An Outback Marriage, Banjo Paterson [top ten books of all time .TXT] 📗

people’ll let me alone I’ll let them alone, and I don’t interfere with anyone. But if old Peg turns up she’ll want to be right in front of the percession. If she follows me, I’ll realise everything by public auction, unreserved sale, for spot cash, and I’ll sneak back here to a place I knows of, where there’s no trooper can find me. I ain’t goin’ halves with that woman, I tell you. She wouldn’t stick to me if I was poor, and I ain’t goin’ to take her up again now. You’d better come back with me, Mister, and show me the way round a bit.”

“There’s a mob of cattle, Gordon.” he went on, changing the subject quickly; “let’s ride up here, while the boys bring ’em into camp.” And off they went at a carter, leaving the question of his social prospects in abeyance for the time being.

The ceremony of taking delivery lasted some days, Considine’s signature to the deed of transfer being only the first step. This long document, prepared in Sydney, kept them going in literature for about a week; and they were delighted to find that, through the carelessness of a clerk, in one part of the deed there figured “one bull of mixed sexes and various ages.”

They rode out, day after day, through interminable stretches of dull timbered country, or over blazing plains waving with long grass. Here they came on mobs of half-wild cattle, all bearing the same brand, a huge R£5. These were not mustered into a yard or counted, except roughly. Gordon was not completing a purchase, but simply taking over what were there⁠—many or few; good or bad, he could only take what he found.

Miles and miles they rode, always in the blazing heat, camping for a couple of hours in the middle of the day. To the Englishman it seemed always the merest chance that they found the cattle, and accident that they got home again. At rare intervals they came upon substantial mustering-yards, where the calves were brought for branding; near these a rough hut had been constructed, so that they could camp there at night, instead of returning to the head station.

They always slept out of doors. In the intense heat it was no hardship, and the huts, as a rule, fairly jumped with fleas. Once they camped alongside a big lagoon, on whose surface were huge pink and blue water-lilies and rushes, and vast flocks of wild fowl. After the stretches of blazing plain and dull timber this glimpse of water was inexpressibly refreshing.

On their way back they struck new country, great stretches of almost impenetrable scrub, tropical jungle, and belts of bamboo. In this cover wild cattle evidently abounded, for they frequently heard the bellow of the bulls.

“There should be a terrible lot of wild cattle here,” said Charlie. “Don’t you ever get any out of the scrubs?”

“Oh, yes, we moonlight for ’em.” said Considine. “We take coachers out. We have a very fair coaching mob. Some of our coachers are as quick as racehorses, and they’ll hustle wild cattle away from the scrub just as if they understood.”

“What do you mean by coachers?” asked Carew. “Not cattle that go in carts, eh?”

“Carts, no. The way we get wild cattle hereabouts is to take out a mob of quiet cattle, what we call coachers, and let ’em feed in the moonlight alongside the scrub, while we wait back out o’ the road and watch ’em. When the wild cattle come out, they run over to see the coachers, and we dash up and cut ’em off from the scrub, and hustle ’em together into the open. It’s good sport, Mister. We might try a dash at it, if you like, before we go back; it’s moonlight now.”

“Let’s have a try tonight” said Gordon. “Are your coachers handy?”

“Yairs. They feed near the house. I’ll send ’em on with the gins tonight.”

When they got back that evening, Carew was so dead-tired that he wished the wild cattle expedition at Jericho. But Considine and Charlie were in great form, directing, arguing, and planning the expedition. One of the black boys rode out, and returned driving a big mob of horses that dashed into the yard at full gallop. The gins and the black boys caught fresh mounts out of these and started away, driving some fifty head of cattle selected from a mob that made their headquarters within a few miles of the house. Most of them were old stagers, and strung away in the evening quite tranquilly, while the blacks, always smoking, rode listlessly after. Considine produced two stockwhips, and gave one to Charlie.

“No good givin’ you one. Mister,” he said to Carew. “You’d hang yourself with it most likely. I’ve got a rare good horse for you⁠—old Smoked Beef. He’d moonlight cattle by himself, I believe. You’d better have a pistol, though.”

“What for?” asked Carew, as Considine produced three very heavy navy revolvers and a bag of cartridges.

“To shoot any beast that won’t stay with the mob. Some of ’em won’t be stopped. They have to go. Well, if one goes, the rest keep trying to follow, and no forty men will hold ’em. You just keep your eyes open, and if a beast breaks out in spite of the whips, you shoot him if the blacks tell you. See?”

“Where am I to shoot him?”

“Shoot him any place. In the earhole, or the shoulder, or the ribs, or the flank. Any place at all. Shoot him all over if you like. One or two bullets don’t hurt a beast. It takes a lead-mine to kill some of ’em.”

“Do the blacks shoot?” asked Charlie.

“No, I don’t never trust no blacks with firearms. One boy knifes well, though. Races alongside and knifes ’em.”

This seemed a fairly difficult performance; while the Englishman was wondering how it would be carried out, they made a start. They rode mile after mile in the yellow moonlight, until they discerned a mob of