I sent Ben and Charley back to the station, presenting the former with a coveted brown filly, and the latter with a white cow, as good-conduct badges. They reached home safely, after a journey of a couple of hundred miles, a 'big drink' indulged in by Master Ben on the road notwithstanding.
For myself, I went to Melbourne, having business in that deserted village. I had much difficulty in getting my hair cut, by the only surviving barber. The site of my shanty and block now trembles under the traffic of a busy street. The 'lost camp' at Wendouree Lake is valuable suburban property. Steamers run there. Why did I not buy it? If I had taken that, and one or two other trifling long shots, I might have been living in London like Maxwell, or in Paris like Freshland, if a stray Prussian bullet has not interfered with his matchless digestion. However, why regret these or any seeming errors of the past? They are but a few more added to the roll of opportunities, gone with our heedless youth, and with the hours of that 'distant Paradise,' lost for evermore.
MOONLIGHTING ON THE MACQUARIE
There are different kinds of work connected with the management of cattle-stations in the far bush of New South Wales. Some of them strike the stranger as being curious. At any rate, most people have not heard of them before, or if they have, don't know much. Something depends upon finding the cattle which you are required to manage. Didn't Mrs. Glass say, before yarning about hare soup, 'First catch your hare'? Right she was! If you'll come with me to the Wilgah brakes, 'Hell's Cages,' and 'Devil's Snuff-boxes' of the Lower Macquarie, you will see the pull of the 'first catch' arrangement. Don't suppose for a moment that ours is a neglected herd. If you were to see the stud animals—chiefly Devons and Herefords, for we found that the 'active reds' could pace out many a mile from the frontage in a dry season, and be back at their watering-place while a soft shorthorn would be thinking about it, and, of course, losing flesh. As I was saying, if you saw our 'Whitefaces' and 'Devon Dumplings,' you wouldn't think that. But those M'Warrigals, that we bought the place from long ago, were careless beggars; thought more of their neighbours' calves—some people say—than minding their own business and doing their proper station work. Now the back of the run is scrubby in parts, and the cattle there are 'outlaws' that increase and multiply. They get joined by other refugees and breakaways—brutes with no principle whatever. We seldom see them, as they have got a nasty habit of feeding at night, like tigers and lions and other wild animals. When we do see them—by day—they break away, scatter, and charge. All the horses and dogs in the country wouldn't get them.
What are we to do? There are some famous bullocks among them—rather coarse, perhaps, but rolling fat—ugly with fat, as the stock-riders say. And as cattle are a first-class price just now, and the feed grand all the way to market, there's no use talking; we must have a shy at them. It won't do for me, a native-born Australian, and manager of my father's best cattle-station, to be beaten by anything that ever wore a hide. Have 'em we must. The new paddock is just finished. We are going to muster the other side of the run—the quiet side—the day after to-morrow, and if we can make a good haul out of these 'scrub danglers' we shall have together as fine a lot of fat cattle as ever left the Macquarie.
And how are we going to do it? There are half-a-dozen as good hands on this Milgai Run, including the black boys Johnny Smoker and Gundai, as ever rode stock-horse or followed a beast. And yet, if we rode after this lot for a month we shouldn't get more than a couple of dozen, tear our clothes to rags, stake our horses, and get knocked off in the Wilgah scrubs—after all get next to no cattle—that's what I look at. Still, there is a way—and only one way—that we may fetch 'em by, and perhaps in one night. I'm going to tell you about it. We must moonlight 'em.
It is a strange thing—and I've no doubt it was found out by some rascally 'duffer,' some cattle-stealing brute that went poking about after his neighbours' calves (but the amount of cleverness they show when it's 'on the cross,' no man would believe, unless he knew it from experience)—it's a strange thing that wild cattle are twice, ten times, as easy to drive by night as they are by day. Whether they are afraid—like children—whether they can't see so well, or what it is, I don't know. But every old stock-rider will tell you that all cattle, particularly wild ones, are much easier to handle by night than by day. Another reason is, they go out a long way into the open plains to feed at night. Whereas by day they lie in their scrubs like rabbits near a hole, and directly they hear a whip, or a voice, or a stick crack almost, they're off like a lot of deer. Not that I ever saw any; but one thinks about the red deer listening and then popping into fern-brakes and heather-glens. Perhaps I shall see them some day, who knows, if cattle keep up?
Well, we had to wait for a day or two, till the moon rose, about ten o'clock. When the moon rises soon after dusk, they keep about the edge of the timber, and are ready to dash back directly they see or hear any one. But when it's dark for some hours before the moon rises, they'll go out far into the plains and feed as steadily as milkers.
Well, we sent word to our neighbours and mustered up about twenty men. We went into the timber at sundown, near a point where we thought they wouldn't come out, and hobbled our horses. We had brought something to eat with us, and made a billy of tea; and after we lit our pipes, it was jolly enough. My stock-rider, Joe Barker, was one of the smartest riders and best hands with cattle on the river, but, as is sometimes the case with good men and good horses, he had a queer temper. I wanted him to bring his old favourite, Yass Paddy, as good and sure a stock-horse as ever heard a whip. But no, he must bring a new mount that he'd run out of the wild mob!—a good one to go and to look at, but the biggest tiger I ever saw saddled. Joe was put out about something, and I didn't like to cross him. A stock-rider is a bad servant to quarrel with, unless all your run is fenced, or very open. Besides, with his riding, a donkey would have been 'there or thereabouts.'
So we sat and talked, and smoked, and looked about for an hour or two. At last the time came. We pouched our pipes, saddled up, and headed for the plains, making a point for a few trees a good way out, near where the lot we were after often fed. We didn't talk much, but rode far from one another, so as to have a better chance of seeing them. At last Gundai rode up alongside me, and pointed ahead. I looked and saw something dark, which seemed to change line. There were no Indians, no wolves, no buffaloes, in our part of the world. It might have been horses, of course, but we were soon near enough to see tails—not horses'—and a big mob too. Cattle, by Jove! and the heaviest lot we have seen together since the general muster, many years since, just after we bought the station. 'All right, boys! we're in for a good thing.' They were, of course, scattered, feeding about, looking as quiet as store cattle. The regular thing to do was, of course, known to most of us. A couple of the smartest riders must start to 'wheel' them, one on each side. Charley Dickson and the black boy, Gundai, were told off. You couldn't lick Charley, and Gundai was the most reckless young devil to ride that ever broke down a stock-horse. But just at this pinch we want 'em to be pretty quick. Never mind about horses' legs, we look to them afterwards. Off they go like mad Arabs. You can see the dust and dry grass sent up by Gundai's horse's hoofs, like a small steam-engine. We hear the rolling gallop of the heavy bullocks, as the big mob of cattle all raise their heads and make off in a long trailing string—like a lot of buffaloes—directly they hear the first horse. We ride steadily up in line, so as to intercept them in the rush they will be sure to make back towards the scrub. In the meanwhile Charley and Gundai have raced to the two ends of the string, and are ringing and wheeling, and doubling them up together, till the mob is regularly bothered.