THE OVERLANDER 195 



parently to avoid being entangled with the cattle on 

 stations passed on the orthodox track. His men, panic 

 stricken by the abandonment of the rivers-route, sud- 

 denly forsook him in a body as soon as he got beyond 

 the more settled country. Aided only by a blackboy 

 and his dogs, this original Overlander persevered with 

 his plan, and, driving them slowly or fast, according 

 to the state of the herbage, brought his cattle to Adelaide 

 with but shght loss and in improved condition.* 



More daring trips still were undertaken. A free- 

 booter of the type of Rob Roy gave an example of High- 

 land cattle-lifting on a large scale. Taking 1,000 head 

 from a station on the Thomson river, in Northern 

 Queensland, he drove them by Cooper's Creek and the 

 Barcoo to Adelaide, where they were sold by auction. 

 Had the robber not taken a white stud bull from a 

 station on the Darling Downs, he might have escaped 

 detection, but he was tried for his crime. There must 

 have been at Roma some of the sympathy the Highland 

 cateran or the Border freebooter usually found in his 

 neighbourhood, for he was acquitted. By way of 

 punishment, it is stated, the district was deprived of 

 its circuit court. f 



* Babtley, Australian Pioneers and Reminiscences, pp. 189- 

 90. 



t Ibid., pp. 188-9. 



