Accordingly, one day having obtained shore leave, I purchased a new rig-out, and leaving my sea-going togs with the Jewish shopman, I made tracks, as the saying goes, into the Bush with all speed.

Happen what might, I was resolved that Captain Fairweather should not set eyes on George Fairfax again.
From that time onward my career was a strange one.

I became a veritable Jack-of-all-Trades.

A station-hand, a roust-about, shearer, assistant to a travelling hawker, a gold-miner, and at last a trooper in one of the finest bodies of men in the world, the Queensland Mounted Police.

It was in this curious fashion that I arrived at my real vocation.