Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/186



June 1891, at Wodonga, on the Murray River, in the colony of Victoria—on the opposite bank to Albury, a town of New South Wales—was arranged an exhibition for testing the horsemanship of all comers, which I venture to assert had but few parallels.

Prizes were to be allotted, by the award of three judges of acknowledged experience, amounting in all to about £20. Much interested in matters equine, 'nihil equitatum alienum me puto,' I traversed the three miles which separate the border towns in a cab of the period, and arrived in time for the excitement.

The manner of the entertainment was after this wise. An area of several acres of level greensward was enclosed within a fence, perhaps eight or ten feet high, formed of sawn battens, on which was stretched the coarse sacking known to drapers as 'osnaberg.' This answered the double purpose of keeping the non-paying public out and the performing horses in.

I had heard of the way in which the selected horses were saddled and mounted; I was therefore partly prepared. But, tolerably versed in the lore of the wilderness, I had never before seen such primitive equitation.

About thirty unbroken horses were moving uneasily within a high, well-constructed stock-yard—the regulation 'four rails' and a 'cap'—amounting to a solid unyielding fence, over seven feet in height.

That the steeds were really unbroken, 'by spur and snaffle undefiled,' might be gathered from their long manes, tails sweeping the ground, and general air of terror or defiance. As each animal was wanted, it was driven or cajoled by means