“No, Wildduck ran away from a travelling mob of cattle,” answered Hawkesbury. “She’s a smart gin when she’s away from grog, and a stunner at cutting out on a camp.”
That day passed in an exhaustive general tour round the run. Mounted upon an elderly stock-horse of unimpeachable figure, with legs considerably the worse for wear, and provided with a saddle which caused him to vow that never again would he permit himself to be dissociated from his favourite Wilkinson, Jack was piloted by Mr. Hawkesbury through the “frontage” and a considerable portion of the “back” regions of Gondaree. It was the same story: oceans of feed, water everywhere, all the cattle rolling fat. Nothing that the most hard-hearted buyer could object to, if troubled with but a grain of conscience. Billowy waves of oat grass, wild clover (medicago sativa), and half-a-dozen strange fodder plants, of which Redgrave knew not the names, adorned the great meadows or river flats; while out of the immense reed-beds, the feathery tassels of which stirred in the breeze far above their heads, came ever and anon, at the crack of the stock-whip, large droves of cattle in Indian file, in such gorgeous condition that, as our hero could not refrain from saying, a dealer in fat stock might have taken the whole lot to market, cows, calves, bullocks and steers, without rejecting a beast.
Leaving these grand savannahs, when they proceeded to the more arid back country there was still no deterioration in the character of the pasturage. Myall and boree belts of timber, never known to grow upon “poor” or “sour” land, alternated with far-stretching plains, where the salt-bush, the cotton-bush, and many another salsiferous herb and shrub, betokened that Elysium of the squatter, “sound fattening country.” John Redgrave was charmed. He forgot the dog-hole he had left in the morning, the fleas, the pigs, the evil habiliments of Bob the cook, the uninviting meal, all the shocks and outrages upon his tastes and habits; his mind dwelt only upon the great extent and apparently half-stocked condition of Gondaree. And as they rode home by starlight the somewhat perilous stumbles of the old stock-horse only partially disturbed a reverie in which a new wool-shed, a crack wash-pen, every kind of modern “improvement,” embellished a model run, carrying fifty thousand high-caste merino sheep.
He demolished his well-earned supper of corned beef and damper that night with quite another species of appetite; and as he deposited himself in an extemporized hammock, above the reach of midnight marauders, he told himself that Gondaree was not such a bad place after all, and only wanted an owner possessed of sufficient brains to develop its great capabilities to become a pleasant, profitable, and childishly safe investment.
Wildduck’s mission had apparently been successful. The old mare was making off from the men’s hut in a comparatively exhausted state, while a chorus of voices, accented with the pervading British oath, told of the arrival of a number of friends and allies. High among the noisiest of the talkers, and, it must be confessed, by no means reticent of strong language, rose the clear tones and childlike laughter of the savage damsel. In the delicate badinage likely to obtain in such a gathering it was apparent that she could well hold her own.
“My word, Johnny Dickson,” she was saying to a tall, lathy stripling, whose long hair protected the upper portion of his spine from all danger of sunstroke, “you get one big buster off that roan mare to-day; spread all over the ground, too. Thought you was goin’ to peg out a free-selection.”
“You shut up, and go back to old man Jack, you black varmint,” retorted the unhorsed man-at-arms amid roars of laughter. “You ain’t no great chop on a horse, except to ride him to death. I can back anything you’ll tackle, or ere a black fellow between this and Adelaide. I’m half a mind to box your ears, you saucy slut.”
“Ha, ha,” yelled the girl, “you ride? that’s a good un! You not game to get on the Doctor here to-morrow, not for twenty pound. You touch me! Why, ole Nanny fight you any day, with a yam-stick. I fight you myself, blessed if I don’t.”
“What’s all this?” demanded Mr. Hawkesbury, suddenly appearing on the scene. “Have any of you fellows been bringing grog on the place? Because it’s a rascally shame, and I won’t have it.”
“Well, sir,” said one of the stockmen, “one of the chaps had a bottle, quite accidental like, and the gin got a suck or two. That’s what set her tongue goin’. But it’s all gone now, and nothing broke. Which way do we go to-morrow?”
“Well, I want to muster those Bimbalong Creek cattle, and then put as many as we can get on the main camp, just to give this gentleman here (indicating Jack) a sort of idea of the numbers. Daylight start, remember, so don’t be losing your horses.”
“All right,” said the self-constituted spokesman, the others merely nodding acquiescence; “we’ll short-hobble them to-night – they can’t get away very far.”
Considerably before daylight beefsteaks were frying, horses were being gathered up, and a variety of sounds proclaimed that when bent upon doing a day’s work the dwellers around Gondaree could set about it in an energetic and business-like fashion. There was not a streak of crimson in the pearly dawn-light, as the whole party, comprising more than a dozen men and the redoubtable Wildduck, rode silently along the indistinct trail which led “out back.” There was a good deal of smoking and but little talk for the first hour. After that time converse became more general, and the pace was improved at a suggestion from Mr. Hawkesbury that the sooner they all got to the scene of their work the better, as it was a pretty good day’s ride there and back.
“So it is,” answered a hard, weather-beaten-looking, grizzled stockman. “I never see such a part of the country as this. If it was in other colonies I’ve been to they’d have had a good hut, and yards, and a horse-paddock at Bimbalong this years back. But they wouldn’t spend a ten pound note or two, those Sydney merchants, not for to save the lives of every stockman on the Warroo.”
“That wouldn’t be much of a loss, Jingaree,” said the overseer, laughing, while a sort of sardonic smile went the round of the company, as if they appreciated the satire; “and I shouldn’t blame ’em if that was the worst of it. But it’s a loss to themselves, if they only knew it. All they can say is, plenty of money has been made on old Gondaree, as bad as it is. I hope the next owner will do as well – and better.”
“Me think ’um you better git it back to me and ole man Jack,” suggested Wildduck, now restored to her usual state of coolness and self-possession. “Ole man Jack own Gondaree water-hole by rights. Everybody say Gondaree people live like black fellows. What for you not give it us back again?”
“Well, I’m blowed,” answered the overseer, aghast at the audacious proposition; “what next? No, no, Wildduck. We’ve improved the country.” Here the stockmen grinned. “Besides, you and old man Jack would go and knock it down. You ain’t particular to a few glasses of grog, you know, Wildduck.”
“White fellow learn us that,” answered the girl, sullenly, and the “chase rode on.”
In rather less than three hours the party of horsemen had reached a narrow reed-fringed watercourse, the line of which was marked by dwarf eucalypti, no specimens of which had been encountered since they left the homestead.
Here they halted for a while upon a sand-ridge picturesquely wooded with the bright green arrowy pine (callitris), and, after a short smoke, Mr. Hawkesbury proceeded to make a disposition of forces.
“Three of you go up the creek till you get to the other side of Long Plain, there’s mostly a mob somewhere about there. You’ll see a big brindle bullock; if you get him you’ve got the leading mob. Jingaree, you can start; take Johnson and Billy Mortimer with you. Charley Jones, you beat up the myall across the creek; take Jackson and Long Bill. Four of you go out back till you come to the old Durgah boundary; you’ll know it by the sheep-tracks, confound them. Waterton, you come with me, and Mr. Redgrave will take the Fishery mob. Wildduck, you too, it will keep you out of mischief, and you can have a gallop after the buffalo cows’ mob, and show off a bit.”
“All right,” answered the sable scout, showing her brilliant teeth, and winding the stock-whip round her head with practised hand she made Spitfire jump all fours off the ground, and proceed sideways, and even tail foremost (as is the manner of excitable steeds), for the next quarter of a mile.
Every section of the party having “split and squandered” according to orders, which were, like those of a captain at cricket or football, unhesitatingly obeyed, Jack found himself proceeding parallel with the creek, with Mr. Hawkesbury as companion, followed by a wiry, sun-tanned Australian lad and Miss Wildduck aforesaid.
It was still early. They had ridden twenty miles, and the day’s work was only commencing. Always fond of this particular description of station-work, John Redgrave looked with the keen eye of a bushman, and something of the poet’s fancy, upon the scene. Eastward the sun-rays were lighting up a limitless ocean of grey plain, tinged with a delicate tone of green, while the hazy distance, precious in that land of hard outlines and too brilliant colouring, was passing from a stage of tremulous gold to the fierce splendour of the desert noon.
There was not a hill within a hundred miles. The level sky-line was unbroken as on the deep, or where the Arab camel kneels by the far-seen plumy palms. The horses stepped along briskly. The air was dry and fresh. The element of grandeur and unimpeded territorial magnificence told powerfully upon John’s sanguine nature.
“I don’t care what they say,” he thought. “This is a magnificent country, and I believe would carry no end of sheep, if properly fenced and managed. I flatter myself I shall make such a change as will astonish the oldest and many other inhabitants.”
Following the water, they rode quietly onward until, near a bend of the humble but enormously important streamlet, they descried the “Fishery,” of which Hawkesbury had spoken. This was a ruinous and long deserted “weir,” formed of old by the compatriots of Wildduck, for the ensnaring of eels and such fish as might be left disporting themselves in the Bimbalong after a flood of unusual height. At such periods the outer meres and back creeks received a portion of the larger species of fish which habitually reposed in the still, deep waters of the Warroo. Traces could still be seen of a labyrinth of artificial channels, dams, and reservoirs, showing considerable ingenuity, and distinct evidence of more continuous labour than the aboriginal Australian is generally credited with.
CHAPTER IV
“Ye seeken loud and see for your winninges.” —Chaucer.
“My word,” exclaimed Wildduck, jumping from her horse and gazing at the rare ruin of her fading race, “this big one fishery one time. Me come here like it picaninny. All about black fellow that time. Bullo – bullo.”
Here she spread out her hands, as if to denote an altogether immeasurable muster-roll of warriors.
“Big one corrobaree – shake ’em ground all about; and old man Coradjee too.”
Here she sank her voice into an awe-stricken whisper.
“Where are they all gone, Wildduck?” inquired Redgrave; “along a Warroo?”
“Along a Warroo?” cried the girl, mockingly. “Worse than that. White fellow shoot ’em like possum. That ole duffer, Morgan, shoot fader belonging to me.”
“Come, come, Wildduck,” said Hawkesbury, “we’re after cattle just now – never mind about old Mindai. It wasn’t one, nor yet two, white fellows only that he picked the bones of, if all the yarns are true.”
“You think I no care, because I’m black,” said the girl, reproachfully, as the tears rolled down her dusky cheeks. “I very fond of my poor ole fader. – Hallo! there’s cattle – come along, Waterton.”
“Changing the subject with a vengeance,” thought Redgrave, as the mercurial mourner, with all the fickleness of her race, superadded to that of her sex, looked back a laughing challenge to the stockman, and closing her heels upon the eager pony, was at top speed in about three strides. Looking in the direction of Spitfire’s outstretched neck, Redgrave and his companion could descry a long dark line of moving objects at a considerable distance on the plain, but whether horses, cattle, or even a troop of emu, they were unable to make out with certainty.
“Let’s back her up quietly,” said Hawkesbury. “She and Charley will head them; it’s no use bustin’ our horses. This is rather a flash mob, but they’ll be all right when they’re wheeled once or twice.”
Keeping on at a steady hand-gallop, they soon came up with a large lot of cattle going best pace in the wrong direction. The accomplished Wildduck, however, flew round them like a falcon, Spitfire doing his mile in remarkably fair time. Being ably supported by Waterton, the absconders were rounded up, and were ready to return and be forgiven, when Hawkesbury and Mr. Redgrade joined them.
“By Jove!” cried our hero, with unconcealed approval, “what grand condition all the herd seem to be in! Look at those leaders.” Here he pointed to a string of great raking five and six year old bullocks, whose immense frames, a little coarse, but well grown and symmetrical, were filled up to the uttermost point of development. “You don’t seem to have drafted them very closely.”
“No,” said Hawkesbury, carelessly. “We never send anything away that isn’t real prime, and we missed this mob last year. They get their time at Gondaree; and the last two seasons have been stunning good ones.”
“Don’t you always have good seasons, then?” asked Jack, innocently.
The overseer looked sharply at him for a moment, without answering, and then said —
“Well, not always, it depends upon the rain a good deal; not but what there’s always plenty of back-water on this run.”
“Oh! I dare say it makes a difference in this dry country,” returned Jack, carelessly, thinking of Marshmead, where it used to rain sometimes from March to November, almost without cessation, and where a month’s fine weather was hailed as a distinct advantage to the sodden pasturage. “But the rain never does anything but good here, I suppose.”
“Nothing but good, you may say that, when it does come. This lot won’t be long getting to camp. Ha! I can hear Jingaree’s and the other fellows’ whips going.”
By this time they had nearly reached the camp at which the various scouting parties had separated. They had nothing to do but to follow the drove, which, after the manner of well-broken station herds of the olden time, never relaxed speed until they reached the camp, when they stopped of their own accord, and while recovering their wind moved gently to and fro, greeting friends or strangers with appropriately modulated bellowings.
Much about the same time the other parties of stockmen could be seen coming towards the common centre, each following a lesser or a greater drove. Jingaree had been fortunate in “dropping across” his lot earlier in the day, and was in peaceful possession of the camp and an undisturbed smoke long before they arrived.
Mr. Redgrave rode through the fifteen or sixteen hundred there assembled by himself, the stockmen meanwhile sitting sideways on their horses, or otherwise at ease, while he made inspection.
“I should like to have had a lot like this at the Lost Water-hole Camp, at poor old Marshmead,” thought Jack to himself, “for old Rooney, the dealer, to pick from, when I used to sell to him. How he and Geordie would have gone cutting out by the hour. They would have almost forgotten to quarrel. Why, there isn’t a poor beast on the camp except that cancered bullock.”
When he had completed a leisurely progress through the panting, staring, but non-aggressive multitude, he rejoined Mr. Hawkesbury, with the conviction strongly established in his mind that he had never seen so many really fat cattle in one camp before, and that the country that would do that with a coarse, neglected herd would do anything.
Mr. Hawkesbury having asked him whether he wanted to see anything more on that camp, and receiving no answer in the negative, gave orders to “let the cattle go,” and the party, proceeding to the bank of the creek, permitted their steeds to graze at will with the reins trailing under their feet, after the manner of stock-horses, and addressed themselves to such moderate refreshment, in the form of junks of corned beef and wedges of damper, as they had brought with them. Mr. Hawkesbury produced a sufficient quantity for himself and his guest, who found that the riding, the admiration, and the novel experience had whetted his appetite.
Fairly well earned was the hour’s rest by the reeds of the creek. Hawkesbury had at first thought of putting together the greater part of the herd, but on reflection concluded that the day was rather far advanced.
They were twenty miles from home. It would be as well to defer the collection of the cattle belonging to the main camp until the following day. In a general way it might be thought that a ride of forty miles, exclusive of two or three hours’ galloping at camp, was a fair day’s work. So it would have appeared, doubtless, to the author of Guy Livingstone, who in one of his novels describes the hero and his good steed as being in a condition of extreme exhaustion after a ride of thirty miles. Whyte Melville, too, who handles equally well pen, brand, and bridle, finds the horses of Gilbert and his friend in Good for Nothing, or All Down Hill, reduced to such an “enfeebled condition” by sore backs, consequent upon one day’s kangaroo-hunting, that they are compelled to send a messenger for fresh horses a hundred miles or more to Sydney, and to await his return in camp.
With all deference to, and sympathy with, the humanity which probably prompted so mercifully moderate a chronicle, we must assert that to these gifted writers little is known of the astonishing feats of speed and endurance performed by the ordinary Australian horse.
Hawkesbury, indeed, rather grumbled when the party arrived at Gondaree at what he considered an indifferent day’s work. He, his men, and their horses would have thought it nothing “making a song aboot,” as Rob Roy says, to have ridden to Bimbalong, camped the cattle, “cut out” or drafted, on horseback, a couple of hundred head of fat bullocks, and to have brought the lot safe to Gondaree stock-yard by moonlight. This would have involved about twenty hours’ riding, a large proportion of the work being done at full gallop, and during the hottest part of the day. But they had done it many a time and often. And neither the grass-fed horses, the cattle, nor the careless horsemen were a whit the worse for it.
However, as Mr. Hawkesbury had truly stated in their first interview, the economy of time was by no means a leading consideration on the Warroo. So the next day was devoted to the arousing and parading of the stock within reach of the main camp. Mr. Redgrave’s opinion, as to the number and general value of the herd after this operation, was so satisfactory that on the morrow he once more committed himself to the tender mercies of the Warroo mail, and proceeded incontinently to the metropolis, where he without further demur concluded the bargain, and became the first proud purchaser of Gondaree, and five thousand head of mixed cattle, to be taken “by the books.”
Jack found the club a paradise after his sojourn in the wilderness. At that time comparatively few men had explored the terra incognita of Riverina with a view to personal settlement. Therefore Jack’s fame as a man of daring enterprise and commercial sagacity rose steadily until it reached a most respectable altitude in the social barometer. He alluded but sparingly to the privations and perils of his journey, making up for this reticence by glowing descriptions of the fattening qualities and vast extent of his newly-acquired territory. He aroused the envy of his old companions of the settled districts, and was besieged with applications from the relatives of wholly inexperienced youths from Britain, and other youngsters of Australian rearing, who had had more experience than was profitable, to take them back with him as assistants. These offers he was prudent enough to decline.
His cash had been duly paid down, and the name of John Redgrave attached to sundry bills at one and two years – bearing interest at eight per cent. – the whole purchase-money being about twenty thousand pounds, with right of brand, stock-horses, station-stores, implements, and furniture given in. What was given in, though it cost some hard bargaining and several telegrams, was not of great value. Among the twenty stock-horses there were about two sound ones. The stores consisted of three bags of flour, half a bag of sugar, and a quarter of a chest of tea. There was an old cart and some harness, of which only the green hide portion was “reliable.” Several iron buckets, which served indifferently for boiling meat and carrying the moderate supplies of water needed or, more correctly used on the establishment. Of the three saddles, but one was station property. The others belonged to Mr. Hawkesbury and the stockman.
Jack had decided to take the cattle at five thousand head without muster, being of opinion, from the “look of the herd,” and from a careful inspection of the station-books, wherein the brandings had been carefully registered, and a liberal percentage allowed for deaths and losses, that the number was on the run. He knew from experience that a counting muster was a troublesome and injurious operation, and that it was better to lose a few head than to knock the whole herd about. He therefore made all necessary arrangements for going up and taking immediate possession of Gondaree.
His plan of operations, well considered and carefully calculated, was this: He had sternly determined upon “clearing off” the whole of the cattle. Sheep were the only stock fit for the consideration of a large operator. For cattle there could be only the limited and surely decreasing local demand. For sheep, that is, for wool, you had the world for a market. Wool might fall; but, like gold, its fashion was universal. Every man who wore a Crimean shirt, every woman who wore a magenta petticoat, was a constituent and a contributor; the die was cast. He was impatient of the very idea of cattle as an investment for a man of ordinary foresight. He was not sure whether he would even be bothered with a score or two for milkers.
To this end he now directed all his energies; and being able to work, as Bertie Tunstall had truly observed, when he liked, now that he was excited by the pressure of a great undertaking – an advance along the whole line of his forces, so to speak – he displayed certain qualities of generalship.
He first made a very good sale of all the fat cattle on the run (binding the buyer to take a number which would give the herd “a scraping”) to his old acquaintance Rooney, the cattle-dealer. These were to be removed within two months from date of sale. He left instructions with his agents, Messrs. Drawe and Backwell, to sell the whole of the remaining portion of the herd (reserving only twenty milkers) as store cattle, to any one who was slow and old-fashioned enough to desire them. He bought and despatched stores, of a quality and variety rather different from what he received, sufficient to last for twelve months; all the fittings and accessories for a cottage and for a wool-shed, including nails, iron roofing, doors, sashes – everything, in fact, except the outer timber, which could be procured on the spot. He had no idea of trusting himself to the war-prices of the inland store-keepers. A few tons of wire for preliminary fencing, wool-bales, tools, a dray, carts, an earth-scoop for dam-making, well-gearing and sixty-gallon buckets, a few tents, plough and harrow (must have some hay), a few decent horses, an American waggon with four-horse harness, and other articles “too numerous to mention,” about this time found themselves on the road to Gondaree. All these trifling matters “footed up” to a sum which gave a temporarily reflective expression to Jack’s open countenance. Necessaries for a sheep-station, especially in the process of conversion from cattle ditto, have a way of coming out strong in the addition department.
“What of that?” demanded Jack of his conscience, or that quiet cousin-german, prudence; “a sheep-station must be properly worked, or not at all. The first year’s wool will pay for it all. And then the lambs!”
In order to manage a decent-sized sheep property (and nothing is so expensive as a small one), you must have an overseer. Jack was not going to be penny-lunatic enough to be his own manager. And the right sort of man must be thoroughly up to all the latest lights and discoveries – not a working overseer, a rough, upper-shepherd sort of individual who counted sheep and helped to make bush-yards, but a fairly-educated modern species of centurion, whose intelligence and knowledge of stock (meaning sheep) were combined with commercial shrewdness and military power of combination. A man who could tell you in a few minutes how much a dam displacing several thousand cubic yards of earth ought to cost; how many men, in what number of days, should complete it; what provisions they ought to consume; and what wages, working reasonably, they ought to earn. A man full of the latest information as to spouts and soda, hot water and cold, with a natural turn heightened by experience, for determining the proportionate shades of fineness, density, freeness, and length of staple which, in combination, could with safety be taken as a model for the ideal merino. A man capable of sketching, with accuracy and forethought, the multifarious buildings, enclosures, and “improvements” necessary for a sheep-station in the first year of its existence, or of conducting the shearing to a successful issue without them at need.
For subalterns so variously gifted a demand had of late years grown up, owing to the large profits and wonderful development of the wool-producing interest. Of one of these highly-certificated “competition-wallahs” John Redgrave had determined to possess himself.
In Mr. Alexander M‘Nab, late of Strathallan, and formerly of Mount Gresham, he deemed that he had secured one of the most promising and highly-trained specimens of the type.
Sandy M‘Nab, as he was generally called, was about eight-and-twenty years of age, the son of a small but respectable farmer in the north of Ireland, in which condition of life he had acquired an early knowledge of stock, and an exceedingly sound rudimentary education. Far too ambitious to content himself with the limited programme of his forefathers, he had emigrated at sixteen, and worked his way up through the various stages of Australian bush apprenticeship, until he had reached his present grade, from which he trusted to pass into the ranks of the Squatocracy.
Having secured this valuable functionary, and covenanted to pay him at the rate of three hundred per annum, his first act was to despatch him, after a somewhat lengthy consultation, to inspect a small lot of ten thousand ewes, and on approval to hire men and bring them to Gondaree. It was necessary to lose no time; lambing would be on in June, in August shearing would be imminent. And the cattle would require to be off, and the sheep to be on, somewhere about April, if the first year’s operations were to have any chance of being financially successful.
The stores having been purchased, and Mr. M‘Nab with his letter of credit having been shipped, that alert lieutenant, with characteristic promptitude, reporting himself in readiness to embark at six hours’ notice, nothing remained but for Mr. Redgrave to “render himself” again at Gondaree in the capacity of purchaser.
He accordingly cleared out from the club with alarmingly stern self-denial, and, declining to risk his important existence in the Warroo mail, took the road in the light American waggon, with his spare horses and a couple of active lads accustomed to bush work.
After a journey of ordinary duration and absence of adventure, he once more sighted the unromantic but priceless waters of the Warroo, and beheld, with the eye of a proprietor, the “waste lands of the Crown” – most literally deserving that appellation – with the full right and title to which, as lessee, he stood invested.
Mr. Hawkesbury, in apparently the same Crimean shirt, with black and scarlet in alternate bars, stood smoking the small myall pipe in much the same attitude at the hut door as when Jack was borne off by two jibs and a bolter in the Warroo mail. Bob the cook, the dark hues of his apparel unrelieved by any shade of scarlet, appeared in his doorway with his hands in his pockets, but betraying unwonted interest as the cortège ascended the sandhill.
Ordering the boys to let go the horses, and to pitch the tent, which he had used on the journey, at a safe distance from the huts, Jack descended with a slight increase of dignity, as of one in authority, and greeted his predecessor.
“So you’ve bought us out,” he said, after inspecting carefully the letter which Jack handed to him, “and I’m ordered to deliver over the cattle, and the stores, – there ain’t much of them, – and the horses, and in fact the whole boiling. Well, I wish you luck, sir; the run’s a good ’un and no mistake, and the cattle are pretty fair, considering what’s been done for ’em. I suppose you won’t want me after you’ve taken delivery.”
“I shall be very glad if you will stay on,” quoth Jack, whose honest heart felt averse to ousting any man from a home, “until the cattle are cleared off; after that I shall have another gentleman in charge of the sheep and place generally. By staying two or three months you will oblige me, if it suits your arrangements.”