Old Melbourne Memories

Mrs. Burge, looking towards the road, exclaimed, "Good God! the hut's full of blacks!" Realising that her infant lay in h

said. "And whether or not, mayn't y

t. When they arrived on the scene, they found about twenty or thirty blacks briskly engaged in pillaging the hut. They were

o should I see but that little villain Tommy coming out of the dairy with something in his hand. I put down the child and riz the tin milk-dish off the meat-block and hit him over the top of the head with it. Down he drops like a cock. I caught hold of him by the hair, and tried to hold him down, but he was

oaded; he did not know much about the ways of a gun, which was lucky for us. He held up the gun towards me,[Pg 76] and pulled the trigger. The hammers were up, but there were no caps on. I had taken them off the night before. When the gun wouldn't go off, he says, 'no good, no good,' and laughed and handed it to another fellow, who held it in one hand like a fire-stick. I saw they were out for a day's stealing only. I thought it was better not to cross them. They were enough to eat us if it came to that. So I helped them to all they wanted, and sent them away in good humour with themselves and me. By and by down comes the wife from the milking-yard, and she rises an awful pillalo

stockman, all came riding up to the place. They left their horses in our paddock, a

ing through the rocks, but after a mile or two I hit off their tracks by finding where they had dropped one or two little things they had stolen

d side, with a bit of flat under it, was the camp. I crept up, and could see them all sitting round their fires, and yarning a

d any notion of our being about, when Mr. Cunningham, who was a regular bull-dog for pluck, but awful careless and wild-lik

divin' in the lake, getting behind the big basalt boulders on the shore of the lake, and getting right away, when[Pg 78] we got up the camp was bare of everything but an old blind lubra that sat there with a small child beside her, blinkin' with her old eyes, and grinnin' for all the world like one of the Injun idols I used to see

m to touch the ground. Then Mr. Macknight was afraid Mr. Cunningham might run into an ambush or something of that kind. 'Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Cunningham, come back! I order you to come back!' Howsoever, Mr. Cunningham didn't or wouldn't hear him; but, after awhile, the blackfellow runs clean away from

ter stopping half an hour we made up all the things that could be carried, and marched away for home. It was a long way, and we were pretty well done when we got there. However, my old woman gave

s from blood revenge, though they "looted" the establishment pretty thoroughly. Another time worse might

ll armed and mounted, carbine in sling, sword in sheath, dangling proper in regular cavalry style. The irregular cavalry force known as the Native Police was then in good credit and acceptation in our colony. They had approved themselves to be highly effective against their sable kinsmen. The idea originated in Victoria, if I mistake not, and was afterwards developed in New[Pg 80] South Wales, still later in Queensland. Mr. H. E. Pulteney Dana and his brother Willi

nce which would have done no discredit to Hodson or Jacob's Horse. Buckup, as non-commissioned officer, rode slightly in front, the others following in line. As

decorum that they had, indeed, been very bad lately-speared the cattle, robbed the hut, etc.; that yesterday we had

sir," quoth Buckup, carelessly,

wrestler that he might have come off in a contest with Sergeant Francis Stewart, sometimes called Bothwell, nearly as satisfactorily as did Balfour of Burley. Tallboy, so called from his unusual height, probably, was a couple of inches taller, but slender and wiry looking; while Yapton was a middle-sized, active warrior, with a smooth face, a

nightfall had a couple of mia-mias solidly built with their backs t

ld Tom, at the conclusion of which he professed himself to be in posses

bly disablement. Long afterwards a trusty retainer of mine was betrayed into a hardish ride therein after an unusually tempting mob of fat cattle and unbranded calves, which had escaped muster for more than a year. The shoes of the gallant mare which he rode came

cout had "cut the track" of the trooper's horses, and "jaloused," as Mr. Gorrie would have said, only too accurately what was likely to follow. Anyhow, the contingent returned tired and rather sulky after sundown, with their boots considerably the worse for wear. I did not myself accompany the party, nor did I propose to do so at an

g

do the latter. So we had nothing for

were very patient and cheerful about the matter. They played quoits, of which I had a set-wrestled and boxed during their leisure hours, shot kangaroo and wild duck, and generally comported themselves as if this sort of thing was all in the day's work. Meantime, the heavy winter rains had begun to fall

the white troopers, and very sparingly from Buckup. Beyond saying that they had come up wi

mimosa and blackwood, the Australian hickory. Here, it seems, the police were plodding along, apparently on their usual persistent but unavailing search, when suddenly one of the men pulled up, dismounted, and, picking up something, gave a low, sibilant whistle. In an instant the whole troop gathered around him, while he held up a small piece of bark which had quite recen

arge body of blacks had quite recently passed that way. Suddenly, at a yell from Yapton, every man raised his head, and

riders managed to lift and hustle them up as the last black disappeared in the ti-tree. Unluck

d-bed. Tallboy is nearest to him, and his horse moves as he raises his carbine, and disturbs the aim. Striking him savagely over the head with the butt end, he raises his piece, fires, and Jupiter drops on his face. Quick shots follow, a general stampede takes p

eared or stolen after that day, it may be presumed that the chastisement was effectual. Years afterwards a man showed me the cicatrix of a bullet-wound in the region of the chest, and asserted that "Police-blackfellow 'plenty kill him'" on

r at the western extremity of the lava country, and less than twenty miles from the scene of the proceedings described. There the black and half-caste descendants of the once powerful Mount Eeles tribe dwell harmlessly and happily, if not usefully to the State. A resident of the district informed me some time since that a black henchman of mine lived at the Mission, and was last

rat with fat cattle, I suspect he was employed in a manner more befittin