The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-06-26
M00NLIGHTING CATTLE,

1t was n dry season-word of fearonlv
known in its true meaning to an Aus
tralian squatter. The sun had licked
up the few remaining spots of muddy
water, scorched the grass, and turned
everything but the bare earth to sori
of rusty blue. The plains, filled with
great cracks and holes, and destitute OF
vestlge of any green thing, had bee,
scraped and trodden by the starving
sheep till they looked like fresh-due
Hower-beds, and the thunder-st storm.
which Knocked us on the horizon every
night, were only too sure signs that this
sort of thing might last for months vet
What with the shepherds giving up
their focks IN despair, or, worse still,
losing them for want of energy to walk
round them, [ had had hard time OF
1t; night after night outriding one tired
horse after another, shifting sheep sta
tlons, sinking holes in the river-bed
trying to keep somelife in the wretched
stock that staggered and tottered along
across the dusty plain, followed by some
cranky, detected shepherd, whose whole
soul was bent on the calculation of how
soon his time would be up, and himself
at liberty to go and drink his cheque at
the public-house in the township two
hundred miles off.
The wild cattle, brutes that had nearly
lived long enough to have forgotten the
hot iron on their sides, and that laughed
TO scoru all attempts to head them to
the yard, had long been a nuisance on
the run. They had by long impunity
so increased that the scrubs around
Mount Breakneck were full of them,
and their numbers were always beine
recruited by stragglers from the quiet
cattle OF the place, which, in these dry
times, often wandered dozen miles
from their own camps to look for better
pasture, or followed the beds of the
dried-up creeks, scraping the sand in
the faint hope of coming on the water,
which, even in the worst seasons. is
generally found running below.
1t was just Christmas time, and in
consequence steaming hot. The ther-
mometer registered 100 in the verandah
OF the " Cooorn Humpy," or squatter's
house, which, built of weather-boards
and raised from the ground on piles,
was, except perhaps the huge wood-shed
lower down the creek, the coolest place
. overseer and myself-in our little bach
Oioio iudItClSs lIuIi btCH iNluS, III U60-
ance of flies, mosquitoes, and the taran-
tula spiders that disported themselves
on the rafters, to sleep all day, and to
fancy that we were enjoying our Christ
mas; and, in default of anything else,
had been brewing large forums of lime
Juice and water, to drink the healths of
divers people who were at that moment
snoring peacefully beneath the bed
clothes under the influence of Christ
mas cheer at home, while big coal fires
glowed in their bedrooms, and the land
scape was cold and white under its load
of snow.
Jack, after moralizing on his hard
fate, and describing the dances that his
people always had on Christmas eve,
was suddenly brought back to practi-
cal sense f the duties of this life by the
black bullock-driver putting his head
in at the window and saying, "Hi
plenty me been see nm cattle big fell
low mob that been come down along o
water this side little fellow myall scrub.
I believe me and you go look out that
fellow"
Now the gentleman who condescended
to take our fat cattle at four pounds
per head, and who retailed them to
the good people of Sydney at fourpence
per pound, had been grumbling fear