They Shot A Trapped Dog

How Thoughtful Owner Discovered Culprits

To put one's self in another's place is difficult, and when one is grieved, it is harder still. "A.C.H.'s" story this week tells what good can come through looking at things from the other fellow's point of view. 

Two rabbit trappers, Dan and Jack, once went on a small sheep run to trap rabbits through the winter months. These men camped in the same tent, but each one found his own food and held his own catch. Each had his own trapping ground and they were very often more than a mile apart when visiting their traps. 

Usually they took with them a storm lantern on their rounds at night, but one bright moonlight night, Dan decided to leave his lantern home. Jack took his with him, explaining to his mate that he was a bit short-sighted. They started at nine o'clock. Dan was a powerful man and in no way a nervous one. He had inspected his traps with the exception of two when big banks of clouds came up, and among the trees the light became rather fitful and uncertain. 

Some distance from a trap a large animal lunged toward him, and coming to the end of the chain on the trap landed on its side. In the fitful shadows this animal looked an enormous size, and Dan quaked. He turned and made for his camp. His mate was still out, although it was midnight. He sat down and waited for his re turn. 

He had not long to wait. Jack, on looking into his mate's face, knew that something was amiss. 'What's up, Dan,' he said. 'Have you seen a ghost?' Dan made no secret of the fact that he had received a very bad fright and suggested that they return to the trap with their guns. They advanced cautiously, and throwing the light on the animal, looked into the glaring eyes of a large kangaroo dog. 

The two men were relieved to find it was not any really wild beast, and Dan suggested that the dog be shot. 'Of course, it should never be here at all,' said Jack; 'and perhaps that is the best thing to do.' So the dog was shot; but the sound of the gun had scarcely died away be fore both men repented of their hasty action. They determined to bury the dog early in the morning, and keep the matter very quiet. 

At the homestead there was consternation. Their kangaroo dog was lost. They had brought him up from a pup, and he had endeared himself to them. The owner of the sheep run was a thoughtful man, and could, in imagination, place himself in another person's place. To him, the dog's absence was still a mystery, and he could not think of any way in which he could be so entirely lost. There was no poison; and everyone loved that dog. 

Then he thought of the men trapping rabbits on the run. He did not know much about them. They had written, asking permission to trap on the run, and he was glad to have them there: the rabbits must be kept down. They carted their rabbits to the railway siding, some distance from his place, and he had al most forgotten that they were there. 

But, supposing the dog had gone for a run and had got in a trap, and perhaps had his leg broken? Would it not be quite possible for them to shoot it to save its pain? Then, considering that he was such a fine dog, and someone would mourn his loss, would it not be likely that they would bury him and keep quiet about it? 

Going to the stable, he saddled his horse and set out for their camp. Dan and Jack were busy loading their rabbits to take to the siding, when they looked up and saw a horseman coming their way. He asked about the rabbits. Were they catching plenty? And did they think they could keep them down? He discussed the weather and different things, but not a word about his lost dog. He turned his horse and went as if to ride away, but, coming back to the men, he said:— 

'Oh, by the by, I just want to say to you chaps that if ever you happen to catch a dog in your traps, perhaps you had better destroy it. I might say, though, that never yet have I lost either sheep or lamb through a dog.' 

'We did catch a dog about a week ago,' said Dan, 'and we shot it, which seemed the right thing to do at the time; but afterwards we did not feel so sure. We are glad to know that you approve of it.' 

'What kind of a dog was it?' enquired the rider. When told, a look of pain passed over his face, and he looked pale, but he did not say anything for a while. 'Well, seeing that you felt uneasy about it, never shoot a dog again in like manner, for perhaps, after all, some poor devil may mourn its loss.' he said at length. He turned his horse and rode away, leaving the men in deep thought.—A.C.H.

New Year's Eve Pranks That Went Astray 

It has been the custom of a number of lads of a small South-Eastern township to go around painting gates and getting up to all kinds of pranks on New Year's Eve. Often this custom receives a setback, but it is soon forgotten. 

Some years ago a certain farmer made it known that he would be waiting up with his gun on New Year's Eve, but no one took him seriously. The gang arrived at usual, and some unhinged the road gates while others climbed up in a pine tree to receive the gates when they were handed up to them. 

As one of the gates was being fastened into the limbs of the pine the loud report of a gun was hoard close at hand. The gate was dropped, and the lads in the tree fell to the ground and made off as fast as they could go. Several received considerable damage to their clothes getting through or over (some did not know which they did) a barbed wire fence, while others came to grief over stooks of hay in a neighbor's paddock. 

No one had noticed that one of their number had disappeared before they came to this place. He, thinking of having a joke all to himself, had gone across to his employer's place, which was nearby, and took the boss's gun and sneaked back and fired it in the air close to where his friends were busy with the gates. 

The farmer denied having fired the shot, but no believed him until the young chap who had done it, thinking the joke too good to keep to himself, made the mistake of telling one of his friends the whole story. Eventually his boss got to hear of it and sacked him for taking his gun. 

Another time, the gang had nearly finished their programme for the night when they found themselves outside an orchard, and feeling the need of refreshments they searched along the high fence until they found a loose paling, which was ripped off, and in they all went.

But not for long, as some one could be heard running towards them. This was the owner, who caught up just as the last man was bending ready to go through the hole in the fence. He threw a good sized stone which hit this unfortunate member of the gang on the rump, and at the same time fired a gun in the air. The unfortunate one told me later that at the time he was quite sure he had been shot, and imagined he could feel the blood running down his legs. 

Another time the local constable turned up at the meeting place and stated his intention of going around with them. Only perfectly harmless things were done for a start, but the gang got bolder as they went along and took people's gates off, carrying some quite a distance before hiding them. This went on for quite a time until the policeman decided they had done enough, and then he called them all together, and said, 'Now, boys, you have had your fun, and it will cause these people a lot of trouble looking for their gates in the morning, to say nothing of stock that will get out, and seeing that you know where all the gates are it will be much easier for you to put them back again.' This caused much argument, but the constable was adamant, and the lads with a very bad grace put every thing back as they had found it. Next morning the community was astonished to find that hardly anything had been interfered with.— Glen Austral.

Old Irish Custom Cured Straying Cows 

The man whom I shall call Pat Corrigan was a tall, lanky chap of middle age with watery eyes, drooping moustache and a receding chin. All his movements were slow; he spoke in a whining, wheedling tone and al ways contrived to make the other person seem hard-hearted, callous and mean. 

His wife, poor woman, had half a dozen children to look after, as well as fowls to feed and other people's washing to do, to say nothing of sweeping and dusting the school every night and scrubbing all its floors once a week. 

Corrigan himself did no work save milk the five cows night and morning, deliver the milk and pocket the money; the remainder of the day he devoted to resting. 'I can't do no work,' he would protest. 'I've got a crook heart, I have. I'm liable to drop dead any minute, I am, and then who'd look after me wife and kids?' 

We could have put up with him with his slothful ways and his perpetual whining and cadging; but what we really objected to was his cows. The best of cattle are brainless, contrary, obstinate and exasperating beasts at times, but Corrigan's cows were the limit. There never was any feed on his bare, dusty little paddock. His cows had to be taken out every day to graze on the sides of the roads, but what they picked up there would not have been sufficient to have kept them alive, let alone give milk. They did most of their feeding at night — on other people's grass or crops. No fence was proof against them. The fence around Corrigan's paddock was only a joke to them. It was a thing of slack wires and rickety posts, over which they could— and did— jump with ease every night. No amount of barbed wire would stop them from breaking through anyone else's fence. 

The ranger grew tired of impounding the brutes, for every time he did so, Corrigan would come along to the council office and start pleading. 'You're pretty hard on a poor man,' he would protest, looking as mournful as a professional mute and speaking with a catch in his voice which suggested that he would burst into tears with very little provocation; 

'Here's me trying to make enough to keep me wife and kids from starving, and you've gone and pounded me cows.'

'Then why don't you put a decent fence around the paddock?' the exas perated clerk would reply. 

'Where would the likes of me get the money for it?' Corrigan would whine. 'It's all I can do to keep a roof over me head and a shirt on me back.' 

In the end the old humbug would be allowed to remove his cows from the pound yard without the usual penalty being paid. 

Once you allowed him to supply you with milk, you had to keep on taking it from him. If you decided to try another milkman it was only a matter of an hour or so before Corrigan would be around to see you, leading one of his younger children by the hand. 'Look at this poor mitie,' he would plead, 'and then think what you're doing. You're taking the bread out of a child's mouth, you are.' In the end you usually allowed yourself to be blackmailed into taking milk from him again. 

Then Colonel Spitfire settled in the town. He was a wiry little chap with a sharp face and a voice like the bark of a terrier. When Corrigan's cows got through his fence and ate all the vegetables and flowers which he was preparing for the show, he swore loud and long, then hurried off to interview the owner of the cattle. He returned angrier than ever. 'Waste of time talking to that type of man,' he snapped. 'He's the army malingerer to the life. But I'll fix him; I know a trick for curing straying cattle. Learned it in Ireland. It's infallible.' 

He said no more, but next day Corrigan found himself up against something where pleading and appealing for sympathy were alike unavailing. 'Smell this! Taste this!' cried one angry housewife, holding out a jug of milk. 'It's enough to poison any one! I'll take no more of your milk. Why, even the cat won't drink it!' A similar reception awaited him wherever he went among his customers; the milk had a horrible odor and a revolting flavor. Two days later not one single customer remained. 

In despair Corrigan set to work to put his fence in order, then went out every day armed with a sickle and some bran bags, to cut fodder along the creeks, the railway line, at the back of the saleyards, or anywhere else where grass was to be had. He also cleaned out the well, deepened it, fenced in part of his paddock, planted lucern, and spent hours every day pumping water on it. For a man who was liable to drop dead at any minute, he did an astonishing amount of work. It seemed to do him a lot of good, too. And his cows no longer strayed at night. 

It was a long time before I could persuade the colonel to divulge the secret, but finally he took me into his confidence. 'There was nothing in it,' he growled, leading me to the cemetery, whose five-foot stone wall, topped with barbed wire, was about the only thing capable of keeping Corrigan's cows at bay in the district. 'Look there and you'll see the reason.' I obeyed, but all I could see was a lot of rank grass. 

'Where are your eyes? he retorted. 'All that green stuff in this corner is garlic, growing wild. I got the key of the gate, cut an armful of it and laid it on the road where those brutes of cows would find it. They ate every scrap of it — and as a result their milk smelt like a back street in Naples next day and tasted like nothing on earth.' — 'Bogaduck.'

There's Many A Slip — At Bush Races

Amusing incidents occur at times at bush race meetings. One in particular that I remember resulted in two very cock-sure men receiving rather a rude shock; the pair also lost a fair amount of money. I had brought in a couple of horses to run at a meeting in aid of the hospital, and although the pair were of little account, I retained them at the usual price, £5 a head, when being auctioned before the races. 

The procedure invariably adopted at meetings in aid of the hospital is for owners to place their horses in the hands of the committee. Each horse in turn is then auctioned, and if the owner does not say he will retain his horse as it is led into the yard, the auctioneer proceeds and knocks the horse down to the highest bidder. The purchaser can then nominate the horse for any event he likes, and is the owner of the horse for the day. 

Just prior to my two horses coming into the yard, a real good sort was led in and retained by its owner. Although conditions were for grass-fed horses only, it was very evident that the horse I'm referring to was full of hard feed. He seemed more like a cup horse than a hospital cuddy. 

Blazeaway, as I'll call the horse, was standing in a yard at the back of the hotel before lunch, and out of curiosity I had a good look at him. A rub with the hand and a close look at the brand on the horse's shoulder proved something very definite to me; its brand had been 'plucked' for the occasion, and showing above another indistinct brand was that of a selector's in the district. It was no business of mine and I kept my own counsel, but I was determined not to waste any money backing the horse I had nominated in the bracelet, and in which race Blazeaway also figured. 

When the bookmakers started calling the odds on the Bracelet, the chief race of the day, I happened to notice the owner of Blazeaway and another man were piling it on thick and heavy. What amount the pair invested I do not know, but by the time the horses had gone to the post Blazeaway was an odds-on favorite. As soon as the flag was dropped away streaked Blazeaway to the front, and by the time the turn into the straight was reached, he was at least a dozen lengths in front of the horse running second.

 Just then a bit of diversion was caused as the owner of Blazeaway and his mate appeared in front of the crowd. The owner had taken off his coat and was wearing a green jacket, the same as that worn by the rider of his horse. With arms linked the pair strutted along in a sort of cake-walk manner, both calling out, 'Shut the gate; old Blazeaway's bolted.' The pair were jubilant as the horse neared the winning post, and I sup pose they already reckoned the win nines safe in their pockets. 

But just when the race looked all over, Blazeaway did the almost incredible, and ran completely off the track, almost at right angles. By the time the boy had assumed control again it was too late, and the good thing in green finished third. The yell from the crowd gave way to shrieks of laughter as the owner and his mate pulled up in their prancing and stood gaping round in a crestfallen manner. I don't think I ever saw such a disgusted look on any one's face at a race meeting as that which appeared on the owner's when the horses were returning to weigh in. The green jacket had been taken off and thrown down, and the pair were heard cursing their luck very volubly, but they'd lost their money, so it was of little use bemoaning their fate. 

I heard later, however, that had Blazeaway won, the race would have in all probability been taken from him. The owner of the horse that won had not only perceived the plucked brand, but he had also recognised the horse as one that had won races in another district. He had told the boy riding his horse to run second at all costs, as if Blazeaway won, as he thought would be certain, he would enter a protest and disclose the identity of Blazeaway. However, there was no need, and although many on the course knew that Blazeaway must have been a 'ringtail,' few, if any, except the owner of the winning horse and Blazeaway's connections, knew his real name and how good he was. The owner, however, took no risk of an enquiry taking place; Blazeaway and those connected with him disappeared during the night. — 'Outback.'