CATTLE RANCHING AND STOCKRIDING.
While I stayed at Smith's Station, we made acquaintance with a young
man, by name Hudson, a son of the famous Railway King. He had come to
New Zealand a few years previously with slender means and was a pushing,
energetic fellow. He settled on the Ashburton and set up business as a
carter, investing his money in a couple of drays and bullock teams, with
which he contracted to convey wool from the stations to Christchurch,
returning with stores, etc., and sometimes carting timber from the
forest and such like. My first day's experience of driving wild cattle
was in his company.
A stockrider's life is perhaps of all occupations the most enjoyable,
and there is just that element of risk connected with it that increases
its fascination, but to make it intelligible to the reader, a sketch of
the working and management of a cattle station will be necessary.
Although most sheep farmers feed a certain number of cattle to enable
them to utilise the portions of their run which may be unsuitable for
grazing, there are some squatters who confine themselves to cattle
alone, and the produce derived from such stations includes beef, butter,
cheese, hides, horns, and working stock--that is, bullocks destined for
use in pulling drays; such entirely taking the places of draught horses
up country.
A cattle rancher may have from one to two thousand head of cattle
running wild. Of these, one portion is milch cows, which are daily
driven in for milking and from which the extensive butter and cheese
dairies are supplied; another the fat cattle fed for the market, and a
third, young stock for breaking in as working bullocks. As with sheep,
the cattle are periodically mustered in the stock yards for branding,
selections for various purposes, and for sale.
Mustering a large head of wild cattle is exciting work. Half a dozen men
mounted on well-trained horses, each carrying his stockwhip, start for
the run. The stockwhip is composed of a lash of plaited raw hide, twelve
to fifteen feet long, and about one and half inches thick at the belly,
which is close to the handle. The latter is about nine inches long, made
of some hard tough wood, usually weighted at the hand end. The
experienced stockman can do powerful execution with these whips, one
blow from which is sufficient to cut a slice out of the beast's hide,
and I have seen an expert cut from top to bottom the side of a nail can
with a single blow from his whip.
The cattle are spread over perhaps twenty or thirty thousand acres of
unfenced country, and each man follows his portion of the herd,
collecting and driving into a common centre. For a time all goes well,
until some wary or ill-conditioned brute breaks away, followed possibly
by a number of his comrades, who only need a lead to give the stockman
trouble. Then commences a chase, and not infrequently it is a chase in
vain, and the fagged stockman and his jaded steed are obliged to give
them up for that day, and proceed to hold what he has got in hand.
There is sometimes considerable danger in following up too closely these
beasts when they begin to show signs of fatigue, as they then often turn
to bay under the first scrap of shelter, and if the horseman unwarily or
ignorantly approaches too near in his endeavour to dislodge them, they
will charge, and the death of the horse or rider may be the result.
Both, however, are generally too well aware of these little failings to
endeavour to prevail over a jaded or "baked" beast, and prefer to let
him rest.
Upon the cattle being yarded, the most exciting operation is the
capturing and securing of the young beasts requiring to be broken in to
the yoke. An experienced and expert stockman enters the enclosure
carrying in his hand a pine sapling, 12 or 15 feet in length, at the end
of which is a running noose of raw hide or strong hemp rope, attached to
a strong rope which is passed round a capstan outside the stockyard and
near to a corner post. With considerable dexterity, not infrequently
accompanied by personal danger, the man slips the noose over the horns
of the beast he wishes to secure, when he immediately jumps over the
rails, and with the assistance of the men outside, winds up the rope
till the struggling and infuriated animal is fast held in a corner of
the yard. Another noose is then slipped round the hind leg nearest the
rails and firmly fastened.
The yard being cleared, a steady old working bullock is now driven
alongside our young friend, and the two are yoked together neck and
neck, the trained bullock selected being always the more powerful of the
two. The ropes are then unfastened and the pair left free to keep
company for a month or so, by which time the old worker will have
trained his young charge sufficiently to permit of his being put into
the body of a team and submitted to the unmerciful charge of the bullock
puncher (driver). There is no escape for the novice then, yoked fast to
a powerful beast with others before and behind, and the cruel cutting
whip over him, in the hands of a man possessing but little sentiment: he
must obey, and after a time becomes as tractable as the rest. Indeed, it
is wonderful how intelligent and obedient these animals become under the
hands of an experienced driver. There is a code of bullock punching
language they soon get to understand; they answer readily to their
names, and are, if anything, more sensible, obedient, and manageable
than horses.
My ride with Hudson, which I referred to, was as hard a day's work as I
have experienced of the kind. We started from the Ashburton at daybreak,
and after a quiet canter of five miles, reached an open piece of river
bed flat, on which were grazing some two hundred head of cattle, amongst
which were five young bullocks of Hudson's he wished to cut out and
drive to Moorhouse's station on the Rangitata, about twenty miles
further south. The cutting out is more difficult than driving the whole
herd, which will be apparent.
Having entered among them and found the animals we were in search of, we
proceeded quietly to move them to a common place near the edge, from
which we meant to drive them, and Hudson, who had considerable
experience, succeeded after a while in collecting his five beasts in a
favourable spot for our enterprise. We then took up positions on either
side, and with a sudden spurt endeavoured to drive them on to the plain.
We were partially successful, leaving only one of the five behind, and
we got the other four clear away some miles before they seemed to be
aware of the absence of their comrades, but with some smart galloping we
were keeping them well together in the direction we wanted to go. We
were not, however, destined to continue fortunate for long. After a
while we unexpectedly came across a herd of fresh cattle, into which our
charges at once bolted, and it took two hours hard galloping before we
succeeded in extricating only two of them. With these we were obliged to
be satisfied; our horses were showing signs of fatigue, and without
fresh mounts and other assistance it would be impossible to cut out the
others that day.
[Illustration: THE BAKED STEERS.]
Fortunately those we had went away quietly, and we hoped that no further
impediment would occur. We were sadly mistaken. For six miles all went
well, but it was then clear that the animals were getting baked (jaded);
they were in too good condition for the hard cutting out twice repeated.
On reaching an isolated cabbage tree one deliberately lay down, while
the other backed against the tree and stood sulkily at bay. Being
nearest, I ignorantly made at them with the whip, when I was saluted
with a bellow and a sudden charge, which, had not my horse been more on
guard than I was, might have maimed one or both of us. The beast, having
charged, backed again to the tree, and stood with nozzle touching the
ground, breathing heavily, with sunken flanks and half-glazed eyes, a
picture of imbecility, recklessness, and fatigue.
Hudson, on coming up, saw it was useless to attempt driving him further,
and so we left him and the cabbage tree, and resumed our course with one
bullock, which we actually did succeed in getting to the stockyard as
night was falling.
Here, unfortunately, we found the yards closed and no one by to open
them, and whilst I dismounted to take down the rails, the infernal beast
once more bolted, apparently as fresh as ever, and notwithstanding all
our endeavours to overhaul him darkness and our jaded horses failed us,
and we had no resource but to wend our weary way to the homestead, three
miles up the river, disappointed, dead beat, and hungry.
We were most hospitably received by Mr. and Mrs. Ben Moorhouse, with
whom for genuine kindness and hospitality few could compare, and they
invited us to stay with them a day or two, which we gladly agreed to do.
It was a real treat to pass any time in such a lovely locality and with
such friends. The homestead was built on the river bed flat, a natural
park covered with shrubbery palms, pines, and forest trees, along which
on one side the turbulent Rangitata rushed in a confusion of waterfalls,
whirlpools, and cascades, amidst huge masses of rock, and beyond which
rose precipitous hills with their lower portions clothed in richest
vegetation. The views up the gorge from this point were enchanting, but
I will take another opportunity of describing some of the mountain
scenery of the Southern Alps, the grandest in its own peculiar form of
any in the world.
Mr. Ben Moorhouse was one of three brothers, two of whom were squatters,
and the eldest superintendent of the Province of Canterbury. They had
all been some years in Australia, and were exceedingly fine men over six
feet in height and built in proportion, good shots and experts at most
games of strength and skill, not amongst the least of which was the
science of boxing. We were treated the morning after our arrival to a
lesson with the gloves, subsequently often repeated, and following this
we had turns each in trying to ride a very clever buckjumper, a late
purchase.
The faculty of buckjumping is, I believe, almost confined to Australian
horses, and seems to be bred in them--perhaps the original rough
breaking was responsible for the vice; but whatever be the cause it was
then a fact that eight out of every ten horses could and did buckjump,
and with many of them the vice was incurable. An experienced buckjumper
will decide as the saddle is being put on him to get rid of it as soon
as possible without any apparent reason for such reprehensible conduct.
He will swell himself out so that the girths cannot be fully tightened,
and when he is mounted will suddenly bound off the ground, throw down
his head, and prop violently on his fore feet, and this he will continue
to repeat till the saddle comes on to his withers, and the rider finds
some other resting place. So long as the saddle keeps its position, and
the girths hold, there is a chance for the rider, but if they go he
must, although he frequently goes without them.
There is a special saddle made for buckjumpers, provided with heavy pads
to prop the knee against, and so prevent the rider from being chucked
forward, and this is sometimes assisted by securely fastening an iron
bar with a roll of blanket around it across the pommel of the saddle.
This presses across the thighs just above the knees, and affords great
additional security, and a surcingle is strapped over the seat of the
saddle as a further assistance to the girths.
There is also another plan adopted with a really bad brute--namely, a
crutch of wood or iron fastened to a martingale below, with two rings
above, through which the reins are led. This contrivance is to prevent
the animal lowering his head, which is a necessary movement on his part
for accomplished bucking.