Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 11, 2025
You and Jim, that darned innocent old cuss, robbing mails and cattle ranches. It is a real scoop up for me, you bet. I'd heern of bush-ranging in Australia, but I never reckoned on their bein' men like you and Jim. So the muchacha went back on yer snakes alive! I kinder expected it. I reckon you're bound to git. 'Yes, Bill, sharp's the word.
The finish of the whole thing was this, that we made up our minds to turn out in the bush-ranging line. It might seem foolish enough to outsiders, but when you come to think of it we couldn't better ourselves much. We could do no worse than we had done, nor run any greater risk to speak of.
"The Same Old Thing", the waggon. It was no use trying to 'pump' him concerning his sister-in-law; Brighten was an 'old hand', and had learned in the old Bush-ranging and cattle-stealing days to know nothing about other people's business. And, by the way, I noticed then that the more you talk and listen to a bad character, the more you lose your dislike for him.
Patsey was hanged afterwards for bush-ranging and gold robbery, and he had more than one man's blood to answer for. Now we weren't like that; we never troubled the church one way or the other. We knew we were doing what we oughtn't to do, and scorned to look pious and keep two faces under one hood. By degrees we all grew older, began to be active and able to do half a man's work.
You see father didn't mind taking a hand in the bush-ranging racket, but his heart was with the cattle and horse-duffing that he'd been used to so long, and he couldn't quite give it up. It's my belief he'd have sooner made a ten-pound note by an unbranded colt or a mob of fat cattle than five times as much in any other way. Every man to his taste, they say.
'Here's a shout all round for these men here, says I, throwing a note on the bar. 'Never mind the change. Good-bye, chaps. This gentleman and I have some business together, and there's no bush-ranging in it, you may take my word. We all left then. The men went back to their cattle. Jim rode quietly along the road to Cunnamulla just like any other traveller. I went down and saddled up my horse.
We must camp before we were hurried into the first "rips" of the stream, and before night made bush-ranging and camp-duties difficult. But these beautiful thickets of birch and alder along the bank, how to get through them? We must spy out an entrance. Spots lovely and damp, circles of ferny grass beneath elms offered themselves. At last, as to patience always, appeared the place of wisest choice.
However, he and little Maitland matured their plans together, and coming to the conclusion that they could not very well have any satisfaction from Mr Capstan without telling tales, they determined to steal away from the ship when she got into harbour, and run away ashore up into the bush, Val Maitland retailing for Teddy's benefit the most wonderful stories anent gold-digging and bush-ranging stories that cordially agreed with his own fancy.
A friend of mine residing in Wellington Valley, three hundred and fifty miles west of Sidney, used to arm himself and his groom, and sally out in search of any desperate character he might have heard of as being in the neighbourhood: he was more than once successful, and became quite a noted man among the Bush-ranging fraternity, who took good care to keep at a respectable distance from him.
But it's all up now; there's no get away this time; and I, Dick Marston, as strong as a bullock, as active as a rock-wallaby, chock-full of life and spirits and health, have been tried for bush-ranging robbery under arms they call it and though the blood runs through my veins like the water in the mountain creeks, and every bit of bone and sinew is as sound as the day I was born, I must die on the gallows this day month.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking