THE BOUNDARY RIDER by Edward S Sorenson
Life in the Australian Backblocks.
The bush claims many lonely lives, none lonelier perhaps than that of the boundary rider, who is posted on the outskirts of a run to look after the stock, to watch the tanks and waterholes, and keep the boundary and intermediate fences in repair. To some temperaments the life offers advantages; only the flies by day and the mosquitoes by night disturb the peace, and only the cries of the birds and the rustling of leaves break the quietude. To the “hatter” by temperament this is an ideal state of existence, and a man who loves to talk but likes to do all the talking himself, is suited by a dog listener as well as any. Still, the average boundary rider is a “hatter” more by compulsion than preference.
Sometimes he has a hut to live in, but more often, outside the coastal divisions, he has only a six by-eight tent, pitched in a lonely spot, where wood and water are close at hand. The site is mostly chosen by the manager, and he takes care that it is out of view of frequented roads, since, on the one hand, the property must be left unguarded through the greater part of the day, and, on the other, it is not desirable that his frugal board should be taxed and his meditations disturbed by passing travellers. When the waterhole dries up or the feed gets scarce he shifts his residence to another quarter.
One of the fraternity, whom I came to know during the great central depression, was known as ‘Jack the Rager’. Most of his life was cast in monotonous places, yet he was a very entertaining old chap when he came in from his ‘hatterage’, and spent an evening with the men in the station hut. He could tell a good yarn. He could recite, too, but his best efforts were delivered when standing alone at his campfire. Having a strident voice and a somewhat extravagant sense of dramatic attitudes, he once in a while astonished a benighted wanderer bearing down on the inviting blaze and caused him to sheer off with cautious and accelerated steps.
He told me how the boss had ridden on to him one night when he was more than ordinarily wound up. He had not been long on the run then, and as yet was only plain Jack Smith. It was election time, and Jack was putting up for No Man’s Land. Standing beside a gidgee-stump, on which stood a quart pot of water and a pannikin, he orated with great empressement, punctuating with hand clappings and “hear hears,” interjecting and making sarcastic remarks, and wheeling this way and that way to reply thereto. Now and again he would point a thumb at the mulga bush on his left, and tell the mulga tree on his right that a gentleman wanted to know what he was going to do about the deceased’s wife’s sister, then, having put in a general laugh, would inform the audience how he intended to dispose of that troublesome lady. He had closed a successful meeting, carried a vote of confidence in himself, and thanked the chairman when he was suddenly semi-paralysed by hearing a real clap and a real “hear hear” in the darkness beyond. It was the boss. After that, the candidate was known as Jack-the-Rager!
Jack The Rager
Jack was a good example of his kind, performing his duties with unfaltering regularity, very exact, and scrupulously clean. He had one way of doing each little job, never altering his hand. He took particular care of his two or three horses, which were consequently in good condition all the year round. He put his saddle always in one place, and when he brought his horse up in the morning he led him under the same tree, and hitched the bridle to the same limb, though there were twenty others equally as good and quite as accessible. You saw his mop for washing up hanging here, his tea towel hanging there; and if you called six months after you would find them hanging in precisely the same places.
His bunk was simply a couple of bags with two poles, resting on forks, run through them; his safe was also a bag, suspended lengthwise from the limb of a tree, with a piece of board laid in for the bottom. His washstand consisted of three stakes driven in the ground to hold a tin dish, and nailed to the tree trunk alongside was a sardine tin, with a perforated bottom, for soap. If a chance visitor happened to use it, he was told to cover it up when he had done, so that the crows could not see it. Crows and ants were two persistent items that Jack had always to keep in mind. He cooked in the open, wet and dry, his fireplace being merely a couple of forks, with a pole across them, from which dangled a few wire hooks.
Before riding away in the morning, if no one was left in charge, Jack would carefully sweep over the bare patches around the domicile with a brush broom. He departed backwards, sweeping out his own tracks as he went. On returning he dismounted several yards away and approached his door slowly, examining the ground for evidence of callers. Having entered and found everything right, he went back by a circuitous route round the camp to his horse and let him go. If someone had called during his absence, the amount of tracking he did would seem a waste of time and energy to any but a bushman. He studied closely the man’s tracks, the shape and size of the horse’s hoofs, and, having ascertained that he came from the direction of the stony rise, that he dismounted near the broken stump, stood at the door for a while and looked round, and finally rode away in the direction of Thompson’s Tank, he worried his brain for hours trying to solve the mystery of the person’s identity.
And he mostly wound up with “a good idea who he was.”
Sometimes, as cranks of the bush often do, he amused himself for hours at a time, trying to match the spiral columns on the lids and bottom parts of wax-match boxes, by playing peg-knife and other “silly” games. If you came quietly on to his camp at night, it was not unusual to hear a heated discussion going on between him and the fat lamp. He spoke in one tone and voice for himself, and in another for the fat lamp. As he tersely put it when surprised, “Just a little argyment between me an’ Slushy.” Sometimes they had a row, and an imaginary fight, and Slushy was kicked out of the tent. At other times he sulked, as a result of the pigheadedness of the other fellow, and wouldn’t speak to the fat lamp for a week. He would even “see him farther” before he would light him.
Yet no one who knew this man would say that he had a mental kink in his composition. Many men, and women too, in the bush talk to themselves, and have excited arguments with people who are not present, expressing their opinions in a loud voice, and saying in return what they think the absent party would be likely to reply. I can recall one good old woman who indulged in this way every washing day over her tubs, beginning with “Good day, Mrs. ——,” and going at the rate of knots until the final “Goodbye”— not forgetting the invitation to call again; and she would drop down and laugh till her face was aflame, and the tears ran down her cheeks, when surprised. Yet no one would call these people eccentric. It is the craving for conversation, for someone to talk to.
Jack was also given to card-playing — left hand against right. When it was right-hand’s deal, left passed or ordered it up. If the right was weak, he turned it around and the left made it. The old man was careful to hold the cards back to back, so that right wouldn’t see what left had got, overlooking the fact that one head was super-intending both hands. He got awfully interested in the contest, too, which was mostly for the championship of Burton’s Tank or Gidgee Creek, or probably for “the new girl down at Barney’s.” He had a peculiar sundial, though what he had constructed it for I don’t know, for he was seldom there when its services would be required. It consisted of stout pegs stuck in the ground, at a radius of ten feet, around a tree. There were ten of them, standing exactly one hour apart, so that the shade, lying across the first at 8 a.m. would be on the last at 5 p.m. A traveller with a watch had camped with him one Sunday, and between them, they had evolved this crude timekeeper. He complained, however, that it required a lot of regulating, as it didn’t accommodate itself to the changing of seasons. Once when miles away from the clock I asked him the time. Taking a small twig, he broke it into two pieces about three inches long, and, holding his left-hand palm upwards, he stood one piece between the second and third fingers, and the other between the third and fourth. Then, facing due north, he held his hand straight out before him, and I noticed that the shadows of the twigs were just a trifle east of a direct north and south line. “‘Bout ‘alf-past twelve,” he said.
His almanack was equally as curious, consisting of two jam tins and seven pebbles. One tin was marked “This week” and the other “Last week.” On Monday morning he would take a pebble from “Last week” and drop it into “This week,” and one every subsequent morning till “This week” had swallowed the seven. They were then returned to “Last week,” and the old fellow would wash himself and change his clothes. It was Sunday—and, it might be remarked, his usual recreation on Sunday was washing last week’s wearing apparel and making a brownie.
A neighbouring shepherd, who had rusticated in the backcountry for thirty consecutive years, used a piece of deal board and a bit of charcoal, making a stroke on the former every morning till Sunday was reached. The “slate” was then wiped clean in readiness for Monday. A third man used a circular board divided by grooves into seven sections. A piece of deal, pivoting from a nail in the centre, was shifted one section each day. But the owner of this contrivance was absent-minded and often forgot to shift it in the mornings, and never knew at night whether he had shifted it or not. Having made several mistakes in the date, he tried a new idea. He made a big damper on Sunday night and marked it into seven sections, each section being a day’s allowance. He wouldn’t forget to eat, and every time he picked the damper up the grooves would remind him of the day. Unfortunately, on the first Tuesday there came a visitor with a ravenous appetite. The host stinted himself that the hungry one might be satisfied with the day’s section. But he wasn’t. There were no houses in that part, and he had come a long way since breakfast and didn’t lose sight of the fact that he had equally as far to go to supper. With bulging eyes the host saw the knife cleaving the boundary line. He fidgeted and coughed and made several irrelevant remarks. Still, the hungry man carved into the almanack. At last, he could stand it no longer. “Stop, stop, for God’s sake!” he cried, leaning across the bark table and speaking in an agitated, rasping voice. He grabbed the damper and glared at it. “Hang you!” he said.
“You’ve eaten Toosday an’ We’n’sday, an’ now yer wanter slice the best o’ the mornin’ off o’ Thursday!”
The traveller left with unusual briskness, and the host sat down to reconstruct his almanack. The boundary rider’s bill of fare is less changeable than that of a “hash-house.” He gets little in the way of luxuries (a tin of jam or golden syrup, perhaps, once in a while), nor has he any vegetables, except just after the rain, when he may gather the young pigweed along the creek. For breakfast he has damper, mutton, and brownie; for dinner, he has damper, mutton and brownie; for supper, he has damper, mutton, and brownie; and for Sunday dinner, having spent the morning cooking, he has fresh damper, hot mutton, and new brownie.
With his tools (a tomahawk, straining fork, wire key, plug, and a length of coiled wire), and a well-filled waterbag under his horse’s neck, he starts out soon after sunrise on his day’s round and frequently rides forty or fifty miles before he returns to camp. He rides one fence today, driving the sheep off it and out of corners, brushing the creeks, and splicing and straining broken wires. Tomorrow he has a look at the tanks and waterholes, pulls out bogged sheep, and skins the dead ones. If he comes upon a carcass that is too far gone to skin, he plucks the dead wool and carries it to camp in a bag. The next day he rides another line of fence, and so on, doing a little dingo-poisoning and scalp-hunting at the same time. Now and again he pilots a travelling mob through his part of the run, which is about the only relief he has from the dull monotony of his lonely rides, where “the creaking of the saddle is a dreary sound to hear.” For this he gets from fifteen shillings to twenty-five shillings a week.
As a rule, he has no literary matter by him to beguile the tardy hours, and, consequently, knows nothing more of the world’s news than what he gleans from passing travellers. He lives in a world of his own, a world of sand and stones and stunted trees, learning the tracks of different animals and studying better methods of trapping dingoes. His conversation bristles with grass and sheep and wire fences. Sometimes he keeps one well-worn book to swap with, or gets a bundle of stale papers from the homestead. There are exceptions, of course, but the boundary rider who is fond of reading is not favoured by the squatters, it being argued that an interest in books and papers induces carelessness and neglect of duty. Lacking the mental stimulant of a book or paper in his companionless evenings, he is impelled to discourse to inanimate things, to play patience, or to commit doggerel.
There is a tragic side to the boundary rider’s life, which renders his hermit-like existence objectionable to most men. He may be a fortnight or a month without seeing a soul, or, if illness overtakes him, or he meets with an accident, he has no one to nurse him or even to cook for him. He must shift for himself and trust to Providence. One who is every day of his life in the saddle, particularly in a country riddled with rabbit burrows, may get a leg or an arm broken at any moment. On some runs the main camps are connected by telephones, carried on wire fences, with the homestead, by which the boundary rider reports and receives orders and may summon assistance at any time when needed.
I think it was in October, 1898, that a man named McDermott, who was boundary riding on Mount Wood, North-West New South Wales, nearly lost his life through being left too long unvisited. He had gone out for his horse on a Friday morning and was riding it in bareback, when it stumbled in a rabbit burrow, within half a mile of the camp. McDermott was thrown, his hip striking a dry, knotty root of a mulga tree. He was severely injured and lay there suffering agonies till Monday evening. He fastened a message to his dog’s neck and tried to drive it away, but the dog would not leave him. Now and again through the hot days, it trotted to the creek for water, but, though hungry enough, it never once went near the hut for food. In the meantime a traveller had come to the camp, and, thinking McDermott had gone to the homestead for rations, remained there waiting, with the patience of the faithful dog, until he should return. Mac had coo-eed at intervals through the long days and nights, but no sound came to the traveller’s ears.
On Monday a boy came out with meat, and the appearance of the place, and the traveller’s assurance that he had seen nothing of McDermott, at once indicated that something was amiss. No fire had been lit for some time, and the man’s saddle was in the hut. Moreover, the hut was untidy, and as Mac never went out for the day without putting things shipshape, it was at once apparent to the bush boy that Mac had left with the intention of returning shortly and that something serious had happened to him not far from camp. His first act was to look to the horses, to see if any were missing.
He found the mare with the broken bridle and the hobbles around her neck. That told its tale, and he rode post-haste to the homestead for assistance. Picking up the tracks, the rescue party followed to where he had caught the mare; then they tracked the mare to the rabbit burrow, where they found McDermott all but dead, the hungry dog lying by his side, with the undelivered message still tied to its neck.
A boundary rider on Gobbagumbalin run, near Wagga, in January 1902, was better served by his brute companion. His leg was broken by a fall from his horse when a long distance from camp. Like McDermott, he wrote a message and tied it around his dog’s neck. His course being indicated to him, and being menaced with a waddy, and further instructed in abusive language, the animal at once started for home, and the required aid was thus promptly secured.
Another man, named Frank Dacey, in February 1904, was making his way across Bonnie Doon run when he was taken seriously ill. His small supply of provisions soon ran out, but he managed to make one billy of water last him three weeks. He was able to crawl about near his tent, which had been temporarily pitched and kept himself alive by eating pigweed. When the water gave out he gradually became weaker, and at last was unable to move. When discovered by a native boy he was in a dying condition, but subsequently recovered in hospital.
There is little in the grim experiences of lone humanity to equal that of the man who, some years ago, while camping by himself, attempted to split a log with maul and wedges. When he had burst it along the top he double-banked the middle wedge, which caused another to drop into the crack. He thrust his hand in to get it, when the banked wedges flew out, and the half-burst log snapped together, crushing his hand and holding him as in a vice. How long he lingered, with his hand thus gripped, no one could tell; he was long dead when found. His axe lay a few inches from his feet, and he had rooted a semi-circular hole in his efforts to reach it, with the intention evidently of cutting off the imprisoned hand.
The annals of the Australian bush are replete with such experiences, with instances of dogged grit and patience, and of long-suffering martyrdom.
A Boundary Rider Setting Out – Photo SLWA
Moya Sharp
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Hello Moya
Just wanted to say thank you for your work on the Kalgoorlie history – today I came across some family history which prompted me to read more.
I have a copy of a note given to my great grandfather (Mr Alex C Cooper) from the residents of Vosperton on the thirteenth of June 1899. Sadly only two signatures are legible, one Mr Algar Fletcher and Mr G Crock.
I know a little of the town, though little of the history and how it came to be. I’ll continue to read and hopefully uncover more
Regards
Grant Cooper
Hi Grant Im actually working on a history of the towen of Bardoc which if you look at a map is very close to Vosperton so I will be including Vosperton in the book as there is not much on the town at the moment. You will see any progress reports on the blog and Face book.