From Squire to Squatter Part 32

"Well, the trees are blazed."

"I've seen no blazed trees. Have you?"

"Never a one. I say, Craig."

"Hullo!" cried the head stockman, glancing over his shoulder.

"Are you steering by blazed trees?"

"No," he laughed; "by tracks. Cattle don't mind blazed trees much."

Perhaps Bob felt green now, for he said no more. Archie looked about him, but never a trail nor track could he decipher.

Yet on they rode, helter-skelter apparently, but cautiously enough for all that. Tell was full of fire and fun; for, like Verdant Green's horse, when put at a tiny tree trunk in his way, he took a leap that would have carried him over a five-bar-gate.

There was many a storm-felled tree in the way also and many a dead trunk, half buried in ferns; there were steep stone-clad hills, difficult to climb, but worse to descend, and many a little rivulet to cross; but nothing could interfere with the progress of these hardy horses.

Although the sun was blazing hot, no one seemed to feel it much. The landscape was very wild, and very beautiful; but Archie got weary at last of its very loveliness, and was not one whit sorry when the afternoon halt was called under the pleasant shade of trees, and close by the banks of a rippling stream.

The horses were glad to drink as well as the men, then they were hobbled, and allowed to browse while all hands sat down to eat.

Only damper and beef, washed down by a billyful of the clear water, which, strange to say, was wonderfully cool.

When the sun was sinking low on the forest-clad horizon, there was a joyful but half-suppressed shout from Craig and his men. Part of the herd was in sight, quietly browsing up a creek.

Gentleman Craig pointed them out to Archie; but he had to gaze a considerable time before he could really distinguish anything that had the faintest resemblance to cattle.

"Your eye is young yet to the Bush," said Craig, laughing, but not in any unmannerly way.

"And now," he continued, "we must go cautiously or we spoil all."

The hors.e.m.e.n made a wide detour, and got between the bush and the mob; and the ground being favourable, here it was determined to camp for the night. The object of the stockmen was not to alarm the herd, but to prevent them from getting any farther off till morning, when the march homewards would commence. With this intent, log fires were built here and there around the herd; and once these were well alight the mob was considered pretty safe. All, however, had been done very quietly; and during the livelong night, until grey dawn broke over the hills, the fellows would have to keep those fires burning.

Supper was a more pleasing meal, for there was the addition of tea; after which, with their feet to the log fire--Bob and Craig enjoying a whiff of tobacco--they lay as much at their ease, and feeling every whit as comfortable, as if at home by the "ingleside." Gentleman Craig had many stories and anecdotes to relate of the wild life he had had, that both Archie and Bob listened to with delight.

"I'll take one more walk around," said Craig, "then stretch myself on my downy bed. Will you come with me, Mr Broadbent?"

"With pleasure," said Archie.

"Mind how you step then. Keep your whip in your hand, but on no account crack it. We have to use our intellect _versus_ brute force. If the brute force became alarmed and combined, then our intellect would go to the wall, there would be another stampede, and another long ride to-morrow."

Up and down in the starlight, or by the fitful gleams of the log fires, they could see the men moving like uneasy ghosts. Craig spoke a word or two kindly and quietly as he pa.s.sed, and having made his inspection, and satisfied himself that all was comparatively safe, he returned with Archie to the fire.

Bob was already fast asleep, rolled snugly in his blanket, with his head in the hollow of his upturned saddle; and Archie and Craig made speed to follow his example.

As for Craig, he was soon in the land of Nod. He was a true Bushman, and could go off sound as a bell the moment he stretched himself on his "downy bed," as he called it.

But Archie felt the situation far too new to permit of slumber all at once. He had never lain out thus before; and the experience was so delightful to him that he felt justified in lying awake a bit, and looking at the stars. The distant dingoes began to howl, and more than once some great dark bird flew over the camp, high overhead, but on silent wings.

His thoughts wandered away over the thousands and thousands of miles that intervened between him and home, and he began to wonder what they were all doing at Burley; for it would be broad daylight there, and very likely his father was trudging over the moors, or through the stubbles.

But dreams came and mingled with his waking thoughts at last, and were just usurping them all when he became conscious of the approach of stealthy footsteps.

He lay perfectly still, though his hand sought his ready revolver; for stories of black fellows stealing on out-sleeping travellers began to crowd through his mind, and being young to the Bush, he could not prevent that heart of his from throbbing uneasily and painfully against his ribs.

How did they brain people, he was wondering, with a boomerang or nullah?

or was it not more common to spear them?

But, greatly to his relief, the figure immediately afterwards revealed itself in the person of one of the men, silently placing an armful of wood on the half-dying embers. Then he silently glided away again, and next minute Archie was wrapt in the elysium of forgetfulness.

The dews lay all about, glittering in the first beams of the sun, when he awoke, feeling somewhat cold and considerably stiff; but warm tea and a breakfast of wondrous solidity soon put him all to rights again.

Two nights after this the new stock was safe in the yards; and every evening before sundown, for many a day to come, they had to be "tailed,"

and brought within the strong bars of the rendezvous.

Branding was the next business. This is no trifling matter with old cattle. With the calves indeed it is a bit troublesome at times, but the grown-up ones resent the adding of insult to injury. It is no uncommon thing for men to be severely injured during the operation.

Nevertheless the agility displayed by the stockmen and their excessive coolness is marvellous to behold.

Most of those cattle were branded with a "B.H.," which stood for Bob and Harry; but some were marked with the letters "A.B.," for Archibald Broadbent, and--I need not hide the truth--Archie was a proud young man when he saw these marks. He realised now fully that he had commenced life in earnest, and was a squatter, not only in name, but in reality.

The fencing work and improvements still went gaily on, the ground being divided into immense paddocks, many of which our young farmers trusted to see ere long covered with waving grain.

The new herds soon got used to the country, and settled down on it, dividing themselves quietly into herds of their own making, that were found browsing together mornings and evenings in the best pastures, or gathered in mobs during the fierce heat of the middle-day.

Archie quickly enough acquired the craft of a cunning and bold stockman, and never seemed happier than when riding neck and neck with some runaway semi-wild bull, or riding in the midst of a mob, selecting the beast that was wanted. And at a job like the latter Tell and he appeared to be only one individual betwixt the two of them, like the fabled Centaur. He came to grief though once, while engaged heading a bull in as ugly a bit of country as any stockman ever rode over. It happened. Next chapter, please.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

A WILD ADVENTURE--ARCHIE'S PRIDE RECEIVES A FALL.

It happened--I was going to say at the end of the other page--that in a few weeks' time Mr Winslow paid his promised visit to Burley New Farm, as the three friends called it.

Great preparations had been made beforehand because Etheldene was coming with her father, and was accompanied by a black maid. Both Etheldene and her maid had been accommodated with a dray, and when Sarah, with her cheeks like ripe cherries, and her eyes like sloes, showed the young lady to her bedroom, Etheldene was pleased to express her delight in no measured terms. She had not expected anything like this. Real mattresses, with real curtains, a real sofa, and real lace round the looking-gla.s.s.

"It is almost too good for Bush-life," said Etheldene; "but I am so pleased, Mrs Cooper; and everything is as clean and tidy as my own rooms in Sydney. Father, do come and see all this, and thank Mrs Cooper prettily."

Somewhat to Archie's astonishment a horse was led round next morning for Etheldene, and she appeared in a pretty dark habit, and was helped into the saddle, and gathered up the reins, and looked as calm and self-possessed as a princess could have done.

It was Gentleman Craig who was the groom, and a gallant one he made.

For the life of him Archie could not help envying the man for his excessive coolness, and would have given half of his cattle--those with the bold "A.B.'s" on them--to have been only half as handsome.

Never mind. Archie is soon mounted, and cantering away by the young lady's side, and feeling so buoyant and happy all over that he would not have exchanged places with a king on a throne.

"Oh, yes," said Etheldene, laughing, as she replied to a question of Archie's, "I know nearly everything about cattle, and sheep too! But,"

she added, "I'm sure you are clever among them already."

Archie felt the blood mount to his forehead; but he took off his broad hat and bowed for the compliment, almost as prettily as Gentleman Craig could have done himself.

Now, there is such a thing as being too clever, and it was trying to be clever that led poor Archie to grief that day.