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Project Gutenberg Australia HomeReturn to Index of Poems
When Swiker reached Wodonga with a thousand head of stores,
A wire was waiting from the region of artesian bores;
It told him that a thousand more were there for him to lift,
If he got back within a month; to do it he must “shift.”
Now, Swiker’d had an awful time right to Wodonga down,
And reckoned it was up to him to have a spell in town;
So he despatched his men post-haste to far off Bogganbar,
And 10 days later followed in a thumping motor car.
He’d had enough of horses, and he’d had enough of traps,
He’d had enough of roughing it with ordinary chaps.
Henceforth he’d trek in comfort, Just as one would in a train,
And in his tilted motor-car would laugh at sun and rain.
He got to Bogganbar in time; took charge at dawn of day;
He gave instructions to his men, and then he whirled away.
The town was 50 miles ahead, and straight for it he steered,
And there he played at billiards till his travelling mob appeared.
He inspected them and counted them, and let them go again;
Went back and had a merry time—the merriment was plain;
The good, time he was having so impressed the swagger crew,
That they swore they’d buy a motor, and they’d go a-droving, too.
He was the lion of the town; he lingered day by day,
Until his mob was at the least a hundred miles away.
Then, one morning, half seas over, with a snort from Casey’s bar,
Swiker whizzed away like fury, in his puffin’ motor-car.
He was merry, singing fragments of some drover songs he knew,
As along the winding bush-track, over hill and plain, he flew.
When the night shut down he tarried at a tavern till the moon
Lit the last stage of the journey to the camp at Clegg’s Lagoon.
It was drawing near to midnight when the camp fires showed ahead;
Here he tried to ease the motor, but increased her speed instead.
He tugged wildly at the lever, pulled and twisted, till at last,
Close ahead he saw the cattle—then he blew a fearful blast.
Like a rocket they levanted; through the squirming dust he sped;
Picked a tent up like a cyclone, and near killed the cook in bed;
Then the motor bumped and snorted towards the reflex of the moon,
And with a blast demoni’cal plunged into Clegg’s Lagoon.
* * *
They fished the half-drowned drover out, they brought the cattle back;
Thenceforth did Swiker stick to them all down Wodonga track.
His faith is great in horses now, he rides by sun and star;
While Clegg’s Lagoon enfoldeth still a drover’s motor-car.
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