Page:Last of the tasmanians.djvu/138

Rh pursuers, and afterwards found themselves at the Orphan School, New Town.

An old carter once told me that he was assigned to a person at Flat-top Tier, some twenty miles from Hobart Town. One morning the cook of the hut had gone down to the creek for water, to prepare the supper of the expected shepherds, when the Natives came down from the Tier and speared him. The men returning homeward found their meal unprepared, and the hut vacant. When the body of the murdered man was discovered, they seized their guns and set off in pursuit of the tribe. After a long and vain chase they returned to their quarters, and, to their consternation, found the hut burnt to the ground.

An ex-Bushranger gave me the intelligence that he had been once followed by the Blacks for two or three miles. When out of breath, he halted behind a tree, and presented his gun to keep the others in check. A party of the Ouse Mob burnt down the hut of a shepherd and murdered the owner. They were about to destroy his daughter, when the girl fell upon her knees, and in piteous accents sought their mercy. Their savage hearts were softened, and the orphan was suffered to escape. Captain Gray, of Avoca, as well as many other masters, was often seen standing over his threshing with a loaded musket. Men regularly took out their gums with them when they went to plough, sticking the weapon against some stump in the field.

In the primitive days it was the custom for the rations of flour to be kept in an uncovered cask in the hut. Robberies would thus be effected. A shirted black fellow would approach, and smilingly enter upon a jabber with the inmate; all the while seemingly just fingering the flour, while in reality he was quietly conveying it by a rapid and clever movement up his sleeve. The story is told of a certain chief who was rather remorselessly making free with the contents of a barrel, when he suddenly gave a yell, and withdrew his arm minus his hand. The shrewd farmer had planted a strong steel trap in the flour, which had thus seized upon the thief. Years after this man was one of those conveyed to Flinders Island. He never liked an allusion to the playful accident of former years. He was described to me by a Government officer as always keeping the injured arm secreted under his blanket or rug, and as looking uncommonly sulky when asked why he did not eat with that other hand.