Chapter XXXVII. I Purchase Dot-and-go-one—The New Run.

About six months previous to accepting my new billet from uncle, I was on one occasion strolling through the Wanganui auction mart, when I heard the stentorian voice of the auctioneer shouting out:—‘Only fifteen pounds bid for a filly like that—three years old and broken to saddle ! Only fifteen pounds, gentlemen. What are you thinking about? look at her breeding! ‘She was in a pen of unbroken colts and fillies, a fact which should have roused my suspicions, as all broken horses, if they are quiet and fairly sound, are ridden up and down the tan to show their paces. However, I wanted a horse of my own and on looking at the animal, liked her appearance and gave a nod, which signified another half-crown. The auctioneer who was only waiting for a genuine bid—he had been doing a bit of ‘trotting’—knocked her down, and she was mine at fifteen two six. To my utter disgust, I found directly I got her out of the pen that she was dead lame. I was ‘had.’ The farmers and dealers had a good laugh at my discomfiture, but I turned it off with the remark, ‘Ah, she isn't as lame as I thought. She'll breed me some good foals.’

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At that moment a ragged-looking fellow, with a very red nose and a knowing look, stepped forward and whispered in my ear: ‘I say, boss, if you can only get her sound, she's a smart'un, I tell ye. Could lick anything on the station where she was bred. Me and Jim Smart broke her in with a lot of rattlers last season, and used to gallop them on the sly. Nobody else knows she can slide.

I gave the fellow, what he evidently expected, a ‘bob’ to drink my health and luck to her, and thought no more of it, except, perhaps, that he had gained his object. I took the animal home, and felt very small when Uncle and Charlie were chaffing me for being so easily taken in. Charlie at once christened her Dot-and-go-one, and declared that he wouldn't have given five pounds for a screw like that. When, however, he had examined her again after three months run, and found her lameness had miraculously disappeared, I thought of the horsebreaker's words, and determined to try her with Sultan, the fastest horse in the place, and Charlie's last birthday gift from his father, but one which, for some reason of his own, he never raced. The first thing, then, was to saddle and mount her, a task not so easy as it might appear, for her previous breaking had taken place six months before, and and evidently been hastily and carelessly carried on. The freedom she had since enjoyed appeared to have entirely obliterated it from her memory. We got her into the yard, roped and saddled her, but her furious bounds as the stirrups dangled at her sides showed how she rebelled against this badge of servitude.

‘She is a tartar, Frank,’ remarked Charlie. ‘You'd better serve her as we do our young ‘uns that have never been touched—handle her for a day or two before you mount.

I did not fancy Master Charlie always offering me advice.

I She is my own, and I can do what I like with her,’ I rejoined, testily.

‘Yes, she's your own, and so is your neck, and you're just as likely to break one as the other if you back her at once. I hate these brutes that have been half—broken, and turned out ten times worse than one that's never been tackled.

However, I knew no fear, so, after a good bit of coaxing and petting, I thought I would try and mount her. In short, in less then half an hour I was on her back, but in less than half a minute after I was on my own on the soft grass. The mare, after trying all she knew about bucking—which, by the way, was very little, flung herself down in a rage on her side, and me on my back, fortunately without crashing me. At the moment I thought of a maxim of Tim's, when some brother stockmen boasted of sticking to their saddles whatever happened. If a horse fell they pulled him up again, but didn't leave the leather. He replied: ‘Yer can say what yer like about atickin’ to yer saddles, but when a hoss falls wi' me I'm allers darn'd glad to git clear o' mine; it saves many a nasty squeeze.’

After this little performance I was more cautious, and very soon had the mare fairly quiet. I found she could show Sultan her tail easily, and determined to keep her in and train her for the next up-country race meeting. The races annually held at Wanganui I judged too good for her, at least, till she had proved what she could do in less aristocratic company. I started to train her after the most approved method I could manage, without too much loss of time, but soon gave it up, as it was just at the time when I was so depressed and miserable over my unsuccessful love affair, that I could not even page 159 retain the amount of interest necessary in the mare, so I turned her out on the run again. We had others of uncle's in hand being broken as hacks, so that I did not require her just then for the ordinary saddle work.

Now we will step forward the few months again to the time I was about to leave for my new home. The said races were shortly to take place, and I remarked one day to Charlie: ‘What an ass I was not to persevere with the training of Dot! I would give anything to have her fit to run in the Maiden and Cup. I met that fellow Morris to-day, who chaffed me so unmercifully about her that day in the sale-yard, and asked me with a sneer if I'd bought her to win the Cup. I said ‘‘Yes,” amid a roar of laughter. Those louts can see a joke in anything that ass says. He's got that big aking Hurricane of his as fit as a fiddle, and is as proud of him as he can stick together. It would have been grand to have taken the shine out of him with a five pound screw, as he, and you too, called her, Master Charlie. He must needs ask me to-day if I had her entered. I said “Yes, of course.”’

‘Well, my boy, it's not too late yet. I have been riding her a good deal since you have been away in Auckland, and one place and another, and have put a lot of hard tack into her. With what I've given her, I'll take my oath she is good enough for the Maiden Plate, though the Cup distance may be a little too much for her. The entries don't close yet awhile.’

‘You been riding her, you young scamp! What do you mean by making free with my property in that way, eh?’

‘Why, I knew when your love fit was over you'd be sorry you hadn't her fit to run, so whenever I had a chance I gave her a spin. I've often been up and had her round the two hundred acres at a good bat while you've been snoring in bed. She's in the loose-box behind the old barn if you care to look at her. If you don't want to run her I'll give you twenty notes for her, and get dad to let me enter her in my own name; but I hope you'll enter her yourself.’

Now, I had not had occasion lately to go near this old, detached building, which had not been used for some time, nor had I happened to come across the mob of horses on the part of the run Dot frequented, so it had been an easy matter for Master Charlie to keep me in the dark about this little surprise he was preparing for me. Fanny was the only one in the secret with him except Tim. He had questioned me several times during the earlier stages of her training to see if I had any wish to run the mare, but in my moody humour at the time I had refused to trouble with her. Now the good-hearted lad was delighted to hand her over to me fairly well-trained, and fit, at any rate, for the Maiden Plate, a race, as the name implies, for untried horses, and not to be taken in its literal signification, as the extra conscientious owner took it in an old story just revived in the papers, when he sent back the stakes his mare had honestly won to the Jocky Club, with a note stating that he did not intend to defraud, but he had found out since the race that she had once had a foal before she came into his possession, and therefore was not qualified to run in a maiden race.

We went to look at Miss Dot-and-go-one at once. She certainly showed unmistakably that her training had been done at home. I suggested to Charlie that her tail and mane would be improved by a little trimming.

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‘No, no,’ he replied; ‘we'll let her run as she is. They'll all think she's a duffer, what with her being a bit rough, an a little staff from the old lameness, and won't they laugh at her; but let 'em. We'll be able to put a bit of ‘stuff' on her at all the longer odds, and have a rare laungh at them when they have to fork it out.’

As he seemed to be doing the mare justice, I allowed him to go on with the training for the week or so yet remaining before the races came off. I promised him a good percentage of my winnings, if any, and entered her for both the Maiden and Cup. I had to endure a fair amount of banter from the secretary as he took down her name, Dot-and-go-one. He had also been in the crowd when I led away my rash purchase from the sale-yard. However, it didn't trouble me much.

Uncle rode up with me the next day to show me the new run, and his plans regarding the working of it. It was a conveniently-shaped block, situated in the bend of a river, which formed a natural fence for nearly three sides of it. We took up with us a mob of cattle and the pack-horse, laden with the requisite supplies to last till the bullock dray should come up with the men to erect the hut, and further necessary stores and tools. Uncle, after fixing on the site for the but and stockyard, and pointing out the boundaries, returned home. Hardy tethered the old pack horse with a long line, as he had the faculty of love of home inordinately developed, and would not have been long finding his way back if left loose. The remembrance of the rich clover paddock in which he spent his idle hours had probably a good deal to do with this domestic tendency, and his readiness to travel any distance to exchange for it the rank, coarse herbage to be found here in its natural state. Our riding horses were animals of less mature years and experiences, and had a great respect for their aged friend, so we safely let them loose, for they always deferred to his choice of a feeding place in the paddocks at home, and would do so now, not being aware that his choice was now hampered by a tether line.

We pitched our tent, lit a fire, and slung the billy, which was to do duty for kettle and teapot, and gathered some crisp fern for our couches I asked Tom if the cattle were all right.

‘Yes, sir, they be. There's no moon to-night. After filling theirselves they did try to make off, but they're camped now, and there's no fear of their movin' till daylight. We'll have to look slippery after'em then, though.’

The billy soon boiled, and chucking in a handful of tea and a little sugar, we sat down on our couches on either side of the narrow tent, placed it between us with some bread and meat, and proceeded to enjoy our bushman's tea.

I have since heard a gentleman at a splendidly-appointed tea-table affirm to his guests that to his fancy tea never tasted so well in china, with cream and lump sugar, as it did when in the old days he dipped his pannikin into the billy, and brought it out full of the scalding black infusion, strong enough to bend a spoon, only that luxury was dispensed with, for the sugar, almost the same colour, had been put in before, and stirred with a stick. His little grandson spoilt the effect of his speech by exclaiming'' ‘‘Why don't you have it so now, then, grandpa? You can if you like. There's a pannikin in the kitchen.”

The young gentleman was peremptorily informed that it was his bed-time. The subject was discontinued.

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Although when tired with a day's travel that style of tea is refreshing, I must say that I do not agree with my aged friend, for at the very time I was dipping in my pannikin for a fresh supply, I was thinking how much preferable was the sight of a neatly-laid table, with its snow white cloth and vases of flowers, your cup handed you by one you love, sufficiently cooled-the cup of tea, not the loved one—by the milk or cream to prevent the horrible sensation which ensues, when in your thirsty state you burn your lips with the pannikin, and gulp down a mouthful of liquid, which, all too late, you find at least ten degrees to hot for you. Then I found the bearded, bushman by my side, although a smart fellow at his work, and amusing and decidedly original in his conversation, a very poor substitute for the blooming young lady by whose side I sat at home. Nay, I felt like the old pack-horse—I required a tether line to prevent me from rushing off home, and a good strong one, too; and, indeed, I had it—a three-fold cord composed of the knowledge that it was my duty; that by this means I would sooner attain the end I had in view; and thirdly, that, Fanny approved of my accepting uncle's offer.

On the next morning, and every succeeding morning till the cattle settled down, daylight saw us in our saddles frustrating their effrts to return to their old run. What with one thing and another our hands were pretty full, and time passed quickly. On Saturday evenings I cantered down to the old homestead and spent the Sunday there, and I am well assured that the strictest and most earnest Sabbatarian never longed for or enjoyed those blessed days of rest more than I did. To ride with Fanny down to the little church and watch her earnest face as she listened to the words of counsel, rebuke, comfort, which fell in turn from the lips of our respected pastor; to sit again at a well-appointed table by her side; to stroll with her—down the shady orchard, and gather luscious peaches for her, and for myself; to exchange thoughts and ideas with this lovely cousin things made up the delightful list of my Sabbath Day's recreation. This is why I loved it of all days. Of course, I chatted to the others as well. They were all very well in their way; but I should not have fretted over much if I had found them al out, and my adorable cousin keeping house in their absence.