. . . . . . . . . .
A morning or so afterwards, M‘Pherson going out for his before-breakfast smoke and usual look at Beelzebub, to his astonishment saw him not. He had gone. But in his stead stood a stately, almost perfect animal, the beau ideal of what a ‘Champion’ should be. Around his neck he bore a card, on which the old squatter presently read,—
‘I am a fully paid-up member of the Pastoralists’ Association of Australasia.
‘(Signed) Silversheen.’
[Footnote 7: ] Australian Shearers’.] [Return to text]
[116]
]THE OFFICER IN CHARGE.
A Far Inland Sketch.
‘A rising township of some four hundred inhabitants, situated on the Trickle Trickle River. Distance from Sydney, north-west, six hundred and fifty miles.’
Thus the Australian Gazetteer, speaking of the far-inland village of Jillibeejee. For days you shall have ridden over bush roads, fetlock deep in dust, through monotonous open forest, or over still more monotonous plain, ere, far away on a dry brown ridge, you catch the glitter of something in the bright, hot sunshine. This proceeds from the first roof in Jillibeejee. Then, making your horse stride carefully over the Trickle Trickle, whose banks are apt to crumble, you breast the ridge and take a bird’s-eye view of the township as it lies frying in the sun.
This ridge must be fully fifty feet above the level of the surrounding country, and is probably the ‘rising’ referred to by the jocular Gazetteer.