Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/422

398 settled the question of his usefulness, and he would be sold at a good price; but when attached to a load and started for the mines, he balked and refused to pull at all. Silent partners of the dealer were watching on the road, with other horses for sale, and they soon made a trade in which the balky beast was thrown in for almost nothing.

"The fact was, the trick-horses were fed at the top of the hill, and only after they had drawn up a heavy load. Sometimes the same horse was sold two or three times in one day; and it was afterwards said that a single horse had been disposed of for fifty pounds and bought in for five pounds at least a hundred times."

"I can't tell a horse story," said another of the party, "but I've one that comes close to it, and that's a horse-collar story."

Of course everybody wanted to hear it, and he complied with the general wish.

"You all know that soon after the discovery of gold in Victoria the country was infested with bushrangers, or highwaymen, who made it very unsafe to travel with gold-dust or other valuable property. A man was liable to hear the order to 'bail up!' at any moment, and find a gun or pistol levelled at him. Unless he obeyed with alacrity and threw his hands in the air, he was in great danger of having a bullet through him. Very often it happened that an armed man would be taken unawares, and though he had a rifle in his hand or a pistol at his belt, there was no chance to make use of the weapon. Sometimes two or three bush-rangers would 'stick up' a stage-coach; while one watched the passengers, ranged along the roadside, and kept them within range of a revolver, and perhaps two revolvers, another searched them and took possession of their valuables.

"Gold was sent down from the mines under a Government escort