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Updated: May 27, 2025
* 'Out-Back' is always west of the Bushman, no matter how far out he be. The eldest girl at home was nine or ten, with a little old face and lines across her forehead: she had an older expression than her mother. Tommy went to Queensland, as I told you.
She would have been going to Sydney every holiday and putting up at the old Royal, with every comfort that a woman could ask for, and seeing a play every night. And I'd have been knocking around amongst the big stations Out-Back, or maybe drinking myself to death at the shanties.
The state of the river is vaguely but generally understood to depend on some distant and foreign phenomena to which bushmen refer in an off-hand tone of voice as "the Queenslan' rains", which seem to be held responsible, in a general way, for most of the out-back trouble.
'Oh, he's somewheres up country, she'd say in the 'groping' voice, or 'He's drovin' in Queenslan', or 'Shearin' on the Darlin' the last time I heerd from him. 'We ain't had a line from him since les' see since Chris'mas 'fore last. And she'd turn her haggard eyes in a helpless, hopeless sort of way towards the west towards 'up-country' and 'Out-Back'.*
The name stuck to him closer than misfortune did, for when he rose to the proud and independent position of landlord and sole proprietor of an out-back pub he was Stiffner still, and his place was "Stiffner's" widely known. They do say that the name ceased not to be applicable that it fitted even better than in the old dingo days, but well, they do say so.
She was a pleasant-faced dumpling, who had been baked solid in the droughts of Out-Back without losing her good looks, and had put up with a hard life, and Myers, all those years without losing her good humour and nature. Probably, had her husband been the opposite kind of man, she would have been different haggard, bad-tempered, and altogether impossible for of such is woman.
I used to go on a howling spree every six or nine months. Maggie never knew. I'd tell her I had to go to Sydney on business, or Out-Back to look after some stock. When the children were lost, and for nearly a fortnight after, I was beastly drunk in an out-of-the-way shanty in the Bush a sly grog-shop. The old brute that kept it was too true to me.
Then he shouldered his swag, stirred the dog up with his foot, unwound the chain, said 'Ah, well so long! and drifted out and along the road toward Out-Back, the dog following with head and tail down. Bill scored another drink on account of girl-pity for bad luck, shouldered his swag, said, 'So long, Mary! and drifted out and along the road towards Tinned Dog, on the Bourke side.
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