The cutting-out was to begin next week, and some of the best of my friends' numerous and splendid stud of horses had been brought in from the paddocks and fed up on hard food, so as to get them into good fettle and wind for the work.
At Brisbane and all the way up by Cob & Co.'s coach we had heard plenty of shaves about bushrangers, especially of one gang led by a scoundrel called Ginger, who, having been hunted over the border from New South Wales, was making things lively in Queensland; as if that colony had not sufficient blackguards of her own growth to look after. These shaves were confirmed at the small bush township, where we left the coach, by the solitary trooper in charge there, who informed my companion that the sergeant and other troopers were away on patrol after this bounder.
There was no telegraphic communication in those days, and all the information we could get was that Ginger's gang consisted of four, or it might be eight, men. So our traps having been placed in a light cart that had been sent for them, we mounted two slashing horses and rode the forty miles to the station, my friend hearing the news from his head stock-rider, named Blake, who had brought over the horses. This man, a splendid stamp of a Sidney-side Colonial, was convinced we should hear more of Mr Ginger, but feared we should be disappointed in our muster, as our neighbours, having to look after their own homes, would not come in for it.
Well, we reached the station, and I put in two days very contentedly indeed, picking and trying my horses, selecting a stock-whip and kit, and amusing myself generally, so much so that on the evening of the second day, after a good dinner, when we were sitting smoking under the verandah, I bothered my head not at all about Ginger. Presently one of my friends looked up and said: "Hallo, here's someone coming, and in no end of a hurry too." We looked and saw the township trooper riding as fast as he could get his horse to travel towards us. He reached us and dismounted, giving his pumped-out horse to one of the blacks who had come for it, and took and drank thankfully the proffered drink, then said: "Mr--Ginger is in the district, and I have been riding since yesterday morning giving the squatters notice to be on the qui vive. I left your station to the last, as the inspector knows you are well armed and your men are to be relied on."