He came. He came as if to slaughter them all, a man of maybe fifty, shirt open, one brace sustaining his trousers, bald-headed, almost toothless, scarred upon the forehead. He was neither fat nor lean, showing at once many protuberant bones, cheek and chin and breast bones, and rolls of fat under chin, and on abdomen, to which his shirt clung, damp from excessive labour in the stuffy ship. He charged upon the bales of hay, smote furiously at the wires that bound them, heedless of the possible scratches when they sprung apart, and yelling, "Here you are! Roll it away—roll that away now," rolled the bale over himself so that it fell apart as in compressed cakes or slices. "Well, if you won't roll, carry away, carry away," he went on, hitting the next bale; and, dodging his axe, the "Push" gathered armfuls and hastened off to shake and to tease out these armfuls into the strong pens ranged all round the ship's sides and down the ship's centre, ranged so closely that if two men passed abreast they had need to be slender men. Hardly had they finished coming and going on this employment than the ki-yi-ing of men's voices, and the lowing of beasts caused the bedders-down to pause and give ear. The man who had broken open the bales suddenly appeared again, screaming oaths. "Come along here, and tie up!"
Blundering up the deck, up the gangway, came steer after steer. When they found themselves aboard, with bars such as the corral bars that they knew of old before them, they wheeled sharply and away they went running, lowing, away forward, then across the ship and down the other side. The man with the axe rushed across, and every here and there thrust a plank from front barrier to ship's side, turning the long corral that ran round the ship into many smaller pens. Then came a cessation in the river of steers that ran aboard.
"Come over here and I'll show you, Scholar," said Mike. What Mike had to show to the tenderfoot cattleman was how to take the ropes that hung all along the pen fronts, throw them over the steers' necks, pull the slack end through a hole in the flat front board, knot it, and then let it go. The hole in each case was only large enough to admit of the rope, consequently the knot upon the end was all that was necessary for making fast. It was a duty not without some excitement, for the steers, arranged now in pens, thanks to the boards that the Mad Boss had thrust across (five, six, or seven to a pen), would persist in milling. Round and round they moved, and before each pen a man, or two men, worked. After a few minutes the steers in the pen before which Mike and Scholar laboured had each a rope tied round its neck. That was the first duty done, not without scrimmage. And now they went on to the second part of that work, the making fast. As steer by steer was hauled up to the board, and the rope pulled through, there was trouble.
"Watch your hands!" shouted Mike, hanging on to a halter while Scholar tried to affix the knot. His shout was barely in time. The steer flung backward, and smack went Scholar's hand against the board, for he still clung tenaciously to the rope's end. "All right!" he replied, for he had succeeded in making the knot just in time, and when the steer strained back the knot also smacked on the board. A tug of war began upon the next one. Farther away a sudden shout arose, and they looked along the deck. The Mad Boss, who had been armed with an axe a short time previously, was now blaspheming against the ship's side. He had jumped into one of the pens, armed with a stick, in an endeavour to make the animals face the front board, and one of them now had propped itself against him. There was an unholy glee on the faces of some of the men, those who looked upon the squeeze that he was getting as good punishment for his method of treating them.
"You, you——" he half gurgled, half shouted a series of scathing names at them. He caught Scholar's eye. "Can't you lend a hand here?"
Scholar could lend a hand. He grabbed up a piece of stick and vaulted into the pen. After all, he had signed on as a cattleman, and a long horn must not intimidate him. He hoped that even if he had not signed on his pause before leaping to the rescue would have been of no longer duration. The very close proximity of the steers among which he leapt was his salvation. There was not room for them to run upon him, heads down. He gave two twists to the tail of the steer that had pinned the mad foreman; it relaxed and swung round facing the tying board, where Mike adroitly grabbed the rope, hauled the loose end through, and knotted it—just in time. Back went the animal's head, and smack came the knot against the board.
"Now, you," said the mad-looking boss to Scholar. "Take care of yourself. I'm all right now—aisy there. Slip over."
Scholar watched for his chance; but he did not slip over. The chance came to slip under, and he did so, coming on to the alley-way with a kind of side dive, while the man to whose rescue he had gone, seizing a favourable opportunity, dodged into the neighbouring pen and from thence gained the alley-way.
"That's being a man!" he said, nodding to Scholar. "Rafferty won't forget ye."
"Who is he?" asked Scholar of Mike.