beside the slow flowing bushland creek
lay the body of a stock man who's build twas sleek
his remains were not found in eighteen ninety two
though a search for him did for days ensue

the mount he twas riding had been given a scare
by something that moved in the prickly pear
a heavy fall he took to the hardened soil
where his head bled in a torrential scarlet coil

on the sixteenth of May in nineteen eighty three
a bush walker stumbled upon the stock man's body
he found a tobacco tin in the creeks silted dirt
along with the remnants of his trousers and shirt

for years his family had waited to hear good news
that he'd been discovered within the bush land's muse
but of his passing they were told at a later date
a brown snake moving in the prickly pear sealed his fate