A DESPERATE RIDE.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 118, 7 May 1880, Page 1 (Supplement)

A DESPERATE RIDE.

The slack season on the station was usually devoted to mustering all the quiet horses on the run, branding up the foals, breaking in the colts and fillies, and in makattempts to get in the wilder mobs on the outskirts of the station. Two horsemen were engaged to assist the stockman, and John was nominally in charge of the proceedings. The horsebreakers were slight but clean-limbed active young fellows, having that peculiar look about them by which Australian-born sons of Europeans are so easily distinguished from people of any other country. Both were very quiet and selfpossed in manner, but an experienced eye could detect in a moment the tendency to “flashness” which seems inseparable from their ocoupation. They were well known in the district as “Jack the Native” and his mate Charley ; and no sooner were the proproceedings of one job dissipated than a second was sure to start up on some ueighbouring run, notwithstanding various reports that got afloat taxing them with “planting horses,’ and with occasionally taking a few strange ones to a distance and there surreptitiously disposing of them. Two better riders could not be found ; and the Native were always open to ‘ ride anything with hair on it,” as he expressed himself, “for a ten-pound note..”

Indeed, not long before this, when engaged on the Ungahrun run, Mr Fitzgerald had brought some very wild scrub cattle into his yard, and amongst them was a savage old scrub bull who had for years baffled all attempts to run him in or destroy him. He had many a bullet in the most vital places—so said the stockmen on the run; and although he might disappear for six months or so, he invariably turned up again as well and savage as over. So knowing had he become, that, if, in the excursions which he was in the habit of making from his home in the broken scrubby country down among the quiet herds on the plains, any of the men endeavoured to drive him with a mob to the yards, that instant he stopped, then turning his head towards the nearest scrub, he trotted off with a surly defiant air, the huge hump on the back of his head giving him the appearance of a buffalo. How it happened that he came ill at all was quite inexplicable ; the other cattle gave the men much trouble, but the bull ‘ went like any old milking cow, ’ as Jack the Native, who was one of the party, afterwards said.

Of course all hands crowded to look at old ‘ Razorback Jack,’ as he was called, after a particular mountain which he usually frequented. Old Razorbach did not seem to realise what had happened just at first. The contemplative mood which had betrayed him did not pass off until some one attempted to cross the yard. Then the old outlaw stepped out with a low roar, and desperately rushed at the intruder, who bounded lightly on to the cap of the stockyard, sitting on which he addressed In the calmest manner a variety of insulting and defamatory personal remarks to the infuriated savage, who, kneeling down, tore the ground with his homes, lashed his sides, and roared in impotent fury a few feet below. A hat thrown into the yard from the opposite side had scarcely fallen when Razorback Jack , vigilant, ferocious small eyes, which were watching everything, made him aware of the fact. In an instant he was down on it, transfixed it with his horns, and tossed it a dozen times round the yard, leaving it occasionly for a minute to return again and again to repeat the scene. It was now that some one, remembering Jack the Native’s favourate boast, asked him how he would like a mount on old Razorback. ‘ Well, said the Native, ‘ I’ll ride him for a ten-’ pound note.’ ‘I daresay you would,’ said the other. ‘ Rope him, haul him up to a fence, leg-rope him so that he cau,t stir. I’d do that myself. ’

‘ I’ll tell you what I’m game to do,’ said the Native quietly ; ‘ I’ll bet a £2O note that I ride him without saddle or bridle, loose in the yard. ’ ‘Done,’ shouted the other, ‘Remember, if he slings you, you lose the bet. ’ ‘All right,’ returned Jack; ‘but if he falls, of course, that doesn’t count to me as a spill. ’ Young Fitzgerald, avlio was looking on amongst the others, now remarked that he thought it rather too dangerous a joke ; but Jack was determined, aud he was allowed to have his own way. First of all, opening the gate of the pound—a small enclosure with several gates leading into other yards —he managed to drive the cattle into it, and separate the bull from the rest. The bull now rushed round the sides of the strong high pound seeking savagely for some opening. As he came round to the gate leading into the yard in which he had previously been, the Native dropped quickly on his back. The gate was pulled open by one of the men, and the strange pair tore through it. None of the bystanders knew how it was done. So quickly and quietly had it happened, that the first glance revealed the pair flying madly round the yard amid clouds of dust.

The roars of the terrified brute were perfectly appalling, but above them now and then rose the voice of the Native as he shouted to his steed. He was lying on the bull’s back, holding a flank of the animal with each hand, his long leg 3 pressing the reeking sides of the infuriated brute like a vice, with a foot under each of its shoulders. Round they flew, now plunging wildly in the air, now rushing up against the yard, until Fitzgerald feared that both man and bull would be dashed to pieces. Running to the gate, he threw it open, and out flew the ancient scrubber, instinctively making towards his own wild domain, bearing with him the strong-nerved rider, whose iron sinews bound him as firmly to his grim charger as did the cords of Mazeppa to the untamed steed.

Several men jumped on horses,, which still remained saddled and hung up to the fence, and pursued the fast disappearing pair. The bull’s fierce rage had now almost expended itself, for when they came up with the chase, Jack was sitting up, using his spurs freely, and chatted gaily with his mates ; bnt how to get him off was the question. Old Razorback paid no attention to their efforts to make him turn towards the yard. Steadily, his head bent low, his chest heaving, his laboured breathing sounding like choking sobs, he pursued his plodding path; and Fitzgerald, who now came up, began to fear that he would again regain his wind and elude them yet. Shouting to Jack, he desired him to throw himself off, in order that he might shoot the brute, with which intention he had brought with him a breechloading carbine. ‘No, no,’ cried the bull-tamer; ‘I should lose my bet. Shoot him; never mind me— I’ll chance it.’

Luckily at this moment old Razorback made a rush at one of the other stockmen who had ventured too near him, stumbled, and rolled with his rider in the dust. A fallen log came in very handy for

the native now. He rolled himself nimbly under it and soon afterwards his namesake’s career was ended by a couple of Snider bullets behind the shoulder.— ‘ Blackwood’s Magazine’ for January.