The Back Lake was a grand-looking sheet of fresh water, covered with wild fowl, a thin fringe of timber surrounding its margin. On a promontory which ran into the lake for some distance was a camp, bare and stripped of herbage to an extent which denoted long and constant usage. Skeletons of cattle here and there showed where the rifle had been at work from time to time, the formidable horns which still abounded hinting that abnormal causes had been at work to bring about a state of survival of the fittest.
On the camp stood, or traversed in angry circles, about a thousand head of very mixed cattle, in every sense of the word, a number of grand animals in magnificent condition, mingled with others that the most inexperienced eye could observe to be ‘stale, flat, and unprofitable,’ except for the very exceptional market and destination previously referred to.
At the distance of a couple of hundred yards from the main body stood the smaller lot, some four or five hundred, which the stock-riding contingent had evidently brought with them. Some were guarding them. Some restrained the camp cattle from leaving their parade ground. Others, among whom Ernest recognised Jack Windsor, were riding in pairs, and separating or ‘cutting out,’ as the cattle station phrase is, divers excited animals of a fierce countenance from the herd, and guiding them into the smaller division, with which, once associated, they were by the guardians thereof prevented from leaving.
Mr. Neuchamp’s artistic mind was strongly impressed with the wild picturesque character of the scene. On every side the vast plain stretched unbrokenly as the sea. The score of stockmen, swarthy, bearded, carelessly if not wildly attired, bore in looks, and perhaps in some other respects, no slight resemblance to a party of Apaches or Comanches, the ‘Horse Indians’ of South-Western America. They were well mounted for the most part on splendidly-conditioned animals, for no living steeds enjoy richer pasture and purer air than those which range the great saltbush levels of the interior; and generally the riding was more lavish, and indeed reckless as to pace and danger, than those of any previous bushmen.
‘There goes “Desborough’s Joe,” the best stockman on the river,’ said Charley Banks admiringly. ‘Him on the roan horse,’ pointing to a slight black-bearded man on a magnificent roan horse, who, having forced an immense black bullock out of the camp, was racing neck-and-neck with him, as he tried to break back, and as he ‘blocked’ the fierce beast at every frantic effort to double and rejoin his comrades, ‘dropping’ the terrific sixteen-foot stockwhip on face or flank with terrific emphasis. ‘That half-caste boy is a rum one too. By George, he nearly jumped his horse on to that last bullock’s back, when he got him headed straight for the cut-out cattle. There’s Jack Windsor coming! they’re going to knock off for a bit.’
Mr. Windsor came over to explain to his master that he had remained at Mildool to give his assistance until their muster was finished, in accordance with use and custom; the head stockman there covenanting as soon as the fat cattle had been sent off to come over, bringing his pigmeaters, and also his following of fellow-stockmen, to give the Rainbar folks a turn, and draft their ‘Roosians’ for them.
‘So, as they was a very smart lot of coves as ever I see, sir,’ pursued Mr. Windsor, ‘I didn’t think as we could do better than get ’em all over here and skin the Back Lake camp of all the out-and-outers. We might never have such another chance for no one knows when. If you and Mr. Banks will come down to the camp, you’ll see the sort I’m having cut out, and a livelier lot of “ragers” I haven’t seen for many a day; not since I was at Mr. Selmore’s Mallee Meadows. There’s only about three hundred of these, and not another on the run. But I’m blessed if he’d got anything else—wonderful man, Mr. Selmore!’
Ernest accompanied his followers to the camp, where Banks pointed out the types which all cattleholders agree in desiring to ‘get shut of,’ in Jack’s phrase, as soon as possible. After a short interval for refreshment, the stockmen, who had been in the saddle before dawn, recommenced cutting out, which tolerably violent exercise was only concluded at sunset. The moon being favourable, the whole band then closed in upon the enfans trouvés, leaving the camp cattle to go whither they listed. At some time in the night, after a tedious drive of many hours, the ample outer yards at Rainbar, with much shouting and whip volleys, received them, and the gates being very carefully secured, all further operations were adjourned to the morrow.
Early on the following morning Mr. Neuchamp betook himself to the yard, nervously anxious for a sight of the prey, so safely deposited there, in the uncertain light and misleading shadows of the midnight hour. The coup-d’œil is uncommon, wellnigh unique.
About seven hundred ultra-Bohemian bullocks, whose bodies appear to be mere appendages to their terrific horns, are safely (for themselves) yarded, many of them for the first time for the preceding ten years.