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Updated: September 15, 2025
"Not half so much as pig-jobbing," said Bos, "and that that's your trade I am certain, or you would never have gone to Llanfair." "I am no pig-jobber," said I, "and when I asked you that question about droving, I merely did so because one Ellis Wynn, in a book he wrote, gives the drovers a very bad character, and puts them in Hell for their mal-practices."
Year by year as the bush had receded and shrunk before the railways, he had receded with it, keeping always just behind the Back of Beyond, droving, bullock-punching, stock-keeping, and unconsciously opening up the way for that very civilisation that was driving him farther and farther back.
'When we got tired of digging about Mudgee-Budgee, and getting no gold, said Dave Regan, Bushman, 'me and my mate, Jim Bently, decided to take a turn at droving; so we went with Bob Baker, the drover, overland with a big mob of cattle, way up into Northern Queensland.
We were selling what we could while there was still life left in the herd, but the cattle were too far gone for droving. We managed to collect a hundred or so sent them in trucks from Crocodile Creek Terminus, for boiling down and netted about thirty shillings a head on them. That was all.
'Well, he came to my station on the Lachlan years ago without a penny in his pocket, or decent rag to his back, or a crust in his tucker-bag, and I gave him a job. He's my boss now. Ah, well! it's the way of Australia, you know, Jack. The Boss had one man who went on every droving trip with him; he was 'bred' on the Boss's station, they said, and had been with him practically all his life.
He asked me if I'd ever heard of a chap by the name of Joe Scott a big sandy-complexioned chap, who might be droving; he was his brother, or, at least, his half-brother, but he hadn't heard of him for years; he'd last heard of him at Blackall, in Queensland; he might have gone overland to Western Australia with Tyson's cattle to the new country.
I have nothing to say against a young man going away from this place to better himself, but there are young men who go out back shearing or droving, young men who are goodhearted but careless, who make cheques, and spend their money gambling or drinking and never think of the old folk at home until it is too late.
The cattle were very quiet after their long droving, and as I was returning to Cooktown with my empty waggon, I was enabled to break them in. At that place I bought another waggon, and with spare bullocks from my first team, I was able to put two full teams on the road. Sub-Inspector O'Connor's camp was at the Laura River.
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