A Fellow called "Horseface";

A fellow called “Horse face”;

It was a very early autumn morning,  a soft  light seeping  from a pale  blue dawn. The low lying   river flats were still shrouded in  mist. Peter, stretching his long limbs, padded over to the window, looked out  and mumbled to himself oh…aah… mm…today we will have another nice day. Then quickly looking back at me still curled up  under the quilt, sang out, quick get up and have a look  who the hell is down there?  I jumped out of bed  and we both stared out of the window. Far down near the river was somebody on a horse riding over our property. Quickly,  Peter fetched his binoculars and said; oh it’s him “Horse face”!  Looking through the binoculars I said I should have known, there is only one person who sits  on a horse like a bag of potatoes. The man on the horse was a fellow we didn’t particularly like. One has this gut feeling when you  meet a person who does not look into your eyes and has a sly way about him. He was always ostensibly friendly. We thought he was not trustworthy he was always snooping around. He had one paddock on the northern side of our boundary. What was he looking for on our land? We called him “Horse face”, because he had this awfully long teeth sticking out of his face, well I don’t dare to tell what others called him! Anyway,  we went down to  the river bank by car to meet “Horse face” and asked him about his early visit to our property. He said he was looking for some cattle he was missing. Peter told him he might have first asked us before searching our land early in the morning when he thought nobody was around. He thought we might have them on our property. As the rumors went he was a cattle rustler himself and so he thought everybody else was too.
One day Marie Louise came home from checking the cattle and said Willi is missing.  She  went riding around the property and the boundary along the road to look for him. Near the road was a small loading yard. Horseface was loading some cattle and lo and behold our Willi was in the middle of his cattle in the stockyard.  We watched her as she challenged him and said with an earnest face, Sir, I see our bull  in between your cattle. Horseface with his shifting face and sly smile said:” I didn’t notice, bloody hell how did he get in there?” ML said I come in and get him out. Boldly she rode into the stockyard in between the cattle, which are quite wild, and got him out and  drove him home, a job well done.  Luckily he was found before he was loaded up. He was also branded, so I don’t know  what would have happened, probably nothing.
ML was a very good jillaroo.
She loved the cattle and riding around the property. She knew every calf  and to which cow it belonged.