Willo was out on the Lachlan Side
With a thousand pounds on his head,
A score of troopers scattered wide,
And a hundred more were ready to ride
Wherever a rumour led.
The outlaw stole like a hunted fox,
Through the scrub and stunted heath
And peered like a hawk from his eyrie rocks
Through the waving boughs of the sapling box
On the troopers riding beneath.
His clothes were rent by the clutching thorn,
And his blistered feet were bare;
Ragged and torn, with his beard unshorn,
He hid in the woods like a beast forelorn,
With a padded path to his lair.
And the outlaw followed the lone path back
With food for another day;
And the kindly darkness covered his track,
And the shadows swallowed him deep and black,
Where the starlight melted away.
