Читать книгу Ten Creeks Run - Miles Franklin - Страница 3

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"Stick to him, Jerry! Stick to him!"

"Garn! Stick to your grandmother! He's only pig-rootin'!"

"Ole Flea Creek could do better'n that! You orter seen him last spring!"

"Stop that, you —— fool!" commanded an older voice. "What the hell do you mean, kicking the insides out of a horse just to show off? There'll be plenty real riding to take the flashness out of you and the mokes before the muster is done!"

"Ssh! Milly!" said another in honour of a girl verging on teens, balanced on the top rail of the horseyards.

"Blow her! What's she doin' here? Oughter be home learnin' to sew!"

"Milly, you better go home," commanded her uncle, overhearing. "This is no place for you. Your mother wants you."

"Mother's coming herself to see them back Corroboree."

"He's not going to be backed today. Billy's not here."

"Yes, he is. He's coming down from the huts now. Besides, Uncle Bert said I could go to the muster."

"You'll get your neck broken!"

"No fear! I could stick anything in my new saddle, and Uncle Bert is going to take me himself." Milly put out her tongue behind her relative's back. Covert grins. The boss was not popular: Milly was, and in danger of being spoilt. Young Farquharson tweaked her long pigtail. Milly moved closer to Uncle Bert, where there was safety.

A busy time had come for the Run. The professional buyers for the Indian Army were expected, and the usual crowd that would as soon have missed the local agricultural shows as a muster were arriving for the fray. Among the top-rail critics and advisers were neighbouring squatters and station-hands as well as horse-fanciers and touts from Monaro, Queanbeyan, Yass, Goulburn, Tumbarumba, Bool Bool, Tumut, and Gundagai, who had come to look for strays or to pick up a promising colt or filly in advance from the stations celebrated for their products.

There were friends like Curradoobidgee Poole and Ronald Dice of Bookaledgeree, who had ridden from afar to take home their own strays and lend a hand in general: there were the Farquharsons from farther down the River—the river Murrumbidgee—smart fellows and great on harness horses. There were Billings and Cross-eyed Prendergast from Gundagai, in hopes of securing something for the coach lines, since the Milford brothers of Jinninjinninbong, over the river—the river Coolgarbilli—had introduced a coaching strain of late years, and the muster on that station was a joint affair with Ten Creeks Run. There was little Tommy Roper, unattached bachelor and horse-trainer at large, who picked up a living partly by following the shows with his hunters, and by droving, etc., between whiles. He was the man of the hour by reason of his recent epic which had left dead bullocks along the route from Riverina to the Victorian border, and incidentally left Tommy bankrupt, but he hoped to make a fresh start with something likely from the impending muster.

*

Old Jack Stanton, boss of Ten Creeks Run, and son of the original Stanton of Stanton's Plains, Bool Bool, before he became old Jack, had gone down the River—the river Murrumbidgee—to Turrill Turrill and started in sheep, where he did well. He had, however, never been weaned from the mountain country and with spare capital started a horse station with some first-class blood at Ten Creeks. In droughty summers he also travelled his sheep up. Friends and neighbours were the Milfords, natives of the other side towards Yass, who had secured Jinninjinninbong and other runs and established permanent homes on the opposite side of the Coolgarbilli, and were known for the uniformly high quality of their mob horses.

Jack Stanton was unmarried. His widowed sister—Milly's mother—kept house for him. She enjoyed the mountains, and often spent half the year in the home-made wooden house on the Coolgarbilli. It was due to her presence, and that of the Mesdames Milford, that there was a sprinkling of women guests among the musterers. The Farquharsons were accompanied by two sisters, and Aileen Healey had come with her brother Larry from Neangen Station adjoining Bookaledgeree. Aily was as pretty as the girls on chocolate-boxes, as her mirror told her any time she looked in it, a pleasant story now being confirmed in the eyes of the muster, and, most enchantingly to her, in the eyes of Ronald Dice.

It was the liveliest time of the year for these inaccessible stations. House and huts were full. Mrs Saunders had an ex-sailor in the kitchen and in the house proper a couple of brumby girls supplemented by intermittent help from as many rouseabouts as could be filched from the pursuits of the Run. They were easy to filch with two such baits as Sarah and Ellen Humphreys, and the girls among such swarms of admirers no sooner felt their affections beginning to root on one desirable than they were uprooted by the intrusion of another.

A fine draft of colts and fillies was expected this season to do credit to the brand "SP over J"—SP standing for the original Stanton's Plains, which each son retained as he set up for himself and added his own initial below. The runs were to be combed from the Wamgambril almost to the Jenningningahama and the head of the Murrumbidgee through to the fringe of the Bimberies and Tidbinbillies and back to Jinninjinninbong and Ten Creeks.

There were forty or fifty saddle horses in the home yards that glorious morning, most of them seasoned stock horses, with a few ladies' hacks and beasts fit for any show, and all in top condition. Some, turned out since last summer, were expected to be collar-proud and more experienced buckers than bewildered colts undergoing their first ordeal. There were several celebrities on rebel count, or for their pedigrees and potentialities. Foremost of these was Corroboree, a glorious four-year-old, sixteen hands, coal black, luxuriant of mane and tail, the spit of his imported sire, owned by the Potters of Cuppinbingle, farther down the river. The Potters were known for their hard riding and hard swearing, with a good deal of carousing and other virility thrown in, and as the best breeders and judges of horse-flesh from the Murrumbidgee to the Murray. One of them was expected on the morrow, and today was represented by a trainer and Mick Muldoon, the latter a horny old boundary-rider, drover, etc., who did not remember learning to ride or when he first camped out on his lone.

Opinion was so in favour of backing Corroboree and others that SP-over-J had to let the morning go in a buck-jumping tourney.

*

William Bowes, known as Flash Billy the Breaker, now approached, and interest shifted to a young man with limbs loosely hung and disproportionately long for his body, like a pair of tongs. His black hair was sleekly greased and grew low above his eyes on his small bullet head. His face was garnished with two black lawns foment his ears and a slick moustache with coquettish curls at the ends. He had glaringly strapped trousers, a tight short coat, a bright blue-fronted waistcoat, and the light boots of the horsey acolyte. Everything about him was flash, from the ring on his little finger to his long spurs, and the cabbage-tree hat "hanging on three hairs", as his contemporaries expressed it, and coloured the right shade like a meerschaum. He had tested his frame and earned renown breaking for Curradoobidgee, Gowandale, Cuppinbingle, and other stations previously to having all he could do on Ten Creeks. It was never denied that he had earned his sobriquet honestly. He had arrived but a few hours earlier from Queanbeyan and was in holiday apparel. He swung up to the top rail beside Milly and spat with terrific efficiency onto Corroboree as he was being run round the yard with head aloft and the carriage of an emperor.

"He crackles like a bag of rattlesnakes. Golly, just listen to him!" observed Long Billy, the rouseabout.

"What makes him make that noise? Is that good or bad?" inquired Milly. This raised a guffaw. Uncle Bert came to her rescue.

"My old dad, who knew more about a horse than any man I know—"

"Not more than you, Uncle Bert, surely?"

"I can manage to tell a horse from a cow if I'm not too rushed, but my dad knew all that was to be known about the gee-gees, and the more the colts would rattle the better pleased he'd be."

"I reckon he was dead right," confirmed Flash Billy.

"What about ketchin' him, Billy?" inquired Jerry Riddall.

"Wait till mother comes; she and the girls want to see him. I'll catch old Readymoney while we're waiting."

"Don't attempt such a thing!"

"You'll have your eyes kicked out!"

Protest arose from all round the top rail from men with halters or bridles awaiting a propitious moment to drop among the crowd cunning in presenting slickly aimed heels to the enemy.

"If you won't let me ride Romp, I shan't have anything but Readymoney. The others are logs of wood. It would take the polled Angus team to hold or slew them."

"Don't attempt Readymoney till Billy gives him a turn. He bucked like blue murder last spring," said SP-over-J.

Readymoney was a sweater's horse, one taken illegally and ridden till knocked up and turned adrift. His brand was botched, so he had never been claimed. He had been trained down the country and was the delight of Milly and other women riders for his urbane manners. Trained paces set a gap between the stock horse and the saddle horse. High prices were given by Sydney and Melbourne buyers for paced thoroughbreds guaranteed free from vice, with trial permitted. SP-over-J filled this kind of order, and in meeting it Billy Bowes was an artist of importance.

"Flash Billy's like a feller outer a circus. He can learn a horse to do anythink but talk," his admirers proclaimed.

He had been reared in the right atmosphere, his dad having been an old lag who had served his time on Cuppinbingle, and Billy, the last of his litter, was cradled in the Potter stables in which he learnt the more aristocratic methods of horse-training. His mother was a Red Rover lass, which is highly irrelevant, the lass and her old man having been long abed in a grave near their hut where the itching cattle were pushing the palings down, and high grass and thistles on the mound made a home for a pair of fat old goannas what time the Corroboree colt was being tamed. The old hands used the grave as a landmark, but it is obliterated today; the killing of timber alters the face of the ranges, and the old hands—what few of them remain—are growing forgetful.

*

Scornful of warnings, Milly dropped into the crowd with her pretty bridle, its blue forehead-band threaded through a macrame fly-chaser. Poole of Curradoobidgee dropped down behind her, but Readymoney, sneezing his goodwill, allowed the little girl to secure him. She led him out of the ruck in triumph, and when eves were off her, slipped astride his fat back and cried, "Open the gate while I ride the bucking outlaw through!"

"Get down at once! You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said her uncle.

"Then I'll ride sideways." She changed and Readymoney ambled away without protest.

The ladies were now coming from the house with Ronald Dice and Mr Eustace Blenkinsop in attendance.

"Come on, Billy, shall we put the tackle on the colt?" asked Jerry Riddall.

"Put it on the Wamgambril fust. He'll do yous for a start to warm up," said Flash Billy with consequence.

"Young Dice seems to be stickin' like a fly in tar to the ladies," remarked young Billings to Dan Spires, the overseer.

"You'll see him wherever there's a bit of rag about. He's like me," interposed Flash Billy.

"All the good riders seems to be weak on the skirts," said Jerry Riddall flatteringly. "What have you done with your girl, Billy?"

"Left her in Queanbeyan till next week." Billy was fluttering round a barmaid there.

"I heard a cove from Goulburn was top o' the runnin'," remarked Long Billy, the rouseabout.

"That tin mug with the handle off!" Billy was contemptuous. "You might git left. You never can tell with females. The ——s seem to pick out the mugs and pass by the likeliest chaps for spite," said Cross-eyed Prendergast.

"Perhaps they think you're looking at someone else all the time," ventured Long Billy.

"Begor', if the faymales didn't pick the culls, some of yez would stand a fat chance of iver getting married at all." This was Mick Muldoon's contribution.

"Is that why you're an old bachelor?"

"Maybe Oi'm wan of the proizes was passed over for the culls by the spoiteful faymales."

"It's Aily Healey!" observed young Billings, as the ladies drew near. "How did she get here?"

"On old Healey's chestnut mare, that's how; but if you want to know why, go ask Ron Dice," said little Tommy Roper, by reason of his aptitude and peregrinations, so forehanded in other people's affairs that he was credited with eyes in the back of his head.

"Ron Dice! Wotta yer mean?"

"Some fun there, I betcher! Ole Skinny Guts has shown signs of stickin' up to her since the show in Bool Bool," continued Tommy in a whisper.

"Who says that?" demanded Timmy Porter, eager on the track of gossip.

"Anyone with as much gumption as a wall-eyed wombat can see some things for himself," said Tommy.

Further confidences were impossible. Teddy Parsons, Long Billy, Jerry Riddall, and others had the tackle on the Wamgambril colt, so named from the direction of his foaling, and he stood breathing defiance in one of the outer yards. These youths were as tough as greenhide, having been dragged up on cockatoo selections about Bool Bool, but they lacked horse-flesh to squander, so for the present held ambition in leash and waited upon the great.

"Any cove like to show off what he can do fust?" called Billy. "I ain't been outer the saddle for a couple of days, and ain't had any sleep since the night before last."

"Here s a chance for volunteers," cried Ronald Dice gaily from the top rail as he sat between Rose Farquharson and Aily Healey, tenderly helping Aily to balance.

"Surely yous ain't afeared of a buster or two," continued Billy. "I git 'em meself now an' again if I git playin' the goat."

Tim Porter stepped forward. He had a bullet head and a large, loose mouth. He and his dad before him had been brought up on Bookaledgeree, where old Tim Brennan of The Gap had set up Tim, jun., some thirty years before this history takes its rise.

"I'd jist like to try," he said, paling round the gills. Tim would never be a crack. He lacked the intelligence, and a horse-breaker who does not have that needs to be minus a derangeable nervous system. Tim mounted amid copious advice from the top rail. The colt went into action immediately.

"Stick to him, Tim! Hang on a little longer! He's givin' in!"

"He can't ride! The colt's only pig-rootin'!"

"Pooh! He's hangin' on by his spurs!"

"The next root will bring him a buster."

Tim was stood on his head, his gymnastics greeted by guffaws. He got up and walked off with a forced grin.

"Well tried, old man!" said Dice kindly. "You only want to grip better with your knees and throw your weight with the movement of the horse—practice will do it."

"Who's next?" called Flash Billy.

"If someone will put my new saddle on him," said Milly, "I could easily stick those bucks."

A gale of laughter greeted this. "You could ride him all right," said Poole quietly, "but sticking a buck is no game for a girl: no game for a man either with any savvy, and it's no good for the horse, and unnecessary."

"Sure, 'tis tin chances to wan the beast wouldn't buck at all if you got on him, missy," said Mick Muldoon. "Only the Creathor Himself knows the way of high-spirited horses with women. A blood horse that would jump out av his hoide to get rid of a crack rider will let a hoigh-spirited gurrul play circus thricks wid him, him lettin' out snorts of contint. Or he will let a short-witted man put a pack-saddle on him an' climb aboord himself atop of the load. Sure, there's food for the philosophers there. Can ye explain it, Mr Poole, an' ye knowin' more av a horse than annywan aloive?"

"The trouble is, Muldoon, that we drive horses to buck and then break them of it. It would be much better if they were never let buck at all, and never learnt how, but that of course can't be done with so many to handle."

"Gettin' frightened!" whispered Tommy Roper to Dan Spires. "The greatest rider that ever threw a leg over a horse in his young days! I've seen the day when no horse could do nothing with him—not very long ago neither; an' when he'd get tired of buckin', his nibs would rouse him up again—must be losin' his teeth altogether."

"Coin' barmy to talk like that, I reckon. Aw, he's an old geezer now. I hope I'll kick the bucket before ever I get like that. No more good than a —— ole woman!"

"Ye re roight, av coorse, Mr Poole, but ye couldn't git thim young turkey cocks to credit it. But how do ye explain it furder with a horse that has been learnt to buck—take ould Readymoney now with Miss Milly on him bareback, an' she could have taken a tin can on with her to boot and he wouldn't disturb a nest of eggs in a silk hat, but if Flash Billy got aboord him there would have been the Ould Gintleman to pay."

The Breaker was called Flash Billy to his face to avoid confusion with Long Billy. He took no umbrage, considering it a tribute of jealousy to his smart trousers and waistcoats.

"I think it bears out what I have said," replied Poole. "A woman is not allowed on a horse till the buck is out of him, so he has no fear of her as an enemy, and all is friendly from the start."

*

A traveller was announced by the watch-dogs among the heelers, kangaroo dogs, and mongrels—visiting and resident—that were settling differences by direct action.

"Hogan's ghost! Here's old Teddy O'Mara!" announced the hawk-eyed Billy Bowes. This was disputed, betted upon, and settled by the appearance of a large brindled kangaroo dog followed by a smaller grey one, both in poison muzzles of perforated leather securely strapped on, protecting their lives and robbing them of joy. Behind them on a track down the river a horseman came out of the timber.

"He allus has them old dawgs."

"I never see them used for anything."

"Couldn't use them for nothing but to kill fowls or sheep."

"Keeps 'em for company, I reckon."

"It's a lonely thing to be travellin' without a dawg."

The horseman bent forward in somewhat the posture later introduced by Tod Sloan, and since adopted by all professional jockeys. In that clay it was the distinguishing antic of a half-wit.

"Queer ole feller! Always lays on his belly on horseback. Oughter git a bed an' be done with it."

"He turned in at Keba before we left. We wanted him to anchor there, because we have plenty to keep him going," said young Farquharson.

Teddy hitched his horse in the line outside the yards, kicked a few dogs from his path, and beamed upon the company. "Well, Teddy, are you travelling or only going somewhere?" said Dice.

"I'm goin' as far as I'm goin'," said Teddy. He was a tall man with greying whiskers in unclipped possum formation. His tousled curls protruded through a tattered felt bat: he wore a ragged overcoat despite the warm day, and twine served as bootlaces. Fearless decency shone from his clear blue eyes.

"Have you got married yet, Teddy?"

"No fear, the missus wouldn't let me."

"That's right, Teddy, you listen to what she says," commended Mrs Saunders, and remarked to Flora Farquharson, "I think it', disgusting to talk about marriage to that sort of men—might put dangerous notions in their heads about women."

"Heard you were at Keba for the summer," said Poole, and shook hands with him.

"No fear, that lousy old Farquharson offered me thirty bob a week. 'Keep your lousy thirty bob,' I says to him. 'I never work for less than a pound a week.' Ha! Ha! Ha!"

A kookaburra chorus ensued.

"My word, Teddy! That's the way to treat the blasted bosses!" laughed Dice.

"Your father ought to be ashamed of himself to play a dirty trick like that on poor old Teddy," smiled Poole at Farquharson.

"It was pretty low-down. I must see into it," laughingly agreed Farquharson.

"But I put the bell on him, you bet I did!" maintained Teddy hilariously. Again the guffaws at a primitive type of humour—which persists out of proportion to man's development in other ways—the propensity of the five-eighths-witted to find intense delight in guying the half-witted.

"Where are you bound for now—staying here?" asked SP-over-J.

"No fear! I'm making over the river to my young missus."

Two or three years previously the younger Milford had captured one of the Labosseer girls of Coolooluk, and it was to her that Teddy referred. His beat ran from Coolooluk to Curradoobidgee on Monaro and from there to Ten Creeks and Jinninjinninbong back to the Mazeres and Stantons of Bool Bool. Now and again a squatter outside the circle tried to entice Teddy with a higher wage, but usually met the fate of the Farquharsons because he could not count higher than a pound. His headquarters were with Mrs Rachel Labosseer. On her estate perfection reigned. Every stray man, Chinese, dog, or horse that came that way received attention. There Teddy returned when destitute and in tatters, and from there he was never allowed to depart without warm clothing and stout boots, and, if it was winter, an overcoat. A steam-roller could not have deflected him from seemliness, but he had to live life on his own terms as one of God's fools. Horse-breaking since he was twelve or fourteen, not even outlaws were untamable by him, but he left them with nature's paces and believed a walk an example of equine debauchery brought about by contact with cities. The cities to him were strange towns like Goulburn, Gundagai, and Wagga Wagga. Bool Bool and Cooma were home paddocks where to diddle Teddy brought upon the miscreant a dragooning from a Mazere, Labosseer, Brennan, or Poole.

Seeing that the dogs were all without muzzles, no baits having been laid for weeks before the muster, Teddy released his pets.

"Well, Teddy, you're in the nick of time," said Dice. "We're going to ride the Corroboree colt and when he's flung us all you can have a turn."

*

A fresh arrival brought word that the Milford brothers would be over on the morrow to run the Bull Flat Creek mob into trap-yards out that way, so the clay was relinquished to recreation. The more immediate sports opened briskly. Half a dozen young fellows with more energy than intelligence were soon raising a dust in the outer yards.

"I don't see any real fun in this bucking business," remarked Lucy Saunders. "It must rack a man."

"Of course it does," agreed Flora Farquharson. "Mother told me..." She lowered her voice for a juicy confidence. "You must tell me tonight."

Men's ribaldries regarding women were mostly obscenities about such basic facts as the procreative functions, and fed a distorted or debased craving for genuine humour, but the remotest men would have been staggered to know what percolated to women of their beings, and as strictly divested of prurience as a surgeon's treatise. There was nothing hidden from a decent full-witted woman concerning a man in those districts if she had a mind to know, and less hidden from the indecent. It has always been so. It will be more so as time goes on, but what men do not know of women is that about which women deceive them, plus what women do not know of themselves.

Flash Billy was genuinely tired from lack of sleep and hard riding consequent upon pursuit of l'amour, and merely kept an eye on the active practitioners. The prince of riders that day was Ronald Dice, elated because Aily Healey was an onlooker and that old SP-over-J seemed to be narked. Larry Healey was not riding, for a recent accident had strained his shoulder and he was resting to be ready for the feats of the muster. Dice's performance was easy and dashing. By sheer high spirits he excited his mounts and was not among those suffering falls. Admiration in Aily's pretty eyes was too much for SP-over-J.

"The real rider is the one who can stick Corroboree for five minutes when he really goes to market," said he. "Anyone who can do that can have his pick of the first yard of yearlings run in tomorrow."

"Is that a real offer?" asked Flash Billy. Stanton never flung his money about. "Skinny Guts" had more reference to his parsimony than to his physique.

"A square offer this morning to everyone within hearing, and I'll make it for anything under three years old."

"I wish I was not so thunderin' tired," complained Flash Billy.

"You and Mr Poole can be the timekeepers and judges." This mollified the Breaker. "Besides, there's not much chance of anyone winning—not anyone riding today. They can flop about on ladies' hacks pig-rooting, but let them have a go at Corroboree and they'll find their class."

There was a stir to rope and gear the colt, the snorting beauty, short of rib with barrel splendidly rounded, big in the girth, shoulders well laid in, great legs and quarters, built like a rock to stay, with breeding and intelligence stamped all over him. He came from a proud line of winners on the sire's side and on the other had a strain of Poole's famous Black Belles and Waterfalls.

When he was saddled, Jerry Riddall was the first to step forward. One of the greatest drovers known, young Jerry had never been off the roads till he engaged himself for a change on Ten Creeks. He was a better sprinter than rough rider, but the mob spirit here edged him on.

The colt was deceivingly calm. Equine intelligence pitted against human had so far kept him free from surrender. The flash bravado of horse-breakers could be a tea-party for two. Here was no terrified sufferer with quivering flank, tail tight between the hindquarters, and ears laid back. It was Jerry that trembled and had his tail between his legs.

Milly supported Poole as timekeeper when he took out his watch, a gold repeater presented to him over thirty years before when, single-handed, he had rid the Southern District of a guerrilla band of bushrangers.

Jerry hardly seated himself when a marvellous lurch flung him in the air. Dan Spires, the overseer, the second candidate, speedily met Jerry's fate. Then followed Jim Porter. Paddy Leary, the Cuppinbingle trainer, next had a try, but Corroboree dislodged him with the lightning lurch.

"The trouble with this 'ere colt is vice," said Flash Billy. "He's been at these capers for 'most a year now and it looks like he'll never give over."

"He's got the rale thoroughbred spring in him, an' he's carryin' his tail like a paycock, an' him the spit of his dad. Sure, if he's niver safe but for to pack salt 'tis a pity," observed Muldoon.

"With thorough precautions, I'd like a try," said Alistair Farquharson.

"Me first," said Long Billy. He took no end of precautions. He dampened the saddle amid the jeers of the spectators, and blindfolded the colt. Flash Billy and Dice led him round the ploughed yard before they took off the handkerchief and backed away. The colt merely raised his perfect muzzle and sniffed the morning breeze, honey-sweet with wattle borne down the valley to the music of the Coolgarbilli. Long Billy led off gingerly. Not a buck.

"Touch him up a little!" commanded Stanton. Long Billy dug a heel in his flank, but the horse did not seem to object.

"I don't think he's going to—" One splendid backward lurch onto his hindquarters and Long Billy went onto the wither, another forward and the rouseabout shot off like a pebble from a catapult amid shouts of glee.

There was a rush to recapture the colt lest he should clear the dog-leg fence of the bucking-yard and get away with the saddle, a deep-seated treasure with perfect knee-pads, but the colt only trotted back to the gate of the inner yard to be near his mates, allowing himself to be caught without fuss. Poole noted that he was quite calm, showing no touch of bad temper.

"Great Scott, what a clinker!" exclaimed young Dice, who had not seen him in action till then. "All he needs seems to be a rider. Have you tried him lately, Billy?"

"I'm allers tryin' him."

"Can he get rid of you?"

"I allers tire fust. He's as active as a cat, an' a stayer, an' as cunning as Beelzebub."

"He only needs a rider, though, for all that," said Stanton insinuatingly. "I've seen the day when Poole could have bested him without any fuss at all. Young fellows nowadays can't ride like they used to. They're not game!" He slyly watched the effect of his words on Aileen Healey. He half feared that if Dice took the challenge he might win, though Corroboree had not turned a hair yet. Wait till a succession of tormentors got his blood up!

"Oh, Uncle Bert, why don't you try now?" demanded Milly. "I'm sure he couldn't chuck you. Wouldn't you love to see Uncle Bert on him, Aileen?"

"I'd hate to see anyone hurt," said Aileen dubiously.

"She'd rather watch some of the flash young fellows who think they can ride," said Stanton.

"The colt ain't in his top form today," said Bowes.

"That's good news," said Alistair Farquharson. "I'll have a go and chance the dux." He had watched the horse's methods and thought he could be ready for his sudden prop.

A few vigorous bucks failed to dislodge him. Alistair stirred him up and was treated to the backward prop. Surviving this he began to feel hopeful, but he could not read the colt's mind for the next move. It was an oblique lunge to the off-side and a swing-hack to the left with such terrific speed and strength that Alistair might as well have tried to sit a derrick loose in a southerly. It placed him on the crupper and a bound forward set Corroboree free.

"I managed the prop but that twister did for me," said Alistair, getting up and dusting himself with unruffled amiability. "I'd rather break him to harness with my new-fashioned breast collar."

"That's allers the way with him. You may think you learnt all his moves, but you'll allers find him one ahead of the game."

"I'd like a go just to show I'm not yellow," said Dice, stepping up and examining the tackle. He vaulted to the saddle with strength and grace and spurred the horse into immediate action. His tactics were to put him on the defensive. The onlookers enjoyed an exhibition of every kind of buck with a breather between the efforts—side to side, the sharp swing round, kicking-up and bucking forward at the same time, and compelling the rider to employ two kinds of seat simultaneously. This failed to dislodge young Dice.

"He's the only feller of me own age I'd ever be afeared of taking second place to," said Bowes commendingly, "but he's only been on a couple er minutes yet."

SP-over-J grew uneasy. "You must stir him up. You mustn't camp till the time is up," he called out harshly.

Ronald applied a prick of his heel. The horse was warming up. Terror was stealing into his haughty heart such as no rider had been able to put there since he had dislodged the first impertinence. When first backed he had felt similar terror. Here was one who might be a fixture. A convulsion of rage stirred the horse. Back and forth, up till he was perpendicular as a man! This being unavailing, he finally acted like a dog with a heavily charged bait and in frenzy flung himself clean backwards. A spur high in the glinting sun, the clink of a stirrup, and his tormentor rolled from under with agility and presence of mind.

With a snort of satisfaction Corroboree trotted away.

"You pulled him too far over. Would you like a second try?" inquired Stanton suavely.

"No, Mr Stanton, that wasn't it," interposed Billy. "It's what I was sayin'; it's vice. That's what he does when he can't get rid of you by fair means."

"Going to take a second shot?" persisted Corroboree 's owner. "Not now, thanks," said Dice, dusting himself and working his limbs to be sure they were uninjured. "He's bested me fairly, but I shouldn't call it vice, would you, Mr Poole?"

"No, Ronnie, I shouldn't. I've never seen a better bit of riding, but when it came to bedrock he was the better warrior. It's not the right way to tackle that beast, if I know anything."

"Teddy! Now's your chance!"

"Come on, Teddy—Teddy O'Mara up!"

"Don't let the poor old fellow on that beast. He might be killed," said Mrs Saunders.

"It's not fair! He's getting too old!" said Rose Farquharson. "They say it was a fall on his head when he was little left him as he is," said her sister.

"I should say he came short from his mother," said Stanton.

"He's not short on lots of things that others would be better to be a bit longer on," said Poole. "I don't know a decenter old fellow from here to the Upper Murray. No woman has ever had to make a complaint about poor old Teddy, and he works his passage through life."

"It's a shame to barrack him onto an outlaw," said Milly. "He's too old."

"Strange thing, being a little short mentally, I don't believe he knows he's getting old," said Poole.

Teddy could not be kept off the colt now. He placed his own saddle, with wads of horse-hair sticking from under the seat where mice had found a lying-in ward. Someone had jockeyed him out of the sound article with which he had left Coolooluk six months earlier. He did not discard his flapping overcoat. He put one foot in the stirrup, jumping several times to gain momentum to rise. The noble beast courteously awaited his guest. Teddy mounted, clouted with his old hat; Corroboree, with the sneeze that voices equine goodwill, set off at a dog trot round the yard. Teddy reined in before the ladies and chanted:

"Me feyther and mother were Irish, And I was Irish too; We bought a tin kettle for ninepence, And knocked up an Irish stoo!"

"He's tired for the day," said Farquharson.

"Phwat did I tell yez about women and thim that's not all there!"

"He's all right if you ride about like a girl!" gibed Dan Spires. "Stir him up, Teddy. He's afraid you'll fall off."

Teddy flapped his hat but the charger only mended his pace a little. The gibes began to anger Teddy. Other tunes, other fashions in the efflorescence of virility. In those days a roan would have been considered effeminate to minimize bucking. Teddy yawed on the bit, but the horse was taking no ungentlemanly advantage. Flash Billy reached out with a roping pole and pricked him under the tail. He resented the indignity by gaining his freedom with a smart buck. Old Teddy rolled away unhurt.

Poole spoke aside to Stanton, "Say, Jack, if you like to trust roe with that colt for a few weeks, I'll return him fit for Milly to ride, or I'll make a swop for him."

"I don't want to part with him, but if you'll take him on, you can have the pick of the youngsters as I promised."

*

"Ronnie, do please ride Romp for me," coaxed Milly.

"Is she an outlaw, too?"

"Anyone could stick her bucks," Flash Billy hastened to explain, "but she's a vicious little devil and no two ways about it. She lays down when she finds she can't get red of you, an' when she finds you can lepp back on her as often as she comes down, she'll jump right out of everythink. I'd like you to have a go at her, just to see, but as I'm makin' a lady's hack outer her for Miss Milly I want to keep her mouth from bein' spiled—it's like velvet now," concluded Billy with sweet reasonableness.

"I couldn't risk spoiling your work. You give us an exhibition."

Romp was the daughter of Young Whisker, the famous polo pony that had been purchased for an Indian rajah. Old Whisker his dad, was as famous a galloway sire as ever put to stud, and, like many other celebrities, the discovery and property of the Potters of Cuppinbingle. His granddaughter, Romp, was a unique beast such as is seen once in ever so seldom in a mob where there is an admixture of pure blood. Her dam, Lady Lochinvar, bred on Curradoobidgee, had been a tall flyer with a swinging stride that could give dust to any amateur racer run for saddles and bridles up the country. Had high jumping attained its present vogue she could have established a record. She had cleared the Curradoobidgee horse-yards, seven feet if they were an inch, and built like a jail. She jumped out of Mazere's orchard in Bool Bool, no pound could retain her for five minutes. Withal her canter gallop were pneumatic and her mouth so delicate that a child of four could hold her, and she was never 'mown to shy or even prance in spring. When she was quite old but still a treasure, Milly bad received her as a present from Uncle Bert, beloved of children and with pockets full of just the safest nags for them to ride.

Lady Lochinvar's youngest daughter was a blue roan, with black mane and tail. She flashed round the yard in the sparkling day, one of the daintiest fillies that ever tasted the waters of the Murrumbidgee. The small head had fire and symmetry, the chest, shoulders, and well-planted legs promised a weight-carrier and stayer. She was as hard as nails with a grace and strength of action guaranteeing goat-like sure-footedness—the perfect polo pony, with outré colouring to make her the darling of a girl's heart. Before two she had been handled and given to Billy to pace. That was fifteen months since. Billy's report was that she was a she-devil and would never be safe as a lady's hack. Milly refuted this with heat. It had grown to a feud between Billy and Milly.

"Wouldn't she be a picture with hogged mane and tail! In a nice light trap with my new breast collar she'd take every prize from here to Melbourne. Will you sell her to me for harness, Milly?" teased Alistair Farquharson.

"If Billy's too much of a softy to train her, I'll do it myself. You can have old Flea Creek for harness!"

The Breaker mounted and the filly went round the yard like an angel. "She's so tricky," said he, "you'd think butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, and then, whew!" He touched her with the spur. Away went the little spitfire, bucking like a demented kitten and rolling viciously on the near side. Billy was out of her way like an acrobat and back into the saddle as she righted without dropping the reins. Cheers from the top rail. Romp went down on the other side.

"She jist doesn't want anyone on her and will never rest till she gits 'em off. I don't mind her now, because I can feel when it's comin', but she'd be a nice safe little picnic for a lady on a sidesaddle with skirts," said Billy as he dismounted.

"Let me have a go at her," said Dice. "She ought to be ridden hard for a week and never stirred up till she forgets about bucking."

"Billy is always telling lies about the poor little thing. I don't know why he has such a set on her," said Milly warmly.

"We'll get to the bottom of this, Milly, old chum," said Poole in a comforting aside.

"Let her git her head down an' touch her on the flank same as a lady with skirts couldn't help doin', an' see what the treacherous little tyke will do," said Bowes.

Dice obeyed. Romp was stirred to violent action and by some sleight retreated from every scrap of gear without straining a buckle—a feat possible to perhaps one horse in a million.

"She won't have a skerrick on her, and that's all there is about it," said Billy conclusively.

"You ought to sell her to a circus, Milly," suggested Spires.

"I'll never, never sell her. I'll keep her to look at," said Milly, brushing away indignant tears, "and no one shall ever ride her if I can't."