SIMBA’S DISAPPEARANCE

Taranaki Daily News, 12 January 1932, Page 4

SIMBA’S DISAPPEARANCE

A DROVER’S DISCOVERY. Support for the belief that the mysterious Simlba has been “in emoke” in Queensland since his theft is contained in the story of a drover recently in Brisbane, states the Sydney Referee. This drover was travelling cattle down from the Gulf country to Gharleville, and, when rid of his herd at the latter town, decided he had earned a week or two of recreation among the city lights in Brisbane. So he started off with his saddle and pack horses to ride the 435 miles to town.

A few days later, towards nightfall, as he was keeping a 1-qok-out for water to camp at, his saddle horse suddenly whinnied, and, an answering whinny coming from a neighbouring clump of timber, he was prompted to investigate. There, well hidden from view from the road, a man was camped with an aristo-cratic-looking bay gelding. It seemed rather a good sort of horse for a bushman, and he thought it indeed strange to see a horse being fed from a bag of chaff in such a place when there was so much grass feed about. But bushmen learn not to ask pointed questions. So he refrained from showing unusual interest in the horse, although he took a mental picture of its points. Next morning he was on his way at daybreak, and a week later reached Brisbane.

• The meeting with this strangely reticent man and his unusual thoroughbred companion in that clump of timber stuck in the drover’s mind. He turned it over and over in his brain along the monotonous miles to town. Like most bushmen, he was a man who read the racing news, and he knew something of Simba and hie strange disappearance. It was quite natural, therefore, that he should make inquiries about Simba, and when he was shown the published description of the gelding he declared definitely it was the horse he had seen in the bush.