CHAPTER XXVI 



THE STOCKMAN 



After the superintendent or the overseer the chief in 

 dispensable employees on a cattle station were its 

 stockmen. Like most others on the station, the stock- 

 man had a strongly marked individuality. Mrs. Camp- 

 bell Praed has drawn his portrait. He is long and 

 loose-jointed, lean and sunbrowned. He wears tight- 

 moleskin trousers, elastic-sided boots, and a shirt of gray 

 flannel ; and his kerchief, the woman's eye keenly 

 notes, is tied in a sailor's knot — the bushraan thus 

 anticipating a recent fashion. On one foot he has a 

 short-necked spur. He slouches loosely in the saddle, 

 but, like his congener, the Gaucho, is a piece of the 

 animal and has a firm seat. The stockwhip, which, un- 

 like the bullock-whip, is always changing its make, a 

 strap, and a pouch complete his equipment. His leash 

 of kangaroo-dogs is indispensable. Very independent 

 in spirit, he won't be " bossed about." A handy man, 

 he can do most things, from baking to building a 

 house.* 



He is a man who can procure posts in the bush, 

 split rails and shingles, take contracts for building 

 houses, stockyards, etc. ; who works among timber 

 continually, sometimes falling and splitting, sometimes 

 sawing ; a hard-working man and one of the best speci- 

 mens of the Australian workman. f But his special 

 business is to watch and handle cattle. He may be sent 



* My Australian Girlhood, pp. 177-8, 13. 

 I Gbant, Bush Life, in Queensland, i, 80-1. 



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