TALES OF LONG AGO

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20493, 11 August 1936, Page 11

TALES OF LONG AGO

INCIDENT IN THE MID’SEVENTIES ALEC BAIN’S GALLOP TO BURKE’S PASS (Speciall written for “The Timaru Herald” by “T.D.8.”) This page of past history tells how Alec Bain got the surprise of his life Crossing Sawdon Flat on horseback. Alec Bain was shepherding for Hargreaves at Richmond Station. It was about the mid-seventies or a little later, but it was certainly before the great snow of '79, when young John Smith and Morrison were lost in an avalanche on the Rollesby range. Alec must have had a row with Hargreaves, for he had his dogs with him, and if it was his annual holiday of a fortnight the dogs would have been left at Richmond until his coming back. So he was leaving. He was riding a Lily-bank-bred horse, a sibbald, mountain bred, as hard as nails, if need be, live on a snow grass bush or yellow “Spaniard”. It so happened that there was to be a dance at the old Burkes Pass “pub” that night, and Alec was cantering easily along, his mind filled with pleasant thoughts about the number of nice girls he would be dancing with that evening. Wild Cat Aroused Now in the ’Seventies the big stretch of country called Sawdon Flat, between Whisky Terrace and Dog Kennel Point was very much different in appearance from what it is to-day. No formed road, but a bullock track, no. fences, no telephone lines, no plantations; but it was covered from end to end with close growing yellow “Spaniards”, while the terminals of the Two Thumb Range at Edward’s Point, Deadman’s Point and Dogkennel Point were clothed in great big waist-high snow grass bushes. All that is now swept away and not a vestige of that class of vegetation remains; the curse of insecurity of tenure had full play for sixty years. Alec Bain was cantering easily along with his mind and eye set on the gap in the range; Jiis dogs lopeing along scouting out to his left. Opposite Deadman’s Point the dogs flushed a wild cat in the snow grass. Ah! Was there ever a true birn collie that turned aside from a fleeing cat that he had lawfully and without malice aforethought scented and tracked through long grass? Thrilling “Bolt” So there you have it, the cat having the race of his lifetime and with every prospect of being a bad loser and knowing it, and the dogs—enjoying it and voicing it. Now, what under the circumstances could a decent, free living, life loving cat do? Not a tree, nor a post, nor a burrow within miles; why spring up on the rump of Alec’s horse out of the way of villainous dogs, and dig his claws well in and while he was at it go up still further and up on to Alec’s shoulders and dig the claws still further in. And, what could a selfrespecting Mackenzie Country bred horse do to show his resentment but bolt! He wasn’t going to be a harbourage for any wild cat—Not he! So there, that’s what the old Sawdon track saw that afternoon in Ghe mid-’Seventies, a bolting horse, a string of dogs stretched out on the chase of their doggy lives, a wild cat clinging for his life to Alec Bain’s shoulders, with his claws well and truly dug in, and Alec in good fluent Rosshire Gaelic blasting the cat, his horse, and sending and committing his dogs to a Gaelic nether world! And when one considers all the circumstances one can hardly blame Alec! Alec was in good .time for the hop that night at the old Burkes Pass “pub”!