“Bad enough. We’re holding it at present, and, luckily, what wind there is is helping us. But we may not be able to keep it back—if the wind changed to the east your place will go like smoke. I’d have moved your cattle, only we can’t spare a hand.” He looked at them doubtfully. “Are you boys by yourselves? I suppose you couldn’t get the cattle out?”
“We’ll jolly well try,” cried Billy. “Oh, Mr. Moncrieff, keep it back if you can—it’s all the grass Father’s got left!”
“I know that well enough,” the neighbour said. “Every one of us would keep it off your father’s place if work will do it. But it’s most likely it will beat us. Shift the stock if you can, Billy, and get word to your father as soon as you do it: we want all the help we can get. My word, there’s another blaze starting——!” He wheeled his pony and went off at full gallop.
“Come on, Rex!” Billy said, pulling his pony round.
“What have we got to do?” Rex kicked Merrilegs into a gallop, racing beside him.
“Get the cattle out of the paddock, through that gate we came through. You know how we mustered ’em with Father that day we came out? Well, we’ve got to do the same, and as hard as we can lick, ’cause the fire may be here any minute. If it does, I don’t know what we ought to do,” said poor Billy, feeling suddenly that he was only a very small boy. “Cut for the gate ourselves, I suppose: we mustn’t get trapped in the timber. Ride all you know, Rex, an’ yell like the mischief! I’ll go in near the river, an’ you keep towards this edge of the timber. Drive ’em in front of you, an’ try to edge ’em out on the plain if you can, like we did with Father.”
The cattle were standing about among the trees, uneasy with the smoke and with the all-pervading smell of fire. To them suddenly appeared two small demons on ponies, who rushed at them, shouting and waving threatening arms. Hither and thither through the trees the demons rushed, and the noise of their yelling was as the noise of ten. It was no use to try to evade them: no use to slink into the shelter of a clump of bushes, or to pretend to gallop clumsily off for a few yards in the hope of persuading them that you were an obedient bullock. Both were bad demons: but the smaller one was infinitely the more horrible of the two, for he was like a will-o’-the-wisp among the trees, and he rode a black pony that was a demon in itself, and just as alive as its rider to the ways of bullocks. The other invader was slower, but he had a high, shrill voice that was very terrible, and his eyes seemed to be of glass, and reflected the light in a most alarming manner. The bullocks decided that their only salvation lay in flight. The infection of their terror spread quickly among them, and the timber was soon full of the sound of frightened bellowing and pounding hoofs, with the high shrill cries of the boys sounding over all.
“Keep looking behind you,” Billy panted, meeting Rex for a moment. “Don’t let any of ’em break back if you can help it.” He shot off again, yelling at a bullock that had dropped from a gallop into a jog-trot: and the bullock shook his head in terror and galloped anew.
As for Rex, Merrilegs had taken possession of him. Every horse on Emu Plains was thoroughly trained to stock work, and Merrilegs was the oldest of them all. What he lacked in speed he made up in cunning: he had an uncanny fore-knowledge of what a beast would do, and his twistings and turnings and sudden rushes were more like the work of a dog than a horse. A hundred times Rex was nearly off, saving himself only by desperate clutching at the pommel: a hundred times he barely saved his leg from the trunk of a tree, or ducked just in time to avoid an overhanging limb. At first he was sick with fear: and then the wild excitement of the moment took hold of him, and he forgot himself altogether, and let Merrilegs take him where he would. The pony did the work: the boy clung to the pommel and drummed with his heels on the lean grey sides, and yelled!
In their inexperience and comparative helplessness the little fellows accomplished what men, with quieter methods, might have failed to do. They actually started a stampede among the cattle; and the quick sense of overmastering fear leaped from beast to beast until every bullock in the paddock was on the run. They burst out of the timber in a whirlwind, converging to a point on the plain where they could see their galloping leaders. Behind them Rex and Billy raced, with scarlet faces and very little voices left.