CATTLE THIEVES

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 October 1929, Page 8

CATTLE THIEVES

NORTHERN TERRITORY LOSSES. The lines of “Banjo” Patterson are recalled by a true story of life in the backblocks of Australia, which was told to an “Auckland Star” reporter recently by Lord Luke of Pavenham, a passenger on the Aorangi. Lord Luke is head, of a great firm of meat extract producers, which has a “farm” of 11,000 square miles in the Northern Territory. There are over 130,000 cattle on the farm, which is known as the Victoria Downs estate. With such a farm —as big as many countries—it is naturally a difficult job to keep check on the stock and the depredations of cattle thieves are by no means unknown. Towards the end of last year the manager of the estate, Mr James Martin, learned that thieves had carried off a bog mob of calves, all unbranded. The leader of the robbers was a white man, and he had three confederates, either* half or quarter-caste aboriginals. Mr Martin wasted no time, and, with four black trackers, he set out in pursuit, following the thieves for five days, halting by the same waterholes and river courses as the others had occupied each stage earlier. They reached a station on the banks of the Daly River, and then discovered that the calves had all been branded, and were, therefore, “within the law” ; that is to say, their ownership could not be disputed. Fortunately, said Lord Luke, a cow had followed one of the calves the whole distance, and, as she was not branded, it was possible for a charge of theft to be made, and to be upheld. Meanwhile the thieves had got away with their cheques from the receiver, a wealthy land owner. Mr Martin knew that the cheques could not be cashed until the nearest settlement was reached. He promptly made tracks in that direction, and a long and arduous joprney ended in victory, for the thieves arrived with the cheque from the man suspected, and he, as well as the half-caste thieves, was brought to justice. The leader of the gang escaped. A curious feature of the long pursuit over the trackless wildis was that when Mr Martin started out with his faithful black trackers he accidentally omitted to strap his “gun” round his waist. He knew the thieves were armed, and so did the trackers, but they did not know that Mr Martin had not brought his revolver with therm When they did find out they “had the wind up,” and it was with the utmost difficulty that Mr Martin was able to persuade them to carry on with the chase.