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Mick stood near the tree waiting to brand and cut, and with him were Fiddle-head and Jack Johnson for the front and back leg ropes, and Eagle to keep the brands hot and hand them when required. Poona and Uncle were each armed with a long pliant bull-hide lasso, and the two white boys and Calcoo rode round the cattle, keeping them well bunched up.
Meanwhile Fiddle-head and Jack Johnson were on the alert with their ropes, and in a few seconds they had flung them on and had drawn the loops tight, and pulled the animal down and held it. Mick at once loosened the lasso and Poona went back to the mob to rope another.
The two men left her, while, with a shake and a swift jerk, Jacob flung the lariat clear of the mare's head. In an instant the battle had begun. There was no seesaw bucking about her. It was stiff-legged, with her four feet bunched together and her great fiddle-head lost in their midst.
He clutched the horse's neck to save himself from coming off, and when the horse turned he hung on still tighter. The steer got away easily and was making back to the mob when Uncle and Fiddle-head came to the rescue. Everybody laughed at the two white boys, but they took the fun in good part and learnt their first important lesson in handling cattle: it's never so easy that it doesn't need care.
I had three anchors, weighing forty pounds, one hundred pounds, and one hundred and eighty pounds respectively. The windlass and the forty-pound anchor, and the "fiddle-head," or carving, on the end of the cutwater, belonged to the original Spray. The ballast, concrete cement, was stanchioned down securely. There was no iron or lead or other weight on the keel.
Dan Collins had sent four station boys to round up the horses: Calcoo, whose real name went into about ten syllables and was quite impossible for a white man to pronounce; Uncle, a thoroughly reliable black-fellow, who was somewhat older than the others; Fiddle-Head, so called because of his long thin face; and Jack Johnson, a native of splendid physique from one of the great rivers which flow into the Gulf of Carpentaria.
She has a d d pretty run; but I hope Captain O'Brien will take off her fiddle-head, and get one carved: I never knew a vessel do much with a fiddle-head." "I rather think that Captain O'Brien has already applied to the Commissioner on the subject," replied I; "at all events, it won't be very difficult to make the alteration ourselves."
She has a damned pretty run; but I hope Captain O'Brien will take off her fiddle-head, and get one carved: I never knew a vessel do much with a fiddle-head." "I rather think that Captain O'Brien has already applied to the Commissioner on the subject," replied I; "at all events, it won't be very difficult to make the alteration ourselves."
It was only a mean desire to retaliate, a petty and ignoble spite, that prompted me thus to poison Brutus's confidence, and I regretted the words as soon as I had uttered them. 'That beast! he said, starting as if I had touched him with a whip a thing I never used 'why, he hasn't two ideas in his great fiddle-head. The only sort of officer he ought to carry is a Salvationist!
Nicky was evidently trying to turn it in the direction of the main road, but the leader had other views, and gave expression to them by sitting down suddenly on his haunches, with his white-stockinged forelegs struck straight out, his fiddle-head, with the white blaze between his wicked eyes, looking round over his shoulder at the invisible Nicky, whose remarks came floating up to Ishmael on the breeze.
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