A month after the signing of the contract, I had some two hundred and fifty men, and upwards of forty teams of horses or bullocks at work. In four months we erected buildings sufficient to hold the whole of the staff, police, and gold escort, with out-stations at Forest Creek, Fryer’s Creek, and Bendigo, where the principal diggings then were, as well as at various points on the Melbourne road from that city to Kyneton, through the Black Forest—at Carlsrhue, Sawpit Gully, and half-way from Mount Alexander to Bendigo, at a place then known as the “Porcupine Inn.”
Having to superintend works over something like 200 miles of country was not an easy matter, more particularly when one takes into consideration that the men I had to manage were mostly Van Demonian sawyers and splitters, the very scum of the convict element from Tasmania. Moreover, I had to ride to Melbourne and back to Mount Alexander once a week for large sums of money, which I had to carry in specie to pay the men at their respective stations, riding through a country infested with bushrangers of the worst description.
III.
SOME BUSHRANGERS I HAVE KNOWN.
THIS adventurous life, however, had its charm, and I often think that in spite of hardships and privations, I enjoyed it thoroughly.
For eight months I was hardly ever out of the saddle. During that time I experienced many adventures with men who since have either forfeited their life at the hands of the public hangman, or have served long sentences in H.M.’s gaols. Black Douglas, Thunderbolt, Donoghue, Gilbert, Ben Hall, and many other such celebrities, have often been my fellow-travellers. Many a night have I spent at the camp-fire with such noted characters, yet have never been molested or stuck-up by them. I may quote some instances which have left an indelible impression on my mind.