An Outback Marriage

What a ride that was! The inexperienced reader is apt to imagine

that because a plain is level, it is smooth, but no greater fallacy

exists. The surface of a plain is always bad galloping. The rain

washes away the soil from between the tussocks, which stand up

like miniature mountains; the heat cracks the ground till it opens

in crevices, sometimes a foot wide and a yard or two deep; fallen

saplings lie hidden in the shadows to trip the horse, while the

stumps stand up to cripple him, and over all is the long grass

hiding all perils, and making the horse risk his own neck and his

master's at every stride.

They flew along in the moonlight, Considine leading, Charlie next,

then the two black boys, and then Carew, with a black gin on each

side of him, racing in grim silence. The horses blundered and

"peeked," stumbled, picked themselves up again, always seeming to

have a leg to spare. Now and again a stump or a gaping crack in

the ground would flash into view under their very nose, but they

cleared everything--stumps, tussocks, gaps, and saplings.

In less time than it takes to write, they were between the mob

and the scrub; at once a fusillade of whips rang out, and the men

started to ride round the cattle in Indian file. The wild ones were

well mixed up with the tame, and hardly knew which way to turn.

Carew, cantering round, caught glimpses of them rushing hither and

thither--small, wiry cattle for the most part, with big ears and

sharp, spear-pointed horns. Of these there were fifty or sixty,

as near as Considine could judge--three or four bulls, a crowd of

cows and calves and half-grown animals, and a few old bullocks that

had left the station mobs and thrown in their lot with the wild

ones.

By degrees, as the horses went round them, the cattle began to

"ring," forming themselves into a compact mass, those on the outside

running round and round. All the time the whips were going, and the

shrill cries of the blacks rang out, "Whoa back! Whoa back, there!

Whoa!" as an animal attempted to break from the mob. They were

gradually forcing the beasts away from the scrub, when suddenly,

in spite of the gins' shrill cries, some of the leaders broke out

and set off up the plain; with the rush of a cavalry charge the

rest were after them, racing at full speed parallel with the edge

of the scrub, and always trying to make over towards it.

Old Considine met this new development with Napoleonic quickness.

He and the others formed a line parallel with the course of the

cattle, and raced along between them and the timber, keeping up

an incessant fusillade with their whips, while the old man's voice

rang out loudly in directions to the blacks behind.