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Se
he
decided
he
wanted
to
be
the
boss
cocky
,
the
man
who
strolled
up
and
down
the
lines
of
stooping
shearers
to
watch
the
fleeces
he
owned
being
stripped
away
by
that
smooth
,
flawless
motion
.
At
the
end
of
the
floor
in
his
cane-bottomed
chair
Sits
the
boss
of
the
board
with
his
eyes
everywhere
.
That
was
what
the
old
shearing
song
said
,
and
that
was
who
Luke
O'Neill
decided
to
be
.
The
boss
cocky
,
the
head
peanut
,
the
grazier
,
the
squatter
.
Not
for
him
the
perpetual
stoop
,
the
elongated
arms
of
a
lifelong
shearer
;
he
wanted
the
pleasure
of
working
out
in
the
open
air
while
he
watched
the
money
roll
in
.
Only
the
prospect
of
becoming
a
dreadnought
shearer
might
have
kept
Luke
inside
a
shed
,
one
of
the
rare
handful
of
men
who
managed
to
shear
over
three
hundred
merino
sheep
a
day
,
all
to
standard
,
and
using
narrow
boggis
.
They
made
fortunes
on
the
side
by
betting
.
But
unfortunately
he
was
just
a
little
too
tall
,
those
extra
seconds
bending
and
ducking
mounted
up
to
the
difference
between
gun
and
dreadnought
.
His
mind
turned
within
its
limitations
to
another
method
of
acquiring
what
he
hungered
for
;
at
about
this
stage
in
his
life
he
discovered
how
attractive
he
was
to
women
.
His
first
try
had
been
in
the
guise
of
a
stockman
on
Gnarlunga
,
as
that
station
had
an
heir
who
was
female
,
fairly
young
and
fairly
pretty
.
It
had
been
sheer
bad
luck
that
in
the
end
she
preferred
the
Pommy
jackaroo
whose
more
bizarre
exploits
were
becoming
bush
legend
.
From
Gnarlunga
he
went
to
Bingelly
and
got
a
job
breaking
horses
,
his
eye
on
the
homestead
where
the
aging
and
unattractive
heiress
lived
with
her
widowed
father
.
Poor
Dot
,
he
had
so
nearly
won
her
;
but
in
the
end
she
had
fallen
in
with
her
father
's
wishes
and
married
the
spry
sexagenarian
who
owned
the
neighboring
property
.
These
two
essays
cost
him
over
three
years
of
his
life
,
and
he
decided
twenty
months
per
heiress
was
far
too
long
and
boring
.
It
would
suit
him
better
for
a
while
to
journey
far
and
wide
,
continually
on
the
move
,
until
within
this
much
larger
sweep
he
found
another
likely
prospect
.
Enjoying
himself
enormously
,
he
began
to
drove
the
Western
Queensland
stock
routes
,
down
the
Cooper
and
the
Diamantina
,
the
Barcoo
and
the
Bulloo
Overflow
dwindling
through
the
top
corner
of
western
New
South
Wales
.
He
was
thirty
,
and
it
was
more
than
time
he
found
the
goose
who
would
lay
at
least
part
of
his
golden
egg
.
Everyone
had
heard
of
Drogheda
,
but
Luke
's
ears
pricked
up
when
he
discovered
there
was
an
only
daughter
.
No
hope
she
'd
inherit
,
but
perhaps
they
'd
want
to
dower
her
with
a
modest
100,000
acres
out
around
Kynuna
or
Winton
.
This
was
nice
country
around
Gilly
,
but
too
cramped
and
forested
for
him
.
Luke
yearned
for
the
enormity
of
far
western
Queensland
,
where
the
grass
stretched
into
infinity
and
trees
were
mostly
something
a
man
remembered
as
being
vaguely
eastward
.
Just
the
grass
,
on
and
on
and
on
with
no
beginning
and
no
end
,
where
a
man
was
lucky
to
graze
one
sheep
for
every
ten
acres
he
owned
.
Because
sometimes
there
was
no
grass
,
just
a
flat
desert
of
cracked
,
panting
black
soil
.
The
grass
,
the
sun
,
the
heat
and
the
flies
;
to
each
man
his
own
kind
of
heaven
,
and
this
was
Luke
O'Neill
's
.
He
had
prised
the
rest
of
the
Drogheda
story
out
of
Jimmy
Strong
,
the
AML&F
stock-and-station
agent
who
drove
him
out
that
first
day
,
and
it
had
been
a
bitter
blow
to
discover
the
Catholic
Church
owned
Drogheda
.
However
,
he
had
learned
how
few
and
far
between
female
heirs
to
properties
were
;
when
Jimmy
Strong
went
on
to
say
that
the
only
daughter
had
a
nice
little
cash
sum
of
her
own
and
many
doting
brothers
,
he
decided
to
carry
on
as
planned
.
