‘You haven’t a hope of heading him,’ he yelled at me, but I had given my mount its head and was flat out along a sheep pad between the blue-bush.
Jack and I had been out mustering and were scouting through a clump of belah-trees when we sighted the mob of brumbies feeding on a ridge which rose from a dried watercourse beneath us.
The Gentleman was feeding a little apart from the mob. He was a piebald stallion. The black on him extended from his wither and covered half of one side in an irregular design. His massive hindquarters were white and, flowing behind him, was a tail as black as night.
There wasn’t a man in the outback who wouldn’t have thrown his job or given his dog for that horse. I had heard of him on Til Til, Mulurula, Pan Ban, Turlee, for this was years ago when horses carried men across the saltbush plains and cars were unknown.
When The Gentleman heard the pounding hooves of my mount he leapt into a position that carved him from his surroundings like the Great King’s horse at Persepolis. He held this stand for two deep, investigating breaths then tossed his head and trotted a few defiant steps towards me. He moved with an exaggerated lift and fling of his forelegs and snorted challengingly through his red-lined nostrils. His crest was curved like an arch. He suddenly turned and plunged back to the mares, whinnying and keeping his lifted head turned at an angle so that he could look back at me.
My mount was fast. The Gentleman became alarmed. He urged the mob to a gallop. They flung sticks and earth behind them as they tore at the earth with their hardened hooves. The stallion moved effortlessly to the front and led them up the ridge. The manes of the brumbies whipped the air above them in a flame-like fluttering.
I raced up to them with a yell and was on to the mares before they gained their top. The piebald stallion neighed wildly. He slowed up and harried the leading mares to greater speed.
I weigh eleven stone. A mounted horse, be he ever so good, has no chance against fast horses running free. I found myself galloping in the cloud of dust at their rear. I reined in my horse and watched them leave me. For two miles over the plain the stallion led them in a tireless gallop until the mulga scrub swallowed them and the only sign of their flight was a drifting cloud of dust rising farther and farther away above the trees.
When I got back to Jack he said: ‘What did I tell you? You only blow your horse out for nothing. There’s not a horse in the outback could head that fellow. We’ve all had a go at him.’
‘I’ll get him some day or bust,’ I said.
I talked it over with Jack some months later.
‘I’ve yet to see the horse that can draw up to him,’ I argued. ‘Look at that grey of mine. I’d take anybody on with that nag, but The Gentleman left us standing when I got between him and the mob last week.’
‘The only way to get him is to run him down in relays,’ said Jack.
‘How many riders would you need?’
‘Four could do it.’
‘They would each want a change.’
‘Let’s work it out,’ said Jack.
We decided to get the help of two boundary riders from Kilfera and try our luck the following Saturday. We drew a rough map of the country and planned our drive on paper.
There were good stockyards on the far corner of our run. They had two mile-long wings radiating from the gate in a V shape to a mouth half a mile wide. We reckoned we could yard the mob there.
Brumbies never run far in a straight line. They will always circle back to the area in which they were bred. The Gentleman’s mob generally roamed the country round One-tree tank which included the stockyards we had in mind.
Jack arranged for Steve Barton and Jim Carson to come over on the Friday and that morning we both set off to locate the mob and work them down towards the five-mile gate where the boys were to meet me at dawn on the Saturday. We led a couple of fresh mounts which were to be tethered at points where a changeover could be made without letting up on the brumbies.
We found the mob near One-tree tank. We were upwind and they were off almost as soon as we sighted them. They ran west which was what we wanted. We then parted. Jack left to place the fresh horses and camp at the spot where his run would commence next day and I followed the mob from a distance waiting to see where they would settle down to feed.
I camped at the gate that night. Before daylight next morning I heard the jingle of bits and creak of saddle leather as the boys arrived from the homestead. They were leading their spare horses, so after explaining to them the route they were to take to their stations and where to leave their reserve mounts, I saddled up and made for the saltbush flat on which I guessed the mob would be feeding.
I was to take the first run, a stretch of about five miles. I had to keep the mob bearing to the north and hand them over to Jack at Pine-tree ridge.
The brumbies weren’t on the flat but I tracked them to the left and in about a mile came on them grazing near some boree-trees. I rode wide and got behind them. The Gentleman had seen me. He snorted and commenced to gather in the mares. They were scattered and seemed loath to accept his premonition of danger.
There were about fifteen mares, a few yearlings and a dozen or so others of varying ages.
I bore down on them at a gallop, stockwhip cracking. At the first report of the whip they plunged into a run, snorting, their heads lifted in a frightened watching.
The Gentleman could have left the mob with ease and my mount was fast enough to overtake any of the mares in a sprint, but I was content to trail them till they had spent their first surge of energy.
In about a couple of miles they settled down. I made a furious dash which carried me on to the heels of the lagging mares. The mob wheeled as I pressed them from the flank, my stockwhip circling above my head before bursting into reports inches from their hides.
The older mares were tiring when I sighted the pine ridge where Jack was to take over. I urged my blowing horse to a final spurt. We thundered up the rise like a charge of cavalry. There was a yell and Jack tore into sight from behind a clump of pine-trees. I reined my mount and watched him turn the mob and follow at a gallop, almost concealed by the dust from the pounding hooves.
I turned and rode slowly towards the point where, a couple of hours later, on a fresh horse, I would again take up the running. By this time the brumbies would have covered about sixteen miles in a large circle and would be close to the spot they had left that morning.
It was nine o’clock and I scanned the plain for a sign of the mob. It appeared over the horizon at last—a swift-moving cloud of dust riding the backs of foam-flecked, galloping horses. On they came, tossing heads, long matted tails flying behind them. The dust cloud crackled with the sound of a whip and was pierced by the shouts of Steve Barton as he urged his mount to greater effort.
In front of the mob, galloping tirelessly, swinging head held as proudly as ever, The Gentleman tossed spurts of sand from his black hooves. He passed me barely twenty yards away, his nostrils flaring redly. He snorted and swerved as I dashed forward to take over from the dust-begrimed Steve who yelled a ‘Keep ’em going’, as I left him in a whirl of smoking earth.
The mob was smaller now. Exhausted mares had fallen back and been left behind. Across the saltbush, through the mulga, over hard claypans I drove them. One by one they dropped out until there was only ten of the hardest and youngest animals for Jack to drive relentlessly on. These were sons worthy of their sire and he led them dauntlessly.
But when I again took over from Steve there was no thundering herd to follow but only one defiant, unbroken stallion who rocked a little in his stride but whose spirit refused to accept defeat.
Jim Carson was riding with Steve. Farther on Jack joined us and we combined to drive The Gentleman into the stockyards. He was exhausted. His sunken flanks heaved to his laboured blowing, but he carried his head just as proudly.
When the narrowing wings of the yard were visible each side of him and our final yells sent throbs of fear through his tortured nerves he rallied and made a final attempt to break back. We whirled our stockwhips in head-high circles of sound. He propped desperately and turned to the yards once more. A quick dash from our jaded mounts and he was through the gate. He was mine.
We camped at the yard hut that night. We were done. We boiled the billy and ate the tucker in our saddle-bags then turned in.
I couldn’t sleep. I got up and went outside. I could have scooped the stars in with my hat. I could hear the thump of kangaroos coming in to the excavated tank to drink.
I walked down to the yards to look at him. He was restless, walking round and round the yard sniffing at the ground and tossing his head. From the shadow of a tree I watched him. At the gate that was higher than his head he gazed through the rails to where the stars were no more than his own height above the earth. His tired mates were collecting over there. He whinnied in a frightened, uncomprehending way and stamped a slender leg. He turned and resumed his endless walking.
I was asleep when Jack dashed in next morning.
‘He’s gone,’ he yelled. ‘Jumped the gate. Come and see.’
We followed him at a run.
It was true. The Gentleman was gone. Beneath a splinter of wood on the top rail was a tuft of white hair.
‘That gate’s eight foot high!’ exclaimed Jack unbelievingly.
‘He’s not a horse; he’s a bird,’ said Steve.
‘That finishes me,’ I said. ‘I’m through with him.’
I often wonder why I put that tuft of hair on the top rail that night, why I opened the gate and let The Gentleman go, why I smiled when, away in the distance, I heard a welcoming neigh from a group of tired mares.