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Wiry Bob

Edward S. Sorenson

Some beasts were dropped from the traveling mob
    One night in the Ward’s wide downs,
And back for them they sent Wiry Bob,
    With a map of the roads and towns.

He got one bullock, but not a trace
    Of more could Robert find,
And he started back on the long, lone chase,
    A hundred miles behind.

Across the Nive and the Warrego,
    And over to Forestvale,
He hit the camps that the drovers know
    And followed the leader’s trail.

He fended hard to the far Balonne
    With his lonely quadruped,
And ever he learnt, as each stage was won,
    The mob was a week ahead.

He crossed the border to Mungindi,
    And browsed on the Barwon banks,
And in the night where the plains were dry,
    He stole to the squatters’ tanks.

By drover’s law twelve miles a day
    Is ever the pace assigned,
And he followed the leaders all the way,
    A hundred miles behind.

Long ere he landed at Muswellbrook,
    They’d given him up for lost;
They’d sold and scattered, from boss to cook,
    And back o’er the border crossed.

But in stock arrivals they read anon,
    An item in letters large:
“One bullock, prime, from a Queensland run,
    With Wiry Bob in charge.”

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