The Project Gutenberg EBook of Over the Sliprails, by Henry Lawson

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Over the Sliprails

Author: Henry Lawson

Posting Date: August 26, 2008 [EBook #1313]
Release Date: May, 1998

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER THE SLIPRAILS ***

Produced by Alan R. Light

OVER THE SLIPRAILS

By Henry Lawson

Author of "While the Billy Boils", "When the World was Wide and Other
Verses", "On the Track", "Verses: Popular and Humorous", &c.

[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are capitalised. Some obvious
errors have been corrected.]

Preface

Of the stories in this volume many have already appeared
in the columns of [various periodicals], while several
now appear in print for the first time.

H. L.
Sydney, June 9th, 1900.

Contents

The Shanty-Keeper's Wife
A Gentleman Sharper and Steelman Sharper
An Incident at Stiffner's
The Hero of Redclay
The Darling River
A Case for the Oracle
A Daughter of Maoriland
New Year's Night
Black Joe
They Wait on the Wharf in Black
Seeing the Last of You
Two Boys at Grinder Brothers'
The Selector's Daughter
Mitchell on the "Sex" and Other "Problems"
The Master's Mistake
The Story of the Oracle

OVER THE SLIPRAILS

The Shanty-Keeper's Wife

There were about a dozen of us jammed into the coach, on the box seat
and hanging on to the roof and tailboard as best we could. We were
shearers, bagmen, agents, a squatter, a cockatoo, the usual joker--and
one or two professional spielers, perhaps. We were tired and stiff and
nearly frozen--too cold to talk and too irritable to risk the inevitable
argument which an interchange of ideas would have led up to. We had been
looking forward for hours, it seemed, to the pub where we were to change
horses. For the last hour or two all that our united efforts had been
able to get out of the driver was a grunt to the effect that it was
"'bout a couple o' miles." Then he said, or grunted, "'Tain't fur now,"
a couple of times, and refused to commit himself