Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

The fiendish resemblance which one sheep bears to another is a great advantage to them in their struggles with their owners. It makes it more difficult to draft them out of a strange flock, and much harder to tell when any are missing.

Concerning this resemblance between sheep, there is a story told of a fat old Murrumbidgee squatter who gave a big price for a famous ram called Sir Oliver. He took a friend out one day to inspect Sir Oliver, and overhauled that animal with a most impressive air of sheep-wisdom.

“Look here,” he said, “at the fineness of the wool. See the serrations in each thread of it. See the density of it. Look at the way his legs and belly are clothed--he's wool all over, that sheep. Grand animal, grand animal!”

Then they went and had a drink, and the old squatter said, “Now, I'll show you the difference between a champion ram and a second-rater.” So he caught a ram and pointed out his defects. “See here--not half the serrations that other sheep had. No density of fleece to speak of. Bare-bellied as a pig, compared with Sir Oliver. Not that this isn't a fair sheep, but he'd be dear at one-tenth Sir Oliver's price. By the way, Johnson” (to his overseer), “what ram _is_ this?”

“That, sir,” replied the astounded functionary--“that _is_ Sir Oliver, sir!”

There is another kind of sheep in Australia, as great a curse in his own way as the merino--namely, the cross-bred, or half-merino-half-Leicester animal. The cross-bred will get through, under, or over any fence you like to put in front of him. He is never satisfied with his owner's run, but always thinks other people's runs must be better, so he sets off to explore. He will strike a course, say, south-east, and so long as the fit takes him he will keep going south-east through all obstacles--rivers, fences, growing crops, anything. The merino relies on passive resistance for his success; the cross-bred carries the war into the enemy's camp, and becomes a living curse to his owner day and night.

Once there was a man who was induced in a weak moment to buy twenty cross-bred rams. From that hour the hand of Fate was upon him. They got into all the paddocks they shouldn't have been in. They scattered themselves over the run promiscuously. They visited the cultivation paddock and the vegetable-garden at their own sweet will. And then they took to roving. In a body they visited the neighbouring stations, and played havoc with the sheep all over the district.

The wretched owner was constantly getting fiery letters from his neighbours: “Your blanky rams are here. Come and take them away at once,” and he would have to go nine or ten miles to drive them home. Any man who has tried to drive rams on a hot day knows what purgatory is. He was threatened every week with actions for trespass.

He tried shutting them up in the sheep-yard. They got out and went back to the garden. Then he gaoled them in the calf-pen. Out again and into a growing crop. Then he set a boy to watch them; but the boy went to sleep, and they were four miles away across country before he got on to their tracks.

At length, when they happened accidentally to be at home on their owner's run, there came a big flood. His sheep, mostly merinos, had plenty of time to get on to high ground and save their lives; but, of course, they didn't, and were almost all drowned. The owner sat on a rise above the waste of waters and watched the dead animals go by. He was a ruined man. But he said, “Thank God, those cross-bred rams are drowned, anyhow.” Just as he spoke there was a splashing in the water, and the twenty rams solemnly swam ashore and ranged themselves in front of him. They were the only survivors of his twenty thousand sheep. He broke down, and was taken to an asylum for insane paupers. The cross-breds had fulfilled their destiny.

The cross-bred drives his owner out of his mind, but the merino ruins his man with greater celerity. Nothing on earth will kill cross-breds; nothing will keep merinos alive. If they are put on dry salt-bush country they die of drought. If they are put on damp, well-watered country they die of worms, fluke, and foot-rot. They die in the wet seasons and they die in the dry ones.

The hard, resentful look on the faces of all bushmen comes from a long course of dealing with merino sheep. The merino dominates the bush, and gives to Australian literature its melancholy tinge, its despairing pathos. The poems about dying boundary-riders, and lonely graves under mournful she-oaks, are the direct outcome of the poet's too close association with that soul-destroying animal. A man who could write anything cheerful after a day in the drafting-yards would be a freak of nature.

THE BULLOCK

The typical Australian bullock--long-horned, sullen-eyed, stupid, and vindictive--is bred away out in Queensland, on remote stations in the Never Never land, where men live on damper and beef, and occasionally eat a whole bottle of hot pickles at a sitting, simply to satisfy their craving for vegetable food. Here, under the blazing tropic sun, among flies and dust and loneliness, they struggle with the bullock from year's end to year's end. It is not to be supposed that they take up this kind of thing for fun. The man who worked cattle for sport would wheel bricks for amusement.

At periodical intervals a boom in cattle-country arises in the cities, and syndicates are formed to take up country and stock it. It looks so beautifully simple--_on paper_.

You get your country, thousands of miles of it, for next to nothing. You buy your breeding herd for a ridiculously small sum, on long-dated bills. Your staff consists of a manager, who toils for a share of the profits, a couple of half-civilized white stockmen at low wages, and a handful of blacks, who work harder for a little opium ash than they would for much money. Plant costs nothing, improvements nothing--no woolshed is needed, there are no shearers to pay, and no carriage to market, for the bullock walks himself down to his doom. Granted that prices are low, still it is obvious that there must be huge profits in the business. So the cattle start away out to “the country”, where they are supposed to increase and multiply, and enrich their owners. Alas! for such hopes. There is a curse on cattle.

No one has ever been able to explain exactly how the deficit arises. Put the figures before the oldest and most experienced cattleman, and he will fail to show why they don't work out right. And yet they never do. It is not the fault of the cattle themselves. Sheep would rather die than live--and when one comes to think of the life they lead, one can easily understand their preference for death; but cattle, if given half a chance, will do their best to prolong their existence.

If they are running on low-lying country and are driven off when a flood comes, they will probably walk back into the flood-water and get drowned as soon as their owner turns his back. But, as a rule, cattle are not suicidal. They sort themselves into mobs, they pick out the best bits of country, they find their way to the water, they breed habitually; but it always ends in the same way. The hand of Fate is against them.

If a drought comes, they eat off the grass near the water and have to travel far out for a feed. Then they fall away and get weak, and when they come down to drink they get bogged in the muddy waterholes and die there.

Or Providence sends the pleuro, and big strong beasts slink away by themselves, and stand under trees glaring savagely till death comes. Or else the tick attacks them, and soon a fine, strong beast becomes a miserable, shrunken, tottering wreck. Once cattle get really low in condition they are done for. Sheep can be shifted when their pasture fails, but you can't shift cattle. They die quicker on the roads than on the run. The only thing is to watch and pray for rain. It always comes--after the cattle are dead.

As for describing the animals themselves, it would take volumes. Sheep are all alike, but cattle are all different. The drovers on the road get to know the habits and tendencies of each particular bullock--the one-eyed bullock that pokes out to the side of the mob, the inquisitive bullock that is always walking over towards the drover as if he were going to speak to him, the agitator bullock who is always trying to get up a stampede and prodding the others with his horns.

In poor Boake's “Where the Dead Men Lie” he says:

Only the hand of Night can free them--
That's when the dead men fly!
Only the frightened cattle see them--
See the dead men go by!
Cloven hoofs beating out one measure,
Bidding the stockman know no leisure--
That's when the dead men take their pleasure!
That's when the dead men fly!

Cattle on a camp see ghosts, sure enough--else, why is it that, when hundreds are in camp at night--some standing, some lying asleep, all facing different ways--in an instant, at some invisible cause of alarm, the whole mob are on their feet and all racing _in the same direction_, away from some unseen terror?

It doesn't do to sneak round cattle at night; it is better to whistle and sing than to surprise them by a noiseless appearance. Anyone sneaking about frightens them, and then they will charge right over the top of somebody on the opposite side, and away into the darkness, becoming more and more frightened as they go, smashing against trees and stumps, breaking legs and ribs, and playing the dickens with themselves generally. Cattle “on the road” are unaccountable animals; one cannot say for certain what they will do. In this respect they differ from sheep, whose movements can be predicted with absolute certainty.

All the cussedness of the bovine race is centred in the cow. In Australia the most opprobious epithet one can apply to a man or other object is “cow”. In the whole range of a bullock-driver's vocabulary there is no word that expresses his blistering scorn so well as “cow”. To an exaggerated feminine perversity the cow adds a fiendish ingenuity in making trouble.

A quiet milking-cow will “plant” her calf with such skill that ten stockmen cannot find him in a one-mile paddock. While the search goes on she grazes unconcernedly, as if she never had a calf in her life. If by chance he be discovered, then one notices a curious thing. The very youngest calf, the merest staggering-Bob two days old, will not move till the old lady gives him orders to do so. One may pull him about without getting a move out of him. If sufficiently persecuted he will at last sing out for help, and then his mother will arrive full-gallop, charge men and horses indiscriminately, and clear out with him to the thickest timber in the most rugged part of the creek-bed, defying man to get her to the yard.

While in his mother's company he seconds her efforts with great judgment. But, if he be separated from her, he will follow a horse and rider up to the yard thinking he is following his mother, though she bellow instructions to him from the rear. Then the guileless agriculturist, having penned him up, sets a dog on him, and his cries soon fetch the old cow full-run to his assistance. Once in the yard she is roped, hauled into the bail, propped up to prevent her throwing herself down, and milked by sheer brute-force. After a while she steadies down and will walk into the bail, knowing her turn and behaving like a respectable female.

Cows and calves have no idea of sound or distance. If a cow is on the opposite side of the fence, and wishes to communicate with her calf, she will put her head through the fence, place her mouth against his ear as if she were going to whisper, and then utter a roar that can be heard two miles off. It would stun a human being; but the calf thinks it over for a moment, and then answers with a prolonged yell in the old cow's ear. So the dialogue goes on for hours without either party dropping dead.

There is an element of danger in dealing with cattle that makes men smart and self-reliant and independent. Men who deal with sheep get gloomy and morbid, and are for ever going on strike. Nobody ever heard of a stockman's strike. The true stockrider thinks himself just as good a man as his boss, and inasmuch as “the boss” never makes any money, while the stockman gets his wages, the stockman may be considered as having the better position of the two.

Sheepmen like to think that they know all about cattle, and could work them if they chose. A Queensland drover once took a big mob from the Gulf right down through New South Wales, selling various lots as he went. He had to deliver some to a small sheep-man, near Braidwood, who was buying a few hundred cattle as a spec. By the time they arrived, the cattle had been on the road eight months, and were quiet as milkers. But the sheep-man and his satellites came out, riding stable-fed horses and brandishing twenty-foot whips, all determined to sell their lives dearly. They galloped round the astonished cattle and spurred their horses and cracked their whips, till they roused the weary mob. Then they started to cut out the beasts they wanted. The horses rushed and pulled, and the whips maddened the cattle, and all was turmoil and confusion.

The Queensland drovers looked on amazed, sitting their patient leg-weary horses they had ridden almost continuously for eight months. At last, seeing the hash the sheep-men were making of it, the drovers set to work, and in a little while, without a shout, or crack of a whip, had cut out the required number. These the head drover delivered to the buyer, simply remarking, “Many's the time _you_ never cut-out cattle.”

As I write, there rises a vision of a cattle-camp on an open plain, the blue sky overhead, the long grass rustling below, the great mob of parti-coloured cattle eddying restlessly about, thrusting at each other with their horns; and in among the sullen half-savage animals go the light, wiry stock-riders, horse and man working together, watchful, quick, and resolute.

A white steer is wanted that is right in the throng. Way!--make way! and horse and rider edge into the restless sea of cattle, the man with his eye fixed on the selected animal, the horse, glancing eagerly about him, trying to discover which is the wanted one. The press divides and the white steer scuttles along the edge of the mob trying to force his way in again. Suddenly he and two or three others are momentarily eddied out to the outskirts of the mob, and in that second the stockman dashes his horse between them and the main body. The lumbering beasts rush hither and thither in a vain attempt to return to their comrades. Those not wanted are allowed to return, but the white steer finds, to his dismay, that wherever he turns that horse and man and dreaded whip are confronting him. He doubles and dodges and makes feints to charge, but the horse anticipates every movement and wheels quicker than the bullock. At last the white steer sees the outlying mob he is required to join, and trots off to them quite happy, while horse and rider return to cut out another.

It is a pretty exhibition of skill and intelligence, doubly pleasant to watch because of the undoubted interest that the horses take in it. Big, stupid creatures that they are, cursed with highly-strung nerves, and blessed with little sense, they are pathetically anxious to do such work as they can understand. So they go into the cutting-out camp with a zest, and toil all day edging lumbering bullocks out of the mob, but as soon as a bad rider gets on them and begins to haul their mouths about, their nerves overcome them, and they get awkward and frightened. A horse that is a crack camp-horse in one man's hands may be a hopeless brute in the hands of another.

WHITE-WHEN-HE'S-WANTED

Buckalong was a big freehold of some 80,000 acres, belonging to an absentee syndicate, and therefore run in most niggardly style. There was a manager on 200 pounds a year, Sandy M'Gregor to wit--a hard-headed old Scotchman known as “four-eyed M'Gregor”, because he wore spectacles. For assistants, he had half-a-dozen of us--jackaroos and colonial-experiencers--who got nothing a year, and earned it.

We had, in most instances, paid premiums to learn the noble art of squatting--which now appears to me hardly worth studying, for so much depends on luck that a man with a head as long as a horse's has little better chance than the fool just imported. Besides the manager and the jackaroos, there were a few boundary riders to prowl round the fences of the vast paddocks. This constituted the whole station staff.

Buckalong was on one of the main routes by which stock were taken to market, or from the plains to the tablelands, and vice versa. Great mobs of travelling sheep constantly passed through the run, eating up the grass and vexing the soul of the manager. By law, sheep must travel six miles per day, and they must be kept to within half-a-mile of the road. Of course we kept all the grass near the road eaten bare, to discourage travellers from coming that way.

Such hapless wretches as did venture through Buckalong used to try hard to stray from the road and pick up a feed, but old Sandy was always ready for them, and would have them dogged right through the run. This bred feuds, and bad language, and personal combats between us and the drovers, whom we looked upon as natural enemies.

The men who came through with mobs of cattle used to pull down the paddock fences at night, and slip the cattle in for refreshments, but old Sandy often turned out at 2 or 3 a.m. to catch a mob of bullocks in the horse-paddock, and then off they went to Buckalong pound. The drovers, as in duty bound, attributed the trespass to accident--broken rails, and so on--and sometimes they tried to rescue the cattle, which again bred strife and police-court summonses.

Besides having a particular aversion to drovers, old M'Gregor had a general “down” on the young Australians whom he comprehensively described as a “feckless, horrse-dealin', horrse-stealin', crawlin' lot o' wretches.” According to him, a native-born would sooner work a horse to death than work for a living any day. He hated any man who wanted to sell him a horse.

“As aw walk the street,” he used to say, “the fouk disna stawp me to buy claes nor shoon, an' wheerfore should they stawp me to buy horrses? It's 'Mister M'Gregor, will ye purrchase a horrse?' Let them wait till I ask them to come wi' their horrses.”

Such being his views on horseflesh and drovers, we felt no little excitement when one Sunday, at dinner, the cook came in to say there was “a drover-chap outside wanted the boss to come and have a look at a horse.” M'Gregor simmered a while, and muttered something about the “Sawbath day”; but at last he went out, and we filed after him to see the fun.

The drover stood by the side of his horse, beneath the acacia trees in the yard. He had a big scar on his face, apparently the result of collision with a fence; he looked thin and sickly and seemed poverty-stricken enough to disarm hostility. Obviously, he was down on his luck. Had it not been for that indefinable self-reliant look which drovers--the Ishmaels of the bush--always acquire, one might have taken him for a swagman. His horse was in much the same plight. It was a ragged, unkempt pony, pitifully poor and very footsore, at first sight, an absolute “moke”; but a second glance showed colossal round ribs, square hips, and a great length of rein, the rest hidden beneath a wealth of loose hair. He looked like “a good journey horse”, possibly something better.

We gathered round while M'Gregor questioned the drover. The man was monosyllabic to a degree, as the real bushmen generally are. It is only the rowdy and the town-bushy that are fluent of speech.

“Guid mornin',” said M'Gregor.

“Mornin', boss,” said the drover, shortly.

“Is this the horrse ye hae for sale?”

“Yes.”

“Ay,” and M'Gregor looked at the pony with a businesslike don't-think-much-of-him air, ran his hand lightly over the hard legs, and opened the passive creature's mouth. “H'm,” he said. Then he turned to the drover. “Ye seem a bit oot o' luck. Ye're thin like. What's been the matter?”

“Been sick with fever--Queensland fever. Just come through from the North. Been out on the Diamantina last.”

“Ay. I was there mysel',” said M'Gregor. “Hae ye the fever on ye still?”

“Yes--goin' home to get rid of it.”

A man can only get Queensland fever in a malarial district, but he can carry it with him wherever he goes. If he stays, it will sap his strength and pull him to pieces; if he moves to a better climate, the malady moves with him, leaving him by degrees, and coming back at regular intervals to rack, shake, burn, and sweat its victim. Gradually it wears itself out, often wearing its patient out at the same time. M'Gregor had been through the experience, and there was a slight change in his voice as he went on with his palaver.

“Whaur are ye makin' for the noo?”

“Monaro--my people live in Monaro.”

“Hoo will ye get to Monaro gin ye sell the horrse?”

“Coach and rail. Too sick to care about ridin',” said the drover, while a wan smile flitted over his yellow-grey features. “I've rode him far enough. I've rode that horse a thousand miles. I wouldn't sell him, only I'm a bit hard up. Sellin' him now to get the money to go home.”

“Hoo auld is he?”

“Seven.”

“Is he a guid horrse on a camp?” asked M'Gregor.

“No better camp-horse in Queensland,” said the drover. “You can chuck the reins on his neck, an' he'll cut out a beast by himself.”

M'Gregor's action in this matter puzzled us. We spent our time crawling after sheep, and a camp-horse would be about as much use to us as side-pockets to a pig. We had expected Sandy to rush the fellow off the place at once, and we couldn't understand how it was that he took so much interest in him. Perhaps the fever-racked drover and the old camp-horse appealed to him in a way incomprehensible to us. We had never been on the Queensland cattle-camps, nor shaken and shivered with the fever, nor lived the roving life of the overlanders. M'Gregor had done all this, and his heart (I can see it all now) went out to the man who brought the old days back to him.

“Ah, weel,” he said, “we hae'na muckle use for a camp-horrse here, ye ken; wi'oot some of these lads wad like to try theer han' cuttin' oot the milkers' cawves frae their mithers.” And the old man laughed contemptuously, while we felt humbled in the sight of the man from far back. “An' what'll ye be wantin' for him?” asked M'Gregor.

“Reckon he's worth fifteen notes,” said the drover.

This fairly staggered us. Our estimates had varied between thirty shillings and a fiver. We thought the negotiations would close abruptly; but M'Gregor, after a little more examination, agreed to give the price, provided the saddle and bridle, both grand specimens of ancient art, were given in. This was agreed to, and the drover was sent off to get his meals in the hut before leaving by the coach.

“The mon is verra harrd up, an' it's a sair thing that Queensland fever,” was the only remark M'Gregor made. But we knew now that there was a soft spot in his heart somewhere.

Next morning the drover got a crisp-looking cheque. He said no word while the cheque was being written, but, as he was going away, the horse happened to be in the yard, and he went over to the old comrade that had carried him so many miles, and laid a hand on his neck.

“He ain't much to look at,” said the drover, speaking slowly and awkwardly, “but he's white when he's wanted.” And just before the coach rattled off, the man of few words leant down from the box and nodded impressively, and repeated, “Yes, he's white when he's wanted.”

We didn't trouble to give the new horse a name. Station horses are generally called after the man from whom they are bought. “Tom Devine”, “The Regan mare”, “Black M'Carthy” and “Bay M'Carthy” were among the appellations of our horses at that time. As we didn't know the drover's name, we simply called the animal “The new horse” until a still newer horse was one day acquired. Then, one of the hands being told to take the new horse, said, “D'yer mean the _new_ new horse or the _old_ new horse?”

“Naw,” said the boss, “not the new horrse--that bay horrse we bought frae the drover. The ane he said was white when he's wanted.”

And so, by degrees, the animal came to be referred to as the horse that's white when he's wanted, and at last settled down to the definite name of “White-when-he's-wanted”.

White-when-he's-wanted didn't seem much of an acquisition. He was sent out to do slavery for Greenhide Billy, a boundary-rider who plumed himself on having once been a cattle-man. After a week's experience of “White”, Billy came in to the homestead disgusted. The pony was so lazy that he had to build a fire under him to get him to move, and so rough that it made a man's nose bleed to ride him more than a mile. “The boss must have been off his head to give fifteen notes for such a cow.”

M'Gregor heard this complaint. “Verra weel, Mr. Billy,” said he, hotly, “ye can juist tak' ane of the young horrses in yon paddock, an' if he bucks wi' ye an' kills ye, it's yer ain fault. Ye're a cattleman--so ye say--dommed if ah believe it. Ah believe ye're a dairy-farmin' body frae Illawarra. Ye ken neither horrse nor cattle. Mony's the time ye never rode buckjumpers, Mr. Billy”--and with this parting-shot the old man turned into the house, and White-when-he's-wanted came back to the head station.

For a while he was a sort of pariah. He used to yard the horses, fetch up the cows, and hunt travelling sheep through the run. He really was lazy and rough, and we all decided that Billy's opinion of him was correct, until the day came to make one of our periodical raids on the wild horses in the hills at the back of the run.

Every now and again we formed parties to run in some of these animals, and, after nearly galloping to death half-a-dozen good horses, we would capture three or four brumbies, and bring them in triumph to the homestead to be broken in. By the time they had thrown half the crack riders on the station, broken all the bridles, rolled on all the saddles, and kicked all the dogs, they would be marketable (and no great bargains) at about thirty shillings a head.

Yet there is no sport in the world to be mentioned in the same volume as “running horses”, and we were very keen on it. All the crack nags were got as fit as possible, and fed up beforehand; and on this particular occasion White-when-he's-wanted, being in good trim, was given a week's hard feed and lent to a harum-scarum fellow from the Upper Murray, who happened to be working in a survey camp on the run. How he did open our eyes!

He ran the mob from hill to hill, from range to range, across open country and back again to the hills, over flats and gullies, through hop-scrub and stringybark ridges; and all the time White-when-he's-wanted was on the wing of the mob, pulling double. The mares and foals dropped out, the colts and young stock pulled up dead beat, and only the seasoned veterans were left. Most of our horses caved in altogether; one or two were kept in the hunt by judicious nursing and shirking the work; but White-when-he's-wanted was with the quarry from end to end of the run, doing double his share; and at the finish, when a chance offered to wheel them into the trapyard, he simply smothered them for pace, and slewed them into the wings before they knew where they were. Such a capture had not fallen to our lot for many a day, and the fame of White-when-he's-wanted was speedily noised abroad.

He was always fit for work, always hungry, always ready to lie down and roll, and always lazy. But when he heard the rush of the brumbies' feet in the scrub he became frantic with excitement. He could race over the roughest ground without misplacing a hoof or altering his stride, and he could sail over fallen timber and across gullies like a kangaroo. Nearly every Sunday we were after the brumbies, until they got as lean as greyhounds and as cunning as policemen. We were always ready to back White-when-he's-wanted to run-down, single-handed, any animal in the bush that we liked to put him after--wild horses, wild cattle, kangaroos, emus, dingoes, kangaroo-rats--we barred nothing, for, if he couldn't beat them for pace, he would outlast them.

And then one day he disappeared from the paddock, and we never saw him again. We knew there were plenty of men in the district who would steal him; but, as we knew also of many more who would “inform” for a pound or two, we were sure that it could not have been local “talent” that had taken him. We offered good rewards and set some of the right sort to work, but heard nothing of him for about a year.

Then the surveyor's assistant turned up again, after a trip to the interior. He told us the usual string of back-block lies, and wound up by saying that out on the very fringe of settlement he had met an old acquaintance.

“Who was that?”

“Why, that little bay horse that I rode after the brumbies that time. The one you called White-when-he's-wanted.”

“The deuce you did! Are you sure? Who had him?”

“Sure! I'd swear to him anywhere. A little drover fellow had him. A little fellow, with a big scar across his forehead. Came from Monaro way somewhere. He said he bought the horse from you for fifteen notes.”

The King's warrant doesn't run much out west of Boulia, and it is not likely that any of us will ever see the drover again, or will ever again cross the back of “White-when-he's-wanted”.

THE DOWNFALL OF MULLIGAN'S

The sporting men of Mulligan's were an exceedingly knowing lot; in fact, they had obtained the name amongst their neighbours of being a little bit too knowing. They had “taken down” the adjoining town in a variety of ways. They were always winning maiden plates with horses which were shrewdly suspected to be old and well-tried performers in disguise.

When the sports of Paddy's Flat unearthed a phenomenal runner in the shape of a blackfellow called Frying-pan Joe, the Mulligan contingent immediately took the trouble to discover a blackfellow of their own, and they made a match and won all the Paddy's Flat money with ridiculous ease; then their blackfellow turned out to be a well-known Sydney performer. They had a man who could fight, a man who could be backed to jump five-feet-ten, a man who could kill eight pigeons out of nine at thirty yards, a man who could make a break of fifty or so at billiards if he tried; they could all drink, and they all had that indefinite look of infinite wisdom and conscious superiority which belongs only to those who know something about horseflesh.

They knew a great many things never learnt at Sunday-school. They were experts at cards and dice. They would go to immense trouble to work off any small swindle in the sporting line. In short the general consensus of opinion was that they were a very “fly” crowd at Mulligan's, and if you went there you wanted to “keep your eyes skinned” or they'd “have” you over a threepenny-bit.

There were races at Sydney one Christmas, and a select band of the Mulligan sportsmen were going down to them. They were in high feather, having just won a lot of money from a young Englishman at pigeon-shooting, by the simple method of slipping blank cartridges into his gun when he wasn't looking, and then backing the bird.

They intended to make a fortune out of the Sydney people, and admirers who came to see them off only asked them as a favour to leave money enough in Sydney to make it worth while for another detachment to go down later on. Just as the train was departing a priest came running on to the platform, and was bundled into the carriage where our Mulligan friends were; the door was slammed to, and away they went. His Reverence was hot and perspiring, and for a few minutes mopped himself with a handkerchief, while the silence was unbroken except by the rattle of the train.

After a while one of the Mulligan fraternity got out a pack of cards and proposed a game to while away the time. There was a young squatter in the carriage who looked as if he might be induced to lose a few pounds, and the sportsmen thought they would be neglecting their opportunities if they did not try to “get a bit to go on with” from him. He agreed to play, and, just as a matter of courtesy, they asked the priest whether he would take a hand.

“What game d'ye play?” he asked, in a melodious brogue.

They explained that any game was equally acceptable to them, but they thought it right to add that they generally played for money.

“Sure an' it don't matter for wanst in a way,” said he--“Oi'll take a hand bedad--Oi'm only going about fifty miles, so Oi can't lose a fortune.”

They lifted a light portmanteau on to their knees to make a table, and five of them--three of the Mulligan crowd and the two strangers--started to have a little game of poker. Things looked rosy for the Mulligan boys, who chuckled as they thought how soon they were making a beginning, and what a magnificent yarn they would have to tell about how they rooked a priest on the way down.

Nothing sensational resulted from the first few deals, and the priest began to ask questions.

“Be ye going to the races?”

They said they were.

“Ah! and Oi suppose ye'll be betting wid thim bookmakers--betting on the horses, will yez? They do be terrible knowing men, thim bookmakers, they tell me. I wouldn't bet much if Oi was ye,” he said, with an affable smile. “If ye go bettin' ye will be took in wid thim bookmakers.”

The boys listened with a bored air and reckoned that by the time they parted the priest would have learnt that they were well able to look after themselves. They went steadily on with the game, and the priest and the young squatter won slightly; this was part of the plan to lead them on to plunge. They neared the station where the priest was to get out. He had won rather more than they liked, so the signal was passed round to “put the cross on”. Poker is a game at which a man need not risk much unless he feels inclined, and on this deal the priest stood out. Consequently, when they drew up at his station he was still a few pounds in.

“Bedad,” he said, “Oi don't loike goin' away wid yer money. Oi'll go on to the next station so as ye can have revinge.” Then he sat down again, and play went on in earnest.

The man of religion seemed to have the Devil's own luck. When he was dealt a good hand he invariably backed it well, and if he had a bad one he would not risk anything. The sports grew painfully anxious as they saw him getting further and further ahead of them, prattling away all the time like a big schoolboy. The squatter was the biggest loser so far, but the priest was the only winner. All the others were out of pocket. His reverence played with great dash, and seemed to know a lot about the game, so that on arrival at the second station he was a good round sum in pocket.

He rose to leave them with many expressions of regret, and laughingly promised full revenge next time. Just as he was opening the carriage door, one of the Mulligan fraternity said in a stage-whisper: “He's a blanky sink-pocket. If he can come this far, let him come on to Sydney and play for double the stakes.” Like a shot the priest turned on him.

“Bedad, an' if _that's_ yer talk, Oi'll play ye fer double stakes from here to the other side of glory. Do yez think men are mice because they eat cheese? It isn't one of the Ryans would be fearing to give any man his revinge!”

He snorted defiance at them, grabbed his cards and waded in. The others felt that a crisis was at hand and settled down to play in a dead silence. But the priest kept on winning steadily, and the “old man” of the Mulligan push saw that something decisive must be done, and decided on a big plunge to get all the money back on one hand. By a dexterous manipulation of the cards he dealt himself four kings, almost the best hand at poker. Then he began with assumed hesitation to bet on his hand, raising the stake little by little.

“Sure ye're trying to bluff, so ye are!” said the priest, and immediately raised it.

The others had dropped out of the game and watched with painful interest the stake grow and grow. The Mulligan fraternity felt a cheerful certainty that the “old man” had made things safe, and regarded themselves as mercifully delivered from an unpleasant situation. The priest went on doggedly raising the stake in response to his antagonist's challenges until it had attained huge dimensions.

“Sure that's high enough,” said he, putting into the pool sufficient to entitle him to see his opponent's hand.

The “old man” with great gravity laid down his four kings, whereat the Mulligan boys let a big sigh of relief escape them.

Then the priest laid down four aces and scooped the pool.

The sportsmen of Mulligan's never quite knew how they got out to Randwick. They borrowed a bit of money in Sydney, and found themselves in the saddling-paddock in a half-dazed condition, trying to realize what had happened to them. During the afternoon they were up at the end of the lawn near the Leger stand and could hear the babel of tongues, small bookmakers, thimble riggers, confidence men, and so on, plying their trades outside. In the tumult of voices they heard one that sounded familiar. Soon suspicion grew into certainty, and they knew that it was the voice of “Father” Ryan. They walked to the fence and looked over. This is what he was saying:--

“Pop it down, gents! Pop it down! If you don't put down a brick you can't pick up a castle! I'll bet no one here can pick the knave of hearts out of these three cards. I'll bet half-a-sovereign no one here can find the knave!”

Then the crowd parted a little, and through the opening they could see him distinctly, doing a great business and showing wonderful dexterity with the pasteboard.

There is still enough money in Sydney to make it worth while for another detachment to come down from Mulligan's; but the next lot will hesitate about playing poker with priests in the train.

THE AMATEUR GARDENER

The first step in amateur gardening is to sit down and consider what good you are going to get by it. If you are only a tenant by the month, as most people are, it is obviously not of much use for you to plant a fruit orchard or an avenue of oak trees. What you want is something that will grow quickly, and will stand transplanting, for when you move it would be a sin to leave behind you the plants on which you have spent so much labour and so much patent manure.

We knew a man once who was a bookmaker by trade--and a Leger bookmaker at that--but had a passion for horses and flowers. When he “had a big win”, as he occasionally did, it was his custom to have movable wooden stables, built on skids, put up in the yard, and to have tons of the best soil that money could buy carted into the garden of the premises which he was occupying.

Then he would keep splendid horses, and grow rare roses and show-bench chrysanthemums. His landlord passing by would see the garden in a blaze of colour, and promise himself to raise the bookmaker's rent next quarter day.

However, when the bookmaker “took the knock”, as he invariably did at least twice a year, it was his pleasing custom to move without giving notice. He would hitch two cart-horses to the stables, and haul them right away at night. He would not only dig up the roses, trees, and chrysanthemums he had planted, but would also cart away the soil he had brought in; in fact, he used to shift the garden bodily. He had one garden that he shifted to nearly every suburb in Sydney; and he always argued that the change of air was invaluable for chrysanthemums.

Being determined, then, to go in for gardening on common-sense principles, and having decided on the shrubs you mean to grow, the next consideration is your chance of growing them.

If your neighbour keeps game fowls, it may be taken for granted that before long they will pay you a visit, and you will see the rooster scratching your pot plants out by the roots as if they were so much straw, just to make a nice place to lie down and fluff the dust over himself. Goats will also stray in from the street, and bite the young shoots off, selecting the most valuable plants with a discrimination that would do credit to a professional gardener.

It is therefore useless to think of growing delicate or squeamish plants. Most amateur gardeners maintain a lifelong struggle against the devices of Nature; but when the forces of man and the forces of Nature come into conflict Nature wins every time. Nature has decreed that certain plants shall be hardy, and therefore suitable to suburban amateur gardeners; the suburban amateur gardener persists in trying to grow quite other plants, and in despising those marked out by Nature for his use. It is to correct this tendency that this article is written.

The greatest standby to the amateur gardener should undoubtedly be the blue-flowered shrub known as “plumbago”. This homely but hardy plant will grow anywhere. It naturally prefers a good soil, and a sufficient rainfall, but if need be it will worry along without either. Fowls cannot scratch it up, and even the goat turns away dismayed from its hard-featured branches. The flower is not strikingly beautiful nor ravishingly scented, but it flowers nine months out of the year; smothered with street dust and scorched by the summer sun, you will find that faithful old plumbago plugging along undismayed. A plant like this should be encouraged--but the misguided amateur gardener as a rule despises it.

The plant known as the churchyard geranium is also one marked out by Providence for the amateur; so is Cosmea, which comes up year after year where once planted. In creepers, bignonia and lantana will hold their own under difficulties perhaps as well as any that can be found. In trees the Port Jackson fig is a patriotic one to grow. It is a fine plant to provide exercise, as it sheds its leaves unsparingly, and requires the whole garden to be swept up every day.

Your aim as a student of Nature should be to encourage the survival of the fittest. There is a grass called nut grass, and another called Parramatta grass, either of which holds its own against anything living or dead. The average gardening manual gives you recipes for destroying these. Why should you destroy them in favour of a sickly plant that needs constant attention? No. The Parramatta grass is the selected of Nature, and who are you to interfere with Nature?

Having decided to go in for strong, simple plants that will hold their own, and a bit over, you must get your implements of husbandry.

The spade is the first thing, but the average ironmonger will show you an unwieldy weapon only meant to be used by navvies. Don't buy it. Get a small spade, about half-size--it is nice and light and doesn't tire the wrist, and with it you can make a good display of enthusiasm, and earn the hypocritical admiration of your wife. After digging for half-an-hour or so, get her to rub your back with any of the backache cures. From that moment you will have no further need for the spade.

A barrow is about the only other thing needed; anyhow, it is almost a necessity for wheeling cases of whisky up to the house. A rake is useful when your terrier dog has bailed up a cat, and will not attack it until the cat is made to run.

Talking of terrier dogs, an acquaintance of ours has a dog that does all his gardening. The dog is a small elderly terrier with a failing memory. As soon as the terrier has planted a bone in the garden the owner slips over, digs it up and takes it away. When that terrier goes back and finds the bone gone, he distrusts his memory, and begins to think that perhaps he has made a mistake, and has dug in the wrong place; so he sets to work, and digs patiently all over the garden, turning over acres of soil in the course of his search. This saves his master a lot of backache.

The sensible amateur gardener, then, will not attempt to fight with Nature but will fall in with her views. What more pleasant than to get out of bed at 11.30 on a Sunday morning; to look out of your window at a lawn waving with the feathery plumes of Parramatta grass, and to see beyond it the churchyard geranium flourishing side by side with the plumbago and the Port Jackson fig?

The garden gate blows open, and the local commando of goats, headed by an aged and fragrant patriarch, locally known as De Wet, rushes in; but their teeth will barely bite through the wiry stalks of the Parramatta grass, and the plumbago and the figtree fail to attract them, and before long they stand on one another's shoulders, scale the fence, and disappear into the next-door garden, where a fanatic is trying to grow show roses.

After the last goat has scaled your neighbour's fence, and only De Wet is left, your little dog discovers him. De Wet beats a hurried retreat, apparently at full speed, with the dog exactly one foot behind him in frantic pursuit. We say apparently at full speed, because experience has taught that De Wet can run as fast as a greyhound when he likes; but he never exerts himself to go faster than is necessary to keep just in front of whatever dog is after him.

Hearing the scrimmage, your neighbour comes on to his verandah, and sees the chase going down the street.

“Ha! that wretched old De Wet again!” he says. “Small hope your dog has of catching him! Why don't you get a garden gate like mine, so that he won't get in?”

“No; he can't get in at your gate,” is the reply; “but I think his commando are in your back garden now.”

Then follows a frantic rush. Your neighbour falls downstairs in his haste, and the commando, after stopping to bite some priceless pot plants of your neighbour's as they come out, skips easily back over the fence and through your gate into the street again.

If a horse gets in his hoofs make no impression on the firm turf of the Parramatta grass, and you get quite a hearty laugh by dropping a chair on him from the first-floor window.

The game fowls of your other neighbour come fluttering into your garden, and scratch and chuckle and fluff themselves under your plumbago bush; but you don't worry. Why should you? They can't hurt it; and, besides, you know that the small black hen and the big yellow one, who have disappeared from the throng, are even now laying their daily egg for you behind the thickest bush.

Your little dog rushes frantically up and down the front bed of your garden, barking and racing, and tearing up the ground, because his rival little dog, who lives down the street, is going past with his master, and each pretends that he wants to be at the other--as they have pretended every day for the past three years. The performance he is going through doesn't disturb you. Why should it? By following the directions in this article you have selected plants he cannot hurt.

After breakfasting at noon, you stroll out, and, perhaps, smooth with your foot, or with your spade, the inequalities made by the hens; you gather up casually the eggs they have laid; you whistle to your little dog, and go out for a stroll with a light heart.

THIRSTY ISLAND

Travellers approaching a bush township are sure to find some distance from the town a lonely public-house waiting by the roadside to give them welcome. Thirsty (miscalled Thursday) Island is the outlying pub of Australia.

When the China and British-India steamers arrive from the North the first place they come to is Thirsty Island, the sentinel at the gate of Torres Straits. New chums on the steamers see a fleet of white-sailed pearling luggers, a long pier clustered with a hybrid crowd of every colour, caste and creed under Heaven, and at the back of it all a little galvanized-iron town shining in the sun.

For nine months of the year a crisp, cool south-east wind blows, the snow-white beach is splashed with spray and dotted with the picturesque figures of Japanese divers and South Sea Island boatmen. Coco-nut palms line the roads by the beach, and back of the town are the barracks and a fort nestling among the trees on the hillside. Thirsty Island is a nice place--to look at.

When a vessel makes fast the Thirsty Islanders come down to greet the new-comers and give them welcome to Australia. The new-chums are inclined to patronise these simple, outlying people. Fresh from the iniquities of the China-coast cocktail and the unhallowed orgies of the Sourabaya Club, new-chums think they have little to learn in the way of drink; at any rate, they haven't come all the way to Thursday Island to be taught anything. Poor new-chums! Little do they know the kind of people they are up against.

The following description of a night at Thursday Island is taken from a new-chum's note book:

“Passed Proudfoot shoal and arrived at Thursday Island. First sight of Australia. Lot of men came aboard, all called Captain. They are all pearl-fishers or pilots, not a bit like the bushmen I expected. When they came aboard they divided into parties. Some invaded the Captain's cabin; others sat in the smoking room; the rest crowded into the saloon. They talked to the passengers about the Boer War, and told us about pearls worth 1000 pounds that had been found lately.

“One captain pulled a handful of loose pearls out of a jar and handed them round in a casual way for us to look at. The stewards opened bottles and we all sat down for a drink and a smoke. I spoke to one captain--an oldish man--and he grinned amiably, but did not answer. Another captain leaned over to me and said, 'Don't take any notice of him, he's boozed all this week.'