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ghost. Farley is reported to have raised himself up on one elbow, looked his friend straight in the eye and said: ‘I’m a dying man, Mr Chisholm. I’ll speak only the truth. I saw that ghost as plainly as I see you now.’

7.
The Mystery of the Min Min
    But now the lonely diggers say,
    That sometimes at the close of day,
    They see a misty wraith flash by,
    With the faint echo of a cry.
    It may be true; perhaps they do.
    I doubt it much; but what say you?
    The Demon Snow-shoes , Barcroft Boake
(Australian bush poet, 1866–1892)
    There have been reports of ‘ghost’ lights appearing all over rural Australia since the beginning of white settlement (and probably before), but the ‘Min Min’ is the grand-daddy of all such lights — the one everybody’s heard of and every bushman claims to have seen. ‘Min Min’ is an Aboriginal word (for what no one is absolutely sure) but the light was not named by Aborigines. According to legend, it was named after the Min Min Hotel on the old coach road between Winton and Boulia in central western Queensland, where it first appeared. There is, however, some doubt as to whether the light was named after the hotel or the hotel after the light.
    â€˜Hotel’ is far too grand a title for the timber and corrugated iron shanty built about a century and a quarter ago to serve as a way-station for Cobb & Co. coaches. Most such places had bad reputations but the Min Min had the worst of any in the region. It reputedly served rot-gut liquor at exorbitant prices, doubled as a brothel and was the haunt of thieves, cattlerustlers and other assorted villains. Legend insists that many travellers and naïve jackaroos disappeared there and that the small cemetery behind the hotel was conveniently provided to bury the evidence. So infamous did the Min Min become that someone put a match to it one dark night in 1917 and it burned to the ground … or so the legend goes.
    Reliable records, if they existed, would probably disprove most of the above and reveal a much more mundane history for this miserable little hostelry. Records do show the name of the last proprietor — a Mrs Hasted — but there is no real evidence that she presided over a branch office of Sodom or Gomorrah. Records also show that there were devastating bushfires in the district in 1917 (Mrs Hasted’s brother was badly burned fighting one), so it seems more likely that nature disposed of the Min Min Hotel than a human avenger.
    The generally accepted story of the first sighting of the Min Min Light belongs to later the same year, when a hysterical stockman burst into Boulia police station at around midnight one night gabbling about being chased by a ghost. After the local constable calmed him down, the stockman told how he had been riding past the ruins of the Min Min Hotel at about 10 pm when a ball of light suddenly rose from the middle of the cemetery, hovered as if getting its bearings, then darted towards him. The stockman panicked, dug his boots in and galloped towards Boulia. Several times he looked over his shoulder and the light was still there. It followed him to the outskirts of the town then disappeared. (Sceptics who know the region may well wonder how the horse and rider managed to cover 100 kilometres in two hours — but let’s not spoil a good story.)
    In 1961, a reported sighting from 1912, predating the above (and the destruction of the hotel) by five years came to light. Henry Lamond, one-time manager of Warenda station onwhose land the hotel stood, claimed that he had seen the light in the winter of that year. Its appearance had at first alarmed him, but when he realised his horse was quite unperturbed by it Lamond decided his own fear was unwarranted.
    There have been so many reported sightings since then that it would take most of this book to recount them all. Station owners and managers, policemen, ministers of religion, school teachers,