ben
laughed. "Are these blacks really formidable fellows, Captain
Wilson?"

"Formidable to the settlers," Captain Wilson said, "but not to us.
They drive off cattle and sheep, and sometimes attack solitary
stations, and murder every soul there; but they seldom stand up in
fair fight, when we come down upon them; but they fight hard,
sometimes, when they are acting with bush rangers."

"Bush rangers are mostly escaped convicts, are they not?"

"Almost always," Captain Wilson replied, "except that, of course,
they have among them a few men such as runaway sailors, and
ne'er-do-wells who get sick of shepherding and take to the bush;
but the great proportion are convicts. It is not to be wondered at,
when you look at the life many of these men have led at home, and
the monotony and hardship of their lives in many of the up-country
stations, allotted to men as ignorant, and sometimes almost as
brutal as themselves.

"Some of them, too, escape from the road gangs, and these are
generally the worst; for as often as not, they may have killed a
warder in making their escape, and know that it will go hard with
them if they are caught.

"It may be said that there are two sorts of bush rangers. The one
are men who have taken to the bush, simply from a desire of
regaining their liberty. Sometimes they join parties of blacks, and
live with them. Sometimes two or three get together, and all the
harm they do is to carry off an occasional sheep, for food. And the
other kind are desperadoes--men who were a scourge in England, and
are a scourge here, who attack lonely stations, and are not content
with robbing, but murder those who fall into their hands.

"They are in fact wild beasts, to whom no mercy is to be extended;
and who, knowing it, will fight to the last. They are not easy to
hunt down, their instinct having made them wary; and being
generally in league with the blacks, who are as cunning as foxes,
and can run pretty nearly as fast as a horse can gallop, they are
kept very well informed as to our movements and, the country being
so immense, we should never run them down, were it not for our
native trackers.

"These fellows are to the full as sharp as the Red Indians of North
America. They seem, in fact, to have the instinct of dogs, and can
follow a track when the keenest white's eye cannot detect the
smallest trace of a footprint. It is something marvellous what some
of them will do."

"Have you many of these track