9 July 1936

BRINGING THE FIRST CATTLE FROM BRUNETTE DOWNS

A Six Months Droving Trip With Jim Hutton

Fifty years ago I went from Adelaide to the Barkly Tableland with a survey party led by the late David Lindsay, and after the survey was finished I secured a job as a stockman on the Brunette Downs run, then owned by MacDonnell, Smith & Co. I had worked there for a year when that famous old drover, the late Jim Hutton, of Raspberry Creek, Rockhampton, from the Tableland to the southern markets. He wanted helpers, so I drew my pay and started on my first experience of cattle droving.

Before engaging me, Hutton gave me a word of warning. ' 'It's a hard life, my boy,' he said, 'Think it over before you take the job on. You'll be lucky if you average six hours' sleep a night. And remember that we may be many months on the track. The unforgivable sin is to throw up the job when you're on the track with cattle; so don't take it on unless you're prepared to stick it out to the finish.'

I had made up my mind to go, so on the morning of January 19, 1887, we started off with a mob of 1,500 wild '505' brand bullocks. We first went to the Playford River, thence to the Rankine, and crossed the border into Queensland at Austral Downs. Our cattle, reared on 'soft' country, grew very tender-footed when we were crossing the stony plains at Carandotta.

When we came to Sandy Creek, a tributary of the Georgina, we had to cross a broad bed of sand to reach the water, and as soon as the cattle felt the soft sand underfoot they went mad. Down went their heads, up went their tails, and the whole 1,500 began to frisk about like lambs at play. We drovers sat our horses on the top of the bank and roared with laughter at their antics. But the business developed a serious side a moment later: they began to horn each other and the play became a fight.

With cracking whips we charged down the bank to stop the riot, but it took a lot of hard work to do it, and some of the cattle were in a sorry state before we put an end to the fighting. Horns were knocked off, flanks ripped open, and here and there on the sand lay a beast gored to death.

We swam our cattle over the flooded Georgina, then halted and spelled them on some good feed to allow their hoofs to harden and to let them put on some condition. Every day we would string them out to feed, and as the long line of grazing beasts moved slowly along, those winged terrors of the bird world, the falcons, gathered above them. Every few seconds the grazing beasts would flush a quail from the long grass; then the nearest hawk would dart down in pursuit. Sometimes the quail would find a sanctuary in the grass, but usually the hawk won. In its terror of being pursued, the quail did not appear to watch where it was going; often a bird would fly straight into a bullock's flank and drop to the ground stunned. Sometimes the hawk would also hit the bullock a second later. We always galloped over to grab up the stunned quail before a hawk could get it, and those birds, roasted, made a welcome change in our diet.

After leaving the Georgina we followed the Western Queensland river system. The country was flooded, forcing us to keep to the stony ridges, where the feed was knee-deep. Seven drovers had left Brunette Downs; now, one by one, they grew tired of the job and pulled out. Sometimes Hutton was able to engage another man in their place; sometimes we had to carry on short-handed. Many a time I was tempted to throw up the job, but I had made up my mind to see it out.

One day an extraordinary thing happened. Near Winton our cattle, without any apparent reason, went mad as we neared the telegraph wire running, between Winton and Boulia. With swishing tails and flapping ears they bolted in all directions, crashing through scrub as if it were only straw. We could not account for their behavior at first, for cattle very seldom rush in the daytime. It was Hutton's black boy who solved the mystery. Pointing to the telegraph line, which was humming and buzzing as a long length of wire often does, he yelled, 'Bullock think that pfeller old man hornet!' Anyone who knows how the Queens land hornet can sting will realise why those cattle fled when they mistook the humming of the wire for the noise of hornets on the wing.

After 28 weeks on the trip we turned our cattle into paddocks at Albilbah, near Isisford, on the Barcoo. They were now in prime condition, and eight hundred were at once drafted off and trucked to Homebush yards, Sydney, where they topped the market. Next day Hutton came to me. 'Well, the job's over, young fellow,' he said, 'and you're the only man left of the drovers who started out with me from the Tableland six months ago. Here's your pay, and a bonus for sticking to me all the way. And here's something you'll find valuable. Look after it.' He handed me a little heap of sovereigns, a cheque, and an envelope. When I opened the envelope I found it held a terse reference. I still have that little note. This Is what it says:—

'The bearer has been employed by me for the last six months as a drover, helping shift a mob of 1,500 head of '505' bullocks from Brunette Downs to Albilbah. He was the only man to see the job through. He's a good stock man; I'll recommend him for a job anywhere— James Hutton.'

A few days later I went looking for a job. The manager of the first station that I rode to shook his head. 'Afraid I've got all the hands I want,' he said. He then questioned me as to where I had been working. When I told him that Hutton had given me a reference he looked surprised. 'Hutton doesn't throw references about,' he said. 'I'd like to see that.' The manager read it when I handed it to him, then gave it back to me. 'I'll find a job for you,' he informed me. 'If you can suit Jim so well that he'd give you a reference, you'll do me. Look after that reference, young fellow; It'll get you a job on any station in Queens land.' I later found this to be perfectly true. Hutton never gave a reference to a man who had failed him in any way, and by sticking the job out I had earned one. Every station manager and squatter in Queensland knew this, so a reference from Hutton was some thing to be proud of. Better still, it meant that one need never be out of a job unless he chose.

In conclusion, I might add that the horse I used for the latter part of the trip was 'Taffy,' the gelding which Harry Bedford had used on his now famous ride to establish an alibi when he was being tried for cattle-stealing. —G.S.L.

Tale Of A Stone

Some of the early settlers were extremely isolated, and the Kennedy family was no exception. No road came within 25 miles of their selection, and Kennedy had to ride that distance into the mail-route and carry a 50 lb. bag of flour back on the front of his saddle every three weeks. The rest of their supplies were grown on the holding. The natives were supposed to be wild and treacherous, but the 'boys' all proved very fond of Mrs. Kennedy and her two young daughters, aged nine and eleven respectively, and Kennedy felt few qualms in leaving his family amongst them on his excursions to buy flour or sell stock. He always made a practice, however, of leaving a loaded musket for his wife's use, should an emergency arrive.

One evening Kennedy had gone off to secure flour, so Mrs. Kennedy decided to take the children for a stroll by the creek. Nothing of interest transpired, except that a strange black fellow came along behind them, apparently intent on searching the creek bed for a hidden goanna, and then dogged them back to the hut, under cover of the trees.

After supper, one of her own 'boys' knocked, and said that the tribe was going bush, as there were strange blacks approaching in larger numbers than they, and invited Mrs. Kennedy and the two girls to accompany them. Mrs. Kennedy refused, expecting her husband back by midnight. The family went to bed, and the blacks decamped quietly. A crash on the floor awakened the trio, and they say a blazing piece of gumtop which had been thrown through the window. In a second the startled woman had the windows closed and barricaded, while she took her husband's musket, and looked out through a wide crack. Dark, fleeting forms could be seen in every direction, waving menacing spears and dancing. Evidently the bucks were working themselves up for an attack. Mrs Kennedy took careful aim to hit a tree in the midst of the largest group, and fired.

The blacks decamped immediately, but after the attempt to burn her out, the cautious mother decided to take no risks, and put the two girls on watch, while she went through the tedious process of recharging the musket. Although it was well past midnight, Kennedy had not put in an appearance, and the fear that he might have been ambushed and speared terrified his wife.

At intervals throughout the night, the blacks reassembled, but a steady succession of warning balls over their heads frightened them off. The last time Mrs. Kennedy went to reload, she found that there were no more bullets, although powder was still plentiful. She explained the case to the girls. 'Look round for a piece of old lead or metal we can melt in the mould,' she instructed. 'If I only, fire powder at them, they will miss the hum of the bullet, and perhaps rush us.'

The search revealed no lead, but the younger child suddenly remembered something amongst her toys that might be useful, and produced a stone, about the size of a closed fist. 'Mummy,' she exclaimed, 'can't we break this stone I found in the creek this afternoon, and fire the pieces?' With a smile that was far from hopeful the mother took the stone in her hand, and noticed that there was a hole through one end of it. Evidently this peculiarity had attracted the girl's notice to it in the first place. She began to recollect something that her husband had told her concerning a stone that every blackfellow wore round his neck, which it was death for a woman to see. Then she recalled the searching blackfellow who had followed them in the late afternoon. Perhaps he had lost such a stone, and the attack was due to the suspicion that the white womenfolk had seen it.

Cautiously, she opened a window, after wiping fat on the hinges, and threw the stone as far as she could in the direction of the creek. Dawn was due in a few minutes, and there was no time for delay, if she hoped to create the impress on that the stone had been lost near the hut, and not noticed by the white people. She could see nothing, but presently the beats of a horse's hoofs became distinct. It was her husband returning. Mrs. Kennedy was panic-stricken for fear the blacks would fall on him unawares; she opened the door and frantically waved a warning. Mistaking this for a welcome, her husband cantered up with a weary smile, half hidden behind his bag of flour.

'Blacks?' he queried, in answer, to the first question his wife asked. 'Haven't seen one, worse luck, or I'd have had this horse tracked down hours ago, when he broke his hobbles, instead of hunting for him until midnight along the mail-route!' As soon as he learnt the state of affairs, he went out to search the neighborhood of the hut, but there was nothing to see. When Mrs. Kennedy came out she found the stone, too, was missing. The local blacks crept back a few days later, and the hostile tribe never returned to a spot that they probably considered a nasty place for losing things.— 'Warrigal.'

Caught On The Hop

A youth in a small country town had been brought before the Court for making off with some of the local storekeeper's profits. Several months passed and the affair had ceased to be the chief topic of conversation, when a travelling concert party gave an entertainment in the hall.

As is the usual custom, the magician of the party asked for two volunteers from the audience to help him with his turn. Two persons immediately rose, one in the front and the other at the back of the darkened hall. In the bright light of the stage they each turned to see who the other was. The audience chuckled, the volunteers looked confused, but the magician, all unsuspecting, carried an with his turn. One of the assistants, who was a bit of a wag at any time, carried off his part well, but the other, a raw youth, provided the real star turn.

He was handed two rings with instructions to bounce them and catch them on the hop, the magician telling him that if he did it properly the rings would link together in his hands. But his efforts all proved failures, and the audience had a good laugh at his expense. The magician picked up the scattered rings to demonstrate, and at the same time made the remark, 'Just catch them on the hop. On the hop! See! Like this! Ever been caught on the hop?'

The roar of laughter that greeted his remark rather nonplussed the magician; laughter in which his other assistant joined heartily , while the youth colored up and looked uncomfortable. Little did the magician realise that one of his assistants was the local storekeeper and the other the youth who had been brought before the Court.— 'White Ants.'

Real Life Stories of South Australia (1936, July 9). Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), p. 16. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92461098