Chapter IX (3)

But for the wild young bulls and the unbranded heifers born and bred in the thick covert of the 'Cage' and the 'Snuff-box,' both belonging to the infernal regions, I had a different kind of help. As the mob now moved slowly on, the old cows roaring, the calves chiming in, the bullocks occasionally giving a deep low bellow, making, like all cattle off their bounds, noise enough for four times the number, I knew that assistance was not far off. So it turned out, for about two miles from home we were met by two black dogs, walking slowly to meet us. A brace of very powerful and determined, not to say ferocious-looking animals they were. Half bulldog, half greyhound, they took about equally after both sides of the house. They were moderately fast and immoderately fierce, most difficult to keep back from bloodshed. They had required an immense amount of training, which in their case meant unmerciful licking, before they could be brought to obey orders. In their own line they couldn't be beat. They were too slow to follow horses all day, but, as they were fond of cattle work, they always came out a mile or two to meet us, when they heard the whips and the well-known sounds. Danger and Death, as I had christened the brothers, were known all up and down the Macquarie.

Now I felt quite safe for the first time since we had started, and as we closed up a little round the cattle, I looked anxiously for a 'break.' It was not long in coming. A three-year-old bull and a splendid red heifer charged back, and broke in regular fancy scrub style. Danger luckily took the heifer; she was clearing out like a flying doe. Danger was a good deal the quickest on his feet. Death was as sure as his namesake. He had his customer by the muzzle before he had gone any distance, and a loud roar, half of rage, half of pain, told us he was brought to bay. It was not a bad fight. The bull raised him from the ground more than once, and dashed him down with such force as would have satisfied any ordinary dog. But his mother's blood was strong in him, and, after an unavailing resistance, the dog having shifted his hold, and taken to the ear in preference, Micky was half dragged, half driven into the mob, among which, for security, he immediately rushed. Meanwhile the red heifer, rather 'on the leg' and not too fat, forced the pace, so that I really thought she was going to run away from old Danger. But he lay alongside of her shoulder doing his best, and every now and then making a spring at her head. At last he nailed her, and as he stopped and threw all his weight against her, with his terrible grip on her nostrils, her head went right under, and she fell over on her back with such force that she lay stunned. I thought she had broken her neck. When she got up she staggered, stared piteously all round, and finally trotted after the cattle like an old milker. We had only one more break, just as they were going through the paddock rails. Then we had a wing—fine thing a wing, saves men and horses, too—and the whole lot were in and the rails up before they knew where they were going.

Next day we put them in the strong yard, without much trouble, and after drafting the cows, calves, strangers, and rubbish, we had over a hundred of as good fat cattle as ever left our district. We picked out a few of the out-and-outers, including the grey-faced bullock and Leader, and 'blinded' them, after which they travelled splendidly, fed well, and gave us no trouble on the road down. Isn't it cruel? Not particularly. We don't put their eyes out. We run them into the 'bot.' The bot is a 'trevis' or pen, high, strong, and so near the size of a beast that they can't turn round after they've been inveigled into it. Then we can do what we like with them. They may roar and knock their horns about, or kick if they're horses—they can't hurt you. For 'blinding' we cut a broad flap of greenhide, and hang it over the face of any bullock that has bad manners. It is secured above and below. It works wonders. He can't see in front of him, only out of the corners of his eyes. Sometimes he runs against trees and things. This makes him take greater care of himself. He mostly follows the other cattle then, and in a week feeds like an old milker. We were nearly selling Greyface and Leader for a pair of working bullocks before we got down.

Poor Joe was a long time before he got round. He was never the same man again. We dropped in for a first-rate market in town, and so were handsomely paid for a night's 'moonlighting on the Macquarie.'

AN AUSTRALIAN ROUGHRIDING CONTEST

In June 1891, at Wodonga, on the Murray River, in the colony of Victoria—on the opposite bank to Albury, a town of New South Wales—was arranged an exhibition for testing the horsemanship of all comers, which I venture to assert had but few parallels.

Prizes were to be allotted, by the award of three judges of acknowledged experience, amounting in all to about £20. Much interested in matters equine, 'nihil equitatum alienum me puto,' I traversed the three miles which separate the border towns in a cab of the period, and arrived in time for the excitement.

The manner of the entertainment was after this wise. An area of several acres of level greensward was enclosed within a fence, perhaps eight or ten feet high, formed of sawn battens, on which was stretched the coarse sacking known to drapers as 'osnaberg.' This answered the double purpose of keeping the non-paying public out and the performing horses in.

I had heard of the way in which the selected horses were saddled and mounted; I was therefore partly prepared. But, tolerably versed in the lore of the wilderness, I had never before seen such primitive equitation.

About thirty unbroken horses were moving uneasily within a high, well-constructed stock-yard—the regulation 'four rails' and a 'cap'—amounting to a solid unyielding fence, over seven feet in height.

That the steeds were really unbroken, 'by spur and snaffle undefiled,' might be gathered from their long manes, tails sweeping the ground, and general air of terror or defiance. As each animal was wanted, it was driven or cajoled by means of a quiet horse into a close yard ending in a 'crush' or lane so narrow that turning round was impossible. A strong, high gate in front was well fastened. Before the captive could decide upon a retrograde movement, long, strong saplings were thrust between his quarters and the posts of the crush. He was therefore trapped, unable to advance or retire. If he threatened to lie down, a sapling underneath prevented that refuge of sullenness.

Mostly the imprisoned animal preserved an expression of stupid amazement or harmless terror, occasionally of fierce wrath or reckless despair. Then he kicked, plunged, reared—in every way known to the wild steed of the desert expressed his untameable defiance of man, occasionally even neighing loudly and fiercely. 'Twas all in vain. The prison was too high, too strong, too narrow, too everything; nothing but submission remained—'not even suicide,' as Mr. Stevenson declares concerning matrimony, 'nothing but to be good.'

This, of course, with variations, as happens perchance in the married state irreverently referred to.

Before the colt has done thinking what unprincipled wretches these bush bipeds are, a 'blind' (ingeniously improvised from a gentleman's waistcoat) is placed over his eyes, a snaffle bridle is put on, a bit is forced into his mouth; at the same time two active young men are thrusting a crupper under his reluctant tail, have put a saddle on his back, and are buckling leather girths and surcingle (this latter run through slits in the lower portion of the saddle flaps) as if they meant to cut him in two.

This preparatory process being completed in marvellous short time, the manager calls out 'First horse, Mr. St. Aure,' and a well-proportioned young man from the Upper Murray ascends the fence, standing with either leg on the rails, immediately over the angry, terrified animal.

What would you or I take, O grey-besprinkled reader, to undertake the mount Mr. St. Aure surveys with calmest confidence? (We are not so young as we were, let us say in confidence.)

Deftly he drops into the saddle, his legs just grazing the sides of the crush. 'Open the gate!' roars the manager. 'Look out, you boys!' and, with a mad rush, out flies the colt through the open gate like a shell from a howitzer.

For ten yards he races at full speed, then 'propping' as if galvanised, shoots upwards with the true deer's leap, all four feet in the air at once (from which the vice takes its name), to come down with his head between his forelegs and his nose (this I narrowly watched) touching the girths.

The horseman has swayed back with instinctive ease, and is quite prepared for a succession of lightning bounds, sideways, upwards, downwards, backwards, as he appears to turn in the air occasionally and to come down with his head in the place where his tail was when he rose.

For an instant he stops: perhaps the long-necked spurs are sent in, to accentuate the next performance. The crowd meanwhile of 600 or 700 people, mostly young or in the prime of life, follow, cheering and clapping with every fresh attempt on the part of the frenzied steed to dispose of his matchless rider. Five minutes of this exercise commences to exhaust and steady the wildest colt. It is a variation of 'monkeying,' a device of the bush-breaker, who ties a bag on to the saddle of a timid colt, and he, frightened out of his life, as _by a monkey_ perched there, tires himself out, permitting the breaker to mount and ride away with but little resistance.

Sometimes indeed the colt turns in his tracks, and being unmanageable as to guiding in his paroxysms, charges the crowd, whom he scatters with great screaming and laughing as they fall over each other or climb the stock-yard fence. But shortly, with lowered head and trembling frame, he allows himself to be ridden to the gate of egress. There he is halted, and the rider, taking hold of his left ear with his bridle-hand, swings lightly to the ground, closely alongside of the shoulder. Did he not so alight, the agile mustang was capable of a lightning wheel and a dangerous kick. Indeed, one rider, dismounting carelessly, discovered this to his cost after riding a most unconscionable performer.

A middle-aged, wiry, old-time-looking stock-rider from Gippsland next came flying out on a frantic steed _without a bridle_, from choice. For some time it seemed a drawn battle between horse and man, but towards the end of the fight the horse managed to 'get from under.'

One horse slipped on the short greensward and came over backwards, his rider permitting himself to slide off. The next animal was described as an 'outlaw,' a bush term for a horse which has been backed but never successfully ridden. She, a powerful half-bred, fully sustained it by a persevering exhibition of every kind of contortion calculated to dissolve partnership. At one time it looked as if the betting was in favour of the man, but the mare had evidently resolved on a last appeal. Setting to with redoubled fury, she smashed the crupper, tore out one of the girth straps, and then performed the rare, well-nigh incredible feat of sending the saddle over her head _without breaking the surcingle_. This is the second time, during a longish acquaintance with every kind of horse accomplishment, that I have witnessed this performance. It is not always believed, but can be vouched for by the writer and about five or six hundred people on the ground. I _felt_ the girth, and saw that the buckle was still unslacked.

The rider, Mortimer, came over the mare's head, sitting square with the saddle between his legs, and received an ovation in consequence.

The last colt had been driven into the crush 'fiercely snorting, but in vain, and struggling with erected mane,' and enlarged 'in the full foam of wrath and dread,' when another form of excitement was announced. A dangerous-looking four-year-old bullock was now yarded in the outer enclosure, light of flesh but exceeding fierce, which he proceeded to demonstrate by clearing the place of all spectators in the shortest time on record.

Climbing hurriedly to the 'cap' of the stock-yard fence, they looked on in secure elevation, while the _toreadors_ cunningly edged him into the crush, and there confined him like the colts. Here he began to paw the ground and bellow in ungovernable rage. At this stage the manager thus delivered himself: 'It's Mr. Smith's turn, by the list, to ride this bullock, but he says he don't care. Is there any gentleman here as'll ride him?'

With Mr. Smith's natural disinclination for the mount the crowd apparently sympathised. The bullock meanwhile was pawing the earth and roaring in a hollow and blood-curdling manner, as who should say, 'Let me at him; only let me have one turn with hoof and horn.' To the unprejudiced observer the mount seemed one that no gentleman would court or even accept.

However, the Gippslander, removing his pipe from his mouth, calmly remarked, 'I'll ride him,' whereupon the crowd burst out with a cheer, evidently looking upon the offer as one of exceptional merit.

There was no bridle or saddle in this case. A rope was fastened around the animal's body, and with this slender accoutrement only, the stock-rider deposited himself upon the ridge of the red bullock's back. Then the gate was opened, and out he came in all his glory.

No one that has merely observed the clumsy gambols of the meadow-fed ox can have an idea of the speed and agility of the bush-bred steer, reared amid mountain ranges and accustomed to spurts up hill and down, with a smart stock-horse rattling by the side of the drove, always making excellent time, and not infrequently distancing their pursuers amid the forests and morasses of their native runs.

This one had a shoulder like a blood horse, great propelling power, and stood well off the ground, with muscular arms and hocks to match.

He reared, bucked, and plunged almost with the virulence and variety of the colts, and when, after a prolonged and persevering contest, he gradually managed to shift his rider on to his _croupe_, and thence by a complicated and original twist of his quarters dislodged him, it was felt by the spectators that he had worthily sustained the honour of the stock-riding fraternity. Cheers resounded from all sides, as the crowd returning to a centre surrounded the fallen but not disgraced combatant. I think the boys were privately disappointed that the bullock did not turn to gore his antagonist, but he was too much excited for such an attack. He made a bee-line for the fence, which, all-ignorant of its flimsy nature, he did not attempt to jump or overthrow, contenting himself with running by the side of it until he came to the corner, where a gate was cunningly left open for his departure. After a respectable 'cap' had been collected for the veteran, who was more than twice the age of the other competitors, the prizes were distributed, and the entertainment concluded.

As an Australian I may be slightly prejudiced, but I must confess to holding the opinion that our bush-riders in certain departments are unrivalled. The South American 'gaucho' and the 'cow-boy' of the Western States are, doubtless, wonderful horsemen, but they ride under conditions more favourable than those of our bushmen. The saddle of the Americans is the old-fashioned Spanish one—heavy, cumbrous, and, besides the high pommel and cantle, provided with a horn-like fixture in front, to which the lasso is attached generally, but which serves as a belaying-pin and a secure holdfast for the rider in case of need. The tremendous severity of the heavy curb-bit must also tend to moderate the gambades of all but the most vicious or untamed animals. Besides all this, the horses ridden by them are mere ponies compared to the big, powerful Australian colts, and as such easier to control.

But let the stranger, when minded to try his horsemanship, find himself upon a 'touchy' three-year-old, and how insecure does his position appear! He is a good way off the ground, which said ground is mostly extremely hard. The colt is nearly sixteen hands high, and feels strong enough in the loins, if fully agitated, to throw him into a gum-tree. The single-reined snaffle, to which he trusts his life, is of the plainest, cheapest description of leather and iron. The saddle is the ordinary English saddle, fuller in the flap and pads, but otherwise giving the impression of being hard, slippery, and affording but little hope of recovery when once the seat is shaken.

When, with nothing but this simple accoutrement, or perhaps a rolled bag, strapped in front of the pommel, our bushmen ride, as I have described, it must be conceded that no horsemen could be less indebted to adventitious aid.

In the peculiar, strictly Australian department, known as 'scrub riding,' no one not 'to the manner born' can be said to hold a candle to them.

The home of the half-wild herds of cattle and horses is frequently mountainous, thickly-wooded, and rocky. Amid these declivitous fastnesses in which they are reared, the outliers of the herd acquire speed, wind, and activity, which must be known to be believed. Through these interlaced and thick-growing woodlands, down the rocky ridge, across the treacherous morass, away go the cattle or the wild horses at a pace apt to take them out of sight and hearing in remarkably short time. The ordinary horseman, able to hold his own fairly well on road or turf, even in the hunting field, here finds himself hopelessly at fault. Not wanting in pluck, he does his best for a mile or more. But he knocks his knee against one tree, his shoulder against another, and narrowly escapes dashing his brains out by reason of a low-lying branch, which knocks off his hat, and might easily—he reflects—have performed the same office for the head which it covered. He realises the disability under which he labours by reason of not being able to calculate his distance from the unyielding timber in front, beside, around; at the same time to distinguish the route of the fast-vanishing 'mob' (_Anglice_, drove), while all his skill and strength are required to control a stock-horse, if such a mount has been provided for him, which clambers along hillsides and tears down the same with the sure-footedness of a mule, while he leaves the full responsibility of directing his headlong career to his rider. When at the end of several miles the visitor pulls up, he is entirely out of the hunt. Neither men, horses, dogs, nor cattle are within sight and hearing. He is not accustomed to tracking, nor perhaps is the ground favourable to such practice. Nothing is left for him but to follow on as nearly as may be in the direction of the riders, fortunate if, some hours after, he is hunted up by a man sent in search of him, or, more fortunate still, has left all path-finding to his horse, and joyfully recognises the homestead, which comes into sight much sooner than he expected.

In contrast to this exploit, behold the sons of the waste under the same circumstances. Riding along with apparent carelessness, several pairs of sharp eyes are piercing the forest glades in every part of the foreground. One man has descried the outline of a group of slowly-moving forms, or it may be but a single beast, high up a hillside in the gorge of a mountain-range, the depths of a narrow brook, traversed ravine—it matters not. It is the herd they are seeking, or a section of it. The quick-eyed scout gives a low whistle, perhaps holds up his hand; the signal is understood. Bridle-reins are gathered up. No word is spoken, but each man has his horse in hand as they move slowly towards the grazing or stationary outliers. A few minutes bring them nearer, within perhaps good wheeling distance, when a sentinel gets view or winds them, and the whole troop is off like a shot. Each horse, but a minute since stumbling along at a 'stockman's jog' or a go-as-you-please walk, starts into top speed as if for a mile heat. The men, taking a 'bee-line,' ride straight for the fast-vanishing cattle, as if there was not a tree or a rock within miles. How they do it is a never-ending marvel to the uninitiated. But they will not only keep with the outlaws, but out-pace and out-general them; wheeling them at critical places, racing ahead and rounding them up; eventually, with mingled force and diplomacy, hustling them across a country without track, road, or apparently natural features, till dead-beat and defeated they are landed in the high, secure stock-yard, from which some of their number at least will never emerge alive.

THE MAILMAN'S YARN
AN OWER TRUE TALE

'Rum things happen in the bush, you take my word for it,' suddenly broke out Dan M'Elroy as we were sitting smoking round a camp fire, far back in the 'Never Never' one night. The whole tract of country west of the Barcoo was under water that summer. We were all stuck hard and fast, about fifty miles from Sandringham, waiting for the creeks and cowalls to go down. They weren't small ones either—twenty feet deep in some places and half a mile wide. There were a dozen teamsters with wool-waggons, Jim and me and two black boys with four hundred head of fat cattle from Marndoo. A police trooper bringing down a horse-stealer for trial, committed by the Bench there, made up the party. The prisoner was made comfortable—only chained to a log for safety. Here we were, waiting, waiting, and had to make the best of it. We walked about in the daylight, and did a bit of shooting. We'd put up a bough yard for the cattle, more for the exercise than anything else; and to make the time pass we'd taken to telling yarns. Some of them were that curious I wish I hadn't forgotten 'em. But this one that Dan told that night I shall remember to my dying day. He was the mail contractor between St. George and Bolivar Run, a weather-beaten Bathurst native, as hard as iron-bark, who'd have contracted to run the mail from the Red Sea to Jordan in spite of all the Arabs if they'd made it worth his while. He was afraid of nothing and nobody. In his time he had been speared by blacks, shot at by bushrangers, fished for dead out of flooded creeks, besides being 'given up' in fever, ague, and sunstroke in exploring of mail routes through the 'Never Never' country. Hairbreadth escapes were daily bread to him. He seemed to thrive on 'em, but this one must have been out of the common way.

He looked round over the great plain, where we could see the glimmer of water on every side by the light of the low moon, just showing, red and goblin-like. A murmuring wind began to whisper and sob among the stunted myall, swaying the long streamers as if they were mourning for the dead. It felt colder, though we'd piled up the logs on the fire lately, when he filled his pipe and said: 'We'll turn in after this, but you may as well take it to sleep on. It was nigh twenty year ago it happened, yet it comes back to me now as fresh as I saw it that cursed night. You chaps remember,' he said, taking a good steady draw at his pipe, by way of starting it and the yarn at the same time,—'you remember, as I told you, I was running a horse mail between Marlborough Point and Waranah, somewhere about '68. A different season from this, I tell you. No rain for about eighteen months, and when the autumn came in dry, with the nights long and cold, the sheep began to die faster than you could count 'em. I had a fairish contract, and though the mail was a heavy one, I was able to manage it by riding one horse and leading a packer. A terrible long day's ride it was—three times a week—eighty-five mile. Of course I had a change of horses, but I didn't get in till eleven or twelve at night to Waranah. The frosty nights had set in, and sometimes, between being half-frozen and dead-tired, I could hardly sit on my horse. It was getting on in June, and still no rain, only the frosts getting sharper and sharper, when I came along to a sandhill by the side of a billabong of the Murrumbidgee, about ten miles from Waranah. There was a big water-hole there; it was a favourite camping place between the township and Baranco station. I was later than usual, and it was about midnight when I got to this point. Through a weak horse as had knocked up I'd had to walk five miles. I was nigh perished with the cold; hungry too, for I'd had no time to stop and get a feed; and as I'd been in the saddle since long before daylight, you may guess I was pretty well tuckered out. A particular spot, too, when you come to think of it. The sand-ridge ran back from the water-hole a good way (there was a big kurrajong-tree beside it, I remember), and spread out near upon a mile till you got into a fair-sized plain. The ridge—that's the way of 'em in dry country—was covered as thick as they could stand with pine-scrub. An old cattle-track ran right through to the plain, where they used to come to water in the old days when Baranco was a cattle-run. I was dozing on my horse, dog-tired and stiff with the cold, when I came to the water-hole at the foot of this sandhill. I always used to pull up there and have a smoke; so I stopped and looked round about, in a half-sleepy, dazed kind of way. I felt for my box of matches, and I'm dashed if they weren't gone—shot out, I expect—for I'd been working my passage and been jumbled about more than enough. That put the cap on. I felt as if I'd drop off the horse there and then. I never was one for drinking, and I didn't carry a flask. How I'd get on the next couple of hours I couldn't think.

'All of a sudden a streak of light came through the darkness of the pine-scrub to the left of me. It got broader and broader. It wasn't the moon, I knew, for that wouldn't show till nigh-hand daylight. It must be a fire. Somebody camping, of course; but why they didn't stop by the water, the regular place, with good feed and open ground all round them, I couldn't make out. I was off like a shot, and hung up my horses to the kurrajong tree, which stood handy. It was too thick to ride through the pine saplings, and I thought the walk would freshen me up. I started off quite jolly with the notion of the grand warm I should have at the fire, and the pipeful of baccy I'd be able to borrow. It was a big fire I saw as I stumbled along, getting nearer and nearer the head of an old-man pine, the branches as dry as timber, and would burn like matchwood. I could see three men standing round it. As I got nearer I was just going to halloo out, partly for fun and partly for devilment, when the wind blew the flame round, and made one of the men, who was poking a pole into the fire, shift and turn his face towards me. Mind! I was in the dark shadow of the pines. The glare of the fire lit up his face and those of the two other men as clear as day.

'The man's face, as it turned towards where I was standing, had such a hellish expression, that I stopped dead and drew behind an overhanging "balah" that grew among the pines. He seemed to be listening. Another man with an axe in his hand said something to him, when he walked a few steps down the track towards me and stopped. My God, what a face it was! No devil out of hell could have looked more fiendish than he did. It was like no human face I'd ever seen. I began to think I was asleep, and dreaming of a story in a book.

'They were not more than twenty yards from where I stood. My heart beat that loud I was afraid they'd hear it. My hair stood on end, if any one's ever did, while as the tall, dark man began to poke the fire again, and pushed something further into it that was _not a log of wood_, I deuced near fainted, and beads of perspiration rolled down my forehead and face. What did I see that caused every drop of blood in my veins to turn to ice? What the strange man stirred in the fire, making the sparks to fly all round among the red glowing embers, was a _corpse_! There was no mistaking the dreadful shape. One arm stuck out. The legs were there, the skull blackened and featureless, and, Heavenly Father! beyond and in the middle of the heap of glowing embers lay another shape huddled together, and showing no angle of limb or bone. The other man, with a broom of boughs tied together, was busy sweeping in all the pieces of charcoal, so as to prevent the flame from spreading through the tall, dry grass. At a short distance I could make out a tilted cart, such as hawkers use in the bush. "By——!" said the man with the pole, "I'll swear I heard a stick crack. Any traveller as come to the water-hole and followed the track up, 'll have to be rubbed out, and no two ways about it. It will be our lives against his!"

'"Haven't we had blood enough for one day?" says the other man. "By George! when I think of these two poor chaps' faces, just afore you dropped 'em with the axe, I'd give all we've made ten times over to have 'em alive again."

'"You always was a snivelling beggar," says the tall man. "If you'd had your back scratched at Port Arthur half as often as me, you'd think no more of a man's life than a wild dog's. I believe it must 'a been one or a wallaby as made the stir."

'I've faced a trifle of danger, and seen some "close calls" in my time, but nothing came near that half-hour I spent there till I could make myself steady enough to stir. I couldn't sit; I was too done to stand; so there I had to crouch down and wait till I got the chance to go back on my tracks.

'All the time they kept pushing the bodies into the centre of the fire, without stopping, as they got smaller and smaller. Two of the men were at this dreadful work, while the third was sweeping round every edge of the fire. At last the two men I first saw, sat down on a log close handy and began to smoke. Now was my chance. I crawled from my tree and crept along the cattle-track till I come to where my horses were standing. I mounted one, somehow, and took the other's bridle. I rode steady enough for a while, and then, hustling the poor brutes into a hand-gallop, kept along the road to Waranah till I reached the gate at the boundary of the run. Even then I felt as if I was hardly safe. I looked round and could almost see witches and devils following me through the air, and waving ghosts' arms in every bough of the stunted trees through which the road wound.

'When I saw the lights of the little township, I was that glad that I shouted and sang all the way up to the hotel where the mail was delivered. I had a strange sort of feeling in my head as I rode up to the door. Then I reeled in my saddle; everything was dark. I remembered no more till at the end of a week I found myself in bed recovering from fever.

'I suppose I'd been sickening for it before. What with hot days, cold nights, and drinking water out of swamps and dry holes that were half mud and half—pah! something you don't like to think of—the wonder is we bushmen don't get it oftener. Anyhow I was down that time, and next morning it seems they had the doctor to me. He was a clever man and a gentleman, too, my word! He fetched me round after a month, but I was off my head the first week, and kept raving (so they told me afterwards) about men being knocked on the head and burned, hawkers' carts, and Derwenters, and the big water-hole by Budgell Creek.

'They thought it was all madness and nonsense at first, and took no notice, till one afternoon Mr. Belton, the overseer of Baranco, comes riding into town, all of a flurry, wanting to see the police and the magistrate, Mr. Waterton. This was what he had to say:—

'There had been some heavy lots of travelling sheep passing through the station, and he was keeping along with them for fear they might miss the road and not find it again till they'd ate off a mile or two of his best grass. All of a sudden a mob of the Baranco weaners ran across a plain and nearly boxed with 'em. Mr. Belton gallops for his life—I expect he swore a bit, too—and was just in time to head 'em off into the pine-scrub by the sandhill. They took the old cattle-track over towards the water-hole, he following them up, till all of a sudden he comes plump on a hawker's cart!

'This pulled him up short. He let the sheep run on to the frontage and got off his horse. He knew the Colemans' cart. They always stayed a night at Baranco. When they passed, _a week since_, they were to make Waranah that night. What the deuce were they doing here? Hang the fellows! were they spelling their horses? Feed was scarce. No! they were not the men to do that. Honest, straight-going chaps they'd always been.

'He walked over to the cart. Something wrong surely! The big slop-chest was open. The cash-box, with lock smashed, was empty. Boots, clothes, tobacco, which they always had of the best, lying scattered about. Where were the poor fellows themselves? If they had been robbed, why hadn't they gone to the police at Waranah and complained? Whoever had done this must have camped here in the middle of the scrub. Then there'd been a fire over by the big pine-stump—an "old man" fire too. Wonder they hadn't set a light to the dry grass? No rain for the half-year to speak of. No; they had been too jolly careful. Swept in the twigs and ashes all round. Curious fire for bushmen to make too—big enough to roast an ox. He stares at the ashes; then gropes among them with his hand. My God! What are these small pieces of bone? Why, the place is full of them. And this? and this? A metal button, a metal buckle—one, two, three—twelve in all.

'It comes back to him now that three travellers left the Baranco men's hut the same morning as the Colemans—one a tall, dark, grey-haired old hand, with a scar across his face. He gets his horse with a long sort of half-whistle and half-groan and rides slow, in a study like, toward the township. The next day the magistrate, Mr. Waterton (he's a squatter, but sits most times when the Police Magistrate isn't on hand), goes out with the Sergeant of Police and the best part of the townspeople of Waranah. He holds an Inquiry. The doctor attended and gave evidence that he had no doubt whatever that the bones formed part of human skeletons. The surface of the fire was raked over, and a lot of metal buttons and buckles—as many as would be used for two pairs of trousers—with other remains of clothing, were found. A verdict of "wilful murder against some person or persons unknown" was returned.

'On the second day after the murder three men crossed the Murray River pretty high up, near a public-house. Their ways were suspicious. One of them fired off a revolver. They had on new suits of clothes, new boots with elastic sides, and no end of tobacco of a queer brand—not known in those parts. Large swags too! The boss of the crowd was a tall, dark man, with a scar and grey hair. He was the man who fired the revolver and used wild language. The police from Crowlands picked up the trail so far. If they had followed hard on, like the Avenger of Blood (as the feller says in the play), they might have run down the murderin' dogs. But the publican had a bad memory. _He couldn't remember_ seeing any out-of-the-way travellers cross the river that week. So the police turned back, and lost the scent for good and all.

'A queer enough thing about the matter was, that directly after the Inquiry was published, a telegram was sent from the poor fellows' friends to the sergeant at Waranah. He was to look under the lid of the big slop-chest and he'd find a false top that slid back—very neat made, so that people mostly wouldn't notice it. Behind this was a drawer, and in it notes and cheques. They never kept more than a fiver or so in the cash-box, and told the secret to their relatives before leaving town. Sure enough the sergeant finds the secret-drawer, and in it, after being in the open bush nearly a fortnight, £90 odd in notes and good cheques, which of course he sent to their friends. The villains only got £4 and a fit-out of clothes and tobacco. The police never could get wind of these wretches for years after. However, they dropped on the man with the scar, whose name was Campbell. He was sworn to as the man who left Baranco with the other two on the day of the murder, as the man as had new clothes and tobacco (such as nobody but the Colemans sold in the district) two days after. It was proved that they were all hard up and ragged when they left Baranco. The evidence was in dribs and drabs. But they pieced it together, bit by bit. It was good enough to hang him, and hang him they did. I swore to him as the man I saw at the fire that terrible night. And now, mates, I'll turn in. There's no fear of being burned to bits here, is there? Good-night all!'

DEAR DERMOT

Somehow the days of my youth seem to have been inextricably mixed up with horses. How I loved them, to be sure!—thought of them by day, dreamed of them by night. Books and girls might temporarily enter into competition as objects of engrossing interest; but the noble animal must have had possession of my thoughts for a large proportion of the waking hours.

From boyhood the proprietor of studs more or less extensive, I was quick to discern excellence in other people's favourites. My mind was stored, my imagination fired, besides, with tales of equestrian feats, performed chiefly by Arab chiefs and other heroes of old-world romance. In a chronic state of expectancy, I was always ready to do honour to the legendary steed, so rarely encountered, alas! save in the bounteous realm of fiction.

When, therefore, I _did_ fall across 'the courser of the poets,' or his simulacrum, I was prepared to secure him at a fancy price; holding that if I could recoup the outlay by selling a pair of average horses of my own breeding, the luxury of possessing a paragon would be cheaply purchased.

And would it not be? Albeit there are multitudes of people to whom one horse, save the mark, is much like another. For them, the highest joy, the transcendent sensation of being carried by 'the sweetest hack in the world,' exists not. But to him who recognises and appreciates the speed, the spirit, the smoothness, and the safety of the 'wonderful' hackney, there are few outdoor pleasures possessing similar flavour.

It is more than half a century, sad to relate, since I first took bridle in hand. During that time I have ridden races on 'the flat,' over 'the sticks,' and have backed for the first time a score or more of wholly-untried colts. I have tested hundreds of saddle-horses, over every variety of road, at all sorts of distances, in all ranges of climate, and after this extended experience I unhesitatingly pronounce Dermot, son of Cornborough, to be in nearly all respects the finest example of the blood hackney which I ever mounted. The 'sweetest,' etc., he certainly was. Almost too good for this wicked world.

The birth of this unrivalled steed was mainly due to one of the magnates of the earlier Victorian era, himself an example of the strangeness of that destiny which shapes our ends in life. A member of a family of financial aristocrats, domiciled in London and Paris, with which capitals our friend was equally familiar, Mr. Adolphus Goldsmith scarcely dreamed in youth of 'colonial experience.'

But something went wrong with the finance arrangements of his near relatives. A crisis culminated, and the necessity arose for Goldsmith (_fils_) applying himself to the stern realities of life. He had previously performed the strictly ornamental duties of a young man about town. But with a cool perception of the situation, characteristic of the man, and a steadfast determination to conquer adverse fate, the whilom _élégant_ of the Bois de Boulogne and the Row looked over the map of the world, picked his colony, giving the _pas_ to Victoria, the then fashionable El Dorado for younger sons and _vauriens_, converted the remnant of his fortune into letters of credit, and sailed for Port Phillip.

As an Englishman by birth and rearing as well as adoption, Mr. Goldsmith had sported park hacks and ridden to hounds in his day. He possessed the Englishman's love for horses. Visions, therefore, arose of improving the breed in the new country which he was about to patronise, and incidentally devoting himself to agricultural pursuits.

Distrusting, however, his suitability for the necessary purchases and arrangements, he sensibly cast about for a coadjutor, fully instructed in bucolic lore, to whom he might confide details.

He was successful beyond expectation, inasmuch as he induced Mr. Hatsell Garrard, a gentleman farmer from the midland counties (whose love of all genuine sport had, combined with a run of bad seasons, probably rendered rent-paying temporarily arduous), to accompany him as General Manager to Australia. And whoso recalls his fresh-coloured countenance, his pleasant smile, his shrewd blue eye, his neat rig and bridle-hand, reproduces out of memory's storehouse the ideal yeoman from 'Merrie England.'

Mr. Garrard promptly demonstrated a knowledge of his business by purchasing Cornborough, son of Tramp, a grandson of the immortal Whalebone. For this sole achievement he deserves a statue, and in that Pantheon which future Victorians may rear for the founders of their prosperity and glory, the square-built, genuinely English figure of Mr. Garrard should find a place. What a responsibility was cast upon him when you come to think of it! How easily might he have chosen an equally blue-blooded, but leggy, rickety, pernicious weed, such as has so often been foisted upon unwary breeders.

Instead of which, he enriched us with the noble, whole-coloured, brown horse, choke-full of the best blood in England, of medium height, but perfect in symmetry, soundness, faultless in wind and limb, temper and courage, fated to be the long-remembered sire of racers, hacks, and harness horses of the highest class—to be honoured in life, regretted, ay, sincerely mourned, in death. For on his unexpected demise, his disconsolate owner was discovered in such a state of prostration and grief that every one thought his wife must be dead, or, at any rate, some relative near and dear.

Truly, the squatter of the 'forties' was from one reason or another a man _sui generis_, with whom the present pastoral era furnishes few parallels. Mr. Goldsmith, in addition to other accomplishments (did he not challenge Charles Macknight to a bout at single-stick, duly fought out within the precincts of the Melbourne Club?) was a musical connoisseur and no mean performer. When the comfortable cottage at Trawalla was completed, albeit stone-paved and bark-roofed, the drawing-room contained a handsome piano, to which, after dinner, the proprietor mostly betook himself. There, in operatic reminiscences and compositions of impromptu merit, he was wont to wander from the realms of reality to a dreamworld of sweet sounds and brighter souvenirs. How one envied him the delicious distraction!

So the Trawalla estate had birth and beginning. It was a first-class 'run' in those simpler times; well watered, with picturesque alternations of hill and dale, plain and forest. The 'shepherded' sheep had unfailing pasture and ample range. There were no fences in those days, excepting around the horse-paddock.

Temptations to over-stocking were fewer, and chiefly—in default of boundary—took the form of an invasion of some neighbour's territory, a trespass which his shepherds were prompt to resent. Thus, the natural grasses were but moderately fed down, and, with the autumn rains unfailing in _that_ district, assumed a richly verdurous garb, scarcely so frequent in the wire-fenced decades. I do not recall the name of the deserving but less fortunate pioneer, the first or second occupant of this desirable holding, from whom Mr. Goldsmith purchased the 'right-of-run,' with probably a mere handful of stock. With cash in hand, he was doubtless enabled to make an advantageous purchase, and thus enter upon his predecessor's labours; once more, as it turned out, to place his foot on fortune's ladder.

Far from London and Paris, Ascot and Goodwood, as he found himself, the erstwhile man about town was not wholly debarred from congenial society. William Gottreaux, another musical enthusiast, was at Lilaree; Hastings Cunningham at Mount Emu; Donald and Hamilton, Philip Russell, and other gentleman pioneers within an easy ride. He became a member of the Melbourne Club, then in Collins Street, upon the site of the Bank of Victoria. The late Sir Redmond Barry was his early and intimate friend. (I took charge of a small package of tobacco, on my homeward voyage, from the Judge, as it seems that particular brand was not procurable in Paris.) When things were settled at Trawalla and the stock manifestly improving, with Cornborough in a snug loose-box, and the sheep increasing fast, the owner of Trawalla found a reasonable amount of recreation, as comprised in frequent sojourns at the Melbourne Club, and the enjoyment of the metropolitan society of the day, quite compatible with the effective supervision of the station.

Thus, on the advancing tide of Victorian prosperity, then steadily sweeping onward, unknown to us all, Trawalla and its owner were floated on to fortune—a gently gliding, agreeable, and satisfactory process. The sheep multiplied, the fleece acquired name and repute—one _couldn't_ grow bad wool in that country, however hard you might try. Cornborough became a peer of the Godolphin Arabian in all men's eyes, and the A.G. brand, on beeve-or horse-hide, an accredited symbol of excellence. A purchase of waste land at St. Kilda, made solely, as he informed me, in order to qualify as a legislator, turned out a most profitable investment.

Swiftly the golden period arrived when, after the first years of doubt and uncertainty, it became apparent to holders of station property that nothing prevented them from clearing out at a highly satisfactory price, and leaving the conflicting elements of dear labour, high prices, and a heterogeneous population, to settle themselves as best they might. Mr. Goldsmith, now free to return to Europe, seriously considered the claims of the Rue de Bellechasse, Faubourg St. Germain, as contrasted with Collins Street and the Melbourne Club.

It may be that the owner of Trawalla would have decided upon continuous occupation, with a view to founding an estate, if his sons, who visited Victoria in 1851, had exhibited any aptitude for the life of Australian country gentlemen. But Messrs. Edward and Alfred Goldsmith, who had been educated chiefly in Paris, when they visited their father in 1851, did not take kindly to his adopted country. Cultured, polished young men, yet decidedly more French than English, Parisians to their finger-nails in all their tastes and habitudes, they grieved and irritated their Australianised parent.

Chiefly they lacked the adventurous spirit which would have enabled them to behold, mentally, the grand possibilities of a colonial possession. All their sympathies were with their lost Eden, the Paris which they had quitted. In Victoria they beheld nothing but the distasteful privations of a new country, hardly redeemed from primeval _sauvagerie_. The roads were rough, the beds hard, the cookery—'Ah, mon Dieu!—lamentable, indescribable.'

It was a good time to sell, and though the Trawalla estate of to-day represents a considerably larger sum than Mr. Simson gave for the run and stock, perhaps our old friend was not so far out when he decided to let well alone and retire upon a fair competency.

To that end the stud was sentenced to sale and dispersion; many a descendant of the lamented Cornborough went to enrich the paddocks of friends and well-wishers. I think Mr. Hastings Cunningham bought the greater number of the brood mares and young stock, at an average rate per head.

Now, Dermot was the old gentleman's hack. (Was he old, or, perhaps, only about forty-five? We were decided then as to the time of life when decay of all the faculties was presumed to set in.) I many a time and oft admired the swell, dark bay, striding along the South Yarra tracks with aristocratic elegance, or, more becomingly arrayed, carrying a lady in the front of a joyous riding-party. His owner was _un galant uomo_, and the gentle yet spirited steed was always at the service of his lady friends.

So when, one day at the club, he suggested to me to buy Dermot—more than one lady's horse being required in our family at that time, and only fifty pounds named as the price—I promptly closed.

Dead and buried is he years agone; but I still recall, with memory's aid, the dark bay horse, blood-like, symmetrical, beauteous in form as aristocratic in bearing. 'Hasn't he the terrifyin' head on him?' queried an Irish sympathiser, somewhat incongruously, as he gazed with rapt air and admiring eyes at the tapering muzzle, large, soft eyes, and Arab frontal.

Delicate, deer-like, strictly Eastern was the head referred to, beautifully set on a perfectly-arched neck, which again joined oblique, truly perfect shoulders. Their mechanism must have been such, inasmuch as never did I know any living horse with such liberty of forehand action.

Walking or cantering down an incline, shut but your eyes, and you were unable to tell by bodily sensation whether you were on level ground or otherwise. He 'pulled up' in a way different from any other horse. Apparently, he put out his legs, and, lo! you were again at a walk. No prop, shake, or jar was perceptible. It was a magical transformation. An invalid recovering from a fever could have ridden him a day's journey. No one could fall off him in fact.

He who had no peer was born

amid the green forest parks of Trawalla, at no great distance from Buninyong, or the historic goldfield of Ballarat.