THE OUTLAW & THE RIDER

ANON.

When I started collecting oral histories, way back in the late 1960s, this was the very first poem I recorded. I got it from a retired horse driver, Clarrie Peters, who had learnt it some forty years earlier from bullock drivers. I still recite it with relish. An ‘outlaw’ horse is a horse than refuses to be broken.

He had come to Numeralla, in the drought of '98
That had tuned the Monaro Plains to a sea of sand
And the philanthropic super
Feeling pity for his state
Had given him a start as extra hand

Now he must have been a marvel for at night he'd sit for hours
And boast about the marvelous things he'd seen and done
How he'd rung the sheds at Bathurst, beating Howe by thirty sheep
And broken outlaw horse in – at night.

Now we had a horse, an outlaw, out on Numeralla run,
No stronger horse had ever stretched the rails,
She had thrown Monaro Billy, and the station breaker, Dunn,
And he was reckoned pretty savage, throughout the southern plains

Well, the boss came down this morning, we'd planned the joke, you see,
I've letters here must catch the mail, said he,

You'd better take them Jimmy; you can take the chestnut colt,
But mind, or she'll have you on your head.

Jim threw on the saddle and the colt stood like a sheep,
One moment and we thought our joke had failed
But Jim was barely seated when the colt put down his head
And belted at it like a demon through the rails.

We made a rush for horses and our eyes we opened wide,
To see Jim like a perfect horseman ride
He'd bring that stockwhip up, every time that colt would rise,
And tease him with the bleeders when he lit.

We made a dash on horses to where we seen them last
All was hurry, horses going to and fro
But when we reached the patch of land, where we had seen them last
Both horse and rider had disappeared from view.

For miles and miles of tracks we followed, but still no news had come to hand,
And all agreed, perforce, that all was lost,
'Till a party searching eastwards found some hoof prints in the sand
And all agreed a horse had lately crossed.

On a level piece of country, out beyond the Londaroo,
Hemmed in by mountains wide and gorges deep,
We found our chestnut colt, still bucking, as he ever knew
And Jim, astride him, fast asleep.