r chap,' said Stingy Smith with glee;
'A bullying fellow, called Saltbush Bill -- and you are the man for me.
He's on the road with his hungry sheep, and he's certain to raise a row,
For he's bullied the whole of the Castlereagh till he's got them under cow --
Just pick a quarrel and raise a fight, and leather him good and hard,
And I'll take good care that his wretched sheep don't wander a half a yard.
It's a five-pound job if you belt him well -- do anything short of kill,
For there isn't a beak on the Castlereagh will fine you for Saltbush Bill.'

'I'll take the job,' said the fighting man; 'and hot as this cove appears,
He'll stand no chance with a bloke like me,
what's lived on the game for years;
For he's maybe learnt in a boxing school, and sparred for a round or so,
But I've fought all hands in a ten-foot ring each night in a travelling show;
They earned a pound if they stayed three rounds,
and they tried for it every night --
In a ten-foot ring! Oh, that's the game that teaches a bloke to fight,
For they'd rush and clinch, it was Dublin Rules, and we drew no colour line;
And they all tried hard for to earn the pound, but they got no pound of mine:
If I saw no chance in the opening round I'd slog at their wind, and wait
Till an opening came -- and it ALWAYS came -- and I settled 'em, sure as fate;
Left on the ribs and right on the jaw --
and, when the chance comes, MAKE SURE!
And it's there a professional bloke like me gets home on an amateur:
For it's my experience every day, and I make no doubt it's yours,
That a third-class pro is an over-match for the best of the amateurs ----'
'Oh, take your swag to the travellers' hut,'
said Smith, 'for you waste your breath;
You've a first-class chance, if you lose the fight,
of talking your man to death.
I'll tell the cook you're to have your grub, and see that you eat your fill,
And come to the scratch all fit and well to leather this Saltbush Bill.'

. . . . .

'Twas Saltbush Bill, and his travelling sheep were wending their weary way
On the Main Stock Route, through the Hard Times Run,
on their six-mile stage a day;
And he strayed a mile from the Main Stock Route, and started to feed along,
And, when Stingy Smith came up, Bill said that the Route was surveyed wrong;
And he tried to prove that the sheep had rushed
and strayed from their camp at night,
But