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.