An ex police officer (O'Connor), who started business in Burketown, and who hailed from the land of the shamrock, knew many of the "boys," as he called them. One noted character broke out of the lock-up, swam the Albert River, swarming with alligators, got a horse somewhere or somehow, and was followed by Mr. W. D'Arcy Uhr far into New South Wales, and brought back to Burketown, only to be discharged, whilst Mr. Uhr, who was one of the smartest officers of the police was asked for an explanation for leaving his district without permission. The following case of horse-stealing will serve to show the lawless state of things prevailing in the outside regions when the borders of civilisation were undefined, and no laws could be enforced. Three men were implicated, all notorious characters, even for those days. They were called Dublin Bob, Firearm Jack, and One-armed Scotty. They had spent some time mustering the horses and in building yards to hold them, on Bowen Downs run. As soon as the theft was discovered, they were followed by Mr. J. T. C. Ranken, the manager, Mr. J. Moffat, Junior, a blackfellow, Jacky, and another man. They overtook the horse-stealers on the range near Betts' Gorge, took possession of the horses, and arrested the thieves, as Mr. Ranken and the other white men had been sworn in as specials before starting. As they were riding along, Mr. Ranken saw a horse down a gorge that he thought he recognised, and leaving the prisoners in charge of the others, giving them strict instructions to guard them carefully, he went to look at the horse. On returning, he found the men had escaped, and no satisfactory explanation was ever given as to their departure. This was in the year 1866, when there was a great demand for horses in consequence of so much stock being driven to take up new country. In the previous year, 1865, the first sheep were brought on to Bowen Downs, and another mob of cattle was sent out to the Gulf country in charge of J. Neil, who stocked the country on the Alexandra, a tributary of the Leichhardt River, where there was a large waterhole ten or twelve miles long. The Mud Hut on the Thomson had to be abandoned owing to the scarcity of grass and the waterhole drying up before the end of the year. The year 1865 was a very dry one on the Thomson, the Barcoo, and the Flinders--waterholes went dry that year that have never gone dry in the thirty-five years that have followed. Law and order in those days was a "go-as-you-please" sort of arrangement. At a shanty about twenty-five miles from Burketown, a man was shot by the keeper of the shanty, and died. The man was prosecuted, but owing to his detention waiting trial, and his long sea voyage west about the Leeuwin, and other extenuating circumstances in the case, the man being compelled to keep order in a lonely place amongst a very disorderly crowd, he got off.