The Man From Snowy River | Page 8

was a wonder, a raking bay --
One of the grand old Snowdon
strain --
One of the sort that could race and stay
With his mighty
limbs and his length of rein.
Born and bred on the mountain side,

He could race through scrub like a kangaroo,
The girl herself on his
back might ride,
And the Swagman would carry her safely through.
He would travel gaily from daylight's flush
Till after the stars hung
out their lamps,
There was never his like in the open bush,
And
never his match on the cattle-camps.
For faster horses might well be
found
On racing tracks, or a plain's extent,
But few, if any, on
broken ground
Could see the way that the Swagman went.
When this girl's father, old Jim Carew,
Was droving out on the
Castlereagh
With Conroy's cattle, a wire came through
To say that
his wife couldn't live the day.
And he was a hundred miles from
home,
As flies the crow, with never a track,
Through plains as
pathless as ocean's foam,
He mounted straight on the Swagman's
back.
He left the camp by the sundown light,
And the settlers out on the
Marthaguy
Awoke and heard, in the dead of night,
A single
horseman hurrying by.
He crossed the Bogan at Dandaloo,
And
many a mile of the silent plain
That lonely rider behind him threw

Before they settled to sleep again.
He rode all night and he steered his course
By the shining stars with a
bushman's skill,
And every time that he pressed his horse

The
Swagman answered him gamely still.
He neared his home as the east

was bright,
The doctor met him outside the town:
`Carew! How far
did you come last night?'
`A hundred miles since the sun went down.'
And his wife got round, and an oath he passed,
So long as he or one
of his breed
Could raise a coin, though it took their last
The
Swagman never should want a feed.
And Kate Carew, when her
father died,
She kept the horse and she kept him well:
The pride of
the district far and wide,
He lived in style at the bush hotel.
Such was the Swagman; and Ryan knew
Nothing about could pace
the crack;
Little he'd care for the man in blue
If once he got on the
Swagman's back.
But how to do it? A word let fall
Gave him the
hint as the girl passed by;
Nothing but `Swagman -- stable-wall;

`Go to the stable and mind your eye.'
He caught her meaning, and quickly turned
To the trooper: `Reckon
you'll gain a stripe
By arresting me, and it's easily earned;
Let's go
to the stable and get my pipe,
The Swagman has it.' So off they went,

And soon as ever they turned their backs
The girl slipped down, on
some errand bent
Behind the stable, and seized an axe.
The trooper stood at the stable door
While Ryan went in quite cool
and slow,
And then (the trick had been played before)
The girl
outside gave the wall a blow.
Three slabs fell out of the stable wall --

'Twas done 'fore ever the trooper knew --
And Ryan, as soon as he
saw them fall,
Mounted the Swagman and rushed him through.
The trooper heard the hoof-beats ring
In the stable yard, and he
slammed the gate,
But the Swagman rose with a mighty spring
At
the fence, and the trooper fired too late,
As they raced away and his
shots flew wide
And Ryan no longer need care a rap,
For never a
horse that was lapped in hide
Could catch the Swagman in Conroy's
Gap.

And that's the story. You want to know
If Ryan came back to his Kate
Carew;
Of course he should have, as stories go,
But the worst of it
is, this story's true:
And in real life it's a certain rule,
Whatever
poets and authors say
Of high-toned robbers and all their school,

These horsethief fellows aren't built that way.
Come back! Don't hope it -- the slinking hound,
He sloped across to
the Queensland side,
And sold the Swagman for fifty pound,
And
stole the money, and more beside.
And took to drink, and by some
good chance
Was killed -- thrown out of a stolen trap.
And that was
the end of this small romance,
The end of the story of Conroy's Gap.
Our New Horse
The boys had come back from the races
All silent and down on their
luck;
They'd backed 'em, straight out and for places,
But never a
winner they struck.
They lost their good money on Slogan,
And fell,
most uncommonly flat,
When Partner, the pride of the Bogan,
Was
beaten by Aristocrat.
And one said, `I move that instanter
We sell out our horses and quit,

The brutes ought to win in a canter,
Such trials they do when
they're fit.
The last one they ran was a snorter --
A gallop to
gladden one's heart --
Two-twelve for a mile and a quarter,
And
finished as straight as a dart.
`And then when I think that they're ready
To win me a nice little
swag,
They are licked like the veriest neddy --
They're licked from
the fall of the flag.
The mare held her own to the stable,
She died
out to nothing at that,
And Partner he