Cirrus@Austlit

Foreword: The story of the Yellow Cygnet is created largely from reality. It might be likened to a piece of self-coloured fabric - shall we say a silken-blue - through which is woven a thread of scarlet. The blue is verity; the scarlet is fiction. Care has been taken that the characters dealt with by adverse word may not be identified with any living person. Purely fictitious names are given, and where a similarity may occur it would be accidental, not intended. In respect to the incidents peculiar to the life of a prospector, the author himself spent two of his youthful years among the pioneers on the goldfields of Coolgardie.