Saltbush Bill J.P., and Other Verses | Page 9

bottle-O!"
You can hear us
round for a half a mile or so.
And you'll see the women rushing
To
take in the Monday's washing
When they 'ear us crying, "Empty
Bottle-O!"

I'm drivin' down by Wexford-street and up a winder goes,
A girl
sticks out 'er 'ead and looks at me,
An all-right tart with ginger 'air,
and freckles on 'er nose; I stops the cart and walks across to see.

"There ain't no bottles 'ere," says she, "since father took the pledge;"
"No bottles 'ere," says I, "I'd like to know
What right you 'ave to stick
your 'ead outside the winder ledge, If you 'aven't got no Empty
Bottle-O!"
I sometimes gives the 'orse a spell, and then the push and me We takes
a little trip to Chowder Bay.
Oh! ain't it nice the 'ole day long a-gazin'
at the sea
And a-hidin' of the tanglefoot away.
But when the booze
gits 'old of us, and fellows starts to "scrap", There's some what likes
blue-metal for to throw:
But as for me, I always says for layin' out a
"trap"
There's nothin' like an Empty Bottle-O!
The Story of Mongrel Grey
This is the story the stockman told,
On the cattle camp, when the stars
were bright;
The moon rose up like a globe of gold
And flooded the
plain with her mellow light.
We watched the cattle till dawn of day
And he told me the story of
Mongrel Grey.
. . . . .
He was a knock-about station hack,
Spurred and walloped, and
banged and beat;
Ridden all day with a sore on his back,
Left all
night with nothing to eat.
That was a matter of every-day
Common occurrence to Mongrel
Grey.
We might have sold him, but someone heard
He was bred out back
on a flooded run,
Where he learnt to swim like a waterbird, --

Midnight or midday were all as one.

In the flooded ground he could find his way,
Nothing could puzzle
old Mongrel Grey.
'Tis a special gift that some horses learn;
When the floods are out
they will splash along
In girth-deep water, and twist and turn
From
hidden channel and billabong.
Never mistaking the road to go,
For a man may guess -- but the
horses KNOW.
I was camping out with my youngest son --
Bit of a nipper just learnt
to speak --
In an empty hut on the lower run,
Shooting and fishing
in Conroy's Creek.
The youngster toddled about all day,
And with our horses was
Mongrel Grey.
All of a sudden the flood came down
Fresh from the hills with the
mountain rain,
Roaring and eddying, rank and brown,
Over the flats
and across the plain.
Rising and rising -- at fall of night
Nothing but water appeared in
sight!
'Tis a nasty place when the floods are out,
Even in daylight; for all
around
Channels and billabongs twist about,
Stretching for miles in
the flooded ground.
And to move was a hopeless thing to try
In the dark with the water
just racing by.
I had to try it. I heard a roar,
And the wind swept down with the
blinding rain;
And the water rose till it reached the floor
Of our
highest room, and 'twas very plain
The way the water was sweeping down
We must shift for the

highlands at once, or drown.
Off to the stable I splashed, and found
The horses shaking with cold
and fright;
I led them down to the lower ground,
But never a yard
would they swim that night!
They reared and snorted and turned away,
And none would face it but
Mongrel Grey.
I bound the child on the horse's back,
And we started off with a
prayer to heaven,
Through the rain and the wind and the pitchy black,

For I knew that the instinct God has given
To guide His creatures by night and day
Would lead the footsteps of
Mongrel Grey.
He struck deep water at once and swam --
I swam beside him and
held his mane --
Till we touched the bank of the broken dam
In
shallow water -- then off again,
Swimming in darkness across the flood,
Rank with the smell of the
drifting mud.
He turned and twisted across and back,
Choosing the places to wade
or swim,
Picking the safest and shortest track,
The pitchy darkness
was clear to him.
Did he strike the crossing by sight or smell?
The Lord that led him
alone could tell!
He dodged the timber whene'er he could,
But the timber brought us to
grief at last;
I was partly stunned by a log of wood,
That struck my
head as it drifted past;
And I lost my grip of the brave old grey,
And in half a second he
swept away.

I reached a tree, where I had to stay,
And did a perish for two days
hard;
And lived on water -- but Mongrel Grey,
He walked right into
the homestead yard
At dawn next morning, and grazed around,
With the child on top of
him safe and sound.
We keep him now for the wife to ride,
Nothing too good for him now,
of