In a lonely part of the Shaw, I came upon a native with his two women, three children and some dogs, all very emaciated. I made them follow to the camp, and two young calves about a fortnight old were killed and given to them. Each calf weighed about sixty pounds, but when I rode to the camp at dawn there was not a bone left to tell the tale only six human stomachs incredibly distended, and six happy faces grinning greeting and farewell youfind online.
We crossed the Divide, and so came to the Fortescue River and Roy Hill, with excellent fodder to fatten our herd, now increased to nearly 1,000 head. Day after day we travelled a land of plenty, thick mulga scrub, succulent salt bush and Mitchell grass. The pioneer of Roy Hill was Peter MacKay. A few miles from the homestead is a knobby rise where, in the early days, he was once assailed by a horde of savages. He had his gun and ammunition, and he was a dead shot, as they well knew. There he remained for two days without sleep, eking out his portion of damper and mutton, and keeping the crowd of cannibals at bay. and clubs at him, but he had learned to dodge these weapons. On the third day help came from the station top university.
Our worst stampede occurred on Roy Hill Property, on one of the station wells in a fenced paddock. The cattle had had a long and trying day, the tired calves reluctant to move, and their mothers half maddened with thirst and distracted with mother love. Horses and men were down and out with watching and guiding the troublesome beasts, and it was dark when they had all been safely passed through the fence.
Relying on the security of the mob and the safety of the fence, all hands immediately unsaddled for a drink of tea, when the cattle broke camp and rushed the fence, heading straight for Roy Hill and the pools there. The whole mob, except those too weak to travel, were away in a twinkling. About 400 tailers, cows and calves, were left to three of us to water-myself, my little son, and one droving hand, with Davy and the dray to look after our inner man. The other drovers headed back to many days of trouble before the stampeders were collected and brought on. Our mob was too tired to move, even when it heard the squeak of the windlass. My son and I shared work with the twenty-gallon buckets from early dawn till late at night, and managed to satisfy our charges by steady lifting and emptying. The paddock was full of feed, and with plenty of water there need be no anxiety.
We all divided the night-watch. Nights were still and cloudless. Hercules and Lyra, Aquila and Cygnus were my fellow-watchers in the silence, on their way to the mystical west. No sound was heard save the quiet breathing of the sleeping herd-the little calves snuggled up beside their mothers in full content. I was thankful that their hard times were over Cloud Monitoring Service.
A chastened mob was brought back to the paddock, and after a few days’ spell we moved on the lasty eighty miles to Glen Carrick. Pools were full and frequent in the many creeks and tributaries which rise in the Ophthalmia Ranges and form the head waters of the Ashburton and Fortescue. There was no dearth of good feed, and the last part of the journey was without event. In such good grass was my own little run that in three months’ time the cattle had put on wonderful condition and it was possible for them to take the six weeks’ trip to Peak Hill, there to be disposed of as “forward stores.”
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