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Carpentaria. Landsborough was now agent for the land he had opened up and was anxious to find settlers bold enough to start pioneering untried country hundreds of miles from civilization. It was not long before he realized that here were just the sort of men he was looking for, for apart from their natural love of adventure and longing to push out past all established frontiers, they had other reasons for wanting to leave the now closely settled districts in New South Wales.
    A new law, known as the Robertson Act, drawn up by a good man anxious to give the small settlers a chance against the often greedy big holders, had come into force in that State. All sorts of people had come flocking in to take advantage of the easy terms offered by the new Act. Some who honestly tried to clear and cultivate their land were defeated by a succession of bad seasons. Others came with no intention of trying at all, having hit on the idea of making such nuisances of themselves that the established holders would be forced to buy them out. Many of these so-called ‘freeselectors’ connived with the big holders merely to run up homesteads on their blocks while the original owners went on using the land as before. This state of affairs, known as ‘dummying’, not only ruined the good purpose of the Act but encouraged all sorts of other evils. Many of these ‘dummy’ selectors soon turned their shacks into grog houses and assisted horse and cattle thieves with wholesale plunder, while other free selectors built up herds of cattle overnight by ‘duffing’ or ‘moonlighting’ them from established holders. A well known ballad of the times tells the story very well:
    Â 
    â€˜When the moon has climbed the mountains and the stars are shining bright
    Then we saddle up our horses and away,
    And we yard the squatter’s cattle in the darkness of the night
    And we have the calves all branded by the day.
    Â 
    Chorus:
    Oh my pretty little calf,
    At the squatter you may laugh,
    For he’ll never be your owner any more;
    For you’re running, running on the duffer’s piece of land,
    Free selected on the Eumerella shore.
    Â 
    If we find a mob of horses when the paddock rails are down,
    Although before they’re never known to stray,
    Oh, quickly will we drive them to some distant inland town,
    And sell them into slav’ry far away.
    Chorus:
    To Jack Robertson we’ll say,
    You’ve been leading us astray,
    And we’ll never go a-farming any more;
    For it’s easier duffing cattle on a little piece of land,
    Free selected on the Eumerella shore.’
    Â 
    Bushrangers, for a time all but wiped out, became thick on the roads again so that no traveller was safe. These bad types included numbers of Irish from poor-houses and such institutions, who gave a bad name to the many good, hard-working Irish families, and Patsy and his brother-in-law felt that the happy, friendly spirit of earlier times was almost dead. They wanted desperately to get out, past the ever encroaching fences, the squabbling bush townships, the vicious little drinking houses, out of reach of the thieving dummy selectors and bushrangers—and start afresh.
    Landsborough and Buchanan told them that although the empty land to the far north of New South Wales was subject to droughts and was in many ways a hard country, they believed that those brave enough to take it up would soon make their fortunes. Properly handled, their cattle and houses would survive the bad times, and as the country revived almost miraculously after rain the stock would quickly fatten and bring a good price. They should not be discouraged to find the country at first in a poor state for in a good season there could be no richer pasture land in Australia, perhaps even in the world.

6
North of the Border
    E ARLY in June 1863 the little party set off from Goulburn with one hundred horses and four hundred head of breeding cattle. There was Patsy,