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 the horseman unwarily or ignorantly approaches too near in his endeavour to dislodge them, they will charge, and the death of the horse or rider may be the result.  Both, however, are generally too well aware of these little failings to endeavour to prevail over a jaded or “baked” beast, and prefer to let him rest.

Upon the cattle being yarded, the most exciting operation is the capturing and securing of the young beasts requiring to be broken in to the yoke.  An experienced and expert stockman enters the enclosure carrying in his hand a pine sapling, 12 or 15 feet in length, at the end of which is a running noose of raw hide or strong hemp rope, attached to a strong rope which is passed round a capstan outside the stockyard and near to a corner post.  With considerable dexterity, not infrequently accompanied by personal danger, the man slips the noose over the horns of the beast he wishes to secure, when he immediately jumps over the rails, and with the assistance of the men outside, winds up the rope till the struggling and infuriated animal is fast held in a corner of the yard.  Another noose is then slipped round the hind leg nearest the rails and firmly fastened.