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Updated: May 19, 2025
December 17. Leaving the ground at an early hour, the party travelled for about two miles along the riverbank, the stream appearing deeper and broader as we proceeded. Six miles on we came upon a narrow branch from the river, which we avoided by turning a little to the right. We next reached a very large stockyard which the natives said had belonged to George The Barber, meaning The Bushranger.
We fired both at the same time. I felt something strike my side that appeared to burn like a coal of fire, and when I put my hand to the spot it was soon covered with blood. "I staggered and fell; but even as I did so, I looked towards the bushranger to see if my shot had taken effect, I heard him exclaim, "'Hang him, he's hit me on the shoulder. I'll murder him for it!
He was naturally fearless, and his merry laugh and gay joke at the expense of the bushranger fearing party gradually dissipated the unaccountable presentiment of danger which I for one had in no small degree experienced.
The bushranger then waited until the guard turned his back, when he dropped from the window like a cat, and made his escape. The officer was laughed at so outrageously, that he sold his commission and left the army. Such was one of the exploits of the "gentlemanly" bushranger whose actions we were watching, and over whose head a reward of five hundred pounds was hanging.
That the latter was one of the bushrangers, there could be no doubt, and the overseer, without waiting to inquire, raising his rifle, discharged it. The bullet took effect, but not until the man had fired; Toby at the same moment fell to the ground, and I thought was killed; but the bushranger, before the smoke had cleared away, had darted behind a tree.
"If I had not often heard such boasts, perhaps I might have been deceived; but I knew many men, both brave and daring, who had quailed at the sight of an armed bushranger, so I put no confidence in the stories of what they intended to do in case of an attack. I considered it my duty to warn them once more, and when that failed, I let them leave the mines without further remonstrance.
A passage from Dick Marston's account of what he saw at Turon is worth reproducing here as characteristic of the author's representation of a gold-fields community and as a sample of his humour. The 'three honourables, of whom the disguised bushranger captain is one, are together in a hotel.
The request was emphasised by the presence of a revolver held at an easy but suggestive angle. The disadvantage to the squatter was obvious. He merely asked that he should be permitted to keep the ring, as it had many associations, remarking at the same time that he would be pleased to give an equivalent for it if the bushranger would come to Wandenong.
I saw him on my last trip to the mines, and he tried to bribe me to purchase him a pair of revolvers; but I refused, and he left me without a word of reproach." It was nearly four o'clock when Smith finished his account of the bushranger; and as the heat was not so oppressive as at noon, we decided to travel eight or ten miles farther that evening, before we camped for the night.
"I suppose that the bushranger must have been making his way to the northward, and had already passed over this barren region, when he perished," observed Mudge. "Were it of any great extent, he would not have attempted it; and I hope that before long we shall meet with water, and some four-footed beasts or feathered fowl to afford us food."
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