Central and North Australia.
On the morning of the third day they started to muster. All around the
water-hole were the recent tracks of hundreds of cattle, and the day's
work consisted of riding out on these tracks till the limit was reached
beyond which no cattle had gone from that particular water. Then the
stockmen rode in, gathering cattle as they came. The party split up
into three in order to muster the district thoroughly, and before
sunset a mob of over four hundred cattle was bellowing round the
water-hole. The nearest stock-yard was two days away, so the cattle
had to be watched that night. Sax and Vaughan had done some night
watching on the way from Oodnadatta to Sidcotinga, when wild blacks had
been about, but a few tired, broken-in horses were very easy to watch
in comparison with a mob of nearly half a thousand wild desert cattle.
The usual precautions were taken. The men made their camp on the slope
of a little clay-pan out of sight of the water-hole, so that their
movements in the night would not startle the cattle. All fires were
put out before dark, and no man was allowed to shake his camp-sheet or
make any sudden noise. Watches were arranged so that two stockmen were
riding round the cattle all night long.
The moon was full enough to vaguely light the scene, which was very
typical of Central Australia and could not possibly be met with in any
other part of the world. Mick and Vaughan took first watch and Sax and
Poona took the second. When Sax came off watch, and was riding up the
little hill, looking forward to rolling himself up in his blankets, the
sound of singing made him turn and look back. It was a wonderful sight
which met his gaze, and those who have once seen a similar one are
never really satisfied in any other place. The water looked flat like
a mirror, and one or two cattle stood knee-deep in the edges of it.
All around, just a vague black mass from which a warm mist of breath
and hot bodies was rising, were the cattle, mostly lying down and
contentedly chewing the cud, while a few wandered slowly about looking
for one another and quietly murmuring. One of the black-boys, whose
turn at watching had just come, was already riding round with one leg
cocked lazily over the pommel of the saddle, and chanting a coroboree
dirge, both to let the cattle know that he was about and because he was
happy.
The other boy was waiting for Sax's horse. Sax dismounted and noticed
that the man standing near him was Eagle. The native grinned as he
climbed awkwardly on the horse, for he was not used to riding, and, as
he moved off, he pointed with his mutilated hand in the direction of
the Musgrave Ranges and uttered the words: "Bor--s Stoo--bar."
Sax sat down for a moment. These words reminded him that indeed this
was his home, the land of his father, the place where perhaps he had
been actually born. The magic of the desert night bewitched him; the
half-moon, the few stars in the pale sky, the sense of limitless space
across the sand, the water-hole and the camped cattle, the quavering
voice of the chanting nigger which was now joined by another voice,
wilder and more exultant--these things and the consciousness that his
father was somewhere near, guarded by these mysterious desert forces
and desert men--thrilled him, and when he stood up again and walked
over to his swag, he knew in a way that he had never known before that
the blood of the North was in his veins, and that he was the descendant
of a race of heroes--the Australian bushmen.
The cattle were quiet all night. Mick was an old stockman and had
given strict orders to his boys not to hurry the cattle, so that they
arrived at the water-hole almost in the same mood as they would have
done if they had come for a drink of their own accord. They were on
their own country also, and there was not a strange stick or stone or
tree to frighten them. Cattle very seldom rush at night when they are
on their own feeding-grounds, and though Mick took no chances, and
double-watched them all night, he did not expect anything unpleasant to
happen. "It's better to be sure than sorry," he told the boys at
breakfast.
Immediately the meal was over they started to "handle the cattle".
That was Mick's way of expressing it, and, indeed, at one part of the
proceedings the cattle were actually "handled". But before they
reached that stage many things had to be done. Each man was mounted on
the best horse possible, and the party rode down the hill to the
water-hole, spreading out like a fan, and slowly working the cattle
away from the water till they were on an open plain about a quarter of
a mile away.
Now came one of the most difficult things that a stockman ever has to
do. It is called "cutting out". Man and horse have to be of the very
best to perform this feat properly or else the whole operation results
in confusion. Mick was mustering the north of Sidcotinga run in order
to brand all cleanskins, and there were probably not more than a
hundred unbranded cattle in that mob of nearly half a thousand. Most
of these were calves which were still running with their mothers,
though there was a sprinkling of larger stock which had been missed the
year before. The first job was to separate the cows and calves and
other cleanskins from the main herd, thus dividing it into two mobs.
The mounted stockmen put the cattle together tightly and held them.
Mick was riding a bright chestnut gelding with high wither and an
intelligent head, whose name was Hermes and who was reputed to be a
famous camp-horse.[1] Signalling to his boys to be ready, Mick rode
straight into the mob of cattle. Almost at once he saw an unbranded
steer and pointed his whip towards it. The horse did the rest. With
wonderful skill, Hermes worked alongside the steer, shouldered it to
the outside of the mob, and cut it out from the other cattle.
Immediately two other stockmen came in behind it and drove it a few
hundred yards away, where it was kept by three mounted boys who had
been detailed for the purpose. It is far easier to keep a hundred
cattle in one place than it is to do the same to a single beast, but
Mick and Hermes were now cutting out cleanskins one after another
without any pause, thus increasing the second mob very quickly. It is
a splendid sight to see cattle being cut out by a good man on a good
horse. The man needs to have a quick eye and never to hesitate once,
for he is right in the midst of several hundred wild cattle who are
afraid of him, and are ready to wreak their vengeance on him at the
first opportunity. He must be a faultless rider, for a camphorse can
turn right round at full gallop in its own length, and woe to the man
who loses his seat at that time. He is amongst the feet and horns of
desert cattle. Mick never made a mistake. He took the matter as
quietly as it could possibly be done, and gradually worked the
clean-skins out and made up the other mob.
When a thing is done well it looks easy to a spectator, and the white
boys thought that this work of cutting out, which they had heard so
much talk about, was a very simple matter indeed. Mick saw them edging
nearer and nearer, and knew that they were very keen to try their
hands, so he shouted out: "Have a shot at working on the face of the
camp.[2] Be steady, though," he warned them. "It's not as easy as it
looks."
They soon found out that the drover was right. Their horses knew far
more about the matter than they did, but the men on their backs were
clumsy, and started to pull them this way and that, till the horses got
worried, and didn't know what to do. Mick brought a young steer out to
the edge of the mob where the boys were standing, and shouted: "Here
you are. Come in behind me."
Their horses started to do the right thing, which is to come in between
the steer and the mob, but Sax rode straight at the beast, drove it
towards Vaughan, who tried to turn his horse suddenly and only made
matters worse, for the steer galloped back into the mob. Mick swore
and cut it out again, and drove it several yards out from the other
cattle and gave it a parting cut with his stock-whip. Sax and Vaughan
galloped after it. It dodged and tried to get back, but, more by luck
than good management, the boys kept it out in the open. At last they
got it on the run towards the second mob and were feeling very pleased
with their success, when it suddenly turned.
Sax was in the lead. His horse was an old stock-horse, and as soon as
the beast turned, it turned too, quickly, and in its own length. But
the boy on the horse's back did not turn! Sax had been going for all
he was worth, standing up in the stirrups and leaning forward
excitedly, when, all of a sudden, the horse under him jerked round on
its fore feet. Sax went straight on over the animal's head and came to
the ground all in a heap, while the horse galloped on for a few yards
and then stopped and looked round at its fallen rider. Vaughan did not
fare quite so badly. His horse did not turn at full gallop. It
propped and then turned. When it propped, it flung Vaughan forward.
He clutched the horse's neck to save himself from coming off, and when
the horse turned he hung on still tighter.
The steer got away easily and was making back to the mob when Uncle and
Fiddle-head came to the rescue. Everybody laughed at the two white
boys, but they took the fun in good part and learnt their first
important lesson in handling cattle: it's never so easy that it doesn't
need care.
[1] A camp-horse is a horse which has been especially trained for
cutting out cattle on a cattle-camp.
[2] Working on the face of the camp means taking cattle which have been
cut out from the man who is doing this particular job, and driving them
away to the second mob.