Rejecting chosen bullocks,
recalling rejected bullocks, and comparing every bullock accepted with
every bullock rejected. Bulk was what they searched for - plenty for
their money, as they judged it, and finally gathered together a mob of
coarse, wide-horned, great-framed beasts, rolling in fat that would drip
off on the road as they travelled in.
"You'd think they'd got 'em together for a boiling-down establishment,
with a bone factory for a side line," Dan chuckled, secretly pleased that
our best bullocks were left on the run, and, disbanding the rejected
bullocks before "they" could "change their minds again," he gathered
together the mixed cattle and shut them in the Dandy's new yard, to keep
them in hand for later branding.
But the "little Chinese darlings" had counted on the use of that yard for
themselves, and finding that their bullocks would have to be "watched" on
camp that night, they stolidly refused to take delivery before morning,
pointing out that should the cattle stampede during the night, the loss
would be ours, not theirs.
"Well, I'm blowed!" Dan chuckled, but the Maluka cared little whether the
papers were signed then or at sun-up; and the drovers, pleased with
getting their way so easily, magnanimously offered to take charge of the
first "watch" - the evening watch - provided that only our horses should be
used, and that Big Jack and Jackeroo and others should lend a hand.
Dan wouldn't hear of refusing the offer. "Bit of exercise'll do 'em
good," he said; and deciding the bullocks would be safe enough with Jack
and Jackeroo, we white folk stretched ourselves in the warm firelight
after supper, and, resting, watched the shadowy mob beyond the camp,
listening to the shoutings and gallopings of the watchers as we chatted.
When a white man watches cattle, if he knows his business he quiets his
mob down and then opens them out gradually, to give them room to lie
down, or ruminate standing without rubbing shoulders with a restless
neighbour, which leaves him little to do beyond riding round
occasionally, to keep his "boys" at their posts, and himself alert and
ready for emergencies. But a Chinaman's idea of watching cattle is to
wedge them into a solid body, and hold them huddled together like a mob
of frightened sheep, riding incessantly round them and forcing back every
beast that looks as though it might extricate itself from the tangle, and
galloping after any that do escape with screams of anxiety and impotency.
"Beck! beck!" (back), screamed our drovers, as they galloped after
escaped beasts, flopping and wobbling and gurgling in their saddles like
half-filled water-bags; galloping invariably after the beasts, and
thereby inciting there to further galloping. And "Beck! beck!" shouted
our boys on duty with perfect mimicry of tone and yells of delight at the
impotency of the drovers, galloping always outside the runaways and
bending them back into the mob, flopping and wobbling and gurgling in
their saddles until, in the half light, it was difficult to tell drover
from "boy." Not detecting the mimicry, the drovers in no way resented
it; the more the boys screamed and galloped in their service the better
pleased they were; while the "boys" were more than satisfied with their
part of the entertainment, Jackeroo and Big Jack particularly enjoying
themselves.
"They'll have 'em stampeding yet," Dan said at last growing uneasy, as
more and more cattle escaped, and the mob shifted ground with a rumbling
rattle of hoofs every few minutes. Finally, as the rumbling rattle
threatened to become permanent, a long drawn-out cry of "Ring - ing" from
Big Jack sent Dan and the Quiet Stockman to their saddles. In ten
minutes the hubbub had ceased, Dan's master-hand having soothed the
irritated beasts; then having opened them out he returned to the camp
fire alone. Jack had gone on duty before his time and sent the "little
Chinese darlings" to bed.
Naturally Dan's cattle-tussle reminded him of other tussles with ringing
cattle; then the cattle-camp suggesting other cattle-camp yarns, he
settled down to reminiscences until he had us all cold thrills and
skin-creeps, although we were gathered around a blazing fire.
Tale after tale he told of stampedes and of weaners piling up against
fences. Then followed a tale or two of cattle Iying quiet as mice one
minute, and up on their feet crashing over camps the next, then tales of
men being "treed" or "skied," and tales of scrub-bulls, maddened
cow-mothers, and "pokers."
"Pokers," it appears, have a habit of poking out of mobs, grazing quietly
as they edge off until "they're gone before you miss 'em." Camps seem to
have some special attraction for pokers, but we learned they object to
interference. Poke round peaceful as cats until "you rile them," Dan told
us, and then glided into a tale of how a poker "had us all treed once."
"Poked in a bit too close for our fancy while we were at supper," he
explained, "so we slung sticks at him to turn him back to the mob, and
the next minute was making for trees, but as there was only saplings
handy, it would have been a bit awkward for the heavy weights if there
hadn't have been enough of us to divide his attentions up a bit." (Dan
was a good six feet, and well set up at that.) "Climbing saplings to get
away from a stag isn't much of a game," he added, with a reminiscent
chuckle; "they're too good at the bending trick. The farther up the
sapling you climb, the nearer you get to the ground."
Then he favoured us with one of his word-pictures:
