A QUEENSLAND STATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 77, 31 March 1928, Page 10 (Supplement)

A QUEENSLAND STATION.

OUT-BACK EXPERIENCES. A NINETEEN-STONE MANAGER. HOW "CORNY" FELLED A STEER.

(By C. STEWART.)

In a previous article I gave a description of Dalgonally Station, the millionacre cattle holding of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, Limited, in North Queensland. There were some very interesting characters among the station hands in my time, not the least remarkable of them all being the manager himself, one John Nichol, a most unique personality both in manner and physique. He had been head stockman in the days of Donald Macintyre, brother of the original Macintyre the explorer, and vendor of the property to the land company. Prior to that he had been a drover, and in that capacity had moved most of Maeintyre's cattle for many" years, either to the meat works at Normanton on the Gulf of Carpentaria, or south to the Sydney or Adelaide markets. Not more than five feet in height, he seemed almost as broad, an immense barrel of a man, with a waist girth of about 60in and weighing over 19 stone. He frequently got letters from his humorous friends, saying that their colt had received the light impost of six stone twelve in the next Melbourne Cup, and would he take on the job of steering it to victory. He had short but enormously thick arms and legs, and as may well be supposed, was one of the most awkward-looking men imaginable on the ground But he was as hard as nails and could hop on the back of a tall stockhorse with more agility than many a lighter man, and, strange to say, once mounted he lost all appearance of awkwardness and actually rode as lightly as any of his men. Working in the stockyard, too, he would scale the 10ft fences with amazing speed to avoid the charge of some infuriated beast. His face was the colour of dark-red brick, with the mildest blue eyes I have ever seen, with that slightlyJbleared look under the lids that comes frotn gazing across the far distances into the tropical sun. He was the kirdest-hearted and most simple-natured man in the world, and, so the stockmen told me, was imposed on right and left whenever he went up to town, which, fortunately for him, was not often. It ceems that he simply couldn't steel his heart to resist any tale of woe.

A New Chum's Appointment. j Now, T had been engaged by the Sydney office of the land company purely on account of my book-keeping abilities, without reference to any other attainments. I had been warned by a friend who knew the ropes, to say that I was a total abstainer. It seems that a prospective book-keeper was once being interviewed and had been put through a fairly lengthy examination as to his capabilities, out of which he was emerging quite creditably. Suddenly the question was shot at him: "Do you drink?" Feeling weary under the bombardment of questions, our hero pulled out hia watch and saw that it was close on 11 a.m., and thinking that his questioner meant nothing but kindly, said, "Well, I don't mind if I do, as long as its only a small one." That put him in the end book as far as that job was concerned. Escaping a similar fate, I was duly dispatched north, without the station manager having had any say in the selection. Indeed, the distance of Dalgonally from civilisation was too great for any other arrangement to be practicable. Not much use asking applicants to "apply on the job," when the said job was 100 miles from the railway, and 500 miles from the coast! Well, the old chap drove in to meet the train by which I arrived and during the 100-mile return trip to the homestead, which took the whole day, we had ample time In which to get acquainted. I frankly owned up that although I might fairly claim some degree of dexterity with a pen, I was a rank new chum at most of the things that seemed to count out west. It was 25 years since I had been on a horse's back and although I believed I had once driven a buggy and pair between Paeroa and Waihi, the horses had been harnessed up for me at the livery stable, and neither the two young ladies and the gentleman who accompanied me, nor, I trusted, the owner of the outfit, had any suspicion that it was my first attempt.

Old Niohol laughed heartily as I detailed my various shortcomings, and said he would do his best to break me in gently. His first opportunity to keep his promise came about a week after iny arrival, when he said at breakfast, which he and I ate together in "Government House," the rest of the men having their meals in another building: "It's killing day to-day, and you're supposed to give the butcher a hand, but if you don't feel like it I'll send the horse boy in your place." However, I thought I might us well tackle it early as later, and was duly shown the old gray stockhorse which had been allotted to me as my peculiar property during my stay on the station. After a lot of trouble, and much derision from the butcher, I managed to catch, saddle and mount this intelligent animal, which knew far more about the game than I did or ever would, and I accompanied the butcher out on to the run, where we soon cut out from a small herd of cattle a likely-looking young steer, which, after some frantic but unavailing efforts to rejoin his mates, made over to where our "coachers" were standing. These coachers were beautiful sleek five-year-old bullocks, two calves which had been hand-reared from babyhood, perfectly tame and worderfully intelligent. They were always taken out to the far gate of the home paddock, where they would stand patiently waiting until the prospective beef, finding itself unable to rejoin the herd outside, would run naturally to them for company. It was truly a sight then to watch these beauties range themselves one on each side of the frightened steer, and escort it quietly right through the home paddock and into the killing pen, where they would stand like rocks, with the steer betv/een them, until the butcher had dropped it with a .303 bullet between the eyes. Immediately it dropped the coachers would walk quietly out of the pen, while the butcher proceeded to complete his work by slitting the throat of the unconscious beast. A Question of Knives.

After the bleeding, a job I picked up Without difficulty, came the skinning, and here it was that I became acquainted with one of friend Nichol's idiosyncrasies. As an old drover, he was, of course, an expert butcher himself, and had his own private set of knives, which it was his pride and joy to keep as keen-edged as razors. Now, the station butcher either couldn't or wouldn't put a decent adge on his knives. Dressed in immaculate white duck, old Nichol would stroll over to the killing pe n to see what pro-

gress I was making, and the first time I cut the hide, as 1 must own I often did, lie would snort: "Hey, what are you up to there? Here, give me that knife a minute." Then, feeling the edge, he would pitch it away with another snort: "Might as well use a bit of hoop iron!" Then out would come his own knife, and njy job was over for the time, as he would never let me handle his precious blade. It was an eye-opener to watch him strip the hide of that 'beast, in about half the time the butcher could have done it. Then he would straighten up, and look ruefully at his shirt ringing with perspiration, and his beautiful ducks all smeared with blood, and with a grunt he would waddle off to the house to change. It was the same thing week after week, and I'm sadly afraid that when I came to realise his failing I used to play on it most shamelessly, and purposely cut the hide soon after he appeared on the scene. He was just the same over at the blacksmith's shop. He would stand and watch the smith for a few minutes, and then: "Here, give me that sledge minute!" and a little later he would be grime and dust from head to foot. He used to laugh about it afterwards at meal times, but I noticed that he always came back for more. He was a capital raconteur, especially when he found a really interested listener, as I always was, and after the evening meal we would sit on the wide verandah, and in between the attacks of the mosquitoes he would regale me with many a spicy yarn of station life.

"Putting in the Boot." One in particular 1 remember about a new chum, a Oornish miner, who for some reason had drifted out on to the station. This was a short, thickset man, with enormous feet, and he stuck religiously to his hobnailed miner's boots, instead of adopting the elasuc sides common to the cattle stations. There was a bit of branding to do, and they put the Cornishman in the yard along with one or two of the men, and all hands were around the fence eager to see how the slow, heavy-footed miner would fare when a steer rushed him, as one was certain to do sooner or later. The rdinary cattle man can time it to a second, how long to stand and bluff the steer into pulling up, or just when to turn like lightning and scale the

fence out of harm's way. The slower ainonj; them sometimes get a horn in the calf of the leg, or an even softer part, as a reward for their lack of ability. Naturally all hands expected to see poor old "Corny" made a chopping block for the general amusement. Sure enongh, presently down went a bead with an angry toss, and a stocky three-year-old came straight for the new chum. Up the fen<e like monkeys went the old hands, yelling a friendly warning to the miner to follow suit. But, to the general amazement, he calmly stood his ground, and when the steer was almost on him, up went one of those tremendous feet, with a "Where be goin', you?" and down dropped the steer as if shot by a rifle bullet. The verdict over the camp fire that evening was that if anyone ever had occasion to "mix" it with "Corny," it was to be Marquess of Queensbury, and not Rafferty rules.