Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/519

Rh was no uncommon thing for a convict employed on a squatter's station to be sent with a note to the magistrate, in which the latter was requested to give the man two or three dozen lashes, as the case might be. He received them and was sent home; if he ran away, either before or after the flogging, notice was given at once, and the police were speedily after him. In the bush he could easily elude the police, but the necessity for food generally drove him to surrender or led to his capture. No one was allowed to give food to a runaway; and as the general safety depended on the suppression of bush-ranging, no one was inclined to do so.'

"'But didn't men sometimes make their escape and live in the bush?'

"'Only in a few instances. One runaway managed to hide himself for seven years, building a hut and raising a few vegetables in a spot where he was not discovered. He kept a goat and a few sheep, and came occasionally in the night to the nearest station to steal a few articles that he needed. But at length the solitude was too much for him, and he came to the very station that he had plundered, and gave himself up. The squatter's wife was alone with her children when the man appeared, with his hair long and tangled, a few sheepskins stitched