The Red Warder Of The Reef by John Arthur Barry

Meanwhile, above them in the prison over which her father reigned supreme, a man sat in the condemned cell waiting for death. From far inland they had brought him, captured by the Black Police, after much hunting of that wild land where the Big Lignum Swamp runs up nearly to the spurs of the Basalt Ranges.

-"Combo" Carter, so called because of his habit of at times associating with the blacks, and for long spells living as one of a tribe, was still quite a young man--not yet three-and-twenty. Born at one of the border townships of the hinterland, even as a boy he had begun his career by gaining the reputation of an expert horse thief. Moving farther out, he and a gang of other rogues had "lived on the game," as they termed it, i.e., stealing stock and taking them South for sale. But this business proving too tame for a born desperado like Carter, he, one day, made his appearance in his birthplace bent on bigger mischief. Quite alone, mounted on a splendid horse, and with a couple of revolvers stuck in his belt; cabbage-tree hat at the back of his head; blue-shirt, riding-breeches and boots, he rode down the dusty single street of the little township that lay roasting in the fierce western sun. Halting in front of the weather-board branch bank of Cooksland, he swaggered inside, and at once covering the manager with his pistol, ordered him to "bail up."