CHAPTER XVII
Cattle-Drafting at Yarrahappini
"To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard With a running fire of stockwhip and a fiery run of hoofs."
Pip could hardly sleep one night, a month after their arrival, forthinking of the cattle drafting that was on the programme for themorrow. He had been casting about for some fresh occupation, farhe was a boy to whom variety was the salt of life. At first he hadbeen certain he could never tire of shooting rabbits. Mr. Hassal hadgiven him the "jolliest little stunner of a gun," and, Tettawongahad gone out with him the first day; and had been very scornfulabout his enthusiasm when he shot two.
"Ba'al good, gun do. Plenty fellow rabbit longa scrub, budgeryway north, budgery way south; budgery way eblywhere. Ba'al goodbarbed wire fence do, ba'al good poison do. Bah!"
But Pip was not to be discouraged, and really thought he had donegreat good to the Yarrahappini estate by shooting those two soft,fleet brown things. He took them home and displayed them proudlyto the girls, cleaned his perfectly clean gun, and sallied forththe next day.
Tettawonga took his pipe from between his lips when he saw him againand laughed, a loud cackling laugh, that made Pip flush with anger.
"Kimbriki and kimbriki, too! Rabbit he catti, curri-curri now. Boycome long with cawbawn gun, rabbit jerund drekaly, go burri, grassgrow, sheep get fat-ha, ha, he, he!"
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"To-morrow and to-morrow too! Rabbit, he go away quickly now. Boycome along with big gun, rabbit he afraid directly, go under theground."
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Pip understood his mixed English enough to know he was making fun ofhim, and told him wrathfully to "shut up for a Dutch idiot."
Then he shouldered the gun he was so immeasurably proud of and wentoff the other side of the barbed-wire fence, where was the happyhunting-ground of the little rodent that would not allow Mr. Hassal togrow rich.
He shot five that day, four the next, seven the next, but after atime he voted it slow, and went after gill birds, with more enjoymentbut less certainty of a bag.
Every day was filled to the brim with enjoyment, and but for theintense heat that first month at Yarrahappini would have been one ofabsolute content and happiness.
And now there was the cattle-drafting!
Breakfast was very early the morning of the great event; byhalf-past five it was almost over, and Pip, in a fever ofrestlessness, was telling Mr. Hassal he was sure they would belate and miss it.
Judy had pleaded hard to be allowed to go, but everyone said it wasout of the question--indeed, it was doubted if it were wise to allowPip to face the danger that is inseparable with the drafting of thewilder kind of cattle that had been driven from great distances.
But he had forcibly carried the day, and dressed himself up in sobusiness-like a way that Mr. Hassel had not the heart to refuse him.He came down to breakfast in a Crimean shirt and a pair of old, sergetrousers fastened round the waist with a leathern belt, in which anunsheathed bowie knife, freshly sharpened, was jauntily stuck. Nopersuasions would induce him either to wear a coat or sheathe the knife.
The grey was brought round to the veranda steps, with Mr. Hassal'sown splendid horse. Mr. Gillet was there on a well-groomed roan;he had three stock-whips, two quite sixteen feet long, the thirdshorter one, which he presented to Pip.
The boy's face glowed. "Hurrah, Fizz!" he said; standing up inhis saddle and brandishing it round his head. "What 'ud you give tochange places?"
He dug his heels into the animal's sides and went helter-skelterat a wild gallop down the hill.
It was a mile and a half to the cattle yards, and here was thestrongest excitement.
Pip could not think where all the men had sprung from. There weresome twenty or thirty of them, stockmen, shearers "on thewallaby," as their parlance expressed lack of employment, twoAboriginals, exclusive of Tettawonga, who was smoking and lookingon with sleepy enjoyment, and several other of the station hands.
In the first yard there were five hundred cattle that had been driventhere the night before, and that just now presented the appearance ofa sea of wildly lashing tails and horns. Such horns!--great,branching, terrific-looking things that they gored and fought eachother madly with, seeing they could not get to the common enemyoutside.
Just for the first moment or two Pip felt a little disinclined toquit the stronghold of his horse's back. The thunder of hoofs andhorns, the wild charges made by the desperate animals against thefence, made him expect to see it come crashing down every minute.
But everybody else had gone to "cockatoo"--to sit on the top railof the enclosure and look down at the maddened creatures, so at lengthhe fastened his bridle to a tree and proceeded gingerly to followtheir example.
At a sudden signal from Mr. Hassal the men dropped down inside,half along, one side and half the other. The object was to get ahundred or two of the cattle into the forcing-yard adjoining, the gateto which was wide open. Pip marvelled at the courage of the men;for a moment his heart had leaped to his mouth as bullock afterbullock essayed to charge them, but the air resounded with cracks fromthe mighty stock whips and drafting-sticks, and beast after beastretreated towards the centre with its face dripping with blood.
Then one huge black creature, with a bellow that seemed to shakethe plain, made a wild rush to the gate, the whole herd at his heels.Like lightning, the men made a line behind, shouting, yelling,cracking their whips to drive them onward. Pip stood up and halloed,absolutely beside himself with excitement. Then he held his breathagain.
Mr. Hassal and one of the black boys were creeping cautiously upnear the gateway through which the tumultuous stream of horns andbacks was pouring. Half a dozen mighty blows from the men, andthe last leader fell back for an instant, driving the multitude backbehind him.
In that second the two had slipped up the rails and the herd was intwo divisions.
Two lines of stockmen again, whip-crackings, bellows, blood, horns,hide and heels in the air, and some forty or fifty were secure in athird yard, a long narrow place with a gate at the end leading intothe final division.
Pip learnt from Mr. Gillet the object of these divisions: some ofthe beasts were almost worthless things, and had been assigned to abuyer for a couple of pounds a head, just for the horns, hides, andwhat might be got for the flesh. Others were prime, fat creatures,ready for the butcher and Sydney market. And others again weresplendid animals, of great value for prize and breeding purposes,and were to be made into a separate draft.
The man at the last gateway was doing the all important work ofselecting. He was armed with a short thick stick, and, as the othermen drove the animals down towards him, decided with lightning speedto which class they belonged. A heavy blow on the nose, a sharp,rapid series of them between the eyes, and the most violent bruteplunged blindly whither the driver sent him. All the day work went on,and just as the great hot purple shadows began to fall across theplain they secured the last rail, the battle was over, and the animalsin approved divisions.
Pip ate enough salt beef and damper to half kill him, drank more teathan he had ever disposed of at one sitting in all his fourteen years,swung himself into his saddle in close imitation of the oldeststockman, and thought if he only could have a black, evil-lookingpipe like Tettawonga and the rest of the men his happiness would becomplete and his manhood attained.
He reached home as tired as "a dozen dogs and a dingo," andentertained his sisters and Bunty with a graphic account of theday's proceedings, dwelling lengthily on his own prowess and themanifold perils he had escaped.
The next day both Esther and Judy rode with the others to the yardsto see the departures.
The best of the contingent, which Mr. Hassal had only wanted toseparate, not to sell, were driven out through the gate and awayto their old fields and pastures stale.
The "wasters," some hundred and fifty of them, with half a dozenstockmen mounted on th
e best horses of the place told off forthem, were released from their enclosure in a state of frenzieddesperation, and, with much cracking of whips and yells, musteredinto a herd and driven across the plain in the direction of the road.And some hour or two later the best "beef" lot were driven forth,and quiet reigned at Yarrahappini once more. During the two daysof excitement the children all decided upon their future professions,which were all to be of a pastoral nature.
Pip was going to be a stockman, and brand and draft cattle all thedays of his life. Judy was going to be his "aide-de-camp", providedhe let her stay in the saddle, and provided her with a whip just aslong as his own. Meg thought she should like to marry the richestsquatter in Australia, and have the Governor and the Premier come upfor shooting and "things," and give balls to which all the peoplewithin a hundred miles would come. Nell decided the would make soapand candles, coloured as well as plain, when she arrived at yearsof discretion; said Baby inclined to keeping paddocks full of petlambs that never grew into sheep.
Bunty did, not wax enthusiastic over any of the ideas.
"I'd rather be like Mr. Gillet," he said, and his eyes looked dreamy.
"Pooh! no books and figures far me; give me a run of Salt Bush country,and a few thousand sheep," said Pip.
"Hear! hear!" chimed in Judy.
"Stoopids!" said Bunty, in a voice of great scorn. "Doesn't Mr.Gillet keep the store keys--just think those currants and figs."