The pictures were cut from old copies of the Illustrated Sydney News and pasted on to the bark. I remember this, because I remembered, long ago, the Spencers, who were our neighbours when I was a boy, had the walls of their bedroom covered with illustrations of the American Civil War, cut from illustrated London papers, and I used to ‘sneak’ into ‘mother’s bedroom’ with Fred Spencer whenever we got the chance, and gloat over the prints. I gave him a blade of a pocket-knife once, for taking me in there.
I saw very little of Spicer. He was a big, dark, dark-haired and whiskered man. I had an idea that he wasn’t a selector at all, only a ‘dummy’ for the squatter of the Cobborah run. You see, selectors were allowed to take up land on runs, or pastoral leases. The squatters kept them off as mu
