Our 'bush telegraphs' were safe to let us know when the 'traps' were closing in on us, and then--why the coach would be 'stuck up' a hundred miles away, in a different direction, within twenty-four hours.

Marston's gang again! The police are in pursuit! That's what we'd see in the papers.

We had 'em sent to us regular; besides having the pick of 'em when we cut open the mail bags.
And now--that chain rubbed a sore, curse it!--all that racket's over.
It's more than hard to die in this settled, infernal, fixed sort of way, like a bullock in the killing-yard, all ready to be 'pithed'.

I used to pity them when I was a boy, walking round the yard, pushing their noses through the rails, trying for a likely place to jump, stamping and pawing and roaring and knocking their heads against the heavy close rails, with misery and rage in their eyes, till their time was up.
Nobody told THEM beforehand, though! Have I and the likes of me ever felt much the same, I wonder, shut up in a pen like this, with the rails up, and not a place a rat could creep through, waiting till our killing time was come?
The poor devils of steers have never done anything but ramble off the run now and again, while we--but it's too late to think of that.

It IS hard.