THE LAND OF THE LEVEL ROAD.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 834, 4 June 1910, Page 6

THE LAND OF THE LEVEL ROAD.

No. ¥. .: SHIPPING STOCK IN THE SOUNDS.. A TALE OF TWO CALVES. ' (By Will Lawsoo.) . ; (All Rights Reserved.) The big iish. swim in the .- The .red bull roars on. the hill. Tho wild-fowl wing, to their shelter Muttering ilight and quill. : Yet fowl and flesh and the fish in the mesh. . ' All yield to the man-lord's will. Baldy and Ginger are two calves—baldy, pure white, Ginger very red in. colour, but there the appropriateness ends, for Jtialdy has all the "ginger" and Ginger has none. They were born and spew theii early days at Resolution Bay, which is the last port of call for the mail-boat on the northern 3hore of Queen Charlotte Sound and three steam from Picton. All they know of the world is what they have seen here during drowsy, dreamy days .of comfortabla browsing; looking out across the water at the far-away Kills. But now. the two calves have been sold for the large amount of twelve shillings and sixpence each, and aro to be transported to their new home on the mail-boat, an honour seldom accorded to live stock, which usually travels on a punt towed behind thesteamer. It is a gloriously fine day, and this historical bay is beautiful in the colouring of bush and sea and sky. But the steamer-men never look at these things. They have come for calves. One takes a very long rope, not having two short ones, ashore with him in the dinghy, the steamer lying some twenty yards off the short). Two farmers go with Mm to the yard where the calves are, and they tie one end of the rope round Ginger's neck and the other round Baldy's. When the moment of movement comes, Ginger backs into a corner and Baldy bounds gaily through the gate. As the rope straightens out and becomes tanti he jerks Ginger suddenly into the middle of the yard. Outside the posts and rails the call of freedom comes to both of them, but they lack combination in answering the call, one heading east and' the other west, and so frustrate their purpose. They are pushed and hauled and dragged down to the beach. Ginger, as the milder 6f the two, yields more easily to coercion, and is soon standing alongside the 'Unghy, with Baldy and a burly farmer scuffling merrily in the iniddie distance. The steamer-man works his way along the , rope to Ginger, then suddenly pushes the calf sid/Tays against the gjinwale. The effect i) to capsize, the animal on to his back in the boatf in such a position that he is helpless. Baldy is now on the beach, still fighting. The dinghy is pushed off, turned round, and the stem brought to the beach to take the white calf on board. His overthrow is deftly accomplished. With steamer-man rowing, they .leave the farmers on the beach, and move out to the steamer, four stiff legs sticking up at each end of the dinghy . with a verj< startled calf attached to each four. The even, placid tenor, of bovine contentment has at length been broken. With a man at each end of him, Baldy goes up from the dinghy to th« steamer'a deck, and scrambles to unsteady legs. He trots away down aft, where the steering wheel and the. starting-lever of the engines are. He passes behind them, and begins to come forward again on tho other side of the steamer. The rope presently tightens, for Ginger lies on the deck,! terror-striken where he was dropped. Baldy makes a valiant attempt to jump overboard. In doing so he robs the rope ■against the lever, jerks it out of ita ratchet, and, "clankity-clank," away goes the steamer. "Darn that calf!" One of the men rims and stops ti» engines, then gives the rope a jerk which nearly finishes Baldy, for he ia hanging oveJ the side with his forefeet in the tide, and only the rope, supporting him. "Til fix you," he is told. He is pushed ; against the. railing, ami the rope tied about him in-many turns, binding him closely, to the rail. The engines are. started in earnest, the calves, go sailing away from Eesolution Bay; out into the wide and rather, windy, Sound. Ginger cowers on the deck, ■Baldy : atarett ■ defiantly around. The men settle to their tasks, one in the engineroom, the other sitting on a candle box, reading a novol, and steering with one hand on the wheel, and an occasional glance at the course. The white calf begins to find his cramped position irksome. He fidgets his legs; one loop of the rope slips. A little more shuffling and he steps out of his bonds, walks to the break in the railing amidships, and sniffs the breeze. The water here dif-. fers from that of Eesolution Bay.. It is not so smooth, and altogether seeing rather unpleasant. He turns away to the cabin stairway. The steersman, tinning another page in the absorbing pursuit of the villam and heroine, glances over in time to see tho last of Baldy going down, the .stairs. Before, he can reach the scene there comes the sound of falling, and the long-suffering Ginger is jerked, .pulled to his feet with great suddenness 'by the rope. "Thank our stars we're not taking him' far," says the engineer as they hoist the calf on deck again and tie him up wita severe-looking knots. As though satisfied with his investigations, Baldy reclines calmly.in his bonds, chewing the cud of contentment, as the steamer speeds steadily onward towards the bay which is to be the home of Baldy and Ginger. Soon she is running into. the cove, with a breeze behind her that is raising a, little sea. Two hundred yards from the beach the engines are stopped, ■the calves, aro freed from their ropes, and a blast on the whistle brings men on shore down to their boat, which they launch. Baldy walks gravely forward, right up to-her stew-post, and looks intently into the tide. And a pair of strong, rough hands seize this psychological moment to push him violently on the hindquarters. , "Now you can go overboard," says the steersman. And with a scramble and a splash Baldy goes, rising bravely from Ms plunge and striking out for the shore.With Ginger the Timid the case i≤ different. Pushed overboard amidships, he rises snorting and, tries to come on board again, swimming round the steamer with beseeching eyes raised to the crew. The short, angry waves slap into his eyes and fill his nostrils. At this juncture, Baldy, evidently considering thathe has made a wrong start, turns and comes plugging back against the wind, a wobbling object, held half over on his beam ends by his buoyant stomach. The water is acting unkindly to him, as well' as Ginger, and at this rate the calve 3 will soon drown.' Tho boat from the shore is putting off to the rescue of Baldy, and the steersman is already in the dinghy making towards Ginger. Hβ Kits the head of the animal clear of the water, and with a short piece of lino makes it fast to the rowlock. Then pulls swiftly shoreward, with the red calf towing alongside ignominiously. On tho approach of the shore boat,. Baldy starts for shore again, on a long diagonal course, and they let him go, while tha boat comes alongside the steamer to pass the time of day. i : The calves land at opposite ends of the beach, where two gangs of dogs give each a hearty welcome. After a shake and a snort, they seo ono another and trot gladly along, meeting half-way: They rub heads on brotherlv shoulders, take one more puzzled look at the steamer and at the wliite-crosled bay, then move away to tho shelter of some trees that grow on an otherwise bare , hillside. Here they stand, two pathetio little figures in a picture that is compovd for tho greater part of the ever-, lasting hills, the deathless sea, and the. eternal skies. The steamer slows from tne row* boat and. moves . away, the steersman vigorously scrubbing down the decks. Past the bay 'goes another steamer, crowded to her funnel with sh«ep, just space left for a man to steer, and towi»» n punt with a full cargo of woolly passengers. The men on tho mail-boat settle to their duties again. Sitting, one on tho candlebox and the other on the coaming of the engine-room hatch, they talk of "fats" and "stores" and' all ■ the other things pertaining to the growing of meat. ' i