Pioneering days of Miriam Vale and district', Queensland by W. G. Blomfield, 1946-1947 - Page 134

the tail of the mob.

My first dog, a blue called BUCK, was one of the best of many good ones that worked for me. He helped me on my watch at night for 13 weeks & about 900 miles in the 1890 floods, from Miriam Vale QLD to MUSWELLBROOK on the HUNTER RIVER NSW. He would attend to the tail of the mob of 650 bullocks when we had to swim flooded rivers. When letting the bullocks feed along, & if a beast or two stopped behind, he would watch me till given the office to bring them into the mob steadily. At times would ? not to see them, & he would trot off quietly & walk them slowly into the mob.

At our last swim of the HUNTER RIVER near to SEGENHOE he was on his own at the tail of the mob. The grass was long, & the variegated thistle was longer, & he stood up on his hind feet to see if anything was left behind. There was a white station bull away back. He must have thought it was the ghost of the only bullock we left behind, a sick one on top of CRAWNEY MOUNTAIN, a week or so before. It was brought in at a hard gallop, evidently the proper way to treat a GHOST according to Buck, as he could bring in a stray bullock more quietly than any of us could.