Rio Grandes Last Race, Etc. | Page 9

on the garden walk, and
cackled at Rooster Hall. Then Rooster Hall sent off a boy with word to
his cronies two, McCrae (the boss of the Black Police) and Father
Donahoo.
Full many a cockfight old McCrae had held in his empty
Court, With Father D. as a picker-up -- a regular all-round Sport! They
got the message of Rooster Hall, and down to his run they came,
Prepared to scoff at the drover's bird, and to bet on the English Game;
They hied them off to the drover's camp, while Saltbush rode before --
Old Rooster Hall was a blithesome man, when he thought of the treat in
store. They reached the camp, where the drover's cook, with
countenance all serene, Was boiling beef in an iron pot, but never a
fowl was seen.
`Take off the beef from the fire,' said Bill,
`and wait till you see the
fight;
There's something fresh for the bill-of-fare --
there's
game-fowl stew to-night!
For Mister Hall has a fighting cock, all
feathered and clipped and spurred; And he's fetched him here, for a bit
of sport, to fight our Australian bird. I've made a match that our pet will
win, though he's hardly a fighting cock, But he's game enough, and it's
many a mile
that he's tramped with the travelling stock.'
The cook
he banged on a saucepan lid; and, soon as the sound was heard, Under
the dray, in the shadows hid, a something moved and stirred: A great
tame Emu strutted out. Said Saltbush, `Here's our bird!' But Rooster

Hall, and his cronies two, drove home without a word.
The passing stranger within his gates that camps with old Rooster Hall
Must talk about something else than fowls, if he wishes to talk at all.
For the record lies in the local Court, and filed in its deepest vault, That
Peter Hall, of the Take 'Em Down, was tried for a fierce assault On a
stranger man, who, in all good faith, and prompted by what he heard,
Had asked old Hall if a British Game could beat an Australian bird;
And old McCrae, who was on the Bench, as soon as the case was tried,
Remarked, `Discharged with a clean discharge -- the assault was
justified!'
Hay and Hell and Booligal
`You come and see me, boys,' he said;
`You'll find a welcome and a
bed
And whisky any time you call;
Although our township hasn't
got
The name of quite a lively spot --
You see, I live in Booligal.
`And people have an awful down
Upon the district and the town --

Which worse than hell itself they call;
In fact, the saying far and wide

Along the Riverina side
Is "Hay and Hell and Booligal".
`No doubt it suits 'em very well
To say it's worse than Hay or Hell,

But don't you heed their talk at all;
Of course, there's heat -- no one
denies --
And sand and dust and stacks of flies,
And rabbits, too, at
Booligal.
`But such a pleasant, quiet place,
You never see a stranger's face --

They hardly ever care to call;
The drovers mostly pass it by;
They
reckon that they'd rather die
Than spend a night in Booligal.
`The big mosquitoes frighten some --
You'll lie awake to hear 'em
hum --
And snakes about the township crawl;
But shearers, when
they get their cheque,
They never come along and wreck
The
blessed town of Booligal.

`But down in Hay the shearers come
And fill themselves with
fighting-rum,
And chase blue devils up the wall,
And fight the
snaggers every day,
Until there is the deuce to pay --
There's none
of that in Booligal.
`Of course, there isn't much to see --
The billiard-table used to be

The great attraction for us all,
Until some careless, drunken curs

Got sleeping on it in their spurs,
And ruined it, in Booligal.
`Just now there is a howling drought
That pretty near has starved us
out --
It never seems to rain at all;
But, if there SHOULD come any
rain,
You couldn't cross the black-soil plain --
You'd have to stop in
Booligal.'
. . . . .
`WE'D HAVE TO STOP!' With bated breath
We prayed that both in
life and death
Our fate in other lines might fall:
`Oh, send us to our
just reward
In Hay or Hell, but, gracious Lord,
Deliver us from
Booligal!'
A Walgett Episode
The sun strikes down with a blinding glare,
The skies are blue and the
plains are wide,
The saltbush plains that are burnt and bare
By
Walgett out on the Barwon side --
The Barwon river that wanders
down
In a leisurely manner by Walgett Town.
There came a stranger -- a `Cockatoo' --
The word means farmer, as
all men know
Who dwell in the land where the kangaroo
Barks
loud at dawn, and the white-eyed crow
Uplifts his song on the
stock-yard fence
As he watches the lambkins passing hence.
The sunburnt stranger was gaunt and brown,
But it soon appeared
that he meant to flout
The iron law of the country town,
Which is --

that the stranger