Man from Snowy River and other Verses, The by Paterson, Andrew Barton

1 01 - Preface and Prelude 2:39

2 02 - The Man from Snowy River 6:45

The Man from Snowy River There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around, that the colt from old regret had got away, and had joined the wild-bush horses. He was worth a thousand pound. So all the cracks had gathered to the fray, All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far had mustered at the homestead overnight. For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild-bush horses are, and the stock horse snuffs the battle with delight. There was Harrison who made his pile when pardon won the cup, the old man with his hair as white as snow. But few could ride beside him when his bud was fairly up. He would go wherever horse and man could go. And Clancy of the overflow came down to lend a hand.

No better horseman ever held the reins. For never horse could throw him while the saddle girths would stand. He learnt to ride while driving on the plains.

And one was there a stripling on a small and weedy beast. He was something like a racehorse, undersized. With a touch of Timor pony, three parts thoroughbred at least. And such as are by mountain-horsemen prized. He was hard and tough and worry, just the sort that won't say die. There was courage in his quick and patient tread. And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye, and the proud and lofty carriage of his head. But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay, and the old man said, That horse will never do. For a long and tiring gallop, lad, you'd better stop away. Those hills are far too rough for such as you. So he waited sad and wistful, only Clancy stood his friend.

I think we ought to let him come, he said. I'll warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted to the end, for both his horse and he are mountain-bred. He hails from Snowy River up by Kosciuszko's side, where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough. Where a horse hoofs struck the fire-light from the flint-stones every stride, and the man that holds his own is good enough. And the snowy river riders on the mountains make their home, where the river runs those giant hills between. I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam, but nowhere yet such a horseman have I seen. So he went, they found the horses, by the big mimosa clump, They raced away towards the mountain's brow, and the old man gave his orders, "'Boys, go at them from the jump.

No use to try fancy riding now. And Clancy, you must wheel them. Try and wheel them to the right. Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills.' For never yet was Ryder that could keep the mob in sight if they gain the shelter of those hills. So Clancy rode to wheel them. He was racing on the wing, where the best and boldest riders take their place. And he raced his stock-horse past them, and he made the rangers ring, with the stock-whip as he met them face to face. Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash, but they saw their well-loved mountain full in view. And they charged beneath the stock-whip, with a sharp and sudden dash, and off into the mountain scrub they flew. Then fast the horsemen followed, Where the gorges, deep and black, resounded to the thunder of their tread.

And the stockwitch woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back, from the cliffs and crags that beetled overhead. And upward, ever upward, the wild horses hailed their way, where the mountain ash and currawong grew wide. And so the old man muttered, fiercely, We may bid the mob good day. No man can hold them down that other side. When they reached the mountain summit, even Clancy took a pull. It well might make the boldest hold their breath. The wild hop's grub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full. Of wombat holes any slip was death. But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head, and he swung his stock whip round and gave a cheer, and he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed, while the others stood and watched in very fear.

He sent the flintstones flying, but the pony kept his feet. He cleared the fallen timber in his stride, and the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat. It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride. Through the stringy barks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground, down the hillside at a racing pace he went, and he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound at the bottom of that terrible descent. He was right among the horses as they climbed the further hill, and the watchers on the mountain standing mute. Saw him ply the stopwhip fiercely, he was right among them still, as he raced across the clearing in pursuit. And they lost him for a moment, where the two mountain gullies met, in the ranges but a final glimpse reveals.

On a dim and distant hillside, the wild horses racing yet, with the man from Snowy River at their heels. And he ran them single-handed, till their sides were white with foam, he followed like a bloodhound on the track, till they halted, cowered and beaten, and he turned their heads for home, and alone and unassisted brought them back. But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot, he was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur. But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot, for never yet was mountain horse a cur. And down by Kosciuszko, where the pine-clad ridges raise, their torn and rugged battlements on high, where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze, at midnight on that cold and frosty sky.

To where around the overflow the reed-beds sweep and sway, to the breezes and the rolling plains are wide. The man from Snowy River is a household word to-day, and the stockmen tell the story of his ride.

3 03 - Old Pardon, the Son of Reprieve 8:23

Old Pardon, the son of Reprieve. You never heard tell of the story? Well, now I can hardly believe. Never heard of the honor and glory of Pardon, the son of Reprieve. But maybe you're only a Johnny, and don't know a horse from a hoe. Well, well, don't get angry, my sonny. But really a young'un should know. They bred him out back on the never. His mother was Mamalukey breed. To the front, and then stay there, was ever the root of the Mamalukey creed. He seemed to inherit their wiry strong frames, and their pluck to receive, as hard as a flint, and as fiery was pardon the son of reprieve. We ran him at many a meeting, at crossing and gully in town. And nothing could give him a beating, at least when our money was down.

For weight wouldn't stop him, nor distance, nor odds, though the others were fast. He'd race with a dogged persistence, and wear them all down at the last. At the Turon, the Yattin Donfilly led by lengths at the mile and a half, and we all began to look silly, while her crowd was starting to laugh. But the old horse came faster and faster, his pluck told its tail, and his strength. He gained on her, caught her, and passed her, and won it, hands down, by a length. And then we swooped down on Menindee to run for the President's Cup. Oh, that's a sweet township, a shindy. To them is board, lodging, and sup. Eye open as they are, and their system is never to suffer defeat. It's wind-tire wrangle.

To best them you must lose them, or else it's dead heat. We strolled down the township and found em at drinking and gaming and play. If sorrows they had, why, they drowned em, and betting was soon under way. Their horses were good'uns and fitt'uns. There was plenty of cash in the town. They backed their own horses like Britain's, and, Lord, how we rattled it down. With gladness we thought of the morrow, we counted our wages with glee. A simile homely to borrow, there was plenty of milk in our tea. You see, we were green, and we never had even a thought of foul play, though we well might have known that the clever division would put us away. Experienced doset, they tell us, at least so I frequently heard.

But dosing and stuffing those fellows were up to each move on the board. They got to his stall. It is sinful to think what such villains would do, and they gave him a regular skinful of barley, green barley, to chew. He munched it all night, and we found him next morning as full as a hog. The girths wouldn't nearly meet round him. He looked like an overfed frog. We saw we were done like a dinner. The odds were a thousand to one. Against pardon turning up winner. T'was cruel to ask him to run. We got to the course with our troubles. A crestfallen couple were we, and we heard the books calling the doubles, a roar like the surf of the sea. And over the tumult and louder rang any price pardon I lay.

Says Jimmy, the children of Judah are out on the warpath to-day. Three miles in three heats. Ah, my sonny, the horses in those days were stout. They had to run well to win money. I don't see such horses about. Your six furlong vermin that scamper half-miled with their featherweight up, they wouldn't earn much of their damper in a race like the President's Cup. The first heat was soon set a-going, the dancer went off to the front. The don on his quarters was showing, with pardon, right out of the hunt. He rolled, and he welted, and wallowed. You'd kick your hat faster, I'll bet. They finished all bunched, and he followed, all lathered and dripping with sweat. But troubles came thicker upon us, for while we were rubbing him dry, the stewards come over to warn us.

We hear you're running a-by. If pardon don't spiel like tarnation, and win the next heat if he can, he'll earn a disqualification. Just think over that now, my man. Our money all gone, and our credit, our horse couldn't gallop a yard. And then people thought that we did it. It really was terribly hard. We were objects of mirth and derision, to folk in the lawn and the stand, and the yells of the clever division of, Any price pardon? were grand. We still had a chance for the money. Two heats still remained to be run, if both fell to us. Why, my sonny! The clever divisions were done, and pardon was better, we reckoned. His sickness was passing away. So he went to the post for the second and principal heat of the day.

They're often away with a rattle, like dogs from the leashes let slip, and right at the back of the battle he followed them under the whip. They gained ten good lengths on him quickly. He dropped right away from the pack. I tell you, it made me feel sickly to see the blue jacket fall back. Our very last hope had departed. We thought the old fellow was done, when all of a sudden he started to go like a shot from a gun. His chances seemed slight to embolden our hearts, but with teeth firmly set. We thought, now or never, the old one may reckon with some of them yet. Then loud rose the war-cry for pardon. He swept like the wind down the dip, and over the rice by the garden, the jockey was done with the whip.

The field were at sixes and sevens, the pace at the first had been fast, and hope seemed to drop from the heavens, for pardon was coming at last. And how he did come! It was splendid. He gained on them yards every bound, stretching out like a greyhound extended, his girth laid right down on the ground. A shimmer of silk in the cedars, as into the running they wheeled, and out flashed the whips on the leaders, for pardon had collared the field. Then right through the ruck he came sailing. I knew that the battle was won. The sun of haphazard was failing. The Yattendon filly was done. He cut down Don and the dancer. He raced clean away from the mare. He's in front. Catch him now if you can, sir, and up went my hat in the air.

Then, loud from the lawn and the garden, rose offers of ten to one on. Who'll bet on the field? I back pardon. No use. All the money was gone. He came for the third heat lighthearted, a-jumping and dancing about. The others were done ere they started, crestfallen and tired and worn out. He won it and ran it much faster than ever the first, I believe. Oh, he was the daddy, the master, was pardoned, the son of reprieve. He showed em the method to travel, the boy sat as still as a stone. They never could see him for gravel. He came in hard-held and alone. But he's old, and his eyes are grown hollow, like me with my thatch of the snow. When he dies, then I hope I may follow, and go where the race-horses go.

I don't want no harping nor singing, such things with my style don't agree. Where the hoofs of the horses are ringing, There's music sufficient for me. And surely the thoroughbred horses will rise up again and begin, fresh races on faraway courses, and perhaps they might let me slip in. It would look rather well the race-card on amongst sheriffs, seraphs and things. Angel Harrison's black gelding pardon, blue halo, white body and wings. And if they have racing hereafter, and who is to say they will not, when the cheers and the shouting and laughter Proclaim that the battle grows hot. As they come down, the race-course are steering. He'll rush to the front, I believe, and you'll hear the great multitude cheering.

For pardon, the son of reprieve.

4 04 - Clancy of the Overflow 2:44

Crancy of the Overflow.

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan years ago. He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him, just on spec, addressed as follows. Clancy of the Overflow. And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected, and I think the same was written with a thumbnail dipped in tar. "'Twas your sharing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it. Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are." In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy gone a-droving down the cooper where the western drivers go. As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing, for the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him in the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars, and he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended, and at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars. I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall, and the fetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city through the open window floating spreads its foulness over all. And in place of lowing cattle I can hear the fiendish rattle of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street, and the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting. Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me, as they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste, with their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy. For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste. And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy. Like to take a turn at droving, where the seasons come and go, while he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal. But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy of the overflow.

5 05 - Conroy\'s Gap 6:39

The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses Conroy's Gap This was the way of it, don't you know. Ryan was wanted for stealing sheep, and never a trooper, high or low, could find him. Catch a weasel asleep. Till Trooper Scott from the Stockman's Ford, a bushman too, as I've heard them tell, Chanced to find him drunk as a lord round at the Shadow of Death Hotel. Do you know the place? It's a wayside inn, a low grog shanty, a bushman trap. Hiding away in its shame and sin under the shelter of Conroy's Gap, under the shade of that frowning range, the roughest crowd that ever drew breath. Thieves and rowdies, uncouth and strange, were mustered round at the Shadow of Death. The trooper knew that his man would slide like a dingo pup if he saw the chance, and with half a start on the mountain side, Ryan would lead him a merry dance.

Drunk as he was when the trooper came, to him that did not matter a rap. Drunk or sober, he was the same—the boldest rider in Conroy's Gap. "'I want you, Ryan,' the trooper said. "'And listen to me. If you dare resist, so help me heaven, I'll shoot you dead.' He snapped the steel on the prisoner's wrist. And Ryan—' Hearing the handcuffs click, recovered his wits as they turned to go, for fright will sober a man as quick as all the drugs that the doctors know.

There was a girl in that rough bar, went by the name of Kate Carew, quiet and shy, as the bush girls are, but ready-witted and plucky, too. She loved this Ryan, or so they say, and passing by, while her eyes were dim with tears, she said in a careless way, "'The swagman's round in the stable, Jim.' Spoken too low for the trooper's ear. Why should she care if he heard or not? Plenty of swagmen far and near, and yet to Rhine it meant a lot. That was the name of the grandest horse in all the district from east to west. In every show-ring, on every course, they always counted the swagmen best. He was a wonder, a raking bay, one of the old Snowden strain, one of the sort that could race and stay with his mighty limbs and his length of rein.

Born and bred on the mountain-side, he could race through the scrub like a kangaroo. The girl herself on his back might ride, and the swagman would carry her safely through. He would travel gaily from daylight's flush till after the stars hung out their lamps. It was never his like in the open bush, and never his match on the cattle camps. For faster horses might well be found on racing tracks or a plain's extent, but few, if any, on broken ground could see the way the swagman went. When this girl's father, old Jim Caroo, was driving out on the castle ray with Conroy's cattle, a wire came through to say that his wife couldn't live the day, and he was a hundred miles from home, as flies the crow, with never a track through plains as pathless as ocean's foam.

He mounted straight on the swagman's back. He left the camp by the sundown light, and the settlers out on the Martha Guy awoke and heard in the dead of night a single horseman hurrying by. He crossed the bogan at Dandolo, and many a mile of silent plain that lonely rider behind him threw before they settled to sleep again. He rode all night, and he steered his course by the shining stars with a bushman's skill, and every time he pressed his horse the swagman answered him gamely still. He neared his home as the east was bright. The doctor met him outside the town. Carew, how far did you come last night? A hundred miles since the sun went down. And his wife got round, and an oath he passed, so long as he or one of his breed could raise a coin, though it took their last the swagman never should want a feed.

And Kate Carew, when her father died, she kept the horse, and she kept him well. The pride of the district far and wide. He lived in style at the Bush Hotel. Such was the swagman, and Ryan knew nothing could pace the crack. Little he'd care for the man in blue if once he got on the swagman's back. But how to do it? A word let fall gave him the hint as the girl passed by. Nothing but swagman, stable wall. Go to the stable and mind your eye.

He caught her meaning and quickly turned to the trooper. Reckon you'll gain a stripe for arresting me, and it's easily earned. Let's go to the stable and get my pipe. The swagman has it. So off they went, and as soon as ever they turned their backs, the girl slipped down. On some errand bent behind the stable, And seized an axe. The trooper stood at the stable door while Ryan went in, quite cool and slow, and then—the trick had been played before—the girl outside gave the wall a blow. Three slabs fell out of the stable wall. T'was done forever, the trooper knew, and Ryan, as soon as he saw them fall, mounted the swagman and rushed him through. The trooper heard the hoof-beats ring in the stable-yard, and he slammed the gate.

But the swagman rose with a mighty spring at the fence, and the trooper fired too late. As they raced away, and his shots flew wide, and Ryan no longer need care a rap, for never a horse that was lapped in hide could catch the swagman in Conroy's gap.

And that's the story. You want to know if Ryan came back to his kate carew? Of course, he should have, as stories go. But the worst of it is, this story's true. And in real life it's a certain rule, whatever poets and authors say of high-toned robbers and all their school, these horse-thief fellows aren't built that way.

Come back? Don't hope it. The slinking hound, he sloped across to the Queensland side, and sold the swagman for fifty pound, and stole the money, and more beside, and took to drink. and by some good chance was killed, thrown out of a stolen trap.

6 06 - Our New Horse 5:37

Our new horse. The boys had come back from the races, all silent and down on their luck. They backed em straight out and for places, but never a winner they struck. They lost their good money on slogan, and fell most uncommonly flat, when partner, the pride of the bogan, was beaten by aristocrat. And one said, I move that instanter. We sell out our horses and quit. The brutes ought to win in a canter. Such trials they do when they're fit. The last one they ran was a snorter, a gallop to gladden one's heart. Two twelve for a mile and a quarter, and finished as straight as a dart. And then, when I think that they're ready to win me a nice little swag, they're licked like the verrier's netty, they're licked from the fall of the flag.

The mare held her own to the stable. She died out to nothing at that, and, partner, he never seemed able to pace it with Aristocrat. And times have been bad, and the seasons don't promise to be of the best. In short, boys, there's plenty of reasons for giving the racing a rest. The mare can be kept on the station. Her breeding is good as can be. But, partner, his next destination is rather a trouble to me. We can't sell him here, for they know him, as well as the clerk of the course. He's raced, and one races till blow him, he's done as a handicap horse. A jady, uncertain performer, they weigh him right out of the hunt, and clap it on warmer and warmer whenever he gets near the front. It's no use to paint him or dot him or put any fake on his brand, for Bushmen are smart, and they'd spot him in any sale-yard in the land.

The folk about here could all tell him, could swear to each separate hair. Let us send him to Sydney and sell him. There's plenty of jugginses there. We'll call him a maiden and treat him to trials we'll open their eyes. We'll run their best horses and beat em, and then won't they think him a price. I pity the fellow that buys him. He'll find in a very short space, no matter how highly he tries him, the beggar won't race in a race. Next week, under seller and buyer, appeared in the Daily Gazette. A racehorse for sale and a flyer has never been started as yet. A trial will show what his pace is, the buyer can get him in light, and win all the handicap races. Apply here before Wednesday night. He sold for a hundred and thirty because of a gallop he had, one morning with Bluefish and Bertie, and Donkey licked both of them bad.

And when the old horse had departed, the life on the station grew tame. The race-track was dull and deserted. The boys had gone back on the game. The winter rolled by, and the station was green with a garland of spring. A spirit of glad exultation awoke in each animate thing. And all the old love, the old longing, broke out in the breasts of the boys. The visions of racing came thronging with all its delirious joys. The rushing of floods in their courses, the rattle of rain on the roofs, recalled the fierce rush of the horses, the thunder of galloping hoofs. And soon one broke out, I can suffer, no longer the life of a slug. The man that don't race is a duffer. Let's have one more run for the mug.

Why, everything races, no matter whatever its method may be. The waterfowl hold a regatta, the possums run heats up a tree. The emus are constantly sprinting, a handicap out on the plain. It seems like all nature was hinting. "'Tis time to be at it again." The cockatoo parrots are talking, of races to faraway lands. The native companions are walking, as go as you please, on the sands. The little foals gallop for pastime, the wallabies race down the gap. Let's try it once more for the last time. Bring out the old jacket and cap. And now for a horse we might try one, of those that are bred on the place, but I think it better to buy one, a horse that has proved he can race. Let us send down to Sydney to Skinner, a thorough good judge who can ride, and ask him to buy us a spinner, to clean out the whole countryside.

They wrote him a letter as follows. We want you to buy us a horse. He must have speed to catch swallows, and stamina with it, of course. The price ain't a thing that'll grieve us. It's getting a bad and a noise. The undersigned blokes, and believe us, we're yours to a cinder. The boys." He answered, "'I've bought you a Hummer, a horse that has never been raced. I saw him run over the drummer. He held him outclassed and outpaced. His breeding's not known, but they state he is born of a thoroughbred strain. I paid them a hundred and eighty, and started the horse in the train.' They met him, alas, at these verses, and up to the subject's demands, Can't set forth the elegant courses, for partner was back on their hands.

They went in to meet him in gladness, they opened his box with delight, a silent procession of sadness, they crept to the station at night. And life has grown dull on the station, the boys are all silent and slow, their work is a daily vexation, and sport is unknown to them now. Whenever they think how they stranded, they squeal just like guinea-pigs squeal. They bit their own hook and were landed, with fifty pounds loss on the deal.

7 07 - An Idyll of Dandaloo 3:52

An Idol of Dandaloo On western plains, where the shade is not, Neath the summer skies of cloudless blue, Where all is dry and all is hot, There stands the town of Dandaloo, A township where life's total sum Is sleep, diversified with rum. Its grass-grown streets with dust are deep, to a vain endeavor to express the dreamless silence of its sleep, its wide, expansive drunkenness. The yearly races mostly drew a lively crowd to Dandaloo. There came a sportsman from the East, the eastern land where sportsmen blow, and brought with him a speedy beast, a speedy beast as horses go. He came afar in, hoped to do, the little town of Dandaloo.

Now, this was weak of him, I wot. Exceeding weak, it seemed to me, for we in Dandalu were not the Juggins as we seemed to be. In fact, we rather thought we knew our book by heart in Dandalu. We held a meeting at the bar, and met the question fair and square. We've stumped the country near and far to raise the cash for races here. We've got a hundred pounds or two. Not half so bad for Dandalu, and now it seems we have to be cleaned out by this here Sidney bloke with his imported horse, and he will scoop the pool and leave us broke. Shall we sit still and make no fuss while this chap climbs all over us? The races came to Dandalu, and all the cornstalks from the west of every kind of moke and screw came forth in all their glory dressed.

The stranger's horse, as hard as nails, looked fit to run for New South Wales. He won the race by half a length, quite half a length, it seemed to me, but Dandalu for all its strength roared out dead heat most fervently, and after hesitation meet the judge's verdict was dead heat. And many men there were could tell what gave the verdict extra force, the stewards and the judge as well. They had all backed the second horse. Things like this they sometimes do in Larger towns like Dandalu. They ran it off. The stranger won, hands down, by nearly a hundred yards. He smiled to think his trouble was done, but Dandalu held all the cards. They went to scale, and—cruel fate! His jockey turned out underweight.

Perhaps they tampered with the scale. I cannot tell. I only know. It weighed him out all right. I failed to paint that Sydney sportsman's woe. He said the stewards were a crew of low-live thieves in Dandaloo. He lifted up his voice, irate, and swore until the air was blue. So then we rose to vindicate the dignity of Dandaloo. "'Look here,' said we. "'You must not poke such oaths at us poor country folk.' We rode him softly on a rail. We shined at him in careless glee some large tomatoes, rank and stale, and eggs of great antiquity. Their wild, unholy fragrance flew about the town of Dandaloo.

He left the town at break of day. He led his racehorse through the streets, and now he tells the tale, they say, to every racing man he meets. And all Sydney sportsmen all eschew the atmosphere of Dandaloo.

8 08 - The Geebung Polo Club 3:52

The Jebung Polo Club.

It was somewhere up the country, in a land of rock and scrub, that they formed an institution called the Jebung Polo Club. They were long and wiry natives from the rugged mountain side, and the horse was never saddled that the gee-bungs couldn't ride. But their style of playing polo was irregular and rash. They had mighty little science, but a mighty lot of dash. And they played on mountain ponies that were muscular and strong, though their coats were quite unpolished and their manes and tails were long, and they used to train those ponies wheeling cattle in the scrub. They were demons, were the members of the Jeebung Polo Club.

It was somewhere down the country, in a city's smoke and steam, that Apollo Club existed called the Cuff and Collar Team. As a social institution, it was a marvellous success, for the members were distinguished by exclusiveness and dress. They had natty little ponies that were nice, And smooth, and sleek, for their cultivated owners only rode them once a week. So they started up the country in pursuit of sport and fame, for they meant to show the jee-bungs how they ought to play the game. And they took their valets with them, just to give their boots a rub, ere they started operations on the jee-bung polo club. Now my readers can imagine how the contest ebbed and flowed. When the Gee-Bung boys got going, it was time to clear the road, and the game was so terrific that ere half the time was gone, a spectator's leg was broken, just from merely looking on.

For they wadded one another till the plane was strewn with dead, while the score was kept so even that they neither got ahead. And the cuff-and-collar captain, when he tumbled off to die, was the last surviving player. So the game was called a tie. Then the captain of the Gee-Bungs raised him slowly from the ground. Though his wounds were mostly mortal, yet he fiercely gazed around. There was no one to oppose him. All the rest were in a trance. So he scrambled on his pony for his last expiring chance, for he meant to make an effort to get victory to his side. So he struck at goal, and missed it. Then he tumbled off and died. By the old Kempasby River, where the breezes shake the grass, there's a row of little gravestones that the stockmen never pass, for they bear a crude inscription saying, Stranger, drop a tear, for the Cuff and Collar Players and the G-Bung Boys lie here.

And on misty moonlit evenings, While the dingoes howl around, you can see their shadows flitting down that phantom polo ground. You can hear the loud collisions as the flying players meet, and the rattle of the mallets, and the rush of ponies' feet, till the terrified spectator rides like blazers to the pub. He's been haunted by the spectres of the Jeebung Polo Club.

9 09 - The Travelling Post Office 2:31

The Travelling Post Office The roving breezes come and go, The reed-beds sweep and sway, The sleepy river murmurs low, And loiters on its way. It is the land a lots a time Along the castle ray. The old man's son had left the farm, He found it dull and slow. He drifted to the great north-west, Where all the rovers go. He's gone so long, the old man said. He's dropped right out of mind. But if you'd write a line to him, I'd take it very kind. He's sheering here and fencing there, a kind of waif and stray. He's droving now with Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh. The sheep are travelling for the grass, and travelling very slow. They may be at Manduran now, or past the overflow, or tramping down the Blacksaw Flats, across by Waddewang.

But all those little country towns would send the letter wrong. The mailman, if he's extra tired, would pass them in his sleep. It's safe as to address the note to, Care of Conroy's Sheep, for five-and-twenty thousand head can scarcely go astray. You write to Care of Conroy's Sheep along the Castlereagh. By Rock and Ridge and Riverside the Western Mail has gone, across the Great Blue Mountain Range, to take that letter on. A moment on the topmost grade, while open fire-doors glare, she pauses like a living thing to breathe the mountain air, then launches down the other side, across the plains away, to bear that note to Conroy's sheep along the castlereagh. And now by coach and mailman's bag it goes from town to town, and Conroy's Gap and Conroy's Creek have marked it, further down, Beneath a sky of deepest blue, where never cloud abides, a speck upon the waste of plain the lonely mailman rides.

Where fierce hot winds have set the pine, and mild boughs a-sweep, he hails the sharers passing by for news of Conroy's sheep. By big lagoons where wildfowl play, and crested pigeons flock. By camp-fires where the drovers ride around their restless stock, and pass the teamster toiling down to fetch the wool away. My letter chases Conroy's sheep along the castlereagh.

10 10 - Saltbush Bill 4:53

Salt-Bush Bill. Now, this is the law of the overland that all in the West obey. A man must cover with travelling sheep a six-mile stage a day. But this is the law which the drovers make, right easily understood. They travel their stage where the grass is bad. But they camp with the grass is good. They camp, and they ravage the squatter's grass till never a blade remains. Then they drift away as the white clouds drift on the edge of the salt-bush plains. From camp to camp, and from run to run, they battle it hand to hand for a blade of grass and the right to pass on the track of the overland. For this is the law of the great stock-roots, Tis written in white and black, that a man that goes with a travelling mob must Keep to a half-mile track, and the drovers keep to a half-mile track, on the runs where the grass is dead.

But they spread their sheep on a well-grass run till they go with a two-mile spread. So the squatters hurry the drovers on from dawn till the fall of night, and the squatters' dogs and the drovers' dogs get mixed in a deadly fight. Yet the squatters' men, though they hunt the mob, are willing the peace to keep, For the drovers learn how to use their hands when they go with the travelling sheep. But this is the tale of a jackaroo that came from a foreign strand, and the fight that he fought with Saltbush Bill, the king of the overland. Now Saltbush Bill was a drover tough as ever the country knew. He'd fought his way on the great stock routes from the sea to the big Ba'ku. He could tell when he came to a friendly run that gave him a chance to spread, And he knew where the hungry owners were that hurried his sheep ahead.

He was drifting down in the 80 drought with a mob that could scarcely creep, when the kangaroos by the thousand starve. It's rough on the travelling sheep. And he camped one night at the crossing-place on the edge of the Wilger Run. We must manage a feed for them here, he said, or half of the mob are done. So he spread them out when they left the camp, wherever they liked to go. Till he grew aware of a jackaroo with a station hand in tow, and they set to work on the straggling sheep with many a stock-whip crack. They forced them in, where the grass was dead in the space of the half-mile track. So William prayed that the hand of fate might suddenly strike him blue, but he'd get some grass for his starving sheep in the teeth of that jackaroo.

So he turned, and he cursed the jackaroo. He cursed him, alive or dead, from the soles of his great unwieldy feet to the crown of his ugly head, with an extra curse on the Mokey Road, and the cur at his heels that ran, till the jackaroo from his horse got down and went for the droverman. With the station-hand for his picker up, though the sheep ran loose the while, they battled it out on the saltbush plain in the regular prize-ring style. Now the new chum fought for honor's sake and the pride of the English race, but the drover fought for his daily bread with a smile on his bearded face. So he shifted ground, and he sparred for wind, and he made it a lengthy mill. And from time to time, as his scouts came in, they whispered to Saltbush Bill, "'We have spread the sheep with a two-mile spread, and the grass is something grand.

You must stick to him, Bill, for another round for the pride of the overland.'" The new chum made it a rushing fight, though never a blow got home, till the sun rode high in the cloudless sky and glared on the brick-red loam, till the sheep drew in to the shelter-trees and settled them down to rest. Then the driver said he would fight no more, and gave his opponent best. So the new chum rode to the homestead straight, and he told them a story grand of the desperate fight that he'd fought that day with the king of the overland. And the tale went home to the public schools of the pluck of the English swell, how the drover fought for his very life, but blood in the end must tell. But the travelling sheep and the wilgar sheep were boxed on the old man plain.

Twas a full week's work ere they drafted out and hunted them off again. With a week's good grass in their wretched hides, with a curse and a stockwhip crack, they hunted them off on the road once more to starve on the half-mile track. And Saltbush Bill, On the overland, we'll many a time recite how the best o' his work that he ever did was the day that he lost the fight.

11 11 - A Mountain Station 2:16

12 12 - Been There Before 1:35

13 13 - The Man Who Was Away 2:00

14 14 - The Man from Ironbark 3:38

The Man from Ironbark It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town. He wandered over street and park. He wandered up and down. He loitered here, he loitered there, till he was like to drop. Until at last, in sheer despair, he sought a barber's shop. Ere shave my beard and whiskers off. I'll be a man of mark. I'll go and do the Sydney Toff up home in Ironbark. The barber-man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are. He wore a strike-your-fancy sash. He smoked a huge cigar. He was a humorist of note, and keen at repartee. He laid the odds and kept a tote, whatever that may be. And when he saw our friend arrive, he whispered, Here's a lark. Just watch me catch him all alive, this man from Ironbark.

There were some gilded youths that sat along the barber's wall. Their eyes were dull, their heads were flat. They had no brains at all. To them the barber passed the wink, his dexter eyelid shut. I'll make this bloomin'yokel think his bloomin' throat is cut. And as he soaped and rubbed it in, he made a rude remark. I suppose the flats is pretty green up there in Ironbark. A grunt was all reply he got. He shaved the bushman's chin, then made the water boiling hot and dipped the razor in. He raised his hand, his brow grew black, he paused a while to gloat, then slashed the red-hot razor across his victim's throat. Upon the newly shaven skin it made a livered mark. No doubt it fairly took him in, the man from Iron Bark.

He fetched a wild-up country yell that might wake the dead to hear. And though his throat he knew full well was cut from ear to ear, he struggled gamely to his feet and faced the murderous foe. You've done me, you dog on beat, one hit before I go. I only wish I had a knife, you blessed murdering shark, but you'll remember all your life, the man from Ironbark. He lifted up his hairy paw with one tremendous clout. It landed on the barber's jaw and knocked the barber out. He set to work with tooth and nail. He made the place a wreck. He grabbed the nearest gilded youth and tried to break his neck, and all the while his throat he held to save his vital spark. "'And murder, bloody murder!' yelled the man from Ironbark.

A peeler man who heard the din came in to see the show. He tried to run the bushman in, but he refused to go. And when at last the barber spoke and said, "'Twas all in fun,' Twas just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone. A joke, he cried. By George, that's fine, a lively sort of lark. I'd like to catch that murdering swine some night in iron bark. And now while round the shearing floor, the listening shearer's gape, he tells the story o'er and o'er, and brags of his escape. Them barber chaps what keeps a tote. By George, I've had enough. One tried to cut my bloomin throat, but thank the Lord it's tough. And whether he's believed or no, there's one thing to remark, that flying beards are all the go way up in iron bark.

15 15 - The Open Steeplechase 4:06

The Open Steeplechase I had ridden over hurdles up the country once or twice, by the side of Snowy River with a horse they called the Ace, and we brought him down to Sydney, and our rider, Jimmy Rice, got a fall and broke his shoulder, so they nabbed me in a trice. Me that never wore the colors for the Open Steeplechase. Make the running, said the trainer. It's your only chance whatever. Make it hot from start to finish, for the old black horse can stay. And just think of how they'll take it when they hear on Snowy River that the country boy was plucky and the country horse was clever. You must ride for old Monaro and the mountain boys today. Are you ready? said the starter, as we held the horses back.

All a-blasting with impatience, with excitement all aglow. Before us, like a ribbon, stretched a steeple-chasing track, and the sunrise glistening brightly on the chestnut and the black. As the starter's words came slowly, Are you ready? Go! While I scarcely knew we'd started, I was stupid like with wonder, till the field closed up beside me, and a jump appeared ahead. And we flew it like a hurdle, not a balk and not a blunder, as we charged it all together, and it fairly whistled under. And then some were pulled behind me, and a few shot out and led. So we ran for half the distance, and I'm making no pretences, when I tell you I was feeling very nervous-like and queer. For those jockeys rode like demons.

You would think they'd lost their senses if you saw them rush their horses at those rasping five-foot fences. And in place of making running, I was falling to the rear. Till a chap came racing past me on a horse they called the Quiver, and said he— My country joker, are you going to give it best? Are you frightened off the fences? Does their stoutness make you shiver? Have they come to breeding cowards by the side of Snowy River? Are there riders on Monaro? But I never heard the rest. For I drove the ace and sent him just as fast as he could pace it, at the big black line of timber stretching fair across the track. And he shot beside the quiver. Now, said I, my boy will race it. You can come with Snowy River if you're only game to face it.

Let us mend the pace a little, and we'll see who cries a crack. So we raced away together, and we left the others standing, and the people cheered and shouted as we settled down to ride. And we clung beside the quiver, at his taking off and landing. I could see his scarlet nostril and his mighty ribs expanding. And the ace stretched out in earnest, and we held him stride for stride. But the pace was so terrific that they soon ran out their tether. They were rolling in their gallop. They were fairly blown and beat. But they both were game as pebbles. Neither one would show the feather. And we rushed them at the fences, and they cleared them both together. Nearly every time they clouted, but they somehow kept their feet.

Then the last jump rose before us, and they faced it game as ever. We were both at spur and whipcord, fetching blood at every bound. And above the people's cheering and the cries of ace and quiver, I could hear the trainer shouting, One more run for Snowy River. Then we stuck the jump together and came smashing to the ground. Well, the quiver ran to blazes, but the ace stood still and waited, stood and waited like a statue while I scrambled on his back. There was no one next or near me, for the field was fairly slated, so I canted home a winner with my shoulder dislocated. While the man that rode the quiver followed limping down the track. And he shook my hand and told me that in all his days he never met a man who rode more gamely, and our last set too was prime.

And we wired them on Monaro how we chanced to beat the quiver, and they sent us back an answer. Good old sort from Snowy River. Send us word each race you start in, and we'll back you every time.

16 16 - The Amateur Rider 4:29

The Amateur Rider Him going to ride for us, him, with the pants and the eyeglass and all. Amateur, don't he just look it. It's twenty to one on a fall. Boss must be gone off his head to be sending our steeplechase crack out over fences like these, with an object like that on his back. Ride! Don't tell me he can ride, with his pants just as loose as balloons. How can he sit on his horse, and his spurs like a pair of harpoons? Ought to be under the dog-act he ought, and be kept off the course. Fall! Why, he'd fall off a cart, let alone off a steeplechase horse. Yes, sir, the horse is all ready. I wish you'd have rode him before. Nothing like knowing your orse, sir, and this chap's a terror to bore.

Battle-axe always could pull, and he rushes his fences like fun, stands off his jump twenty feet, and then springs like a shot from a gun. Oh, he can jump em all right, sir. You make no mistake he's a toff. Clouts em in earnest too sometimes. You mind that he don't clout you off. Don't seem to mind how he hits em. His shins is as hard as a nail. Sometimes you'll see the fence shake, and the splinters fly up from the rail. All you can do is hold him, and just let him jump as he likes, give him his head at the fences, and hang on like death if he strikes. Don't let him run himself out. You can lie third or fourth in the race, until you clear the stone wall, and from that you can put on the pace.

Fell at that wall once he did, and it gave him a regular spread. Ever since that time he flies it. He'll stop if you pull at his head. Just let him race. You can trust him. He'll take first-class care he don't fall. And I think that's the lot. But remember, he must have his head at the wall. Well, he's down safe as far as the start, and he seems to sit on pretty neat. Only his bagified breeches would ruinate anyone's seat. They're away. Here they come, the first fence. And he's head over heels for a crown. Good for the new chum he's over, and two of the others are down. Now for the treble, my hearty. By Jove, he can ride after all. Whoop! That's your sort. Let him fly them. He hasn't much fear of a fall.

Who in the world would have thought it, and aren't they just going apace? Little Recruit in the lead there will make it a stoutly run race. Lord, but they're racing in earnest, and down goes Recruit on his head. Rolling clean over his boy. It's a miracle if he ain't dead. Battle-axe, battle-axe, yet! By the Lord, he's got most of em beat. Ho, did you see how he struck, and the swell never moved on his seat? Second time round, and by Jingo, he's holding his lead of em well. Hark to him clouding the timber. It don't seem to trouble the swell. Now for the wall. Let him rush it. A thirty-foot leap, I declare. Never a shift in his seat, and he's racing for home like a hare. What's that that's chasing him, Radaplan, regular demon to stay?

Sit down and ride for your life now. Oh, good, that's the style. Come away. Radaplan's certain to beat you, unless you can give him the slip. Sit down and rub in the whalebone now, give him the spurs and the whip. Battle-axe, battle-axe, yet, and it's battle-axe wins for a crown. Look at him rushing the fences. He wants to bring T'other chap down. Radaplan never will catch him if only he keeps on his pins. Now, the last fence, and he's over it. Battle-axe, battle-axe wins! Well, sir, you rode him just perfect. I knew from the first you could ride. Some of the chaps said you couldn't, and I says just like this at one side. Mark me, I says. That's a tradesman. The saddle is where he was bred. Wait!

You're all right, sir, and thank you. And them was the words that I said.

17 17 - On Kiley\'s Run 4:08

On Kiley's Run The roving breezes come and go on Kiley's Run, The sleepy river murmurs low, And far away one dimly sees, Beyond the stretch of forest trees, Beyond the foothills dusk and dun, The rangers sleeping in the sun, On Kiley's Run. "'Tis many years since first I came to Kiley's Run, More years than I would care to name, Since I, a stripling, used to ride For miles and miles at Kiley's side." The while in stirring tones he told The stories of the days of old, on Kiley's Run. I see the old bush homestead now on Kiley's Run, Just nestled down beneath the brow, Of one small ridge above the sweep, Over river-flat where willows weep, And jasmine flowers and roses bloom. The air was laden with perfume on Kylie's run.

We lived the good old station life on Kylie's run, with little thought of care or strife. Old Kylie seldom used to roam. He liked to make the run his home. The swagman never turned away with empty hand at close of day from Kylie's run. We kept a racehorse now and then on Kylie's run. And neighboring stations brought their men to meetings where the sport was free, and dainty ladies came to see their champions ride with laugh and song. The old house rang the whole night long on Kiley's run. The station hands were friends I wot on Kiley's run, a reckless, merry-hearted lot, all splendid riders, and they knew. The boss was kindness through and through. Old Kali always stood their friend, and so they served him to the end, on Kali's run.

But droughts and losses came apace to Kali's run. Till Ruin stared him in the face, he toiled and toiled while lived the light. He dreamed of overdrafts at night, at length because he could not pay. His bankers took the stock away, from Kali's run. Old Kali stood and saw them go from Kali's run. The well-bred cattle marching slow, his stockman mates for many a day. They wrung his hand and went away. Too old to make another start, or Kylie died of broken heart on Kylie's run. The owner lives in England now of Kylie's run. He knows a racehorse from a cow, but that is all he knows of stock. His chiefest care is how to dock expenses, and he sends from town to cut the sharers' wages down on Kylie's run.

There are no neighbors anywhere near Kiley's Run. The hospitable homes are bare, the gardens gone for no pretence, must hinder cutting down expense. The homestead that we held so dear contains a half-paid overseer on Kiley's Run. All life and sport and hope have died on Kiley's Run, no longer there the stockmen ride, for Sour Faye's boundary riders creep on mongrel horses after sheep. Through ranges where, at racing speed, old Kiley used to wheel the lead, on Kiley's Run. There runs a lane for thirty miles through Kiley's Run. On either side the herbage smiles, but wretched traveling sheep must pass without a drink or blade of grass. Through that long lane of death and shame the weary drovers curse the name of Kiley's Run.

The name itself is changed of late of Kiley's Run. They call it Shandos Park Estate. The lonely swagman through the dark must hump his swag past Shandos Park. The name is English, don't you see? The old name sweeter sounds to me of Kiley's Run. I cannot guess what fate will bring to Kiley's Run, for chances come and changes ring. I scarcely think to will always be locked up to suit and absentee. And if he lets it out in farms, his tenants soon will carry arms on Kiley's Run.

18 18 - Frying Pan\'s Theology 1:11

19 19 - The Two Devines 2:36

The Two Divines. It was shearing-time at the mile lake, and there rose the sound through the livelong day of the constant clash that the shear-blades make when the fastest shearers are making play. But there wasn't man in the shearer's lines that could shear a sheep with the two divines. They had wrung the sheds from east to west, had beaten the cracks of the Walgett side, and the Coomber shearers had given them best. When they saw them shear, they were satisfied. From the southern slopes to the western pines, they were noted men, were the two divines. "'Twas a weather-flock that had come to hand, great struggling brutes that shearers shirk, for the fleece was filled with grass and sand, and seventy sheep was a big day's work.

At a pound a hundred, it's dashed hard lines to shear such sheep," said the two divines. But the shearers knew they'd make a check when they came to deal with the station ewes. They were bare of belly and bare of neck, with a fleece as light as a kangaroo's. "'We will show the boss how a shear blade shines when we reach those ewes,' said the two divines. But it chanced next day, when the stunted pines were swayed and stirred with the dawn wind's breath, That message came for the two divines, that their father lay at the point of death. So away at speed through the whispering pines, down the brindle track, rode the two divines. It was fifty miles to their father's hut, and the dawn was bright when they rode away.

At the full of night, when the shed was shut, and the men had rest from the toilsome day, to the shed once more through the darkening pines, on their weary steeds came the two divines. Well, you're back right, Southern, the super said. Is the old man dead and the funeral done? Well, no, sir. He ain't not exactly dead, but as good as dead, said the eldest son, and we couldn't bear such a chance to lose, so we came straight back to tackle the ewes.

They are shearing ewes at the Mile Lake. And the shed is merry, the livelong day, with the clashing sound that the shear-blades make when the fastest shearers are making play. And a couple of hundred and ninety-nines are the tallies made by the two divines.

20 20 - In the Droving Days 4:42

In the Droving Days Only a pound, said the auctioneer, Only a pound, and I'm standing here, Selling this animal, gain or loss, Only a pound for the drover's horse, One of the sort that was never afraid, One of the boys of the old brigade, Thoroughly honest and game, I'll swear, Only a little the worse for wear. Plenty is bad to be seen in town. Give me a bid, and I'll knock him down. Sold as he stands, and without recourse, give me a bid for the drover's horse. Loitering there in an aimless way, somehow I noticed the poor old grey, weary and battered and screwed, of course. Yet when I noticed the old grey horse, the rough bush saddle, the single rein, off the bridle laid on his tangled mane, Straightway the crowd and the auctioneer seemed on a sudden to disappear, melted away in a kind of haste, for my heart went back to the droving days.

Back to the road and I crossed again, over the miles of the saltbush plain, the shining plain that is said to be the dried-up bed of an inland sea, where the air so dry and so clear and bright refracts the sun with a wondrous light. And out in the dim horizon makes the deep blue gleam of the phantom lakes. At dawn of day we would feel the breeze that stirred the boughs of the sleeping trees, and brought a breath of the fragrance rare that comes and goes in that scented air. For the trees and grass and the shrubs contain a dry sweet scent on the saltbush plain. For those that love it and understand, the saltbush plain is a wonderland. A wondrous country where nature's ways were revealed to me in the droving days.

We saw the fleet wild horses pass, and the kangaroos through the Mitchell grass. The emmy ran with her frightened brood, all unmolested and unpursued. But there rose a shout and a wild hubub when the dingo raced for his native scrub, and he paid right dear for his stolen meals, with the drover's dogs at his wretched heels. For we ran him down at a rattling pace, while the pack-horse joined in the stirring chase, and a wild halloo at the keel we'd race. We were light of heart in the droving days. "'Twas a drover's horse, and my hand again made a move to close on a fancied rein, for I felt the swing and the easy stride of the grand old horse that I used to ride. In drought or plenty, in good or real, that same old steed was my comrade still.

The old grey horse, with his honest ways, was a mate to me in the droving days. When we kept our watch in the cold and damp, if the cattle broke from the sleeping camp, over the flats and across the plain, with my head bent down on his waving mane. Through the boughs above and the stumps below, on the darkest night I could let him go. At a racing speed he would choose his course, and my life was safe with the old grey horse. But man and horse had a favorite job when an outlaw broke from a station mob. With a right good will was the stock whip plied, as the old horse raced at the stragglers side. And the green-hide whip, such a wheel would race, we could use the whip in the droving days. Only a pound, and was this the end?

Only a pound for the drover's friend? The drover's friend that had seen his day, and now was worthless and cast away. With a broken knee and a broken heart, to be flogged and starved in a hawker's cart. Well, I made a bid for a sense of shame, and the memories dear of the good ol' game. Thank you. Guinea and cheap at that. Against you there in the curly hat. Only a guinea and one more chance. Down he goes if there's no advance. Third and the last time. One, two, three. And the ol' grey horse was knocked down to me. And now he's wandering, fat and sleek, on the loosened flats by the homestead creek. I dare not ride him, for fear he'd fall. But he does a journey to beat them all. For though he scarcely a trot can raise, he can take me back to the droving days.

21 21 - Lost 4:19

He ought to be home, said the old man. Without, there's something amiss. He only went to the two-mile. He ought to be back by this. He would ride the reckless filly. He would have his willful way. And here he's not back at sundown. And what will his mother say?

He was always his mother's idol, since ever his father died. And there isn't a horse on the station that he isn't game to ride. But that reckless mare is vicious, and if once she gets away, He hasn't got strength to hold her, and what will his mother say? The old man walked to the slip-rail and peered up the darkening track, and looked and longed for the rider that would never more come back. And the mother came and clutched him with sudden spasmodic fright. What has become of my Willie? Why isn't he home tonight? Away in the gloomy ranges, at the foot of an iron barque, the bonny winsome laddie was lying stiff and stark. For the reckless mare had smashed him against a leaning limb, and his comely face was battered, and his merry eyes were dim.

And the thoroughbred chestnut filly, the saddle beneath her flanks, Was away like fire through the ranges to join the wild mob's ranks, and a broken-hearted woman and an old man worn in gray were searching all night in the ranges till the sunrise brought the day. And the mother kept feebly calling with a hope that would not die. Willie, where are you, Willie? But how can the dead reply? And hope died out with the daylight, and the darkness brought despair. God, pity the stricken mother, and answer the widow's prayer. Though far and wide they sought him, they found not where he fell, for the rangers held him precious. And guarded their treasure well. The wattle blooms above him, and the bluebells blow close by, and the brown bees buzz the secret, and the wild birds sing reply.

But the mother pined and faded, and cried and took no rest, and rode each day to the ranges on her hopeless Weary quest. Seeking her loved one ever, she faded and pined away. But with strength of her great affection, she still sought every day. I know that sooner or later I shall find my boy, she said. But she came not home one evening, and they found her lying dead. And stamped on the poor pale features, as the spirit homeward passed, was an angel smile of gladness. She had found the boy at last.

22 22 - Over the Range 1:42

23 23 - Only a Jockey 2:38

Only a jockey. Richard Bennison, a jockey, aged fourteen, while riding William Tell in his training, was thrown and killed. The horse is luckily uninjured. Melbourne Wire. Out in the gray, cheerless chill of the morning light, out on the track where the nightshades still lurk, Ere the first gleam of the sun-god's returning light, Round come the race-horses early at work. Reefing and pulling and racing so readily, Close sit the jockey-boys holding them hard. Steady the stallion there, canter him steadily, Don't let him gallop so much as a yard. Fiercely he fights while the others run wide of him, Reefs at the bit that would hold him in thrall, Plunges and bucks till the boy that's astride of him, Goes to the ground with a terrible fall.

Stop him there, block him there, drive him in carefully. Lead him about till he's quiet and cool. Sound as a bell, though he's blown himself fearfully. Now let us pick up this poor little fool. Stunned? Oh, by Jove, I'm afraid it's a case with him. Ride for the doctor, keep bathing his head. Send for a cart to go down to our place with him. No use, one long sigh, and the little chap's dead. Only a jockey-boy, foul-mouthed and bad, you see, ignorant heathenish gone to his rest, parson or presbyter, Pharisee, Sadducee, what did you do for him? Bad was the best. Negroes and foreigners, all have a claim on you. Yearly you send your well-advertised horde. But the poor jockey-boy, shame on you, shame on you.

Feed ye my little ones, what said the Lord? Him ye held less than the outer barbarian, Left him to die in his ignorant sin. Have you no principles, humanitarian? Have you no precept? Go gather them in. Knew he God's name in his brutal profanity? That name was an oath out of many but one. What did he get from our famed Christianity? Where has his soul, if he had any, gone? Fourteen years old, and what was he taught of it? What did he know of God's infinite grace? Draw the dark curtain of shame o'er the thought of it. Draw the shroud over the jockey-boy's face.

24 24 - How M\'Ginnis Went Missing 1:36

25 25 - A Voice from the Town 4:43

A Voice from the Town. A Sequel to Mowbray Morris's A Voice from the Bush.

I thought, in the days of the droving, of steps I might hope to retrace, to be done with the bush and the roving, And settle once more in my place. With a heart that was well-nigh to breaking in the long lonely rides on the plain, I thought of the pleasure of taking the hand of a lady again. I am back into civilization, once more in the stir and the strife, but the old joys have lost their sensation. The light has gone out of my life. The men of my time they have married, made fortunes, or gone to the wall. Too long from the scene I have tarried, and somehow I'm out of it all. For I go to the balls and the races, a lonely companionless elf. And the ladies bestow all their graces on others less gray than myself.

While the talk goes round, I'm a dumb one midst youngsters that chatter and prate, and they call me the man who was someone way back in the year sixty-eight. And I look sour and old at the dancers that swing to the strains of the band. And the ladies all give me the lancers. No waltzes, I quite understand. For matrons intent upon matching their daughters with infinite push, would scarce think I'm worthy the catching. The broken-down man from the bush. New partners have come in new faces, and I of the bygone brigade. Sharply feel that oblivion my places. I must lie with the rest in the shade. In the youngsters, fresh-featured and pleasant, they live as we lived, fairly fast. But I doubt if the men of the present are as good as the men of the past.

Of excitement and praise they are chary. There is nothing much good upon earth. Their watchword is nil admirary. They are bored from the days of their birth. Where the life that we led was a revel, they wince and relent and refrain. I could show them the road, to the devil, were I only a youngster again. I could show them the road where the stumps are, the pleasures that end in remorse. And the game where the devil's three trumps are, the woman, the card, and the horse. Shall the blind lead the blind? Shall the sower of wind reap the storm as of yore? Though they get to their goals somewhat slower, they march where we hurried before. For the world never learns, just as we did, they gallantly go to their fate.

Unheeded all warnings, unheeded the maxim of elders sedate, as the husbandman patiently toiling draws a harvest each year from the soil, so the fools grow afresh for the spoiling, and a new crop of thieves for the spoil.

But a truce to this dull moralizing. Let them drink while the drops are of gold. I have tasted the dregs, T'wer surprising, Were the new wine to me, Like the old. And I weary for lack of employment, In idleness day after day, For the key to the door of enjoyment Is youth, And I've thrown it away.

26 26 - A Bunch of Roses 1:24

27 27 - Black Swans 4:08

Black Swans.

As I lie to rest on a patch of clover in the western park when the day is done, I watch as the wild black swans fly over, with their phalanx turned to the sinking sun. And I hear the clang of their leader crying to a lagging mate in the reward flying, and they fade away in the darkness dying, where the stars are mustering one by one. O ye black swans, twere a world of wonder for a while to join you in your westward flight, with the stars above and the dim earth under, through the cooling air of the glorious night as we swept along on our pinions winging, We should catch the chime of a church-bell ringing, or the distant note of a torrent singing, or the farer flash of a station light.

From the northern lakes with the reeds and rushes, where the hills are clothed with a purple haze, where the bell-birds chime, and the songs of thrushes make music sweet in the jungle maze, they will hold their course to the westward ever. Till they reach the banks of the old grey river, where the waters wash, and the reed-beds quiver in the burning heat of the summer days. O ye strange wild birds, will you bear a greeting to the folk that live in that western land? Then, for every sweep of your pinions beating, you shall bear a wish to the sunburnt band, to the stalwart men who are stoutly fighting with the heat and drought, and the dust-storm smiting, Yet whose life somehow has a strange inviting, when once to the work they have put their hand.

Facing it yet, O my friend, stout-hearted, what does it matter for rain or shine, for the hope's deferred and gain departed? Nothing could conquer that heart of thine, and thy health and strength are beyond confessing as the only joys that are worth possessing.

May the days to come be as rich in blessing as the days we spent in the old Lang Syne.

I would fain go back to the old grey river, to the old bush days when our hearts were light, but, alas, those days they have fled forever. They are like the swans that have swept from sight, and I know full well that the strangers' faces would meet us now. In our dearest places. For our day is dead, and has left no traces but the thoughts that live in my mind to-night.

There are folk long dead, and our hearts would sicken. We would grieve for them with a bitter pain. If the past could live and the dead could quicken, we might turn to that life again. But on lonely nights we would hear them calling. We should hear their steps on the pathways falling. We should loathe the life with a hate appalling in our lonely rides by the rich and plain.

In the silent park is a scent of clover, and the distant roar of the town is dead, and I hear once more as the swans fly over their far-off clamour from overhead. They are flying west, by their instinct guided, And for man likewise is his fate decided, and griefs apportioned, and joys divided, by a mighty power with a purpose dread.

28 28 - The All Right \'Un 2:05

29 29 - The Boss of the 'Admiral Lynch' 3:57

The Boss of the Admiral Lynch Did you ever hear tell of Chile? I was reading the other day, of President Dalmaceda, and how he was sent away. It seems that he didn't suit him. They thought that they'd like a change. So they started an insurrection and chased him across the range. They seem to be restless people, and judging by what you hear, they race up these revolutions about two or three times a year. And the man that goes out of office, he goes for the boundary quick. For there isn't no vote by ballot. It's bullets that does the trick. And ain't it like a real battle where the prisoners' lives are spared, and they fight till there's one side beaten, and then there's a truce declared. And the man that has got the licking goes down like a blooming lord, to hand in his resignation and give up his blooming sword.

And the other man bows and takes it, and everything's all polite. This wasn't that kind of a picnic. This wasn't that sort of a fight. For the prisoners they took they shot em. No odds were they small or great. If they collared old Balmaceda they reckoned to shoot him straight. A lot of bloodthirsty devils they were, but there ain't a doubt. They must have been real plucked uns. The way they fought it out. And the king of em' all, I reckon, the man that could stand a pinch, was the boss of a one-horse gunboat. They called her the Admiral Lynch. Well, here was for Balmaceda, and after the war was done, and Balmaceda was beaten, and his troops had been forced to run. The other man fetched his army, and proceeded to do things Brown.

He marched him into fortress, and took command of the town. Cannon and guns and horses trooping along the road. Rumbling over the bridges, and never a foeman showed. Till they came inside of the harbor, and the very first thing they see was this might of a one-horse gum-boat allying against the quay. And there, as they watched, they noticed a flutter of crimson rag, and under their eyes he hoisted old Balmaceda's flag. Well, I'll tell you it fairly knocked them. It just took away their breath, for he must have known if they caught him. T'was nothing but sudden death. And he'd got no fire in his furnace, no chance to put out to sea. So he stood by his gun and waited, with his vessel against the quay.

Well, they sent him a civil message to say that the war was done, and most of his side were corpses, and all that were left had run. And blood had been spilt sufficient, so they gave him a chance to decide if he'd haul down his bit of bunting and come on the winding side. He listened and heard their message, and answered them all polite, that he was the Spanish Hidalgo, and the men of his race must fight. A gunboat against any army with never a chance to run, and them with their hundred cannon, and him with a single gun. The odds were a trifle heavy, but he wasn't the sort to flinch. So he opened fire on the army, did the boss of the Admiral Lynch. They pounded his boat to pieces. They silenced his single gun.

and captured the whole consignment, for none of them cared to run. And it don't say whether they shot him, it don't even give his name. But whatever they did, I'll wager that he went to his graveyard game. I tell you, those old Hidalgos, so stately and so polite, they turn out the real McGuinness when it comes to an uphill fight. There was General Alcantara, who died in the heaviest brunt, and General Alcirica was killed in the battle's front. But the king of them all, I reckon, the man that could stand a pinch, was the man who attacked the army with a gunboat, Admiral Lynch.

30 30 - A Bushman\'s Song 2:58

A Bushman's Song I'm traveling down the Castlereagh, and I'm a station hand. I'm handy with the rope and pole. I'm handy with the brand. And I can ride a rowdy colt or swing the axe all day, but there's no demand for a station hand along the Castlereagh. So it's shift, boys, shift, for there isn't the slightest doubt that we've got to make a shift to the stations further out. With the pack horse running after, for he follows like a dog, we must strike across the country at the old jig-jog. This old black horse I'm riding, if you'll notice what's his brand, he wears the crooked hour, you see, none better in the land. He takes a lot of beating, and the other day we tried. For a bit of a joke with a racing bloke for twenty pounds a side.

It was shift, boy, shift, for there wasn't the slightest doubt. But I had to make him shift, for the money was nearly out. But he cantered home a winner with the other one at the flog. He's a red-hot sort to pick up with his old jig-jog. I asked a cove for shearin' once along the Martha Guy. We shearin' on Union here, says he. I call it Scab, says I. I looked along the shearing floor before I turned to go. There were eight or ten dashed chinamen a-shearing in a row. It was shift, boy, shift, for there wasn't the slightest doubt. It was time to make a shift with the leprosy about. So I saddled up my horses, and I whistled to my dog, and I left his scabby station at the old jig jog. I went to Elawara, where my brother's got a farm.

He has to ask his landlord's leave before he lifts his arm. The landlord owns the countryside. Man, woman, dog, and cat. They haven't the cheek to dare to speak without they touch their hat. It was shift, boys, shift, for there wasn't the slightest doubt. Their little landlord God and I would soon have fallen out. Was I to touch my hat to him? Was I his bloomin' dog? So I makes up for the country at the old jig-jog. But it's time that I was movin'. I've a mighty way to go. Till I drink artesian water from a thousand feet below. Till I meet the overlanders with the cattle coming down, and I'll work a while till I make a pile, then have a spree in town. So it's shift, boys, shift, for there isn't the slightest doubt.

We've got to make a shift to the stations further out. The pack-hoss runs behind us, for he follows like a dog, and we cross a lot of country at the old jig-jog.

31 31 - How Gilbert Died 3:56

Org by Magdalena Cooke. How Gilbert died. There's never a stone at the sleeper's head, there's never a fence beside, and the wandering stock on the grave may tread, unnoticed and undenied. But the smallest child on the watershed can tell you how Gilbert died. For he rode at dusk with his comrade Dunn to the hut at the Stockman's Ford. In the waning light of the sinking sun, they peered with a fierce accord. They were outlaws both, and on each man's head was a thousand pounds reward. They had taken toll off the country round, and the troopers came behind, with a black that tracked like a human hound in the scrub and the rangers blind. He could run the trail where a white man's eye no sign of a track could find.

He had hunted them out of the one-tree hill and over the old man plain, but they wheeled their tracks with a wild-beast skill, and they made for the range again. Then, away to the hut where the grandsire dwelt, they rode with a loosened rein. And the grandsire gave them a greeting bold, Come in, and rest in peace. No safer place does the country hold, with a night pursuit must cease, and we'll drink success to the roving boys, and to hell with the black police. But they went to death when they entered there, in the hut at the Stockman's Ford. For the Grand Sire's word were as false as fair. They were doomed to the hangman's cord. He had sold them both to the Black Police for the sake of a big reward.

In the depth of night there are forms that glide, as stealthy as serpents creep, and around the hut, where the outlaws hide, they plant in the shadows deep. And they wait till the first faint flush of dawn shall waken their prey from sleep. But Gilbert wakes while the night is dark. A restless sleeper, eh? He has heard the sound of a sheepdog's bark, and his horses warning neigh. And he says to his mate, there are hawks abroad, and it's time that we went away. Their rifles stood at the stretcher's head, their bridles lay to hand. They wakened the old man out of his bed when they heard the sharp command. In the name of the queen lay down your arms. Now Dun and Gilbert stand. Then Gilbert reached for his rifle-truth that close at his hand he kept.

He pointed it straight at the voice and drew, but never a flash out leapt, for the water ran from the rifle-breach. It was drenched while the outlaw slept. Then he dropped the piece with a bitter oath, and he turned to his comrade Dunn. "'We are sold,' he said. "'We are dead men both. But there may be a chance for one. I'll stop and I'll fight with a pistol here. You take to your heels and run.' Sir Dunn crept out on his hands and knees in the dim, half-dawning light, and he made his way to a patch of trees and vanished among the night. But the trackers hunted his tracks all day, but they never could trace his flight. But Gilbert walked from the open door in a confident style and rash. He heard at his side the rifles roar, and he heard the bullets crash.

But he laughed as he lifted his pistol hand, and he fired at the rifle flash. Then out of the shadows the troopers aimed at his voice and the pistol sound. With a rifle flash as the darkness flamed, he staggered and spun around, and they riddled his body with rifle balls as it lay on the blood-soaked ground. There's never a stone at the sleeper's head, there's never a fence beside, and the wandering stock on the grave may tread, unnoticed and undenied. But the smallest child on the watershed Can tell you how Gilbert died.

32 32 - The Flying Gang 1:50

33 33 - Shearing at Castlereagh 1:43

34 34 - The Wind\'s Message 2:17

The Wind's Message There came a whisper down the bland between the dawn and dark, above the tossing off the pine, above the river's flow. It stirred the boughs of giant gums and stalwart ironbark. It drifted where the wild ducks played amid the swamps below. It brought a breath of mountain air from off the hills of pine. A scent of eucalyptus trees in honey-laden bloom. And drifting, drifting far away along the southern line, it caught from leaf and grass and fern a subtle strange perfume. It reached the toiling city folk, but few there were that heard. The rattle of their busy life had choked the whisper down, and some but caught a fresh-blown breeze with scent of pine that stirred, a thought of blue hills far away beyond the smoky town.

And others heard the whisper pass, but could not understand, The magic of the breezes breath that set their hearts aglow, Nor how the roving wind could bring across the overland A sound of voices silent now, and songs of long ago. But some that heard the whisper clear were filled with vague unrest. The breeze had brought its message home they could not fixed abide. Their fancies wandered all day towards the blue hills'-breast, Towards the sunny slopes that lie along the riverside. The mighty rolling western plains are very fair to see, where waving to the passing breezes the silver mire all stand, but fairer are the giant hills, all rugged though they be, from which the two great rivers rise that run along the bland.

Oh, rocky range and rugged spur and river running clear, that swings around the sudden bends with swirl of snow-white foam. Though we, your sons, are far away, we sometimes seem to hear the message that the breezes bring to call the wondrous home. The mountain peaks are white with snow that feeds a thousand rills. Along the river banks the maids grow tall on virgin land. And we shall live to see once more those sunny southern hills, and strike once more the bridle track that leads along the bland.

35 35 - Johnson\'s Antidote 5:32

Org by Tricia G. Johnson's Antidote.

Down along the Snakebite River, where the Overlanders camp, where the serpents are in millions, all of the most deadly stamp, where the station cook in terror, nearly every time he bakes, mixes up among the doughboys half a dozen poison-snakes, Where the wily free selector walks in armor-plated pants, and defies the stings of scorpions and the bites of bulldog ants, where the adder and the viper tear each other by the throat. There it was that William Johnson sought his snake-bite antidote. Johnson was a free selector, and his brain went rather queer, for the constant sight of serpents filled him with a deadly fear. So he tramped his free selection morning, afternoon, and night, seeking for some great specific that would cure the serpent's bite.

Till King Billy of the Mookie, chieftain of the Flower-Bag Head, told him Sposen Snakebite Feller Feller mostly dropped down dead. Sposen Snakebite Old Gawanna. Then you watch a while, you see, Old Gawanna cure himself with eating little Feller-Tree. That's the cure, said William Johnson. Point me out this plant sublime, but King Billy, feeling lazy, said he'd go another time. Thus it came to pass that Johnson, having got the tale by rote, followed every stray gawanna, seeking for the antidote. Loafing once beside the river, while he thought his heart would break, there he saw a big gawanna fighting with a tiger-snake. In and out they rolled and wriggled, bit each other heart and soul, Till the valiant old gawanna swallowed his opponent whole.

Breathless, Johnson sat and watched him, saw him struggle up the bank, saw him nibbling at the branches of some bushes green in rank, saw him, happy and contented, lick his lips as off he crept, while the bulging in his stomach showed where his opponent slept. Then a cheer of exultation burst aloud from Johnson's throat. "'Luck at last,' said he, I've struck it. Tis the famous antidote. Here it is, the grand elixir, greatest blessing ever known. Twenty thousand men in India die each year of snakes alone. Think of all the foreign nations, Negro, Chow, and Blackamoor, saved from sudden expiration by my wondrous snakebite cure. It will bring me fame and fortune, in the happy days to be. Men of every clime and nation will be round to gaze on me.

Scientific men in thousands, men of mark and men of note, rushing down the Mookie River after Johnson's antidote. It will cure delirium tremens when the patient's eyeballs stare at imaginary spiders, snakes which really are not there. When he thinks he sees them wriggle, when he thinks he sees them bloat, it will cure him just to think of Johnson's snake-bite antidote. Then he rushed to the museum, found a scientific man. Trot me out a deadly serpent, just the deadliest you can. I intend to let him bite me, all the risk I will endure, just to prove the sterling value of my wondrous snake-bite cure. Even though an adder bit me, back to life again I'd float. Snakes are out of date, I tell you, since I've found the antidote.

Said the scientific person. If you really want to die, go ahead, but if you're doubtful, let your sheepdog have a try. Get a pair of dogs and try it. Let the snake give both a nip. Give your dog the snakebite mixture. Let the other fellow rip. If he dies and yours survives him, then it proves the thing is good. Will you fetch your dog and try it? Johnson rather thought he would. So he went and fetched his canine, hauled him forward by the throat. Stump, old man, says he, will show them we've the genuine antidote. Both the dogs were duly loaded with the poison-gland contents. Johnson gave his dog the mixture, then sat down to wait events. Mark, he said, in 20 minutes Stump'll be a-rushing round, while the other wretched creature lies a corpse upon the ground.

But alas, for William Johnson, ere they'd watched a half-hour's spell, Stumpy was as dead as mutton, T'other dog was live and well, and the scientific person hurried off with utmost speed, tested Johnson's drug, and found it was a deadly poison-weed. Half a tumbler killed an emu, half a spoonful killed a goat. All the snakes on earth were harmless to that awful antidote. Down along the Mookiee River, on the Overlander's camp, where the serpents are in millions, all of the most deadly stamp, wanders daily William Johnson, Down among those poisonous hordes, shooting every stray gawanna, calls them black and yeller frauds. And King Billy of the Mookie, kadging for the cast-off coat, somehow seems to dodge the subject of the snake-bite antidote.

36 36 - Ambition and Art 2:32

The Man from Snowy River Ambition and Art Ambition I am the maid of the lustrous eyes of great fruition, whom the sons of men that are overwise have called Ambition, and the world's success is the only goal I have within me. The meanest man with the smallest soul may woo and win me. For the lust of power and the pride of place to all I proffer, wilt thou take thy part in the crowded race for what I offer? The choice is thine, and the world is wide. Thy path is lonely. I may not lead, and I may not guide. I urge thee only. I am just a whip and a spur that smites to fierce endeavor. In the restless days and the sleepless nights I urge thee ever. Thou shalt wake from sleep with a startled cry, in fright upleaping, at a rival step as it passes by whilst thou art sleeping.

Honour and truth shall be overthrown. In fierce desire thou shalt use thy friend as a stepping-stone to mount thee higher. When the curtain falls on the sordid strife that seems so splendid, thou shalt look with pain on the wasted life that thou hast ended. Thou hast sold thy life for a guerdon small. In fitful flashes there has been reward, but the end of all is dust and ashes. For the night has come, and it brings to nought thy projects cherished, and thine epitaph shall in brass be wrought, he lived and perished. Art. I wait for thee at the outer gate, my love, mine only, wherefore tarriest thou so late while I am lonely? Thou shalt seek my side with a footstep swift. In thee implanted is the love of art and the greatest gift that God has granted.

And the world's concern with its rights and wrongs shall seem but small things. Poet or painter, a singer of songs, thine art is all things. For the wine of life is a woman's love to keep beside thee, but the love of art is a thing above, a star to guide thee. As the years go by with thy love of art all undiminished, thou shalt end thy days with a quiet heart, thy work is finished. So the painter fashions a picture strong that fadeth never, and the singer singeth a wondrous song that lives forever.

37 37 - The Daylight is Dying 2:17

38 38 - In Defence of the Bush 3:23

In Defense of the Bush.

So you're back from the upcountry, Mr. Townsman, where you went, and you're cursing all the business in a bitter discontent. Well, we grieve to disappoint you, and it makes us sad to hear that it wasn't cool and shady. And there wasn't plenty beer. And the loony bullock snorted when you first came into view. Well, you know it's not so often that he sees a swell like you. And the roads were hot and dusty, and the plains were burnt and brown, and no doubt you're better suited drinking lemon squash in town. Yet, perchance, if you should journey down the very track you went in a month or two, at furthest, you would wonder what it meant. Where the sun-baked earth was gasping like a creature in its pain, you would find the grasses waving like a field of summer grain.

And the miles of thirsty gutters, blocked with sand and choked with mud, you would find them muddy rivers with a turbid, sweeping flood. For the rain and drought and sunshine make no changes in the street, in the sullen line of buildings and the ceaseless tramp of feet. But the bush hath moods and changes as the seasons rise and fall, and the men who know the bushland, they are loyal through it all. But you found the bush was dismal, and a land of no delight. Did you chance to hear a chorus in the shearers' huts at night? Did they rise up William Riley by the campfire's cheery blaze? Did they rise him as we rose him in the good old droving days? And the women of the homesteads, and the men you chanced to meet, were their faces sour and saddened like the faces in the street?

And the shy, selector children, were they better now or worse than the little city urchins who would greet you with a curse? Is not such a life much better than the squalid street and square where the fallen women flaunt it in the fierce electric glare? Where the seamstress plies her sewing, till her eyes are sore and red, in a filthy, dirty attic, toiling on for daily bread. Did you hear no sweeter voices in the music of the bush, than the roar of trams and buses, and the war-whoop of the push? Did the magpies rouse your slumbers, with their carols sweet and strange? Did you hear the silver chiming of the bell-birds on the range? But perchance the wild bird's music by your senses was despised.

For you say you'll stay in townships till the bush is civilised. Would you make it a tea-garden, and on Sundays have a band where the blokes might take their donnas, with a public close at hand? You'd better stick to Sidney and make merry with the push, for the bush will never suit you, and you'll never suit the bush.

End of section thirty eight this recording is in the public domain recorded by David Lawrence in Brampton, Ontario March, two thousand and nine.

39 39 - Last Week 1:35

40 40 - Those Names 2:37

The Shearer sat in the firelight, hearty and hale and strong, after the hard day's shearing, passing the joke along. The ringer that shore a hundred, as they never were shorn before, and the novice, who, toiling bravely, had tommy-hawked half a score. The tarboy, the cook, and the slushy, the sweeper that swept the board, the picker-up and the penner with the rest of the shearing horde. There were men from the inland stations where the skies like a furnace glow, and men from the snowy river, the land of the frozen snow. There were swarthy Queensland drovers who reckoned all land by miles, and farmers' sons from the Murray, where many a vineyard smiles. They started at telling stories when they wearied of cards and games, and to give these stories a flavour they threw in some local names, and a man from the bleak Monaro, away on the tableland, he fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and he started to play his hand.

He told them of Ajun Toothbong, where the pine-clad mountains freeze, and the weight of the snow in summer breaks the branches off the trees, and as he warmed to the business he let them have it strong, Nimity Bell, Kanago, Wee-oh, Bongongalong. He lingered over them fondly, because they recalled to mind a thought of the old bush homestead and the girl that he left behind. Then the shearers all sat silent till a man in the corner rose. Said he, said he, I've travelled a-plenty, but I've never heard names like those. Out in the western districts, out on the castle ray, most of the names are easy. Short for a man to say. You've heard of Mungry Bambone, and the Gundah Bluey Pine, Quobotha, Jury Lambone, and Terramungamine, Quambone, Unonnie Harina, Wee War, and Bunty Joe?

But the rest of the shearers stopped him. For the sake of your jaw goes slow. If you reckon those names are short ones, out where such names prevail, just try and remember some long ones before you begin the tale. And the man from the western district, though never a word he said, Just winked with his dexter eyelid, and then he retired to bed.

41 41 - A Bush Christening 3:21

A Bush Christening. On the outer Barcoo, where the churches are few, and men of religion are scanty, on a road never crossed, set by folks that are lost, one Michael Magee had a shanty. Now this Mike was the dad of a ten-year-old lad, plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned. He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had no rest, for the youngster had never been christened. And his wife used to cry, if the darling should die, St. Peter would not recognize him. But by luck he survived till the preacher arrived, who agreed straightway to baptize him. Now the artful young rogue, while they held their collogue, with his ear to the keyhole, was listening, and he muttered in fright, while his features turned white, "'What the divil, and all is this christening?' He was none of your dolts.

He had seen them brand colts, and it seemed to his small understanding, if the man in the frock made him one of the flock, it must mean something very like branding." So away with a rush he set off for the bush, while the tears in his eyelids they glistened. "'Tis outrageous," says he, to brown youngsters like me. "'I'll be dashed if I'll stop to be christened.' Like a young native dog he ran into a log, and his father, with language uncivil, never heeding the priest, cried aloud in his haste, "'Come out and be christened, you devil!' But he lay there as snug as a bug in a rug, and his parents in vain might reprove him. Till his reverence spoke. He was fond of a joke. I've a notion, says he, that'll move him.

Poke a stick up the log, give the spalpeen a prog. Poke him, Acy. Don't hurt him or maim him. Tis not long that he'll stand. I've the water at hand. As he rushes out this end, I'll name him. Here he comes, and for shame, you've forgotten the name. Is it Patsy, or Michael, or Dennis? Here the youngster ran out, and the priest gave a shout. Take your chance anyhow with McGinnis. As the howling young cub ran away to the scrub, where he knew that pursuit would be risky, the priest, as he fled, flung a flask at his head that was labeled McGinnis Whiskey. And McGinnis McGee has been made a J.P., and the one thing he hates more than sin is, to be asked by the folk who have heard of the joke how he came to be christened McGinnis.

42 42 - How the Favourite Beat Us 2:41

How the favorite beat us. "'A' says the boozer. I tell you it's true, sir. I once was a punter with plenty of pelf, but gone is my glory. I'll tell you the story. How I stiffened my horse and got stiffened myself. "'Twas a mare called Cracker. I came down to back her. But found she was favorite all of a rush. The folk just did pour on to lay six to four on, and several bookies were killed in the crush. It seems Altamata was stiff, though a starter. They reckoned him fit for the Caulfield to keep. The bloke and the donor were scratched by their owner. He only was offered three-fourths of the sweep. We knew Salamander was slow as a gander. The mayor could have beat him the length of the straight.

An old money mission was out of condition, and most of the others were running off weight. No doubt someone blew it, for everyone knew it. The bets were all gone, and I muttered in spite, "'If I can't get a copper by Jingo, I'll stop her. Let the public fall in. It'll serve the brutes right.' I said to the jockey, "'Now listen, my cocky. You watch as you're cantering down by the stand. I'll wait where the toff is, and give you the offers. You're only to win if I lift up my hand.' I then tried to back her. What price is the cracker? Our books are all full, sir, each book he did swear. My mind then I made up, my fortune I played up. I bet every shilling against my own mare. I strolled to the gateway, the mare in the straightway, was shifting and dancing and pawing the ground.

The boy saw me enter and wheeled for his canter, when a darn great mosquito came buzzing around. They breed em at a hexam. It's risky to vex em. They suck a man dry at a sitting, no doubt. But just as the mare passed, he fluttered my hair past. I lifted my hand, and I flattered him out. I was stunned when they started. The mare simply darted, away to the front when the flag was let fall. For none there could match her, and none tried to catch her. She finished a furlong in front of them all. You bet that I went for the boy whom I sent for, the moment he weighed and came out of the stand. Who paid you to win it? Come, own up this minute. Lord love yer," said he, why, you lifted your hand. "'Twas true by St.

Peter, that cursed musketeer, had broke me so broke that I hadn't a brown, and you'll find the best course is when dealing with horses to win when you're able, and keep your hands down."

43 43 - The Great Calamity 2:33

44 44 - Come-by-Chance 2:36

Org by Magdalena Cook. Come by Chance. As I pondered very weary over a volume long and dreary, for the plot was void of interest, "'Twas the Postal Guide, in fact. There I learnt the true location, distant size, and population, of each township, town, and village in the radius of the act." And I learned that Puckawidgee stands beside the Murrumbidgee, and that Booleroy and Bumble get their letters twice a year. Also that the Post Inspector, when he visited Collector, closed the office up instanter, and reopened Dungalea. But my languid mood forsook me, when I found a name that took me. Quite by chance I came across it. Come by chance, was what I read. No location was assigned it, not a thing to help one find it.

Just an end which stood for northward, and the rest was all unsaid. I shall leave my home and forthward wander stoutly to the northward, till I come by chance across it, and I'll straightway settle down. For there can't be any hurry, nor the slightest course for worry, where the telegraph don't reach you, nor the railways run to town. And one's letters and exchanges come by chance across the ranges, where a wiry young Australian leads a pack-horse once a week. And the good news grows by keeping, and you spared the pain of weeping over bad news when the mailman drops the letters in the creek. But I fear, and more's the pity, that there's really no such city, for there's not a man can find it, of the shrewdest folk I know.

Come by chance, be sure it never means a land of fierce endeavor. It is just the careless country where the dreamers only go. Though we work and toil and hustle in our life of haste and bustle, all that makes our life worth living comes unstriven for and free. Man may weary and importune, but the fickle goddess Fortune deals him out his pain or pleasure, careless what his worth may be. All the happy times and tracing, days of sport and nights of dancing, moonlit rides and stolen kisses, pouting lips and loving glance. When you think of these, be certain you have looked behind the curtain. You have had the luck to linger just a while in come-by-chance.

45 45 - Under the Shadow of Kiley\'s Hill 2:16

46 46 - Jim Carew 2:48

47 47 - The Swagman\'s Rest 2:54

The Swagman's Rest We buried old Bob with a bloodwood's wave at the foot of the eagle hawk. We fashioned a cross on the old man's grave for fear that his ghost might walk. We carved his name on a bloodwood tree with the date of his sad decease. And in the place of dive from effects of spree we wrote, May he rest in peace. For Bob was known on the overland a regular old bush wag, trampling along in the dust and sand, humping his well-worn swag. He would camp for days in the river-bed, and loiter and fish for whales. I'm into the swagman's yard, he said, and I never shall find the rails. But he found the rails on that summer night, for a better place or worse. As we watched by turns in the flickering light with an old black gin for nurse.

The breeze came in with a scent of pine, the river sounded clear. When a change came on, and we saw the sign that told us the end was near. But he spoke in a cultured voice, and, lo, I'll fancy they've sent the root. I once was an army man, you know, though now I'm a drunken brute. But bury me out where the blood would wave, and if Ever you're fairly stuck. Just take and shovel me out of the grave, and maybe I'll bring you luck. For I've always heard. Here his voice fell weak. His strength was well nigh sped. He gasped and struggled and tried to speak, then fell in a moment. Dead. Thus ended a wasted life and hard of energies misapplied. Old Bob was out of the swagman's yard and over the great divide.

The drought came down on the field and flock, and never a raindrop fell, though the tortured moans of the starving stock might soften a fend from hell. And we thought of the hint that the swagman gave when he went to the great unseen. We shovelled the skeleton out of the grave to see what his hint might mean. We dug where the cross and the grave posts were, We shoveled away the mold, when sudden a vein of quartz lay bare, all gleaming with yellow gold. "'Twas a reef with never a fault nor bulk, that ran from the ranger's crest, and the richest mine on the Eagle Hawk is known as the Swagman's Rest." End of section 47. This recording is in the public domain. End of the Man from Stonbury River by Banjo Patterson.

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