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Project Gutenberg Australia HomeReturn to Index of Poems
We’d made a cheque, an’ says Sam to me,
“We’ll go for a trip to town;
We’ll dodge the Spider for once,” says he,
“By ridin’ wide of his pubbery,
An’ show that we CAN get down.”
Three times before, with the best intent,
To keep off the Spider’s grass,
We’d aimed for town, an’ that, wily gent
Of the wayside pub saw our savings spent—
‘Twas a deuce of a place to pass.
The boss observed, as we made a start,
We’d end in the same old twist,
“As sure,” says he, “as your name’s Jim Cart.”
An’ he look our odds, which he thought was smart,
The bloomin’ old pessimist.
We left the road, an’ Sam led the way,
For a man of the bush was he,
Who’d travel about by night an’ day
An’ never get lost—so he used to say
When yarnin’ in camp with me.
We rode for hours, an’ the day was hot,
An’ the route as dry as a chip;
An’ I says to Sam, ‘It is time we got
To a creek or somewhere, for this is not
Exactly a pleasure trip.’
“S all right,” says Sam, who was lookin’ worn,
“It’s only a few miles more;”
But we passed some trees that I could ‘ave sworn,
By their twisted trunks an’ their branches torn,
We’d passed quite an hour before.
Then we crossed some pads an’ old tracks o’ drays,
An’, front of a tangled scrub,
Discovered a house, an’ Sam looks all ways,
For there was Spider—why, spare me days!
We’d landed behind his pub.
“It’s fate,” says Sam; an’ it’s needless hence
Describin’ how we got on.
Boss helped us home when we’d got some sense,
An’ we went to work on the boundary fence
To pay him the bet he’d won.
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