Brighter Britain! Part 12

We keep a stock-book, in which every beast is entered. Each cow receives a name when she becomes a mother, and her offspring are known by numbers. Steers are never named. They have only four years of it, being sent off to market at the end of that time. Then a line is drawn through the "Beauty's third," or "Rosebud's fourth," which has designated their individuality in the stock-book; and the price they have fetched is entered opposite. The various mobs are known by the names of the old cows that lead them. Thus, we speak of "White Star's mob," or "Redspot's mob."

It is the stockman's duty to know each individual beast, and also to know the members that compose each mob. He has to go out with the dogs almost every day to hunt up some mob or other. Our bush is much too dense to admit of riding, except along certain narrow tracks, partly natural and partly cut with the axe, which serve as bridle-roads, and keep open communication with distant settlements or settlers' places. So the member of our fraternity who happens to be stockman has to go cattle-hunting afoot.

Cattle-hunting, as we term this employment, has a certain charm and air of sporting about it; but it is by no means light work, especially in warm weather. The stockman has to travel through pathless woods all the time, and has an area of twenty to thirty miles round our place in which to search for his cattle. He takes some fixed route to start with, making for some distant locality, where experience has taught him such and such a mob are likely to be feeding. On his way he takes note of any cattle he may come across, marks the gullies they are in, and thus, having knowledge of the ways of cattle, is able to guess within a mile or two where those mobs are likely to be found when wanted.

Moreover, a good stockman gets to be experienced in tracking. He reads "sign" in every broken bough or trampled water-hole, and this guides him in finding the mob he wants. We know the bush around us pretty well by this time, about as well, in fact, as a cabman knows the streets of London. It is all mapped out in our minds, and we talk of various spots by name, either their Maori names, if they have such, or fancy t.i.tles we have given them.

Of course, the dogs are our main reliance, though, even without them, such able hands as Old Colonial and the Saint can get on well enough.

But clever, well-trained cattle-dogs are a treasure beyond price in the bush; and this we know, taking great pains with our colleys. The cattle lie very close in the dense thickets of foliage, and hide themselves from sight. One may run slap into a beast before it will move. But the dogs traverse the gullies on the stockman's flanks, and start up any cattle that may be in them. Here is where the value of the dogs consists, for, if they are not well-trained, they may run after wild pigs, or rats, or kiwis, and give a lot of trouble.

Sometimes, after tracking the forest for many a weary mile, the stockman will have to return without finding the mob he wanted. Occasionally he will have to camp out, not because of losing himself--that seldom happens to us now--but because of the distance he is from home. So a stockman rarely goes out without three requisites about him--food, matches, and tobacco. Except in wet weather, camping out is no particular hardship to us. One can always make oneself comfortable enough in the bush, if one has those three articles, that are the bushman's "never-be-withouts."

When the cattle are found, belonging to a mob that the stockman thinks proper to drive home, comes some very heavy and exciting work. We call our beasts tame, and so they are in a sense; still, compared to the gentle creatures one sees on English meadows, they are scarcely to be so characterized.

At one time a mob will head for home, and go straight and quietly enough, needing only the dogs at their heels to keep them in the right direction. At another time the mob will scatter, and the members of it prove very unruly. They will charge and rush in every direction but the right one, and the very devil seems to be in the beasts. Scrambling up steep ranges, dashing down precipitous ravines, and always forcing a pa.s.sage through dense undergrowth and jungle, plunging through marsh and bog, chasing to right and to left, it is a wonder how dogs and men get through the work they do. And often there are miles and miles of this before the welcome clearing comes in view.

What is the condition of a stockman after he has brought up his mob and yarded it for the night? He has walked and run and scrambled, perhaps, twenty or thirty miles during the day, and that not over a plain road, but through the rough and hilly forest. He is totally tired out and exhausted. He is dripping with sweat, caked with mud from head to foot, his shirt torn to rags, his skin scratched all over, and very likely some nasty bruises from tumbles. He has hardly energy enough left to wash himself. Supper does not revive him, though he stows away an appallingly large one. And then he stretches himself in his bunk and is happy. Only, when morning comes again, he awakes stiff and sore. But, no matter for that, inexorable duty claims him for the same toil. And so wags our daily life--hard, unremitting, unromantic labour, day after day, year after year. Still we say it is a glorious life, and we believe what we say. Anyhow, it is better than being chained to a desk, or growing purblind "poring over miserable books."

If you can only realize what cattle-hunting means, the shouting and roaring after them and the dogs, the loss of temper that fatigue induces, and the consequent aggravation when beasts are unruly, perhaps you will forgive the Saint for his "exuberant verbosity" in relation to cattle. Even a real saint might swear under the circ.u.mstances, and be held excused by his peers in the celestial hierarchy.

Our four-year-old steers do not show very large, considered from English farmers' points of view. Fifteen or sixteen hundred lbs. is about the maximum of our fat beasts. But the beef is of first-rate quality; and as bush-fed beasts are in good condition at the end of the dry season, when pasture-raised cattle are poor, we do as well by them as could be desired. The bush is always cool and fresh and moist, even when all the gra.s.s is withered and brown on the pastures; and this is one of the reasons why we prefer bush-land to open-land for pioneer farming.

There is a standing controversy waged among settlers, as to whether it is better to take up such land as ours or to go in for a tract of open fern-land. On open lands you can easily clear the ground, and, though it will not, as a rule, yield gra.s.s for mere surface-sowing, yet the plough can be put into it within a year or two. But the cost of fencing it is much higher; and the open-land farmer must wait longer for returns such as will keep him. He has no bush-feed for cattle as we have, and it is cattle that the pioneer relies on for his support at first. It is eight or twelve years before the bush-farmer gets a chance of ploughing; but then his cattle keep him going from the outset. Also, our burnt clearings will yield us good gra.s.s for surface-sowing, which will feed sheep until the stumps have rotted and the plough can be used. The sum of it is that open-lands will pay a man with good capital quicker, while bush-lands are the only possible thing for such poorer folk as ourselves.

We send steers to Auckland market two or three times a year. Once or twice we have driven them overland, a distance of eighty miles or so by the map. This is not so far, certainly; but then there are no proper roads, and most of the way lies through thick bush. There is a faint apology for a bridle-track through the forest, not very easy to find, which strikes the Great North Road about twenty miles from here. And this same Great North Road, in spite of a pretentious t.i.tle, and also in spite of being marked in the maps with a heavy black line, as though it were a highway of the Watling Street description, is just a mere bridle-track, too, hardly discoverable at all for the greater portion of its length.

Two or three of us ride along these tracks with the cattle. One or two have to be most of the time on foot, while the third leads their horses.

They are plunging through the otherwise impenetrable scrub after dogs and cattle, which last will not keep the line. The whole journey takes about a week. We camp down at night, and half the next day is taken up with hunting for some of the beasts that have strayed. Usually one or two are lost altogether before Auckland is reached.

This sort of thing hardly pays, unless a considerable number of beasts have to be sent at once; and then the steers have lost condition before they can be got to market. I have had some experience of this cattle-driving work; and of all the aggravating jobs I know, it certainly is the very worst.

We usually send up our fat steers in batches of a dozen or so at a time, and prefer now to have them conveyed by water. When we have arranged to do so, there is a grand muster of the herd. Mob after mob is brought up and enclosed in the fenced clearings, until we have collected together all we deem necessary.

Then comes the job of drafting out the steers selected for market. This is a work of difficulty. All hands are required to achieve it, and often several neighbours will come over to a.s.sist. A small paddock, or a stockyard, opens out of the larger one wherein the herd is a.s.sembled.

The slip-panels between are guarded by four men. Others on horseback, armed with the formidable loud-cracking stock-whips, drive the cattle slowly towards the gate. Then comes the tug of war. Each man uses all his endeavours to drive the chosen steers through the gate, while the rest are excluded.

A regular battle is fought over every steer; for the guardians of the gate often fail in preventing other beasts from getting through as well, as they will not separate. Then the driving is renewed from the other side. The cattle get wild and furious, charging and rushing at everything and everybody, and the men on foot have to look out for themselves very warily. The racket and row make up an indescribable din.

As each four-year-old is finally drafted out, it is driven into a separate yard, until all are secured there. Then the bulk of the herd are turned loose into the bush again. By-and-by, perhaps a day or two later, comes the job of shipping the steers. In order to effect this they are transferred to a stockyard on the beach.

We have chartered a sea-going cutter, and she lies off in the river, possibly two or three hundred yards from the beach. A rope connects her with the beach; and the noosed end of this is pa.s.sed over the horns of one of the steers in the yard. Then comes a tussle to get that particular beast out of the yard while the others shall be kept in.

Often, in spite of the dreaded stockwhips, one of the guardians of the slip-panels gets knocked over, and then away goes the mob of terrified beasts, tearing along the beach, and giving no end of trouble to get them back again. Once, I remember, a heavy steer bounded clean over the eight-foot fence of the stockyard, and got away.

When the roped animal is got out on the beach, a ring of men drives him down to the water, the people on board the cutter hauling at the rope meanwhile. By this means he is easily got alongside of her, when once he is off his legs and swimming. Then a sling is pa.s.sed under his belly, tackle is affixed, and, with a "Yeo, heave ho!" he is lifted on board and deposited in the hold. Then the process begins afresh until all the batch is shipped.

The cutter sails down the river and out through the Heads into the open sea. She then coasts down and enters the Manukau Harbour, going up to Onehunga to unload. Onehunga is only six miles from Auckland, of which it is practically a part, being the port of the city on the west coast.

It is connected with Auckland by railway and macadamized carriage-road.

In Auckland market fat cattle sell at twenty to thirty shillings per hundred lbs., sometimes even a little more. Our beasts usually fetch us ten or twelve pounds apiece, after deducting freightage, and our agent's charges for receiving and selling them. This year, our herd of two hundred head yielded us three batches of four-year-old fat steers, each batch containing about a dozen head.

When cattle breed wild in the bush they may be a source of considerable annoyance and loss. This does not matter in remoter districts, such as the recesses of the Hokianga forests. Wild cattle abound there, possibly in hundreds; and the Maoris make a good thing by hunting them for their hides. There are no settlers' cattle running in the bush there; but where there are, wild cattle would make them as wild as themselves, and would spoil a herd in no time. When they appear in a district, cattle-farmers have to combine to hunt them down and extirpate them.

Once there were some wild cattle in the bush between Te Pahi and Paparoa, on the opposite side of our river. The settlers of Paparoa were hunting them down, and we were warned to look out, for fear the beasts should take to the water. They did do so, and a whole mob of them tried to swim over to our side.

Fortunately we were on the look-out. At once a party took to the boats, while others watched along the sh.o.r.e. We were in a great funk about the matter, for if the wild bulls got over to our side it might mean almost ruin for us. So we charged gallantly at them in the water, and strove to head them back to the other side, where the Paparoa men were waiting for them.

Such guns as we had were brought out, but they were little good, not being rifled, and we had no ball cartridge. Dandy Jack performed prodigies of valour with an old harpoon; and O'Gaygun used his axe with great success. Altogether, the excitement was great and the sport good.

One bull overturned a boat, as it rowed alongside him; but the Fiend, who was in it, adroitly clambered on to the animal's back as it swam, and, with great difficulty, managed to open its throat with his knife.

Seven or eight were killed in the water. Even the despised new-chums'

pistols were brought into use, and in this emergency they proved really valuable. The beasts that effected the crossing were slaughtered on the beach; and altogether we killed some eighteen or twenty. We prevented them thus from getting into our bush, so saving our own herd from contamination. This has been our only experience of the kind in this district, luckily.

There was an incident that happened once, in connection with cattle, of rather an unusual sort. So much so, in fact, that most people to whom we have at times spoken of it have doubted our veracity. I suppose it will add but little weight to the story if I premise it with the a.s.sertion that it is simple truth. Nevertheless, it _is_ actual fact, believe it or not who list.

There was a grand a.s.semblage at the station of a friend and neighbour of ours, on one of the Kaipara rivers. He had been running a large herd, over a thousand head of cattle, and was now going to dispose of the greater number. This was because the feed for them was getting short in his immediate neighbourhood; and because his land was now becoming ready for sheep and the plough.

Nearly all the men in the district had been asked to come and a.s.sist at the mustering, drafting, and so on, of the herd. It was a gathering of the kind known in America as a "bee." And as a bee usually winds up with festivity, feasting, dancing, and the like, such femininities as the district possessed were brought over by their respective husbands or male relatives. While we busied ourselves with the cattle in the yard and on the run, the ladies were occupied with industries peculiar to themselves indoors, giving the mistress of the house the benefit of a sewing, scandal, and cooking bee, probably.

We had been all day hard at work, and had pretty well got through all there was to do. Most of the cattle had been drafted into yards, had been branded or handled as required, and the work was nearly complete.

Towards sundown we came to be most of us a.s.sembled about one of the yards.

This was a stockyard, or paddock, of about two acres in extent, and within it an obstinate young bull remained solus, holding his own against us. It was necessary, for purposes which need not be specified, that the beast should be thrown and tied down. We usually accomplish the overthrow of big beasts by noosing their legs, and so tripping them up; but this bull was far too wary to let any one get near him, and was wild and vicious, moreover. Several of us had been fruitlessly trying, for an hour or more, to do something with him, and our host was now saying the beast had better be shot out of hand; but we had spent so much time over him already that we did not like to give in, and resolved we would throw him anyhow. None of us could stay inside the fence, so fierce were the rushes of the bull, and he was too cunning to let himself be caught by coming near the rails.

As man after man concluded his other tasks, and came up to a.s.sist, our perplexity seemed to increase. Various plans were discussed, and put in operation, but the bull baffled them all. There was beginning to be a good deal of ill-temper and swearing among us.

And now Dandy Jack appeared on the scene. He had not been with us during the day, having just rowed over from somewhere else. Of course he had gravitated towards the house when he arrived, and had been sunning himself in the ladies' smiles. Now he was strolling out to have a pipe, and to see what we were about.

Tired, ill-tempered, and covered with muck as we all were, there was a tendency among us to resent this late arrival of Master Dandy Jack's; and this feeling, you may be sure, was not lessened by a contemplation of the extravagant cleanliness and daintiness of apparel that, as usual, pervaded this spruce lady-killer's outward man.

He was hailed with a volley of sarcasm and personalities, amid which he stood, hands in pockets and pipe in mouth, placidly surveying us and the situation. At length, when a pause in the tempest of words gave him an opportunity of speaking, he said, in his softest and most delicate tones--

"I see before me a number of gentlemen with whom I have the honour to be more or less acquainted. They are all hot, dirty, and disagreeable. I also see a stockyard, and within it four quarters of fresh beef, likewise hot, dirty, and disagreeable. There would seem to be a difficulty somewhere. Can I a.s.sist in removing it?"

He was answered by a burly giant of a bushman, a Wairoa man, who had scant knowledge of our dandy.

"P'raps you'll be so blanked polite as to show us how to capsize that blanked beast," he said, adding with bitter irony, "if it ain't too much to ask from such a blanked, pretty, drawing-room ornament!"

"Oh, certainly! with all the pleasure in life!" responded Dandy Jack urbanely. "Will you kindly keep my pipe alight for a minute?"

Then, to everybody's amazement, he vaulted over the fence and approached the bull. Instantly that animal saw him, down went his head, of course, and up went his tail, as he charged upon the sauntering figure. But Jack dodged the rush with the nimbleness of a practised picador; and the bull crashed against the fence. Again and again the same performance was repeated, while we all watched round the fence, calling to Jack at intervals to come out of his dangerous situation. He only nodded carelessly, and continued to saunter about as if no bull was near him.

Presently, the bull stood stock-still, then commenced pawing the ground, tossing his head and tail, bellowing, and eyeing Jack, who was leisurely moving towards him right in front. He had apparently grown tired of charging this figure that always eluded him, and was uncertain what to do next. So Dandy Jack walked on till he was within a yard or two of the bull's nose. Then the beast thought it was time to do something, and concluded to try the effect of one more rush.

But he was too late. Directly that his angry head went down, with a preparatory sweep, Dandy Jack, whose a.s.sumed carelessness really covered a preternatural degree of alertness, sprang at him.

It was all done so quickly that we spectators could hardly distinguish what was happening. We saw Jack seize one of the bull's horns with both hands, we saw him place his foot upon the other. Then came a wrench and a wrestle, all in the s.p.a.ce of one moment, and then Jack was whirling through the air, to fall lightly enough on the soft ground half a dozen yards off.

But the bull lay rolling on his back. That twist of his head had overbalanced him. And before he could recover himself and scramble to his feet, we had sprang over the fence and got him securely tied with our ready ropes.

A few minutes later, our eccentric chum was quietly sitting on the prostrate and helpless carcase of his late antagonist. With his usual dainty care he was ridding himself of the dust and dirt that had soiled him when he fell. The Wairoa man was regarding him in blank astonishment. Clearly, Dandy Jack was an entirely new species of the _genus h.o.m.o_ to him. Thus spake the bull-fighter, with elaborate affectation of languor and softness--