As straight as a mountain sapling, resolute, tall and brown,
was Scott of the Queensland Mounted, the Sergeant of Sunrise town;
and never a horse=thief flitted like a will-o’-the-wisp at night
but Scott of the Queensland Mounted rose fast on the tracks of his flight.
The stars in the midnight glistened and a west-wind gathered force
when Sunrise woke from its slumber to the beat of a black boy’s horse,
‘Come quick to the Pass!’ was the message, ‘Come to the Pass tonight,
for robbers are down on our horses and we haven’t the arms to fight.’
‘Outlaws among our horses-we rode on them unawares;
at sunset out in the Pocket they had drafted our colts and mares’
Old Cameron wrote the message: ‘I ordered the four from the run.
but they drove us out of the Pocket at the point of a loaded gun.’
Two troopers away from the township, both on their long patrols-
and Cameron out at the Pocket would die for his mares and foals!
So down the drifts of timber and over the tracts of stone
rode Scott of the Queensland Mounted to handle the job alone.
There’s a pass from the Emu Pocket that crosses the high divide,
but it’s slimy rocks in the darkness are a death-trap for those who ride,
When the sky to the eastward lightened and the hoofbeats came through the grass,
Jack Scott of the Queensland Mounted was guarding the rocky pass.
‘Halt in the’- the answer broke in on his sharp command;
and the bullets sang past his helmet and splintered the rock to sand,
and the echoes rang in the ranges; but who in the world could tame
the blood of a Queensland trooper when the rifles spat with flame?
Calmly, with pistols smoking, he walked through the hail of lead,
and then with the outlaws wounded and three of their horses dead,
he wiped the blood from his forehead with a tuft of the tall dead grass,
and Scott of the Queensland Mounted was King of the Emu Pass.
Old Cameron saddles a stockhorse that could run like a swift in flight,
and a black boy rode to the township with the news of the trooper’s fight;
and the people thronged on the roadway and cheered to the echo then
as Scott of the Queensland Mounted rode in with his captured men.
(Lex McLennan)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, World Poems, Night Poems, Kings & Queens Poems, People Poems, Running Poems, Horse Poems, Media & News Poems, Smoking PoemsBased on Keywords: cameron, the-wisp, patrols, foals, hoofbeats, death-trap, stockhorse