The Breakaway

WE have been mustering ewes and lambs for marking, slogging through the long day and five-mile paddock, and now we have a mob near the yards. This lot comprises about two thousand ewes, with possibly fifteen hundred Iambs at foot. The little fellows are anything from a fortnight to eight weeks old, tired after the long drive, jaded, and yet with their capacity for devilry fully developed if latent within them. This is the first of two mobs to be yarded, and the other, of about equal numbers, is well away over the ridge until this first lot is safely behind the gates.

First, all dogs must be sent to the camp. There never was a dog that was any use when yarding lambs — particularly tired lambs. The dog has earned his salt and a bit to boot when mustering. He can yard grown sheep, taking the places of several men in the excellence of his work; but he cannot handle lambs at the yard. They have not yet been educated up to the dog.

Next, all whips must be coiled and sudden shouts checked. The art of yarding lambs successfully is to keep them distributed among the older sheep. A whipcrack, a sudden shout, have no effect on those staid old ewes. Those noises, though, cause the nervous little bundles beside them to jump, to run a few strides, bewilder them and make them draw together by the fear which drives them from their mothers.

Handle them as we will, it is next to impossible to keep Iambs evenly distributed through a mob when they are tired, when they are pressed, or when they have been driven some miles. Some little thing which would not make a sophisticated old sheep roll its eyes will cause the ignorant little fellows to run in fear. Anything at all may happen, and by the association of common tastes the younger sheep draw together. And that, when the lambs begin to congregate on the edges of the flock, is the time when they have to be handled with care.

We draw near the wings of the yard, working these bundles of dynamite encased in wool as charily as a juggler handles his glass balls thrown in the air. And even that effect, good though it is, works against us! The ewes, stolid old things that they are, slacken their pace when the strenuous driving eases a shade; the lambs, excited from their long drive, and infected with a new and nervous fear as the yard draws close, gradually work away from the restraining influence of the old mothers and gather in waves about the edges of the mob.

We could use calico — and many stations do employ it when yarding ewes and lambs. This is in strips fifty to sixty yards long, about three feet wide, and when run round a mob of sheep, with men holding it at intervals, it virtually forms a yard from which they can be forced through any gate. In all honesty, calico should be universally used. Many stockmen, though, and among them I number myself, prefer the ticklish art of showing their skill by yarding the ewes and lambs without any extraneous aid.

The head of the flock is entering the wing which leads to the gate. Lambs are moving in wavelets and sudden spurts of energy as they swing round the edges of the mob. A heavy pall of dust hangs above the body of sheep, and, as they enter within the wings, treading that oft-torn ground, greater volumes of it rise in stifling quantities and almost blind what those hidden in the dust are doing.

Keep out, there! Keep out wide. Keep out — right out — twenty to thirty yards wide of the sheep. Oh, keep out!

A stream of lambs has swung round the flank of the mob, breaking along the main body of it even as a wave runs along a sandy beach and breaks softly there. Those little jokers are excited, bucking in the air as they gallop, with tails flogging, and with their eyes starting in fear. The only way to keep them with the mob is to keep wide — thirty to forty yards out from the mob. If a man stands close in, that growing ring of lambs will break, shoot out from the older sheep, and strike away at a racing gallop. But men sitting their horses out wide serve as an encouragement for the little things to stay with their mothers, to mix with them, and to grow quiet.

Though that mob is touchy, it is necessary to yard them, to force them into the wings by moral suasion if not by force, and to make way for the second mob which might be coming at any time. The second lot will be easy to yard, with the ewes and lambs of the first lot inside calling to them and coaxing them. It is this first lot which is the ticklish proposition.

There are no rules by which a man can be guided, other than the general ones to keep wide and quiet. The man in charge has to feel what his sheep are doing, govern by intuition, know what they are going to do and check it before the sheep themselves have an inkling of what their next move is to be.

One little group of about a dozen lambs starts running from one side of the mob. As they race down the flank, other lambs join them, being drawn by an affinity of ideas, perhaps; thoughtless little creatures that they are, spurred by fear and driven by panic, the mere fact of seeing others of their kind in action is enough to induce them to do the same.

That group which started with about a dozen is growing to a hundred. Summoned telepathically, so it would seem, lambs are threading through the flock in their eagerness to join that rushing stream, and by the time it has run halfway round the mob practically half the lambs in the flock are drawing together and joining it.

Keep out, there! As those panting, bounding, tail-flogging, jumping, madly racing lambs swing round the tail of the mob they see a man sitting his horse directly in front of them. He is fifty yards distant and thirty yards out from the sheep nearest him. Strictly speaking, he may be in a sound position. But as those lambs swing they get a glimpse of the man ahead of them. They never hesitate: they shoot out from the parent mob, striking away at right angles, and that fizzing stream seems to drain the flock of all lambs as it races blindly, erratically, to an unknown destination.

There they are — five hundred senseless little creatures, leaping as they run, with their tails flogging them as they bound. They want nothing but to race and race until exhaustion stops them and they have left behind and out of sight the horror of the yard into which they were being driven.

That is a breakaway of Iambs.

It is no use whatever trying to check those little idiots in their mad race — lambs but eight weeks old and without a single sheep among them to exercise a restraining influence. The only way to recover them is first to let them have their fling, then, when a sense of their foolishness percolates through their dull minds, to show them the error of their ways.

A couple of men cut off two to three hundred of the old ewes in the mob. They bustle them along at a gait which is unseemly for their age — hustle them along the track which the flying lambs have taken. There is no idea of overtaking the Iambs, though the old ’uns show a surprising pace when chasing their young. Those older sheep follow to be on hand when they are wanted. Bleating, puffing, waddling in their stride, with their old flanks flapping, their eyes follow the track of their babies.

The best man in the camp — the boss, usually — is handling those breakaway Iambs. That handling is, for the time being, a negative process. He races wide of them, level with the leaders, and strives to check any ambitions they may have to go in other than a straight line. He knows it is worth less than nothing to try to turn them, to wheel them, or to stop them; his only chance, and he knows it, is to wait till they have had their fling — though, with a bit of luck, he might induce them to stop sooner than they otherwise would, or, if the gods should smile for once, he might even coax them to swing gradually and continue their gallop in the direction from which they have come.

Usually the man has to wait until the lambs have raced half a mile or more, until they begin to stagger in their weariness, and until the leaders check for a second or two and perhaps wonder what might come next. Then, if the man knows his work, it is time for him to appear suddenly in front of them, a hundred yards or more distant, sitting immobile on his horse immediately in the middle of the track those fleeing sheep would take.

That check, when the Iambs are tired, usually suffices. The little fellows summon up what specks of reason are left to them and stand gaping at the man in front of them. Some nervous little jokers may jump and start erratic rushes in which the others refuse to take part. Without the support of numbers those incipient breakaways die ere they are properly born, and gradually the bleating of the anxious ewes following on the tracks of the breakaway is brought to the lambs.

That is the moment! Some little madcaps, gaining courage from the nearness of their mothers, seem inclined to continue their aimless race till they drop in their tracks. Others seem inclined to turn and run back to the comforting presence of the mother’s body. That, while the mob is undecided, is the time for the man to act. With a rush, a yell, a crack of the whip, and a gallop, he charges the hesitant lambs. He makes up their minds for them. He shows them it is advantageous to flee from the horror of the man ahead of them, back to their mothers, rather than to face the terrors of the unknown in front of them.

Once they are joined with the ewes, the breakaway is ended. The lambs are pumped, subdued; and, provided they are kept on the run and distributed through the flock, they have neither the time nor the energy to draw together again and start another break. The bleating of the sheep at the yards is carried to them, urging them to return to their mothers, and, back at the wings, they enter docilely and follow the other sheep that have drawn through the gates into the yard while the breakaways have been scampering about the bush.