M'Gregor's action in this matter puzzled us. We spent our time crawling after sheep, and a camp-horse would be about as much use to us as side-pockets to a pig. We had expected Sandy to rush the fellow off the place at once, and we couldn't understand how it was that he took so much interest in him. Perhaps the fever-racked drover and the old camp-horse appealed to him in a way incomprehensible to us.
We had never been on the Queensland cattle-camps, nor shaken and shivered with the fever, nor lived the roving life of the overlanders.
M'Gregor had done all this, and his heart (I can see it all now) went out to the man who brought the old days back to him.
"Ah, weel," he said, "we hae'na muckle use for a camp-horrse here, ye ken; wi'oot some of these lads wad like to try theer han' cuttin' oot the milkers' cawves frae their mithers." And the old man laughed contemptuously, while we felt humbled in the sight of the man from far back. "An' what'll ye be wantin' for him?" asked M'Gregor.
"Reckon he's worth fifteen notes," said the drover.
This fairly staggered us. Our estimates had varied between thirty shillings and a fiver. We thought the negotiations would close abruptly; but M'Gregor, after a little more examination, agreed to give the price, provided the saddle and bridle, both grand specimens of ancient art, were given in. This was agreed to, and the drover was sent off to get his meals in the hut before leaving by the coach.
"The mon is verra harrd up, an' it's a sair thing that Queensland fever," was the only remark M'Gregor made. But we knew now that there was a soft spot in his heart somewhere.
Next morning the drover got a crisp-looking cheque. He said no word while the cheque was being written, but, as he was going away, the horse happened to be in the yard, and he went over to the old comrade that had carried him so many miles, and laid a hand on his neck.
"He ain't much to look at," said the drover, speaking slowly and awkwardly, "but he's white when he's wanted." And just before the coach rattled off, the man of few words leant down from the box and nodded impressively, and repeated, "Yes, he's white when he's wanted."
We didn't trouble to give the new horse a name. Station horses are generally called after the man from whom they are bought.
"Tom Devine", "The Regan mare", "Black M'Carthy" and "Bay M'Carthy" were among the appellations of our horses at that time. As we didn't know the drover's name, we simply called the animal "The new horse" until a still newer horse was one day acquired. Then, one of the hands being told to take the new horse, said, "D'yer mean the NEW new horse or the OLD new horse?"
"Naw," said the boss, "not the new horrse -- that bay horrse we bought frae the drover. The ane he said was white when he's wanted."
And so, by degrees, the animal came to be referred to as the horse that's white when he's wanted, and at last settled down to the definite name of "White-when-he's-wanted".
White-when-he's-wanted didn't seem much of an acquisition. He was sent out to do slavery for Greenhide Billy, a boundary-rider who plumed himself on having once been a cattle-man. After a week's experience of "White", Billy came in to the homestead disgusted. The pony was so lazy that he had to build a fire under him to get him to move, and so rough that it made a man's nose bleed to ride him more than a mile. "The boss must have been off his head to give fifteen notes for such a cow."
M'Gregor heard this complaint. "Verra weel, Mr. Billy," said he, hotly, "ye can juist tak' ane of the young horrses in yon paddock, an' if he bucks wi' ye an' kills ye, it's yer ain fault.
Ye're a cattleman -- so ye say -- dommed if ah believe it.
Ah believe ye're a dairy-farmin' body frae Illawarra. Ye ken neither horrse nor cattle. Mony's the time ye never rode buckjumpers, Mr. Billy"
-- and with this parting-shot the old man turned into the house, and White-when-he's-wanted came back to the head station.
