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.