17 December 1936

WHEN THE CATTLE BROKE AT MIDNIGHT

Mad Stampede By Fifteen Hundred Bullocks

One often hears it said that cattle nowadays, do not rush like they once did. An experience of recent years with one mob of bullocks, however, furnished quite enough evidence to prove that rushing mobs still exist, as they did in the days when store bullocks made the long trip to Wodonga from the Queensland Gulf country. Some of those Gulf mobs were notorious at night until they had been a few weeks on the road.

I had contracted to take 1,500 store bullocks from a station in central-west Queensland to Musselbrook, New South Wales, and thinking that the cattle would give little or no trouble at night, I left half of my plant of 80 horses spelling, including six good night horses. The bullocks had been mustered when I arrived at the station, and on questioning the head stockman, I was surprised to learn that the bullocks were very 'touchy,' and that some weeks previously another drover had lifted a mob and had lost the lot within a week. I learnt, further, that most of the bullocks in my mob had been lost by the other drover. My first intention on hearing this was to send back for the remainder of my plant, but as time was precious, I abandoned the idea, and instead bought 12 horses from the station and accepted the loan of four of the station black boys for a week.

The country was bad for watching touchy cattle, being thickly timbered, with plenty of steep-banked creeks and broken gullies, and to make matters worse, there would be no new moon for a week. However, taking the head stockman's advice, I started off doing short stages, giving the bullocks a chance to settle down. In the first week, until the four black boys returned to the station, the bullocks gave little trouble. Several times at night the mob would jump up and ring, but no real attempt was made to rush. By the time we reached the station boundary, I thought that we had them.

Still, I took no chances, and besides a double watch, I rode round the mob myself as well until midnight for an other week, by which time we had a fair moon. Three weeks after starting the bullocks appeared to have settled down so well that I decided to single watch them. But only for one night. The man on second watch had been on the job less than ten minutes when the quietness of the night was rudely broken by the earthquake-like thunder made by hundreds of galloping hooves, as the mob as one bullock sprang into action. The wing of the mob thundered by within twenty yards of the camp, and almost before I realised it I had jumped on to the spare night horse and was galloping along in the wake of the mob. Prickly pear and dense scrub made the way difficult, and although I could not see far ahead, the crashing of scrub as the bullocks tore through served as a more than sufficient guide. I could not have been far behind the tail of the mob when my horse came down, pitching me into a dense patch of prickly pear. By the time I had recovered my senses and walked to my horse I realised that further pursuit was out of the question for the time being. My horse was lame, having evidently hurt a shoulder. Never did a camp prove more elusive, and after walking for what seemed hours I decided to wait for daylight to ascertain my whereabouts. To add to my discomfort rain began to fall.

It was an almost all-in boss drover who, wet to the skin and with torn clothes and scrub-scratched body, hobbled into camp just as the sun appeared. The horse taller had gone for the horses, but of the cattle or the man who had been on watch when the mob rushed, nothing was known. A hurried meal and all of us except the cook were in the saddle. I feared that harm had befallen the missing man, and was greatly relieved when, a few miles from the camp, we met him returning, leading a knocked-up horse. The mob had split, and he had held a lot of a couple of hundred for a time, but finally had to let them go.

In three days we had mustered all the mob except five, and if the bullocks were not bad before, they were during those three nights we held them on the same camp from which they had rushed. Four of us were on watch at once, and several times I thought that they were off again. I realised then how I missed the six night horses I had left behind, but hoped that once we got away again the bullocks might settle down a little better.

How vain were my hopes! Never before or since have I had cattle behave as did those bullocks for the next two weeks. At least twice and sometimes four and five times during the night the mob would jump up and off. Two or three of us were always on watch, and with less timbered country to cope with, and aided by a good moon, we managed to hold them or to wheel them and bring them back after they had gone a few hundred yards. Each-night a bullock or two would get crippled, and I had visions of leaving a trail of lame bullocks behind before I got to Musselbrook.

The men with me were getting fed-up and I heard murmurs of them leaving me when we got to the next town. And I didn't blame them, either; they were beat for want of sleep. However, I was destined to have little further trouble with the mob. Just when things looked blackest an agent came along in a car bringing instructions from the owners of the bullocks. I was to take the mob to a station close by, where agistment had been secured. Rain had not fallen on the country further ahead, as had been expected, and that was the reason for securing agistment country. I don't know what eventually happened to those bullocks, or whether they ever reached the Musselbrook district, but of the scores of mobs I have handled from the Northern Territory and the Gulf, I have no hesitation in saying that that mob was the worst ever. Later I was offered another mob from the same station, but decided not to take the job on. — 'Overlander.'

Opening The Gates

The late Lewis George Ehrett was one of the best-known identities in the Mt. Gambier district in his day. Of German extraction, he had been a sailor, in his youth. After arriving in Australia, he tried his hand at any thing which came his way. One of his ventures was to run waggonettes for hire.

When news reached Mt. Gambier that the barque Glenrossa had gone ashore on the coast near Cape Banks, Ehrett harnessed his horses to his waggonette, and before long he had a full complement of passengers, eager to visit the scene of the wreck. Ehrett drove off at a smart trot; when he reached the first gate on the boundary of the Krattum run he reined in and waited for someone to open it. When nobody moved, he glanced round. 'Somebody open der, gate,' he prompted. The passengers began to argue as to who should do it, but nobody alighted. Ehrett listened for a few moments, then repeated his request in a more emphatic tone. The passengers continued to argue, but no body got out to do the job. Ehrett waited for a minute, then barked, 'Somebody open dot gate!'

'What about opening it yourself?' suggested one of the passengers. 'We're paying you for the trip, and it's up to you to do something for the money.' Ehrett placed his hat firmly on his head, shortened his grip of the reins, and backed his horses for a few yards. Then he lashed out with his whip. The startled horses plunged forward. There came a chorus of shouts and screams from the passengers and pieces of splintered wood flew in all directions as he drove straight through the gate and on down the track. Not a word did the old driver say in reply to the angry comments from behind; he drove in silence until the next gate was reached, then he reined in some 50 feet from it and turned around. 'Somebody open der gate,' he prompted. In an instant nearly every passenger leaped out and rushed to do the job. There was no lack of volunteers whenever a gate had to be opened.

For many years he drove parties of picnickers and tourists about the district, but never again did he have any trouble about finding someone who would open gates for him — the story of that trip to the wreck became a stock yarn, and whenever strangers were going on a trip in Ehrett's waggonette someone was sure to give the warning advice, 'When he comes to a gate, be sure to have someone ready to jump out and open it, or he'll drive slap, bang through it.' But I have never heard what the owner of the smashed gate thought of the business. — 'Bogaduck.'

Useful Kind Of Dog

Nearly any intelligent dog will bring back a stick that is thrown, but a dog owned by Lazy Larry, a sundowner, would find sticks when ordered. Being afflicted with a chronic tired feeling, Larry did not like hunting about for firewood after a long day's tramp, and at night he was afraid of snakes, so he trained his dog, 'Brumby,' to do that work. Lazy Larry couldn't tolerate a lazy dog. Between camps he trudged along with a fly-veil over his face, and a water-bag in his hand, smoking a short black pipe and admiring the scenery. Behind him followed Brumby with the pack. Now and again, when he was panting prodigiously, Brumby would be given a drink in the dumped -in crown of Larry's hat.

When Lazy Larry reached his camping place, he would unload the pack and then say to the dog, 'Now then Brumby, don't sit there scratching yourself. Get the wood.' And while his owner got a billy of water, Brumby collected sticks for the fire.— J.R.

Heavy Wool Clips

The question of shearing records leads to the matter of wool clips. Mr. E. P. Dunn, of Carawa, recently obtained some very heavy weights. The sheep concerned were not stud sheep, but out of the ordinary flocks. Mr. Dunn has a block of thick scrub country near Point Brown, some miles to the north-west of Carawa.

In the yearly round-up some of the sheep are invariably missed, which means that on occasion the wool from a sheep may be the growth of two or three years. This year several of the sheep were shorn. As a result a six-tooth wether yielded 36 lb. When it was spread on the table those gathered round guessed its weight. These varied from 24 to 30, but the most hopeful, did not dream that it was 36. Another 15 months' lamb, with only lamb's teeth, gave a fleece of 20 lb. A full-mouthed ewe yielded 29 lb. Twelve sheep between them gave half a bale of wool.

These are extraordinary weights for non-stud sheep. While rounding the sheep up, Mr. Dunn observed one ewe which fell down and was not able to get up for the weight of wool it carried until it had had a long spell. Perhaps some of your readers may be able to give similar incidents of interest.— C.T.S.

Mere Outward Show

The man who shaved with a blow lamp was probably modelled on outback types, whom hardship and sheer virility accustom to conditions of toughness that would paralyse new chums.

On one occasion I was visiting a neighbor who happened to invite me out on to a verandah that overlooked the entrance to the saddle-house. Without taking any apparent notice of us, one of the cowhands came up, opened the saddle-room door and disappeared. Presently his voice floated out above the din of his rummaging. 'Seen the rasp anywhere, boss?' he demanded. '

'What d'ye want it for?' asked the boss. 'Filing me toenails.' 'You don't want a rasp for that, you clown!' 'Don't I? Look here.' The lad took up the challenge, whipping off his blucher boots and displaying a team of toenails that resembled granite in texture, and horses' hoofs in design.

The boss quickly followed suit, displaying eight toenails (he had had an accident with an axe) that made the young worker green with envy, as he looked into a substance that would have taken up the recoil of artillery without bending, and served as an axehead, properly sharpened up.

'Don't go showing off in front of visitors again,' cautioned the boss. 'You just hop round to the kitchen and ask the missus for a loan of her secateurs like the rest of us. Takin' the edge off a brand-new rasp, eh? No you don't !'— 'Warrigal.'

When The Stallions Fought

In the early days of Mayurra station in the South-East, two youths were engaged to tail two separate mobs of horses on a portion of the run near Lake Bonney. One of the mobs had a blood stallion, and the other a small draught one, and it was the duty of the two lads to keep them from coming in contact with each other. Fences had not then come into use on the station. To the youths the uneventful job became monotonous, for they had no communication with one another until the mobs were safely yarded for the night in their respective enclosures.

One night the lads talked over the matter of the dullness of the job when they met in the hut, and decided that next day they would let the mobs come together. If the stallions fought each other it would create a little diversion. Next day what they had anticipated happened, but they got such, a fright when the fight was in full blast that they wished they had not engineered it.

For half an hour or so the stallions fought like demons, but they were evenly matched, and little or no damage was done, at least visibly. The lads would have liked to have settled the matter by getting the stallions back to their respective mobs, but they were so scared that they dared not go near them.

The stallions fought on, and at last backed into each other. For a few minutes they lashed out vigorously with their hind legs, but then, as if they had suddenly come to a decision, to end the fray, they turned their heads towards their respective mobs and complacently trotted back to them, each apparently of the opinion, that the other had got the worst of it. After that, however, the lads put up with the monotony of their jobs and kept the horses on their own beats.— 'Tanta-Tyga.'

Real Life Stories of South Australia (1936, December 17). Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), p. 16. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92350205