Part 7

Perhaps they'd tampered with the scale! I cannot tell. I only know It weighed him OUT all right. I fail To paint that Sydney sportsman's woe. He said the stewards were a crew Of low-lived thieves in Dandaloo.

He lifted up his voice, irate, And swore till all 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 shied 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 race-horse through the streets, And now he tells the tale, they say, To every racing man he meets. And Sydney sportsmen all eschew The atmosphere of Dandaloo.

The Geebung Polo Club

It was somewhere up the country, in a land of rock and scrub, That they formed an institution called the Geebung Polo Club. They were long and wiry natives from the rugged mountain side, And the horse was never saddled that the Geebungs 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 Geebung Polo Club.

It was somewhere down the country, in a city's smoke and steam, That a polo club existed, called 'The Cuff and Collar Team'. As a social institution 'twas 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 'em once a week. So they started up the country in pursuit of sport and fame, For they meant to show the Geebungs 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 Geebung Polo Club.

Now my readers can imagine how the contest ebbed and flowed, When the Geebung 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 waddied one another till the plain 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 Geebungs 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 Campaspe 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 Geebung 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 blazes to the pub -- He's been haunted by the spectres of the Geebung Polo Club.

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 of lots o' time along the Castlereagh.

. . . . .

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 shearing 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 Mundooran now, or past the Overflow, Or tramping down the black soil flats across by Waddiwong, 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 safest 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 myall boughs asweep He hails the shearers 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 past the teamster toiling down to fetch the wool away My letter chases Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh.

Saltbush 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 where 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 saltbush 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 Routes, 'tis written in white and black -- The 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-grassed 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 had fought his way on the Great Stock Routes from the sea to the big Barcoo; 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 Eighty drought with a mob that could scarcely creep, (When the kangaroos by the thousands starve, it is rough on the travelling sheep), And he camped one night at the crossing-place on the edge of the Wilga run, 'We must manage a feed for them here,' he said, 'or the 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, and with many a stockwhip 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 moke he rode and the cur at his heels that ran, Till the Jackaroo from his horse got down and he went for the drover-man; 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 his honour'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 it 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 drover said he would fight no more and he 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 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 Wilga 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, will many a time recite How the best day's work that ever he did was the day that he lost the fight.

A Mountain Station

I bought a run a while ago, On country rough and ridgy, Where wallaroos and wombats grow -- The Upper Murrumbidgee. The grass is rather scant, it's true, But this a fair exchange is, The sheep can see a lovely view By climbing up the ranges.

And She-oak Flat's the station's name, I'm not surprised at that, sirs: The oaks were there before I came, And I supplied the flat, sirs. A man would wonder how it's done, The stock so soon decreases -- They sometimes tumble off the run And break themselves to pieces.

I've tried to make expenses meet, But wasted all my labours, The sheep the dingoes didn't eat Were stolen by the neighbours. They stole my pears -- my native pears -- Those thrice-convicted felons, And ravished from me unawares My crop of paddy-melons.