STAMPEDE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22261, 8 November 1935, Page 5

STAMPEDE

BV ISABEL M. I'EACOCKK

The night before old Abron was to start his cattle on their long trek to tlio railway, his chief assistant and cleverest drover, Ted Wray, started 011 ouo of his " bouts." His worried wife and two children, Jinisy, aged nineteen, and fourteen-year-old schoolgirl Pat, were dismayed. " What are wo to do?" cried Mrs. Wray helplessly. " Your father says he'll bo all right in the morning, but ho never will, and Mr. Abron said next time this happened Dad would have to go. Jimsy, you'll have to go and tell the Boss your father's ill." Jimsy nodded, knitting straight, fair brows thoughtfully. " Don't worry, Mum —I'll take Dad's placo. You know ever since I was - a little chap he's said I was as good as a man with the cattle." Old Abron fumed when a raw, slight youngster on a weedy nag turned up to say that ho had come to take his father's place, as Wray was ill. " Wray's son?" snapped Abron. " Never knew Ted had a son —and what do you know about cattle?" The boy seemed shy and rather sullen; ho sat his weedy mount like a horseman, however, as Abron noted, and he replied shortly that he had done a lot of cattle work with his father, and his name was Jim. " Humph. Damn' silly business," grunted Abron irritably. " The boasts are a wild bunch, and there are two hundred head . . .what good is a newchum to mc?" Ho found the boy useful enough, and very game, however, and the weedy nag an ideal cattle horse, who could turn, as the saying goes, on a sixpence. They were three days 011 the trek, taking unfrequented ways as far as possible, but now and then skirting some little country town, anxious every moment lest some of their nervy wild charges break away and run amok. There were anxious moments when they had to herd their resentful charges, bellowing and jostling each other, to the sides of the road to allow for tic passing of vehicles, and on one occasion a handsome young bull, infuriated by the clanking of cans in a cream lorry, charged the lorry, bellowing with cage, and broke oil a horn. Then a cloudburst swept down from the hills, and in half an hour converted the road into a shallow river, which the cattle churned into gluey mud as they blundered 011, while the rain streamed from waterproof slickers and down-turned hat-brims and the horses, looking like drowned rats, squelchsquelched on and the dogs trotted with drooping tails in the rear. Jim was sent on ahead to report the state of the creek they would have to cross, and name back with a smile on his wet, fresh-coloured young face with a bridge of freckles across the nose to report. " She's running a banker, and the fprd s up, too . . . we'll have to swim for it. " Seems tc please you," growled Abron. but could not resist a ha Unsympathetic grin. This was youth; the boy was positively enjoying all this. The creek was roaring down in a miniature flood, . streaked with foam and froth and debris of all kinds, and the beasts drew back in a nervous panic at the brawling ford. What a bellowins and roaring, what a tossing ot wicked-looking horns and determined rushes away from the water, while the gallop of horses, their hard panting, the yelping and barking of the dogs, the ceaseless cracking of whips and hoarse shouts of men mingled with the thundering brawl of the swollen stream. Anxious moments again as the beasts blundered protestingly into the water and felt their legs swept from under them, and the horses snorting and sidling nervously as they went down the slippery bank, following the last consignment of cattle, as the .advance guard were collecting on the far side of the stream. Abron had to admit the bov was useful, -and quite fearless, as, lying low over his horse s neck, with his rather long fair hair, for ho wore no hat, flying, ho rode here and there, watchful and vigilant. But; what a wild shy youngster he was, hardly speaking unless addressed, and answerin youthfully gruff monosyllables. \Vell they were nearly at the end of their task, he thought, as at the close of the third day they came within a short distance of tho railway where thev were to entrain tho cattle for the last stage of their journey. Nothing could be done till daylig , however, and for the rest of. the short summer night cattle, horses were to camp on a piece of waste or common land until an engine with a long lino of cattle trucks, came to the nearest siding. Before that, however, a mixed goods was to pass, followed by [he express, neither of which would stop and the line would then be clear for the cattle train. . It was a bright clear moonlight night and the cattle were restless. lemperamental as women and fully as '^j 1181 : tive, Abron thought, they started at tho whisper of a leaf and peered at the shadows, heaving themselves up, tired as they were, at the least sound or movement, snuffling and pawing nervously. Seasoned veteran as the old stockman was with cattle, somehow he felt uneasy as ho sat watchful on his horse, his stock-whip butt down on his knee, just as tho other two men were sitting in their stations. Here and there a little group of boasts would bo milling half-heartedly together with a faint clashing of horns, or a low grumbling complaint, while the tireless dogs skirmished round the outskirts of the herd. In tho moonlight could bo seen the long curved horns, even the little furtive fierce eyes of the nearer cattle, and Abron wished he had taken on another man. As he meditated ho heard the " goods " go by, puffing up the grade, and noticed how many of his charges swung nervously inquiring heads toward tho sound. Then came a period of peace and quiet, and then, faint but clear, a long shrill whistle floated through the night. " Express," muttered Abron, thankful to see that the cattle wero undisturbed by the sound as the express drew nearer and nearer, making the somewhat steep grade with diminished speed and deep woof-woof puffs of its engine. Soon he knew tho train would enter a deep narrow cutting which ran between high sloping clay banks and terminated in a short tunnel, after which tho ground eased away to tho level again, with open ground on either side of the lino. Abron slowly rode along tho edge of the herd, keeping a watchful eve 011 tho great bull Vulcan, who seemed restless, snorting and pawing and shaking his heavy dewlaps with low rumbles of sound in his thick, short throat, rising now and then to strangled bellow. Clank-clank-clank. The train camo on, its racing wheels humming 011 tho smooth rails, roaring over a culvert, clattering for a moment on the points to steady down to the rhythmic hum of its normal speed. The express racing through tho night at forty miles an hour on a non-stop run of fifty miles, singing its deep diapason to tho rails. Like a great serpent with a 'myriad gleaming oyes and tossing silver plume, the grout monster of steam and steel bored its way onward through tho ebony and silver of tho night. To tho engine driver, intent on his guidance of his marvellous monster, his engine was as much alive and breathing and sensitive to his hand on lever or throttle as a high-mottled horse to his, master's touch on the reins. The steady clickotty-c!ick-clicketty-click of the wheels qo the polished rails, j

A NEW ZEALAND STORY

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the smooth mechanical perfection of moving rod and piston and well-oiled cog biting its fellow-cog with unfailing regularity, oven the hot torrid breath of the monster, deep and slow, or light and hurried, gave him a pleasure another man might have felt at the smiles and graces of his sweetheart. Dale was a good engine driver, but a man without human interests. His fireman, Bill, swinging to the furnace door, wiped his hands on a bit of oily waste, and leaned for a moment on the half door of the cab; his light blue eyes rimmed with coal dust, roved over tho black and silver beauty of the night, and then sought a point far ahead on the hillside, where a faint light glimmered like a lost star. He said to the engine driver conversationally: " My girl lives hereabouts," and. receiving no reply, went on doggedly: " This is my first run her way, so I told her I'd give her a toot on the whistle as wo passed, sort of all's well signal, if it isn't 'gainst regulations." The engine driver smiled sardonically with his eyes intent on the curve of polished rails gleaming in tho moonlight. " Sentimental, eh?" ho commented. "Well, J dunno' " Bill spat over tho side of the cab. "Sort of natural like. Haven't you got a girl or a missus? Never married ?" "Married? No," replied the other, with a short laugh. "I'm married to my engine. The old girl's tho best kind of missus . . . always obedient and up to time . . . never answers back . . . always know what to expect from her. Still," he jerked his thumb to the whistle. "Give her a toot if you feel like it. She'll probably curse you for spoiling her beauty sleep." The train was just then entering the cutting and as it emerged into the first gap its muffled panting changed to the quick, staccato puffs of escaping steam and the stillness of the night was shattered with three shrill, joyous hoots of the whistle awaking the flying echoes in the hills. Up in tho cattle camp old' Vulcan heaved himself violently to his knotty knees, and throwing up his massive head he lurched to his feet with an angry snort of inquiry; half a dozen cows lumbered up also and at that precise moment the young bull with tho sore horn irritably charged into the group. Abron's warning yell was drowned by tho furious bellow of Vulcan and the sudden stirring of huge shadowy forms as the beasts infected by that mysterious mob fear which runs like wild-lire over massed humanity or herded animals blundered to their feet. Before the echo of Fireman Bill's serenade to his lady had died awaj the panic-stricken mob, with a trampling rush of hoofs, heedless of tho volleving whips, tho yelling men and barking dogs, were thundering down toward the cutting with stiffened tails and tossing of great horned heads, with snorting and bellowing and pawing of hoofs. - " We must head 'em oft from the cutting. Express nearly due," snapped Abron, giving his orders with tho coolness of an old campaigner. But the panicky beasts swept on, crashing through tho brush-wood in a mad stampede, on and on, oyer the lip ot the cutting in a scrambling, slithering, kicking avalanche of hoots and horns and ponderous bodies. By the time the hard-galloping horses had reached tho top ot the slope, tho bed of the cutting was a seething mass of dark forms, milling together, rearing, pawing, scrambling over each other with deep, low rumbles of terror and snorts of excitement. And clearly now could be heard the quick panting of the engine reaching an easier grade. " Tho Express, my heavens,' groaned the cattle-man, even his seasoned nerves crisping in panic at the thought of that gigantic force of steam and steel hurtling along the humming rails with whirring wheels, and hurling itself into that close-packed, struggling mass of animal carcases. . "Go back, back and stop the train, he yelled to Jim, and then he and the other man at the risk of broken legs to their horses followed the mob with yells and shouts and cracking of whips. "Keep them on the move,' he roared, embellishing his order with the picturesque profanity of the cattleman. The great, unwieldy, shadowy mass of beasts in a tossing sea of horns, jostling shoulders and heaving flanks choking the narrow gut of the cleft were kept moving with a stumbling click-click-click of hoofs on the slippery ties, with strangled bellows and heavy, panting breaths. And after them came the horses and dogs. Jim stood a moment stunned, staring after that moving mass of animals until the dim arch of the tunnel with its yawning darkness beyond swallowed them. Then he drew a long breath and wiped tho sweat of fear from his forehead " Stop tho train," Abron had said. Just like that! It rested with him. And if he failed there would be awful scones in the darkness of that tunnel, the shrieks and groans of humans, tho maddened bellow of tortured beasts. Tho boy's breath whistled with horror through his parted lips at the thought . . . but how did one stop a train coming on at full speed, unconscious of obstruction ahead? ho thought confusedly. Fire ho must havo . . • impossible to trust to the elusive moonlight, which was now dimmed by a fleecy bank of clouds. From right to left he darted anxious glances in search of something inflammable . . . nothing—nothing save the long wet grass in scattered tufts hero and there. Then suddenly inspiration came to him, and with one swift movement he tore his worn khaki shirt over his head and with shaking fingers knotted his whip-lash to a sleeve. A swift little spurt of flame sprang up in tho darkness as he lit a match, and in a moment tho garment was ablaze, casting weird shadows and flares over the enclosing slopes. . And now astonishingly, terrifymgly near, a shrill whistle pierced the night, the rails seemed to hum and vibrato as with electric life as the Express swept round the bend with blazing headlights glaring like monstrous eyes. The light picked out with its fiery eye tho slight, half-clad, boyish figure waving its flaming signal in the darkness. Tho monster seemed so near that for a moment it seemed as if it must sweep on and strike him down, grinding nun into bloody insensitive pulp and scattering his rags of flesh along its iron pathway. But the watchful eyes, tho alert brain of the service wore as usual, prompt in crisis, and with the instant application of the Westinghouso brakes and the grinding shock of suddenly arrested wheels, the train came to a standstill with a scream of escaping steam. , " What's all this?" camo a curt inquiry, and Jim, staring foolishly at tho blazing remains of his shirt upon the line, gave a brief explanation, " Mob of cattle.. . . in tho tunnel . , Then suddenly the world swirled round him in a fiery rain . . . and it was tho engine-driver who, in indignation at tho upsetting of his schedule had come hurrying up, now caught the .slight, tottering figure in its khaki breeches and white, sleeveless garment, outlining a slender, rounded form. " Good Lord! It's a girl!" he roared, and with a sigh Jimsy opened big blue eyes vaguely and then, closing them again, dropped her cropped, golden head on tho ongi ne-driver's blue denim shirt. Fireman J3ill grinned at the expression ou tho engine-driver's face as it bent over tho unconscious one upon his breast. ##«■** It was the engine-driver who told this story of how ho first met his wife and herded two hundred head of cattle through a tunnel and out into the flats beyond and never dropped a minute on I his scheduled time.