Up the Country: A Saga of Pioneering Days

The squattocracy of Maneroo was disturbed at that time by the appearance of several families who took up runs on the outward fringes of Healey's Little River station and Poole's Curradoobidgee, which met in rough and inaccessible country, known as Eagle Hawk Gullies, to the south. It was whispered that these people were not only escaped convicts but also practising bushrangers, and it quickly became clear, in fact, that at the very least they were out-and-out horse and cattle duffers. They had no visible means of support save a few horses and cattle, the numbers of which fluctuated too rapidly to be legitimate. Barney Logan and Sandy Burn, who appeared to be the leaders, purported to do a little stock dealing, but it was believed that this was merely a cover for their criminal activities, for they rode about the country without ever applying themselves to a potato or wheat patch, or to the planting of orchards and vegetable gardens, usually the first concern of genuine settlers. When they set up a house of accommodation in the most unlikely, out-of-the-way place, their neighbours had more than a suspicion that it was a sly-grog shanty and a fly-trap for the unwary.

Logan had a very pretty daughter who was the bait here. He also had a wife about whom many strange things were said--amongst which were that he had won her in a bet, and that she was not married to him because he had a legal wife whom he had sold to a former mate for a brace of revolvers and a five-gallon keg of rum. His ex-wife and his former mate, it was said, were now wealthy squatters out towards Goulburn.