There are different kinds of work connected with the management of cattle-stations in the far bush of New South Wales. Some of them strike the stranger as being curious. At any rate, most people have not heard of them before, or if they have, don\'t know much. Something depends upon finding the cattle which you are required to manage. Didn\'t Mrs. Glass say, before yarning about hare soup, \'First catch your hare\'? Right she was! If you\'ll come with me to the Wilgah brakes, \'Hell\'s Cages,\' and \'Devil\'s Snuff-boxes\' of the Lower Macquarie, you will see the pull of the \'first catch\' arrangement. Don\'t suppose for a moment that ours is a neglected herd. If you were to see the stud animals—chiefly Devons and Herefords, for we found that the \'active reds\' could pace out many a mile from the frontage in a dry season, and be back at their watering-place while a soft shorthorn would be thinking about it, and, of course, losing flesh. As I was saying, if you saw our \'Whitefaces\' and \'Devon Dumplings,\' you wouldn\'t think that. But those M\'Warrigals, that we bought the place from long ago, were careless beggars; thought more of their neighbours\' calves—some people say—than minding their own business and doing their proper station work. Now the back of the run is scrubby in parts, and the cattle there are \'outlaws\' that increase and multiply. They get joined by other refugees and breakaways—brutes with no principle whatever. We seldom see them, as they have got a nasty habit of feeding at night, like tigers and lions and other wild animals. When we do see them—by day—they break away, scatter, and charge. All the horses and dogs in the country wouldn\'t get them.

166What are we to do? There are some famous bullocks among them—rather coarse, perhaps, but rolling fat—ugly with fat, as the stock-riders say. And as cattle are a first-class price just now, and the feed grand all the way to market, there\'s no use talking; we must have a shy at them. It won\'t do for me, a native-born Australian, and manager of my father\'s best cattle-station, to be beaten by anything that ever wore a hide. Have \'em we must. The new paddock is just finished. We are going to muster the other side of the run—the quiet side—the day after to-morrow, and if we can make a good haul out of these \'scrub danglers\' we shall have together as fine a lot of fat cattle as ever left the Macquarie.

And how are we going to do it? There are half-a-dozen as good hands on this Milgai Run, including the black boys Johnny Smoker and Gundai, as ever rode stock-horse or followed a beast. And yet, if we rode after this lot for a month we shouldn\'t get more than a couple of dozen, tear our clothes to rags, stake our horses, and get knocked off in the Wilgah scrubs—after all get next to no cattle—that\'s what I look at. Still, there is a way—and only one way—that we may fetch \'em by, and perhaps in one night. I\'m going to tell you about it. We must moonlight \'em.

It is a strange thing—and I\'ve no doubt it was found out by some rascally \'duffer,\' some cattle-stealing brute that went poking about after his neighbours\' calves (but the amount of cleverness they show when it\'s \'on the cross,\' no man would believe, unless he knew it from experience)—it\'s a strange thing that wild cattle are twice, ten times, as easy to drive by night as they are by day. Whether they are afraid—like children—whether they can\'t see so well, or what it is, I don\'t know. But every old stock-rider will tell you that all cattle, particularly wild ones, are much easier to handle by night than by day. Another reason is, they go out a long way into the open plains to feed at night. Whereas by day they lie in their scrubs like rabbits near a hole, and directly they hear a whip, or a voice, or a stick crack almost, they\'re off like a lot of deer. Not that I ever saw any; but one thinks about the red deer listening and then popping into fern-brakes and heather-glens. Perhaps I shall see them some day, who knows, if cattle keep up?

Well, we had to wait for a day or two, till the moon rose, 167about ten o\'clock. When the moon rises soon after dusk, they keep about the edge of the timber, and are ready to dash back directly they see or hear any one. But when it\'s dark for some hours before the moon rises, they\'ll go out far into the plains and feed as steadily as milkers.

Well, we sent word to our neighbours and mustered up about twenty men. We went into the timber at sundown, near a point where we thought they wouldn\'t come out, and hobbled our horses. We had brought something to eat with us, and made a billy of tea; and after we lit our pipes, it was jolly enough. My stock-rider, Joe Barker, was one of the smartest riders and best hands with cattle on the river, but, as is sometimes the case with good men and good horses, he had a queer temper. I wanted him to bring his old favourite, Yass Paddy, as good and sure a stock-horse as ever heard a whip. But no, he must bring a new mount that he\'d run out of the wild mob!—a good one to go and to look at, but the biggest tiger I ever saw saddled. Joe was put out about something, and I didn\'t like to cross him. A stock-rider is a bad servant to quarrel with, unless all your run is fenced, or very open. Besides, with his riding, a donkey would have been \'there or thereabouts.\'

So we sat and talked, and smoked, and looked about for an hour or two. At last the time came. We pouched our pipes, saddled up, and headed for the plains, making a point for a few trees a good way out, near where the lot we were after often fed. We didn\'t talk much, but rode far from one another, so as to have a better chance of seeing them. At last Gundai rode up alongside me, and pointed ahead. I looked and saw something dark, which seemed to change line. There were no Indians, no wolves, no buffaloes, in our part of the world. It might have been horses, of course, but we were soon near enough to see tails—not horses\'—and a big mob too. Cattle, by Jove! and the heaviest lot we have seen together since the general muster, many years since, just after we bought the station. \'All right, boys! we\'re in for a good thing.\' They were, of course, scattered, feeding about, looking as quiet as store cattle. The regular thing to do was, of course, known to most of us. A couple of the smartest riders must start to \'wheel\' them, one on each side. Charley Dickson and the black boy, Gundai, were told off. You couldn\'t lick 168Charley, and Gundai was the most reckless young devil to ride that ever broke down a stock-horse. But just at this pinch we want \'em to be pretty quick. Never mind about horses\' legs, we look to them afterwards. Off they go like mad Arabs. You can see the dust and dry grass sent up by Gundai\'s horse\'s hoofs, like a small steam-engine. We hear the rolling gallop of the heavy bullocks, as the big mob of cattle all raise their heads and make off in a long trailing string—like a lot of buffaloes—directly they hear the first horse. We ride steadily up in line, so as to intercept them in the rush they will be sure to make back towards the scrub. In the meanwhile Charley and Gundai have raced to the two ends of the string, and are ringing and wheeling, and doubling them up together, till the mob is regularly bothered.

Then we go at them, still in well-kept line, and at whichever point a beast tries to \'break\' he finds a horseman ready to \'block\' him. There is no shouting, whip-cracking, or flash work generally. The great thing is to ride like ten men and be always ready to head or stop a breaking beast, which can be done at night by only showing yourself. No row or nonsense; it only makes the cattle worse. Always be in your own place, and do your work without crossing any one else\'s line; that\'s the only way with cattle. Of course we don\'t mind their running a little wide as long as they are heading out into the plains, and not back towards their scrub forts and hiding-places. So we let them trot a bit, keeping one man ahead to stop them if they get too fast, as they might get winded, and then charge and have to be left on the plains. We keep steadily behind them, while they are streaming out well towards the middle of the plain, and in a direction that by a little judicious \'edging\' will land them at the Milgai stock-yard.

Of course there are well-known incorrigibles that have escaped many a muster, and will be sure to try it on now. \'There goes the grey-faced bullock. Look out! Look out!\' shouts a stock-rider, as an enormous red bullock, with a speckled Hereford face, turns deliberately round, and, breaking through the line of horsemen, makes straight for \'Hell\'s Cage.\'

I am riding Wallaroo, the best stock-horse on the river—at least that is my belief and opinion. I race at him, and we 169go neck and neck together for a hundred yards, at a pace that would win the Hack Stakes at a country meeting. Wallaroo\'s shoulder is jammed against the bullock, his head just behind the brute\'s great horns. At the batt Greyface is going, of course, he is occasionally on the balance. As I rush the game little horse against him, again and again, I can feel his huge bulk tremble and shake. I am too near for him to horn me, unless he had time to stop and turn, which, of course, I take care that he has not. After a while he edges round a bit, then a little more, then he sees the cattle and makes straight for them as they are moving past in the original direction in front of him. I slacken pace for an instant, and as I do so, drop the twelve foot stockwhip on to him with a right and left, which sends him right up among the tail cattle. He breaks no more for a while, and we are getting on pretty well. We know our direction now. Some of the cattle have got rather blown, and their tongues are out. We round them up, and let them stand for a bit to recover breath.

Off we go again. Can\'t stay here all night. They can run for miles in the scrub, and why not now? Much more steady this time. Begin to give it up. \'Hullo............