It was another ten years before I returned to the western country of NSW. After leaving school and working in a motor garage, I took a job as a travelling salesman for an agricultural fencing manufacturer. I not only called on retailers in the country towns, but often visited their client's as well. That led me off the beaten track more times than I can or want to remember.

Sometimes I would camp out, but mostly stopped over at the local hotel or anywhere I could get a bed for the night. It was those times in the tiny villages or isolated wayside establishments where I began to hear the stories of the bush again. Even though many of the tall tales were well worn, I still enjoyed listening to the hard faced old Bushmen recite a so-called local event.

I often wondered who wrote the essays in the first place. Were they taken from a book published by an author I never heard of, or were they really bush ballads only passed on by word of mouth? The storytellers seemed to know them off by heart and repeat them word for word if a stranger was prepared to listen. I have forgotten most of the stories and places by now, but a few still linger in my memory.

My first visit to the Horsemen's Inn happened by chance. I was hurrying back to Bourke from way out the other side of the Darling River late one afternoon when I came across a mob of kangaroos. They were grazing on the green pick in the roadside table drains and the six roos saw me at about the same time I saw them. I hit the brakes and swerved left and right between the surprised animals as they bounded in all directions.

I thought I did pretty well on the gravel road that felt like a carpet of marbles with all my wheels locked. The roos didn't help though and kept darting back and forth until I managed to pass them. There was only one problem; there were not six roos at all. There were seven of the blighters!

Bang! The horrible sound of a big red buck trying to change the shape of my car made me curse out loudly. Clatter, clatter! Even a worse sound I hoped isn't the fan blades chewing their way into the radiator. After stopping for an inspection about fifty paces down the road, my worst fears were realized. The roo was wedged all the way into the front of the car, fair and square between the headlights.

In normal circumstances, a driver would just pull over to the side of the road and wait for a passing motorist. You could rely on them giving you a lift or at least take a message to the garage in town. My only concern was, I hadn't seen another vehicle all day and it would soon be dark. I didn't have any food either, other than a gallon of water in the trunk. One never travels in the outback without water!

After accepting the fact I am stranded, I made myself comfortable on the back seat in preparation for spending the night there. About an hour or so later, a face peering though my car window awoke me. A local station hand just happened to be passing by and stopped to see if anyone is in my car.

The man was on his way to the "pub" as he called it. I didn't remember seeing one on the out bound trip and asked how far it is. He explained the pub is an old Cobb and Co changing station, built at a creek crossing on the now unused coach track. When they formed up and straightened the 'new' road, it by-passed the old building by half a mile. The station hand offered to tow me to the pub so I could ring the garage in town. I accepted his generous offer and nearly chocked in the billowing dust for the next five miles.

The pub looked like many others I had seen in this part of the world. Galvanised corrugated iron clad the roof and walls, covering the original mud and bark structure. There were several outbuildings that would have been stables in the old days, now converted into storerooms, a workshop and generator room. Without mains electricity, the hotel relied on a diesel engine to provide power for refrigeration and lighting. A couple of petrol pumps strategically placed between horse tethering rails butted up against a wooden veranda that ran along the front of the main building.

The publican could not be helpful enough. He arranged a meal and bed for me then rang the garage in town and ordered a new radiator to come out with the mailman the next day. I only found out later that my predicament was not uncommon; a lot of 'townies' hit roos around here and often end up at the pub for the night. The local patrons apparently got a kick out of finding stranded motorists and giving them a tow. A stranger in their midst would provide a new audience for the storytellers and be an unsuspecting target for the wags.

Some people might have found it strange to see whole families including children in a hotel barroom. Out there in the middle of nowhere, no one seemed to care and carried on as if it is normal. They all knew the local rules though and the publican had no hesitation in enforcing them. While on his premises, you obeyed his rules or got kicked out unceremoniously, so one of the patrons told me.

Of all the sights and going on, one thing stood out above everything else. The bar itself would have to be the highest one I'd ever seen; almost one and a half metres or five feet high in the old measurement. Children stood on the stools to reach their drinks or packets of crisps. Even some of the adults had to raise an elbow to rest it on the bar. My question as to why the bar is so high never got answered directly; more than often it only bought a grin to the face of a fellow drinker. When I asked the publican, he said the establishment was originally called the "Horsemen's Inn" and I would find out why sooner or later. I did, not long after I asked.

A loud commotion on the veranda outside followed by the door banging open made me spin around on my high stool. A stockman, still sitting in the saddle, rode his horse right into the barroom. Without dismounting, he ordered a pint of larger then swooped it off the bar to down the cold brew. After a second ale, the stockman departed as noisily as he arrived. No one said a word; they didn't need to. The smirks and cheeky grins said it all.

As the evening drew on and the crowd thinned, the publican and his wife joined the remaining few patrons and guest, me that is, at one end of the bar. In the very cosy and friendly atmosphere, we swapped a few yarns for a while until a hard faced old drover and his dog entered the barroom.

There was a strange air of silence as the drover fronted the bar and the publican got up to serve him. I wasn't to know he was one of the local wags and everyone there sat quietly for my benefit.

"Do you serve strangers in here?" The drover asked in a loud dry voice for all to hear.

"Yeah," the publican said as he rolled up his sleeves.

"Well, in that case, I'll have a beer for me and a stranger for my dog," the drover replied.

All eyes fell on me as I looked at the ugly dog curling its lip.

After their little joke, the publican introduced me to the drover and he joined our group at the end of the bar. The old drover remained silent for a while, but a little prompting from the others and the offer of free drinks, he agreed to tell me a story. Everyone suddenly sat as quiet as a mouse and I wondered why until he began to talk. He was a bush storyteller!