It was considered reasonable to devote half an hour to rest and refreshment, which comprehended the calming down of the somewhat excited cattle, and a smoke for the stockmen. After this a disposition of forces was made. Certain moderate performers were told off to encircle and keep within the camp limits the main body of the cattle, while ‘the equestrian talent’ was selected to carry out the more dashing and delicate duty of ‘cutting out.’ And few tasks had a more difficult appearance than to divide the fierce and wild-eyed bullocks from the mixed medley of a thousand head of cattle of all ages and sizes which crowded the camp.
First, Jack Windsor and a friendly centaur—part and parcel of a violent black mare—ran out half a dozen quiet cattle, placing them in charge of three other men, at about two hundred yards’ distance from the camp. Then he, Charley Banks, and half a dozen of the best mounted men went in to the herd, and commenced to run out, singly or in pairs, such fat cattle as were up to the marketable standard.
Mr. Neuchamp for a while confined himself to riding usefully but unromantically round the cattle on the camp, preventing them from flowing out in unnecessary directions, and making off when the entertainment commenced to flag. He watched bullock after bullock being edged out by the trained horsemen to the rim of the camp, then suddenly forced into the open by the sure and sudden whip, which, silently raised, appeared to drop upon every portion of any given animal at once. As the roused animal commenced to stretch out into a gallop, to halt suddenly, to attempt to wheel in his tracks, it was a sight worth seeing to note the swift, wary, duplicate motion of the stock-horse, the watchful alertness with which the stock-rider reined his horse, urged, restrained, or checkmated the doomed bullock.
As Mr. Neuchamp gazed he came to the conclusion that the emigrant Briton, if young and active, might attain considerable ability in stock-riding. But as for the lithe instinctive swaying grace with which horse and rider moved alike in desperate rush or wondrous whirl, it was unapproachable by any one ‘not to the manner born.’ One hour, two hours, passed, and still the same rapid and continuous selection of beeves went on. The once small drove of ‘cut-out cattle’ looked important and respectable. Then the bold idea struck Ernest that he too might as well do a little ‘cutting out.’ It was more exciting than pacing soberly round the mixed herd on the camp. Besides, it did not look difficult. He had only his hunting-whip with him. But he thought that the stockwhips were sometimes unnecessarily used; cattle he still believed were capable of being acted upon by gentleness and unvarying quietude of behaviour. So, taking Osmund by the head, who had had a certain amount of cattle driving at Garrandilla, and was handy enough, Mr. Neuchamp rode soberly through the herd to select a fat beast and distinguish himself in turn. Most probably he would have covered himself with glory, but it occasionally happens in this world that Fate seems to exercise all her ill intentions upon the knight even before he is fairly in the lists at the tournament. Surely no evil hap is so sore to bear as this. ‘Had I but a chance,’ says the stout champion, ‘had I but lifted sword and held shield, I care not though Guy of Warwick were in the mêlée; but to be made captive ere the battlefield be reached, or one trumpet blast sounded in mine ear, that indeed is the utmost malice of destiny.’
Ernest, carefully guiding his steed through the third rank of staring or timid cattle, did not notice an old black cow with one horn sticking out from her head, who was regarding him with a fixed and gloomy stare. Her nerves had been much tried since she came into camp. She had felt more than one savage cut of the stockwhip in acknowledgment of her ferocious demeanour and well-known character. She had been horned in the ribs and otherwise maltreated by ungenerous bullocks, who took that mode of requesting her to get out of the way. Her naturally morose temper had given way. She was perhaps unconsciously hungering and thirsting for the chance of avenging her wrongs.
As Mr. Neuchamp essayed to pass her with a view to getting out a noble red bullock of about eleven hundred-weight, standing like a small elephant among the cattle, an uneasy steer on the farther side gave the black cow a vicious poke in the flank. This was the match required for the combustion. With a short bellow she sprang forward, and marking Ernest, not far out of her track, immediately went for him. Had he been in open ground he might have ‘cleared’ in time. But the closely-packed cattle embarrassed him. Had one of the stockmen been similarly placed he would with one of these same disapproved-of stockwhips have half blinded, and wholly checked, the cow by a ceaseless rain of precise and painful lashes across the face. But having neither whip nor elbow-room, Mr. Neuchamp was compelled to adopt the drifting policy. He tried ineffectually to outride this old black demon, whose ferocity did not require a stockyard, and then struck forcibly at her with the hunting-whip; but it was not long enough to reach her before she came to close quarters. When it did it had not the blinding fire of the properly-wielded twelve-stranded intimidator. He felt a sudden shock as the savage head struck violently against Osmund’s shoulder. He held the excited horse together as he staggered, and the furious animal passed on. But he felt faint as he glanced at the straight horn of the old witch, which was stained a bright crimson, and looking downward saw a stream of blood spouting thickly from his favourite’s shoulder.
He leaped down in an instant, and seeing a deep stab in the centre of poor Osmund’s shoulder, used his handkerchief for a plug, eventually managing to stanch the wound. As stiffness set in, the good horse began to limp. Jack Windsor being called over, a consultation was immediately held, when it was decided that the grey had got a nasty hurt, but that no danger was imminent, and that he would be as well as ever in a month. Much relieved by this verdict, Ernest sent the invalid home by Piambook, with strict instructions to go at the slowest of all possible walks, while he took possession of that gentleman’s stock-horse himself.
When Mr. Neuchamp, with his friends, servants, and allies, reached his castle gate, otherwise the stockyard slip-rails, that night, he rode behind three hundred head of as fine fat bullocks of his own as ever were sent to the Sydney market. The first draft of fat cattle! Grand transaction! ‘What would Courtenay say,’ he thought, ‘if he saw me in possession of a magnificent drove of cattle like this, all my own and just about to be turned into cash? Let me see, I expect to send away this year five or six such drafts. That will be—let me see—how much at £3 or even £3:10s. per head’—and then Mr. Neuchamp fell to calculating the number of calves he should brand this year—and the next, if the cattle went on increasing—the number of cattle he should send off,—and generally piling up Alnaschar’s basket to the greatest elevation which that tempting but insecure receptacle of riches would permit.
The fat cattle were duly despatched to market under the charge of Charley Banks and Jack Windsor, Piambook accompanying them for the first fifty miles, to return when they might be supposed to be ‘steadied’ more or less to the road.
Mr. Neuchamp himself rode by them on the first day, and his heart swelled as the drove of grand-looking bullocks, all ‘rolling fat,’ as became a Rainbar draft, after a few fruitless dashes for return and liberty, paced quietly though with subdued swiftness along the far-stretching trail that did duty for the highway.