In the Musgrave Ranges

by Conrad H. Sayce

He came through the gate with a rush. Mick Darby had the lasso this time, and flung it faultlessly over the animal's horns. There was a shout of excitement and the blacks outside the rails pulled for all they were worth. But no power of man could make such a creature stir unless it wanted to. It braced its fore legs and stood immovable, then shook its mighty head till the lasso twanged like a fiddle-string, but did not give an inch. Finally the steer caught sight of its tormentors outside the yard, and rushed. At once the rope became slack and the watchful men pulled it tight again, and soon the great beast was jammed up against the fence, using all its strength to try and break the green-hide rope. But the lasso was made out of the hide of a bull and could have held any steer that was ever calved. Leg ropes were thrown, hitched, and drawn tight, and the steer fell, roaring and plunging for a moment, and then lying still, but never relaxing the tremendous strain for a moment.

Dan Collins was branding, and called out: "Brand-o!" The red-hot iron was handed through the rails and pressed on the quivering shoulder.

Now came the great test. Pain added the final ounce to the steer's strength. He struggled. The front leg rope broke. Through being constantly hitched round a rough post it had become a little bit frayed, and this final strain was too much for it. It snapped and sprang apart like a collapsed spring. The chest of the steer was now free, but the head rope still held it down. The knowledge that it had broken one of its bonds gave the animal heart, and it lifted its curl-crowned head. The lasso quivered and stretched, quivered and stretched. There was a crack! Had that bull-hide rope broken? No. Another crack. One of the steer's horns broke off at the skull. With an agonized bellow it slipped the stump of a horn through the loop and rose to its fore feet, free except for the back leg rope which Vaughan was holding. All the animal's strength, raised to its highest pitch by the pain of the broken horn, was centred in its captive hind leg. Vaughan held on manfully, but the rope was gradually pulled through his hands, tearing the skin till he could not possibly hold it any longer. With a roar, the steer rose from the ground; but just as it struggled to its feet, Vaughan seized the rope again and twisted it round his wrist.

A yard is no place for a man when an infuriated bull is raging around it. Everybody leapt for the rails except Sax. Was there not some way of helping his friend? The steer saw him and charged. Round the yard once, twice, it rushed, Vaughan dragging along at the back, and hindering it so that he undoubtedly saved his friend from a very nasty accident. Round the yard the third time. Sax was too dazed to leap for the rails, and the animal was too close for him to climb them.

Everybody had been so intent on the sudden turn which events had taken that they had not noticed an almost naked black-fellow who had left the lasso and had climbed quickly along the top of the rails. He was a stranger, and had come in that morning and had taken a hand at the yards like any other black would do, hoping for a feed and a stick of tobacco. But now he seemed to be full of energy and courage. When everybody else was gasping with astonishment, he lay on the top rail as flat as a lizard.

Sax came round the third time, and the shaggy head of the steer was lowering for a toss, when the native's black arm reached down suddenly and grabbed the white boy by the belt and swung him clear off his feet. He was not a second too soon. The steer charged by, and Sax was safe. The stranger native had put out so much of his strength that he could not recover himself, and he overbalanced, still keeping hold of the white boy, and rescuer and rescued toppled over backwards into the other yard. Sax was winded and the black-fellow was the first to get up. He scrambled to his feet and walked away, not only from the yards, but away from the station altogether, as if he did not want to be recognized. But as he was getting between two rails, he put his left hand on one of them, and Sax saw that the two middle fingers were missing. It was the same black who had brought the sprig of needle-bush.

Excitement was by no means over in the branding-yard. The infuriated bull, cheated of one victim, now turned its attention to Vaughan. It wheeled quickly, and in so doing twisted the rope, which Vaughan was still holding, round the boy's body. He could not escape. He was at the mercy of a wild steer.

The sudden and unexpected rescue of Saxon Stobart had roused the white men, so that when the bull turned on its helpless victim, they were ready. But what could they do? What could a mere man possibly do against a full-grown steer? It would take too long to set the boy free, for the hard unyielding rope was hitched tight round him. There was only one thing to do, and Dan Collins did it.

He waited till the bull had gathered itself for a final rush, and, when it had actually started to charge, he dropped to the ground like a flash. In a fraction of a second his powerful right arm went out, and he gripped the nostrils of the bull, pressing his thumb and forefinger home as far as he could. Then he twisted, suddenly and unexpectedly.

It was not a matter of strength, but of knack. The power of the onrushing bull actually supplied all the strength which was necessary. Dan Collins twisted. The animal's wrinkled neck turned. It could not help turning, for the pain at its nostrils was unbearable. The near-side leg gave under it. Something had to give under the strain. The fingers still kept their grip, and the great beast crashed down with such a thud that the ground seemed to shake.[[1]]