its fascination, but to make it intelligible to the reader, a sketch of
the working and management of a cattle station will be necessary.

Although most sheep farmers feed a certain number of cattle to enable
them to utilise the portions of their run which may be unsuitable for
grazing, there are some squatters who confine themselves to cattle
alone, and the produce derived from such stations includes beef, butter,
cheese, hides, horns, and working stock--that is, bullocks destined for
use in pulling drays; such entirely taking the places of draught horses
up country.

A cattle rancher may have from one to two thousand head of cattle
running wild. Of these, one portion is milch cows, which are daily
driven in for milking and from which the extensive butter and cheese
dairies are supplied; another the fat cattle fed for the market, and a
third, young stock for breaking in as working bullocks. As with sheep,
the cattle are periodically mustered in the stock yards for branding,
selections for various purposes, and for sale.

Mustering a large head of wild cattle is exciting work. Half a dozen men
mounted on well-trained horses, each carrying his stockwhip, start for
the run. The stockwhip is composed of a lash of plaited raw hide, twelve
to fifteen feet long, and about one and half inches thick at the belly,
which is close to the handle. The latter is about nine inches long, made
of some hard tough wood, usually weighted at the hand end. The
experienced stockman can do powerful execution with these whips, one
blow from which is sufficient to cut a slice out of the beast's hide,
and I have seen an expert cut from top to bottom the side of a nail can
with a single blow from his whip.

The cattle are spread over perhaps twenty or thirty thousand acres of
unfenced country, and each man follows his portion of the herd,
collecting and driving into a common centre. For a time all goes well,
until some wary or ill-conditioned brute breaks away, followed possibly
by a number of his comrades, who only need a lead to give the stockman
trouble. Then commences a chase, and not infrequently it is a chase in
vain, and the fagged stockman and his jaded steed are obliged to give
them up for that day, and proceed to hold what he has got in hand.

There is sometimes considerable danger in following up too closely these
beasts when they begin to show signs of fatigue, as they then often turn
to bay under the first scrap of shelter, and if