 CHAPTER 30 WE MADE UP OUR MINDS TO START BY SATURDAY'S COACH. IT LEFT AT NIGHT AND TRAVELED NIGHT 100 MILES BY THE SAME HOUR NEXT MORNING. IT'S MORE CONVENIENT FOR GETTING AWAY THAN THE MORNING. A CHAPTER IS TIME FOR DOING ALL KINDS OF THINGS JUST AS HE WOULD LIKE. BESIDES A QUIETER TIME TO SLOP THAN JUST AFTER BREAKFAST. THE TURON DAILY MAIL WAS WELL HORSED AND WELL DRIVEN. NIGHTWORK THOUGH IT WAS AND THE ROADS DANGEROUS IN PLACES. THE FIVE BIG DOUBLE REFLECTOR LAMPS, ONE HIGH UP OVER THE TOP OF THE COACH IN THE MIDDLE, WITH TWO PAIR MORE AT THE SIDE, MADE EVERYTHING PLANE. WE CORN STOCKS NEVER THOUGHT OF MORE THAN THE REGULAR PAIR OF LAMPS, PRETTY LOW DOWN TOO, BEFORE THE YANKY CAME AND SHOWED US WHAT CROSS COUNTRY COACHING WAS. WE NEVER KNEW BEFORE. MY WORD THEY TOUGHT US A TRICK OR TWO. ALL ABOUT RIDING CAME NATURAL, BUT A HEAP OF DOCHES ABOUT HARNESS WE NEVER SO MUCH HAS HEARD OF, TO LAY CAME TO THE COUNTRY WITH THE GOLD RUSH. WE MADE ALL OUR BITS OF PREPARATIONS AND THOUGHT NOTHING STOOD IN OUR WAY OF A START NEXT EVENING. THIS WAS FRIDAY. JIM HADN'T SOLD HIS BITS OF TRAPS BECAUSE HE DIDN'T WANT IT TO BE KNOWN, HE WASN'T COMING BACK. HE LEFT WORLD WITH A FRIEND HE COULD TRUST THOUGHT, I HAVE HIM ALL AUCTIONED IN THE GOOD WILL OF HIS COACH, AND ASSEND THE MONEY AFTER HIM. MY SHARING HIS AND THE CLAIM WENT TO ARIZONA BILL AND HIS MATE. WE HAD NO CALL TO BE ASHAIMED TO THE MONEY THAT STOOD TO OUR CREDIT IN THE BANK, THAT WE INTENDED TO DRAW OUT AND TO TAKE WITH US IN AN ORDER OR DRAFT OR SOMETHING TO MELBURN. Jeannie had her boxes packed and was so wild with looking forward to seeing St. Kilda Beach again that she could hardly sleep or eat as the time drew near. Friday night came. Everything had been settled. It was the last night we should either have spent at the Turan for many a day, perhaps never. I walked up and down the street, smoking and thinking it all over. The idea of bed was ridiculous. How wonderful it all seemed! After what we'd gone through and the state we were in less than a year ago, to think that we were within so little of being clear away and safe forever in another country, with as much as would keep us comfortable for life. I could see Gracie, Eileen and Jeannie, all so peaceful and loving together with poor old mother, who had lost her old trick of listening and trembling whenever she heard a strange step at the tread of a horse. What a glorious state of things it would be! A deal of it was owing to the gold, this wonderful gold. But for it, we shouldn't have had such a chance in a hundred years. I was that restless I couldn't settle when I thought all of a sudden, as I walked up and down, that I'd promised to go and say goodbye to Kate Mollison at the prospector's arms the night before we started. I thought for a moment whether it be safer to let it alone. I had a strange unwilling kind of feeling about going there again. But at last, half not knowing what else to do and half not caring to make an enemy of Kate if I could help it, I walked up. It was late-ish. She was standing near the bar, talking to half a dozen people at once as usual. But I saw she noticed me at once. She quickly drew off a bit from them all, said it was near shutting up time, and after a while passed through the bar into the little parlor where I was sitting down. It was just midnight. The night was half over before I thought of coming in. So when she came in and seated herself near me on the sofa, I heard the clock strike twelve, and most of the men who were walking about the hall began to clear out. Somehow, when you've been living in a place for a good-ish while and done well there, and had friends as stuck by you as we had the tour on, you feel sorry to leave it. What you've done you're sure of, no matter how it may have suit you in some ways, nor how much better you expect to be off where you're going to. You have that and have the good of it. What the coming time may bring, you can't reckon on. All kinds of cross-luck and accidents may happen. What's the use of money to a man if he smashes his hip and has to walk with a crutch all his days? I've seen a miner with a thousand a month coming in, but he'd been crushed pretty near to death with a fall of earth, and about half of him was dead. What's a good dinner to a man that his doctor only allows him one slice of meat, a bit of bread, and some toast and water? I've seen chaps like them, and I'd sooner a deal be the poorest splitter slogging away with a heavy mall and able, mind you, to swing it like a man than one of those broken-down screws. We'd had a good time there, Gemini. We always had a kind spot in our hearts for tour on and the diggings afterwards. Hard work, high pay, good friends that would stick to a man back and edge, and a safe country to lie and plant as ever was seen. We was both middling sorry in a manner of speaking to clear out. Not, as Gem said, much about it on account of Gemini, but he thought it all the same. Well, of course, Kate and I got talkin' and talkin' first about the diggings and then about other things, till we got to old times in Melbourne, and she began to look miserable and miserable-er. Whenever she spoke about marrying the old man and wished she'd drowned at herself first, she made me take a whiskey, a stiffish one, that she mixed herself for a parting glass, and I felt it took a bit of effect upon me. I'd been having my whack during the day. I wasn't no way as drunk, but I must've been touched more or less, because I felt myself to be so sober. You're going at last, Dick, she said, and I suppose we shan't meet again in a hurry. It was something to have a look at you now and then. It reminded me of a happy old times at St. Kilda. Oh, come on, Kate. I said it wasn't quite so bad as all that. Besides, we'll be back again in February, as like as not. We're not goin' forever. Are you telling me the truth, Richard Marston, as she's standing up and fixing her eyes full on me? Fine eyes, they were, too, in their way. Or are you trying another deceit to throw me off the set and get rid of me? Why should you ever want to see my face after you leave? A friendly face is always pleasant, anyway. Kate, yours is. Though you did play me a sharpest trick once and didn't stick to me like some women might have done, tell me this, she said, leaning forward and putting one hand on my shoulder. Well, she seemed to look through the very soul of me. Her face grew deadly pale and her lips trembled, as I'd seen them do once before when she was regular beyond herself. Will you take me with you when you go for good and all? I'm ready to follow you round the world. Don't be afraid of my temper. No woman that ever lived ever did more for the man she loved than I'll do for you. If Jeannie's good to Jim, then you know she is. I'll be twice the woman to you where I'll die for it. Don't speak, she went on. I know I threw you over once. I was mad with rage and shame. You know I had cause, hadn't I, Dick? You know I had. Despite you, I threw away my own life, then. Now it's a misery and a torment to me every day I live. I can't bear it no longer. I tell you, it's killing me, killing me day by day. Only say the word and I'll join you in Melbourne within the week to be yours and yours only as long as I live. I didn't think there was that much of the loving nature about her. She used to vex me by being hard and uncertain when we were courting. I knew then she cared about me and I hadn't a doubt about any other woman. But when I didn't ask her to bother herself about me and only to let me alone and go her own way, she must turn the tables on me and went to ruin the pair of a slap over again. She'd thrown her arms around my neck and was sobbing on my shoulder when she finished. I took her over to the sofa and made her sit down by the side of me. Kate, I said, this won't do. There's neither rhyme nor reason about it. I must fond of you as ever I was, but you must know well enough. If you make a bolt of it now, there'll be no end of a bobbery. And everybody's thoughts will be turned our way. We'll be clean bowls with a lot of us. Jim and I'll be chugged. You and Jeannie will be left to the mercy of the world worse off by a precious sight than ever you were in your lives. Now, if you look at it, what's the good of spoiling the whole Jim Bang for a fancy notion about me? You and I are safe to be first-rate friends always, but it'll be the ruin of both of us if we're fools enough to want to be more. You're living here like a regular queen. You've got a good husband that's proud of you and gives you everything you can think of. You took him yourself, and you're bound to stick to him. Besides, think of poor Jeannie and Jim. He'll spoil all their happiness and, more than all, don't make any mistake. You know what Jeannie thinks of a woman who leaves her husband for another man. If you let a woman have a regular good cry and talk herself out, you can mostly bring a round in the end. So after a bit, Kate grew more reasonable. That bit about Jeannie fetched her too. She knew her own sister would turn against her, not harsh like, but she'd never be the same to her again as long as she lived. The lamp had been put out in the big hall. There was only one in this parlor, and it wasn't over bright. I talked away, and last of all, she came round to my way of thinking at any rate, not to want to clear off from the old man now, but to wait till I came back or till I wrote to her. You are right, Dick, she said at last, and you show your sense in talking the way you have. Though if you loved as I do, you could not do it. But once more, there's no other woman that you're fonder of than me. It isn't that that makes you so good. Dick Marston, good. And here she laughed bitterly. If I thought that, I should go mad. What was I to do? I could not tell her that I loved Gracie Storfield ten times as much as I'd ever cheated myself into thinking I cared about her. So I swore that I cared more for her than any woman in the whole world and always had done so. This steadied her. We parted good friends, and she promised to keep quiet and try to make the best of things. She turned up the lamp to show me the way out, though the outer door of the hall was left open night and day. It was a way we had at the torrent. Nobody troubled themselves to be particular about such trifles as furniture and so on. There was very small robbery there. It was not worthwhile. All petty stealers were mostly severely punished into the bargain. As I stood up to say goodbye, a small note dropped out of my breast pocket. It had shifted somehow. Kate always had an eye like a hawk. With one spring she prounced upon it and before I could interfere, opened and read it. It was Gracie Storfield's. She stood for one moment and glared in my face. I thought she had gone mad. Then she threw the bit of paper down and trampled upon it over and over again. So, Dick Marston, she cried out hoarsely, her very voice changed. You have tricked me a second time, your own Gracie, your own Gracie. And this by the date at the very time you were letting me persuade myself like a fool, like an idiot that I was that you still cared for me. You have put the cap to your villainy now, and as God made me, you shall have cause, good cause, to fear the woman you were once betrayed and twice scorned. Look to yourself. She gazed at me for a moment with a face from which every trace of expression had vanished, except that of the most devilish fury and spite, the face of an evil spirit more than of a woman. And then she walked slowly away. I couldn't help pitting her, though I cursed my own folly as I had done a thousand times that I had ever turned my head or spoken a word to her. When first she crossed my path, I got into the street somehow. I hardly knew what to think or to do. That danger was close on our heels. I didn't doubt for a moment. Everything seemed changed in a minute. What was going to happen? Was I the same Dick Marston that had been strolling up Main Street a couple of hours ago? All but off by the tomorrow evening's coach, and with all the world before me, a good round sum of the bag, the best part of a year's hard honest work it was the price up to. Then all kinds of thoughts came into my head. Would Kate, when her burst of rage was over, go in for revenge and cold blood? She could hardly strike me without, at the same time, hurting Jeannie through Jim. Should I trust her? Would she come right, kiss and make friends, and call herself a madwoman, a reckless fool, had she'd often done before? No. She was in bitter earnest this time. It did not pay to be slack in making off. Once we'd been caught napping, and once was enough. The first thing to do was to warn Jim, poor old Jim, snoring away most like, and dreaming of taking the box seat for himself and Jeannie at the agents next morning. It seemed cruel to wake him, but it would have been cruel or not to do so. I walked up the narrow track that led to the little gully with the moon shining down upon the white quartz rock. The pathway wound through a blow of it. I threw a pebble at the door and waited till Jim came out. Who's there? Oh, it's you old man, is it? It's rather late for a call, but if you come to spend the evening, I'll get up and we'll have a smoke anyhow. You dress yourself, Jim, I said, as quick as you can. Put on your hat and come with me. There's something up. My God, says Jim, what is it? I'm a rank coward. Now I've got Jeannie. Don't go and tell me you've got to cut and run again. Something like it, I said. It hasn't come to that yet. It's not far off. We walked up the gully together. Jim lit his pipe, and I told him shortly what had happened to me with Kate. May the devil fly away with her, says Jim Savagely, for a bad-minded bad-hearted jade. And then he'd wish he'd left her where she was. She'd be no chop down there even. I think sometimes she can't be Jeannie's sister at all. They must have changed her and mothered the wrong child on the old woman. My word, but it's no laughing matter. What's to be done? Well, there's no going away by the coach tomorrow, I'm afraid. She'd just the woman to tear straight up the cap and let it all out before her temper cooled. It would take a week to do that. The Sergeant or Sir Ferdinand knows all about it now. They'll lose no time, you may be certain. Then must I leave without saying good night to Jeannie? Says Jim. No, my God. If I have half a dozen bullets through me, I'll go back and hold her in my arms once more before I'm hunted off and through the country like a wild dog once more. If that infernal Kate has given us away by George, I could go and kill her with my own hand. A cruel murdering selfish brute. I believe she'd poison her mother for a ten pound note. No, you swearing at Kate, Jim, I said. That won't meant matters. It's not the first time by a thousand that I wished I'd never set eyes on her. But if I'd never seen her that day on St. Kilda Beach, you'd never know cheating. So there's evens as well as odds. The thing is, what are we to do now? Dashed if I know, I feel stupid about tackling the bush again. And what can I do with Jeannie? I wish I was dead. I have half a mind to go and shoot that brute of a woman and then myself, but then poor Jeannie, poor little Jeannie, I can't stand it, Dick, I shall go mad. I thought Jim was going to break out crying just as he used when he was a boy. His heart was a big soft one, though he could face anything on the way of work or fighting that a man dared to and do two men's share very like. Yet his tears, mother said, laid very near his eyes. Until he was a grown man, they used to pump up on all sorts of occasions. Come, be a man, Jim, I said. You've got to look the thing in the face. There's no two ways about it. I shall go to Arizona Bill's claim and see what he says. Anyhow, I'll leave word with him what to do when we're gone. I'd advise you not to try to see Jeannie. But if you will, you must, I suppose. Goodbye, old man. I shall make my way over to Jonathan's borrower horse from him and make tracks for the hollow as soon as I can. You'd better leave Jeannie here and do the same. Jim groaned but said nothing. He rung by hands till the bones seemed to crack and walked away without a word. We knew it was a chance whether we should meet again. I walked on pretty quick till I came to the flat where Arizona Bill and his mates had their sleucing claim. There were six of them all together. Tall, wiry men, all of them. They'd mostly been hunters and trappers in the Rocky Mountains before the gold was struck at Sutter's Mill in the Sacramento Valley. They'd been digging in 49 in California but had come over when they heard from an old mate of a place who diggings a toron richer than anything they'd ever tried in America. This camp was half a mile from ours and there was a bit of broken ground between so that I thought I was safe in having a word with them before I cleared for Barnes's Place. Though I took care not to go near our own camp hut. I walked over and was making straight for the smallest hut when a rough voice hailed me. Hello, stranger? Come darn near going to hell with your boots on. What did you want again with our cabin? I saw that in my hurry I'd gone stumbling against a small hut where they generally put their gold when the party had been washing up and had more than was safe to start from camp with. In this they always put a grizzled old hunter about whom the yarn was that he never went to sleep and could shoot anything a mile off. It was thought a very unlikely thing that any gold he watched would ever go crooked. Most people considered him a deal saver, caretaker, than the escort. Oh, it's you, is it? Grawled Sacramento Joe. What's doing at your old camp? What about? Well, Bill and I seen three or four half-baked vigilantes that call themselves police. There was a setting round the hut and looking as if they was waiting for somebody. Tell Bill I want him, Joe, I said. Can't leave guard know-how, says the true grid old hunter pointing to his revolver, and dodging up and down with his lame leg, a crooked arm and a seam in his face like a terrible wound there sometime or other. I darsened leave guard. You'll find him in that center tent with the red flag on it. I lifted the canvas flap of the door and went in. Bill raised himself in the bed and looked at me quite coolly. I was to your location a while since, he said. Met some friends of yours there, too. I didn't cotton to him much. Something has eventuated, is that so? Yes, I want your help. I told him shortly all I could tell him in the time. He listened quietly and made no remark for a time. So you have been a road agent. You and Jim, that darn innocent old cost. Robin males and cattle wrenches, huh? It was a real scoop up for me, you bet. I ain't here in a bush-ranging in Australia, but I never reckoned on there being men like you and Jim. So the matracha went back on your snakes alive, I kind of expected it. I reckon you're bound to get. Yes, Bill sharps the word. I want you to draw my money and Jim's out of the bank. It's all in my name. There's the deposit receipt. I'll back it over to you. You give Jeannie what she wants and send the rest when I tell you. Will you do that for me, Bill? I've always been on the square with you and your mates. You have, boy, that I'll not deny. And I'll cut aisle the dollars for you. It's an all-fired must that men like you and Jim should have a black mark again your record. A spry hunter Jim would have made. I'd laid out to have had him in Arizona yet. And you're going to dust out right away, you say. I'm off now. Jim's waiting too long, I expect. One other thing, let Mr. Hoppen across the creek have this before daylight. What, the honorable? Nawful heart. Well, I hope you must strike a better trail yet. You're young, you and Jim. Poor old Jim. Hold on, have you nearly shooting iron? No time, I said. I haven't been to the camp. Go slow, then, wait here. You'll want something maybe on the peradio. If you do, boy, Jim made good shooting with this, you mind. Take it and welcome. It'll mind you of old Arizona Bill. He handed me a beautifully finished little repeating rifle, hardly heavier than a navy revolver and a small bag of cartridges. There, that'll be company for you, in case you have to draw a bead on anyone, just temporarily like. Our horses is hobbled and baits is clearing. Take my old sorrow if you can catch him. He sopped for a second and put his hand in a listening fashion. His hunter's ear was quicker than mine. There's a war party on the trail, I reckon. That's a roughish cross on its slaty bar when he pointed toward the river, which we could plainly hear rushing over a rocky bed. We shook hands. As I turned down the steep river bank, I saw him walk slowly into his tent and close the canvas after him. The line he pointed to was the one I fixed in my own mind to take long before our talk was over. The toron, always steep banked, rocky in places, ran here under an awful high bluff of slate rock. The rushing water in its narrow channel had worn away the rock a good deal and left ledges or bars under which a deal of gold had been found. Easy enough to cross here on a kind of a natural forward. We had many a time walked over on Sundays and holidays for a little kangaroo shooting now and then. It was here, Jim, one day when we were all together for a ramble, surprised the Americans by his shooting with the little ballard rifle. As I crossed there was just moon enough to show the deep pools and the hurrying, tearing waters of a wild river, foaming betwixt the big boulders and jags of rock which the bar was strewn with. In front the bank rose 300 feet like the roof of a house with great overhanging crags of slate rock and a narrow track in and out between. If I had light enough to find this and get to the top, the country was terribly rough for a few miles with the darkness coming on, I should be pretty well out of reach by daylight. I had just struck the track when I heard voices on a horse's tramp on the other side of the river. They seemed not to be sure whether I had crossed or not and were tracking up and down on each side of the bar. I breasted the hill track faster than I had done for many a day and when I got to the top stopped to listen but could hear nothing. The moon had dropped suddenly, the forest was as black as pitch. You couldn't see your hand before you. I knew that I was safe now if a hundred men were at my heels till daybreak at any rate. I had the two sides of the gully to guide me. I could manage to make to the farm where the sorrel was at grass with a lot of other digger's horses. If I could get a saddle and catch the old horse, I could put many a mile between me and them before sundown. I stood still when I reached the top of the bluff, partly to get breath and partly to take a last look at the old Toran. Below me lay the gold field clearly marked out by hundreds of campfires and were still red and showed bright in the darkened sky. The course of the river was marked by them in and out as most of the shallow diggings had followed the river flats. Far back the fires glowed against the black forest and just before the moon fell I could catch the shine of the water in the deeper reaches of the river. It was the very picture of what I had read about an army in camp. Lines of tents in the crowd of manholes spread out over a bit of land, hardly big enough for a flock of sheep. Now and then a dog would bark, now a revolver would go off. It was never quiet on Toran digging's day or night. Well, there they all were, tents and diggers, claims and windlesses, pumps and water wheels. I'd been happy enough there, God knows, and perhaps I was looking at it all for the last time. As I turned and made down the hill into the black forest that spread below me like the sea, I felt as if I was leaving everything that was any good in life behind with the Toran lights, and being hunted once more, in spite of myself, into a desert of darkness and despair. End of Chapter 30, recording by Mike Harris. Chapter 31 of Robbery Under Arms. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Baldrewood. Chapter 31. I got to Bates's paddocks about daylight and went straight up to the hut where the man lived that looked after it. Most of the diggers that cared about their horses paid for their grass and farmers and squatters paddocks, though the price was pretty high. Old Bates, who had a bit of a good grassed flat, made a pretty fair thing out of it by taking in horses at half a crown a week apiece. As luck would have it, the man in charge knew me. He'd seen me out with the Yankees one day, and so I was a friend with them, and when I said I'd come for Bill's sorrel, he thought it likely enough and got out the saddle and bridle. I tipped him well and went off, telling him I was going to Wattle Flat to look at a quartz crushing plant that was for sale. I accounted for coming up so early by saying I'd lost my road, and that I wanted to get to Wattle Flat sharp as another chap wished to buy the plant. I cut across the range, kept the sun on my right hand, and pushed on for Jonathan's. I got there early, and it's well I did. I rode the sorrel hard, but I knew he was pretty tough, and I was able to pay for him if I killed him. I trusted to leaving him at Jonathan's and getting a fresh horse there. What with the walk over the bluff and the forest, having no sleep the night before, and the bother and trouble of it all, I was pretty well used up. I was real glad to see Jonathan's paddock fence in the old house we'd thought so little of lately. It's wonderful how soon people rise grand notions and begin to get too big for their boots. Hello Dick, what's up? says Jonathan. No swag, elastic side boots, flyaway tie, new rifle, old horse. Looks a bit fishy, don't it? I can't stop barneying, I said. Have you a decent horse to give me? The game's up, I must ride night and day till I get home. Heard anything? No, but Billy the boys just rode up. I hear him talking to the gals. He knows if anybody does. I'll take the old mow and put him in the paddock. I can let you have a stunner. All right, I'll go in and have some breakfast. It's as much as I dare stop it all now. Why, Dick Marston, is that you? No, it can't be, said both girls together. Why, you look like a ghost. He doesn't. He looks as if he'd been at a ball all night. Plenty of partners, Dick. Never mind, Dick, says Maddie. Go and make yourself comfortable in that room, and I'll have breakfast for you while you do a cow out of the bale. We don't forget our friends. If all our friends were as true as you, Maddie, I said rather down like, I shouldn't be here today. Oh, that's it, is it, says she. We're only indebted to somebody's laying the traps on. A woman, of course, for your honour's company. Never mind, old man, I won't hit you when you're down. But I say you go and have a yarn with Billy the boy. He's in the kitchen. I believe the young imp knows something, but he won't let on to Bell and I. While the stacks were frying and they smelt very good, bad as I felt, I called out Master Billy and had a talk with him. I handed him a note to begin with. There was money well spent, and you mark my words. A shilling spent in grog often buys a man twenty times the worth of it in information, let alone a pound. Billy had grown a squarish set, middle-sized chap. His hair wasn't so long and his clothes were better. His eye was as bright and bold looking. As he stood tapping one of his boots with his whip, he looked for all the world like a bull terrier. My colonial oath, Dick, you're quite the gentleman. Free with your money just the same as ever. You tax after the old governor. He always paid well if you told him the truth. I remember him giving me a hide-in when I was a kitty for saying something I wasn't sure of. My word, I was that sore for a week after. I couldn't button my shirt. But ain't you to pity about Jim? Oh, that's it. What about Jim? Why, the police grabbed him, of course. You fellas don't think you're going on forever and ever keeping the country in a state of terrorism, as the paper say. No, Dick, it's wrong and wicked and sinful. You'll have to knock under and give us young underchance. Here the impudent young rascal looked in my face as bold as brass and burst out laughing. He certainly was the cheekiest young scoundrel I ever came across, but in his own line you couldn't lick him. Jim's took, he said, and he looked curiously over at me. I seen the police had taken him across the country to Bargo early this morning. There was poor old Jim looking as if he was going to be hanged, with the chap leading the screw he was on and Jim's long legs tied underneath. I was gathering cattle, though I was. I drew up some just for a stall and had a good look. How many men were with him? Only two, and there to pass through Bargo brush about sundown tonight, or a bit earlier. I asked one of the men the road, said I'd lost myself and would be late home. And how the young villain laughed till the tears came into his eyes while he danced about like a black fellow. See here, Billy, I said, here's another pound for you, and there'll be a fiver after if you stick well to me today. I won't let Jim be walked off to Burima without a flutter to save him. It'll be the death of him. He's not like me, and he's got a young wife besides. More fool he, Dick. What does a cross-cove want with a wife? He can't never expect to do any good with a wife following of him about. I'm a gin-marin, least ways as long as the chap's sound on his pins. But I'll stick to you, Dick, and what's more, I can take you a shortcut to the brush, and we can wait in a gully and see the traps come up. You have a snack and lie down for a bit. I seen you were done when you came up. I'll have the horses really saddled up. How about the police? Suppose they come this way. Not they. They split and took a cross towards the mountain hut where you all camped with the horses. I didn't see them, but I cut their tracks. Five shod horses. They might be here tomorrow. A bush telegraph ain't a bad thing. They're not all as good as Billy the Boy, but the worst of him, like a bad cheepdog, is a deal better than none. A bush telegraph, you see, is mostly worked about the neighbourhood he was born in. He's not much good anywhere else. He's like a black fellow outside his own tory. He's at sea, but within 20 or 30 miles of where he was born and bred, he knows every track, every range, every hill, every creek, as well as all the shortcuts and byroads. He can bring you miles shorter than anyone that only follows the road. He can mostly track like a black fellow and tell you whether the cattle or horses which he sees the tracks of are belonging to his country or his strangers. He can get you a fresh horse on a pinch, night or day, for he knows everybody's paddocks and yards, as well as the number, looks, pace and pluck of everybody's riding horses, of many of which he has taken a turn out of, that has ridden them hard and far and returned them during the night. Of course they can be fined, even imprisoned for this, when he is caught in the act. Here in lies the difficulty. I felt like another man after a wash and nip and a real good meal with the two girls sitting close by and chattering away as usual. Do you know, says Bella, at half serves you right? Not that that Port Phillip woman was right to peach. She ought to have had her tongue torn out first, let alone go over mouth that it. But mightn't you have come down here from the tour on on Sundays and holidays now and then, and had a yarn with us all? Of course we ought, and we deserved to be kicked, the lot of us. But there were good reasons why we didn't like to. We were regularly boxed up with the diggers, nobody knew who we were or where we came from, and only for this Jezebel never would have known. If we'd come here that have all dropped that we were old friends, and then that have known us all about us. Well, I'm glad you've lost your characters, says Maddie. You won't have to be so particular now, and you can come as often as Sir Ferdinand will let you. Goodbye, Billy's waving his hat. It wasn't long before I was in the saddle and off again. I'd made a bit of a bargain with Jonathan, who sold me a pair of riding boots, butchers, and a big tweed poncho. The boots were easier to take along, rough riding than trousers, and I wanted the poncho to keep the ballad rifle under. It wouldn't do to have it in your hand all the time. As we rode along, I settled upon the way I'd try and set poor Jim free. Bad off as I was myself, I couldn't bear to see him chained up, and knew that he was going for years and years to a place more wicked and miserable than he'd ever heard of. After riding 20 miles, the sun was getting low. When Billy pointed to a trail which came broadways across the road and which then followed it. Here they are, police and no mistake. Here's their horse's tracks right enough. Here's the prisoner's horse, see how he stumbled, and this road they're bound to go till they cross the stony point and get into Bargo Brush near a creek. We had plenty of time by crossing a range and running a blind creek down to be near the place where the troopers must pass as they cross the main creek. We tied the horses up a hundred yards distance behind us in the forest, and I made ready to rescue Jim if it could be managed anyhow. How was it to be done? I could depend on the rifle carrying true at short ranges, but I didn't like the notion of firing at a man behind his back like. I hardly knew what to do, when all of a sudden two policemen showed up at the end of the track nearest the creek. One man was a bit in front, riding a fine horse too. The next one had a lead horse on which rode poor old Jim, looking as if he was going to be hanged that day, as Billy said, though I knew well he wasn't thinking about himself. I don't believe Jim ever looked miserable for so long since he was born. Whatever happened to him before, he would have a cry or a fight and it would be over, but now his poor old face looked that wretched and miserable as if he'd never smile again as long as he lived. He didn't seem to care where they took him, and when the old horse stumbled and close upon fell down he didn't take notice. When I saw that, my mind was made up. I couldn't let them take him away to his death. I could see he wouldn't live a month. He would go fretting his life about Jeannie, and after the free life he'd always led, he'd fall sick like the blacks when they're shut up and die without any reason but because a wild bird won't live in a cage. So I took aim and waited till they were just crossing the creek into the forest. The leading man was just riding up the bank, and the one that led Jim's horse was on the bit of a sand bed that the water had brought down. He was the least bit ahead of Jim when I pulled trigger and sent a ball into him just under the collar bone. I fired high on purpose. He drops off his saddle like a dead man. The next minute Billy the Boy raises the most awful corroboree of screams and howls enough for a whole gang of bush rangers, if they went in for that sort of thing. He emptied four chambers of his revolver at the leading trooper right away and I fired at his horse. The Custable never doubted. The attack was so sudden and savage like, but that there was a party of men hidden in the bush. Billy's shots had whistled round him and mine had nearly dropped his horse, so he thought it no shame to make a bolt and leave his mate as seemed very bad hit in our hands. His horse's hand gallop grow'd fainter and fater in the distance and then we unbound poor Jim, set his feet at liberty and managed to dispose of the handcuffs. Jim's face began to look more cheerful, but he was down in the mouth again when he saw the wounded man. He began at once to do all he could for him. We stopped a short distance behind the brush, which had already helped us well. Jim propped up the poor chap whose life blood was flowing red through the bullet hole and made him as comfortable as he could. I must take your horse mate, he says, but you know it's only the fortune of war. A man must look after himself. Someone will come along the roads soon. He mounted the troopers' horse and we slipped through the trees. It was getting dark now till we came to our horses. Then we all rode off together. We took Billy the boy with us until he put us onto a road that led us into the country that we knew. We could make our own way from there and so we sent off our scout, telling him to ride to the nearest township and say he'd seen a trooper lying badly wounded by the Bargo brush roadside. The sooner he was seen to, the better chance he'd have. Jim brightened up considerably after this. He told me how he'd gone back to say goodbye to Jeanie, how the poor girl went into fits and he couldn't leave her. By the time she got better, the cottage was surrounded by police. There was no use being shot down without a chance, so he gave himself up. My word, Dick, he said, I wished for a bare-backed horse and a deep gully then, but it wasn't to be. There was no horse handy and I've only have been carried into my own place a dead man and frightened the life out of poor Jeanie as well. You're worth a dozen dead man yet, Jim, I said. Keep up your pecker, old man. We'll get across to the hollow sometime within the next 24 hours and there we'll be safe anyhow. They can't touch Jeanie, you know, and you're not sure of what cash you'll want to keep her till this blows over a bit. And what am I to do all the time, he says, so pitiful like? We're that fond of one another, Dick, that I couldn't hardly bear her out of my sight and now I'll be months and months and months without a look at her pretty face, where I've never seen anything yet but love and kindness. Too good for me, she always was. And what have I brought her to? My God, Dick, I wish you'd shot me instead of the constable poor devil. Well, you wasn't very far apart, I says Chaffin like. If that old horse they put you on a bobbed forward level with him, you'd have got plugged instead. But it's no use giving in, Jim. We must stand up to our fight now or throw up the sponge. There's no two ways about it. We rattled on then without speaking and never cried crack until we got Nullar Mountain where we knew we were pretty safe not to be followed up. We took it easier then and stopped to eat a bit of breed and meat the girls had put up for me at Jonathan's. I'd never thought of it before. When I took the parcel out of the pocket of my poncho, I thought it felt just heavy and there, sure enough, was one of those shilling flasks of brandy that self-achapt to go on the road with. Brandy aimed a good thing at all times and seasons and I've seen more than one man or a dozen either that might just as well have soared away at their throats with the blunt knife has put the first glass to their lips but we was both hungry, thirsty, tired, miserable and pretty well done and beaten though we hadn't had time to think about it. That drop of brandy seems as if it had saved our lives. I never forgot it nor poor maddy barns for thinking of it for me and I did live to do her a good turn back much as there's been set against me and true enough too. It was a long way into the night and not far from daylight either when we stumbled up to the cave deadbeat horses and men both. We'd two minds to camp on the mountain but we might have been followed up hard as we'd ridden and we didn't like to throw a chance away. We didn't want the old man to laugh at us and we didn't want to do any more time in Berrima not now, anyhow. We'd been living too gay and freer life to begin with the jug all over again. So we thought we'd make one job of it and get right through if we had to sleep for a week after it. It would be slow enough but anything was better than what we'd gone through lately. After we got down the mountain and on the flat land of the valley it rested our feet a bit that was pretty nigh cut to pieces with the rocks. Our horses were that done we didn't ride them for hours before. As we came close out walks old crib and smells at us he knew us in a minute and jumped up and began to try and lick Jim's hand the old story. He just gave one sort of sniff at me as much to say oh it's you is it. Then he actually gave a kind of half bark. I don't believe he'd barked for years such a queer noise it was. Anyway it woke dad and he came out pretty sharp with a revolver in his hand. As soon as he saw the old dog walking alongside of us he knew it was right and begins to feel for his pipe. First thing father always did as soon as any work or fighting or talking was over was to get out his pipe and light it. He didn't seem the same man without it. So you've found your way back again have you? He says why I thought you was all on your way to California by this time? Ain't this Christmas week? Why I was expecting to come over to America myself one of these days when all the dairy was over. Why what's up with the boy? Jim was standing by saying nothing while I was taking off the saddles and bridles and letting the horses go when all of a sudden he gives the lurch forward and if the old man hadn't laid hold of him in his strong arms and propped him up he'd have gone down face foremost like a girl in a dead faint. What's up with him Dick? says father rather quick almost as if he was fond of him and had some natural feeling. Sometimes I rarely think he had been any shooting? Yes not at him though. Tell you all about it in the morning. He's eaten nothing and we've been traveling best part of 24 hours right off the reel. Hold him up while I fetch out the panicon there's plenty of grub inside he'll be all right after asleep. A drop of rum and water brought him to and after that we made ourselves a cup of tea and turned in. The sun was pretty high when I woke. When I looked out there was the old man sitting on the log by the fire smoking. What was a deal more curious? I saw the half cast Warrigal coming up from the flat leading a horse and carrying a pair of hobbles. Something made me look over to a particular corner where Starlight always slept when he was at the hollow. Sure enough there was the figure of a man rolled up in the cloak. I knew by the way his boots and things were thrown about that it could be none other than Starlight. End of Chapter 31 Chapter 32 of Robbery Under Arms This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Bolgerwood Chapter 32 I'd settled in my mind that it couldn't be anyone else when he sat up yawned and looked round as if he had not been away from the old place a week. Ha! Richard here we are again. Feeds the boar in the old Frank? The Governor told me you and Jim had made back. Dreadful boar, isn't it? Just when we'd all rubbed off the rust of our bush life and were getting civilised, I feel very seriously ill-treated, I assure you. I have a great mind to apply to the Government for compensation. That's the worst of these new inspectors. They're so infernally zealous. You were too many for them, it seems. I half thought you might have been nailed. How deduced did you get the office in time? The faithful Warrigal, as usual, gave me timely warning and brought a horse, of course. He will appear on the Judgment Day leading rainbow, I firmly believe. Why he should be so confoundedly anxious about my welfare I can't make out. I can't, really. It's his peculiar form of mania, I suppose. We all suffer from some manness or other. How the blazers did he know the police were laid onto the lot of us, I said. I didn't know myself that you're OK to come the double on you. I might have known as she would, though. Well, it seems Warrigal took it into his semi-barbaric head to ride into Turon and loaf about, partly to see me and partly about another matter that your father laid him on about. He was standing about near the prospectors' arms late on Friday night, doing nothing and seeing everything, as usual, when he noticed Mrs. Mullickson run out of the house like a bedlamite. My word, that Mrs. Big One Cooler was his expression and made straight for the camp. Now, Warrigal had seen you come out just before. He doesn't like you in gym over much. Bad taste, I tell him, on his part. But I suppose he looks upon you as belonging to the family. So he stalked the fair and furious Kate. That was how it was then? Yes, much in that way. I must say, Dick, that if you are so extremely fond of, well, studying the female character, you should carry on the pursuit more discreetly. Just see what this miscalculation has cost your friends. Confound her, she's a heartless wretch and I hope she'll die in a ditch. Exactly. Well, she knocked in a constable open the outer door. I want to see Sir Ferdinand, she says. He's in bed and can't be disturbed, says the bobby. Any message I can deliver? I have important information, says she. Rows them up or you'll be sorry for it. Won't it do tomorrow morning, says he. No, it won't, says she, stamping her foot. Do what I tell you and don't stand there like a fool. She waited a bit. Then Warrigal says, out came Sir Ferdinand very polite. What can I do for you, says he, Mrs. Malikson. Should you like to know where the Mastons are, says Sir Ferdinand, says she. Dick and Jim. No, would I not, says he. No end of warrants out for them, since that Ballabry bank robbery they seem to have disappeared underground. And that fellow starlight too, most remarkable man of his day, I'd give my eyes to put the bracelets upon him. She whispered something into his ear. God, turn out, he roars out first, then dropping his voice, says out, My dear Mrs. Malikson, you should hear Warrigal imitate him. You have made my fortune, officially, I mean, of course, I shall never forget your kindness. Thanks a thousand times. Don't thank me, she says, and she burst out crying and goes slowly back to the hotel. Warrigal had heard quite enough. He rips over to Daley's mob, borrows a horse saddle and bridle, and leads him straight down to our camp. He roused me up about one o'clock, and I could hardly make any explanation to my mates. Such stunning good fellows, they were too. I wondered whether I shall ever associate with gentlemen again. The chances are against it. I had all kinds of trouble to tell them I was going away with Warrigal, and yet not to tell too much. What the dickens, says Clifford, can you want, going away with this familiar of yours at this hour of the night? You're like the fellow in Scott's novel, Anne of Durstine, that I was reading over again yesterday, the mysterious stranger that's called for at midnight by the Avenger of Blood, departs with him and is never seen more. In case you never see me afterwards, I said, we'd better say goodbye. We've been good mates and true friends, haven't we? Never better, he said. I don't know what we shall do without you, but, of course, you're not going very far. Goodbye, in case, I said. Anyhow, I'll write you a line, and as I shook hands with them, two regular trumps, if ever there were any in the world, I had a kind of notion that I'd never see them again. Hardly think I shall, either. Sir Ferdinand surrounded the hut about an hour later and made them come out one by one, both of them in the wages man. I did so they were surprised. Where's the fourth man, Clifford, says Sir Ferdinand, just ask him to come out, will you? What, Frank Horton, says he. I heard most of this from that young devil, Billy the Boy. He saw Sir Ferdinand ride up, so he hid close by, just for the fun of hearing how he got on. He'd seen Warrigal in me right away. Frank Devil bangs out Sir Ferdinand, who'd begun to get his monkey up. How should I know his infernal purse's name? No man, it seems to me, has his right name on this confounded goldfield. I mean Starlight. Starlight the Cattle-sealer, the mail robber, the bush ranger, whose name is notorious over the three colonies in New Zealand to boot, your intimate friend and partner for the last nine months. You perfectly amaze me, says Clifford. But can't you be mistaken? Is your information to be depended upon? Mine came from a jealous woman, says Sir Ferdinand. They may generally be depended upon for a straight tip. But we're losing time. When did he leave the claim, and which way did he go? I have no idea which way he went, says Clifford. He did not say, but he left about an hour since. On foot or on horseback? On horseback. Anyone with him? Yes, another horseman. What was he like? Slight, dark man, youngish, good-looking. Warrigal the half-caste, by George, warrants out for him also, says Sir Ferdinand. On a good horse, of course, with an hour's start, we may give up the idea of catching him this time. Follow him up as a matter of form. Goodbye, Clifford. You'll hear news of your friend before long, or I'm much mistaken. Stop, Sir Ferdinand. You must pardon me, but I don't exactly understand your tone. The man that we knew by the name of Frank Horton maybe, as you say, an escaped criminal. All I know is that he lived with us since we came here, and that no fellow could have behaved more truly like a man and a gentleman. As far as we are concerned, I have a material guarantee that he has been scrupulously honest. Do you mean to hint for one moment that we were aware of his previous history, or in any way mixed up with his acts? If I do, what then, says Sir Ferdinand, laughing? The affair is in no way ludicrous, says Clifford, very stiff and dignified. I hold myself to receive an insult, and must ask you to refer me to a friend. Do you know that I could arrest you in Hastings now and lock you up on suspicion of being concerned with him in the Balabry Bank robbery, says Sir Ferdinand in a stern voice? Don't look so indignant, I only say I could. I am not going to do so, of course. As to fighting you, my dear fellow, I am perfectly at your service at all times and seasons whenever I resign my appointment as Inspector of Police for the Colony of New South Wales. The civil service regulations do not permit of dueling at present, and I found it so ducered hard to work up to the billet that I am not going to imperil my continuance therein. After all, I had no intention of hurting your feelings, and apologise if I did. As for that rascal's starlight, he would deceive the very devil himself. And so Sir Ferdinand rode off. How did you come, by Jonathan's? We called nowhere. Warrigal, as usual, made a shortcut of his own across the bush scrubs, gullies, mountains, all manner of desert paths. We made the hollow yesterday afternoon and went to sleep in a nook known to us of old. We dropped into breakfast here at daylight, and I felt sleepy enough for another snooze. We're all here again, it seems, I said, sour enough. I suppose we'll have to go on the old lay. They won't let us alone when we're doing fair work and behaving ourselves like men. They must take the consequences, damn them. Ha! Very true, says Starlight, in his dreamy kind of way. Most true, Richard. Society should make a truce occasionally, or proclaim an amnesty with offenders of our stamp. It would pay better than driving us to desperation. How is Jim? He's worse off than either of us, poor fellow. Jim's very bad. He can't get over being away from Jeannie. I never saw him so down in the mouth this years. Poor old Jim, he's a deal too good for the place. A sad mistake this getting married. People should either keep straight, or have no relatives to be the brunt of their villainies. But, soft, as they say in the play, where am I? I thought I was a virtuous minor again. Here we are at this devil-discovered, demon-haunted old hollow again, first cousin to the pit of Acheron. There's no help for it, Dick. We must play our parts gallantly, as demons of this lower world, or get hissed off the stage. We didn't do much for a few days, you may be sure. There was nothing to do for one thing, and we hadn't made up our mind what our line was to be. One thing was certain, there would be more row made about us than ever. We should have all the police in the country worried and barked at by the press, the people, the government, and their superior officers until they got something to show about us. Living at the Diggings under the bridge, living at the Diggings under the nose of the police, without their having the least suspicion who we were was bad enough, but the rescue of Jim in the shooting of a policeman in charge of him was more serious, the worst thing that had happened yet. There would be the devil to pay if they couldn't find a track of us. No doubt money would be spent like water and bribing anyone who might give information about us. Everyone would be tried that we had ever been known to be friendly with. A special body of men could be told off to make a dart to any spot they might get wind of near where we had last been seen. We had long talks and bannies over the whole thing, sometimes by ourselves with the starlight, sometimes with father, a long time it was before we settled upon any regular put up bit of work to do. Sooner or later we began to see the secret of the hollow would be found out. There was no great chance in the old times with only a few shepherds and stock riders wandering through the bush, once in a way straggling over the country. But now the whole colony swarmed with miners who were always prospecting, as they called it, that is, looking out for fresh patches of gold. Now small parties of these men, bold, hardy, experienced chaps, would take a pick and a shovel, a bucket and a tin dish, with a few weeks rations and scour the whole countryside. They would try every creek, gully, hillside and riverbed. If they found the colour of gold, the least trace of it in a dish of washed dirt, they would at once settle down themselves. If it went rich, the news would soon spread, and a thousand men might be gathered in one spot, the bank of a small creek, the side of a steep range, within a fortnight, with ten thousand more sure to follow within a month. That might happen at any time on one of the spurs of Nullar Mountain, and the finding out of the track down to the hollow by some one of the dozens of rambling, shooting, fishing diggers would be as certain to happen as the sun to rise. Well, the country had changed and we were bound to change with it. We couldn't stop boxed up in the hollow day after day and month after month, shooting and horse-breaking, doing nothing and earning nothing. If we went outside there were ten times more men looking out for us than ever, ten times more chance of our being tracked or run down than ever. That we knew from the newspapers. How did we see them? Oh, the old way. We sent out our scout, Warrigal, and he got our letters and papers too, from a sure hand, as Starlight said the old people in the English wars used to say. The papers were something to see. First he brought us in a hand-build that was posted in Bargo, like this. £500 reward. The above reward will be paid to anyone giving information as to the whereabouts of Richard Marston, James Marston, and a man whose name is unknown, but who can be identified chiefly by the appellation of Starlight. Pleasing way of drawing attention to a gentleman's private residence, says Starlight, smiling first and looking rather grim afterwards. Never mind boys, they'll increase that reward yet by Jove. It will have to be a thousand a piece if they don't look a little sharper. We laughed, and Dad growled out. Don't seem to have the pluck any on you to tackle a big touch again. I expect they'll send a summons for us next and get old Bill Barkas, the bailiff at Bargo, to serve it. Come, come, Governor, says Starlight. None of that. We've got quite enough devil in us yet without you all stirring him up. You must give us time, you know. Let's see what this paper says. Turon Star. What a godsend to it. Bush Rangers. Starlight and the Marsons again. The announcement will strike our readers, if not with the most profound astonishment, certainly with considerable surprise, that these celebrated desperados, for whose apprehension such large sums have been offered, for whom the police in all the colonies have made such unremitting search, should have been discovered in our midst, yet such is the case. On this very morning, from information received, a respected and efficient Inspector of Police, Sir Ferdinand Moringa, proceeded soon after midnight to the camp of Mrs Clifford and Hastings. He had every reason to believe that he would have had no difficulty in arresting the famous Starlight, who under the cognomen of the Honourable Frank Horton, has been for months a partner in this claim. The shareholders were popularly known as the Three Honourables, it being rumoured that both Mr Clifford and Mr Hastings were entitled to that prefix, if not to a more exalted one. With characteristic celerity, however, the famous outlaw had shortly before quitted the place, having received warning and been provided with a fast horse by his singular retainer, Warrigal, a half-caste native of the colony, who is said to be devotedly attached to him, and who has been seen from time to time on the Turron. Of the Marston brothers, the elder one, Richard, would seem to have been similarly apprised, but James Marston was arrested in his cottage in Spiceman Gully, having been lately married, he was apparently unwilling to leave his home and lingered too long for prudence. While rejoicing, as must all good citizens, at the discovery of evildoers and the capture of one member of a band of notorious criminals, we must state in fairness and candour that their conduct has been, while on the field, its minors, free from reproach in every way. For James Marston, who was married but a short while since to a Melbourne young lady of high personal attractions and the most winning amubility, great sympathy has been expressed by all classes. So much for the star. Everybody is sorry for you, old man, he says to Jim. I shouldn't wonder if they'd make you a beak if you'd stayed there long enough. I'm afraid dicks dropping the policemen won't add to our popularity, though. He's all right, I said. Hurrah! Look here. I'm glad I didn't finish the poor beggar. Listen to this from the Turron banner. Bush-ranging revived. The good old days have apparently not passed away forever, when male robberies and hand-to-hand conflicts with armed robbers, were matters of weekly occurrence. The comparative lull observable in such exciting occurrences of late has been proved to be but the ominous hush of the elements that precedes the tempest. Within the last few days the mining community has been startled by the discovery of the notorious gang of bush-rangers, Starlight and the Marston's. Domiciled in the very heart of the diggings are tired as ordinary miners, and, for their own purposes possibly, leading the laborious lives proper to the avocation. They have been fairly successful, and as miners, it is said, have shown themselves to be manly and fear-dealing men. We are not among those who care to judge their fellow men harshly. It may be that they had resolved to forsake the criminal practices which had rendered them so unhappily celebrated. James Marston had recently married a young person of most respectable family and pre-possessing appearance. As far as may be inferred from this statement his subsequent conduct, he had cut loose from his former habitudes. He, with his brother Richard Marston, worked in a joint inclaim to the Arizona sluicing company with the respected shareholders of which they were on terms of intimacy. The well-known Starlight, as Mr. Frank Horton, became partner and tentmate with the on Mr. Clifford and Mr. Hastings, an aristocratic society in which the manners and bearing of this extraordinary man permitted him to mingle without suspicion of detection. Suddenly information was furnished to the police, respecting all three men. We are not at present aware of the source from which the clue was obtained. Suffice it to say that Sir Ferdinand Morange promptly arranged for the simultaneous action of three parties of police with the hope of capturing all three outlaws, but in two cases the birds were flown. Starlight's Am Damne, a half-caste named Warrigal, had been observed on the field the day before. By him he was doubtless furnished with a warning and the horse upon which he left his abode shortly before the arrival of Sir Ferdinand. The elder Marston had also eluded the police, but James Marston, handed possibly by domestic ties, was captured at his cottage at Specimen Gully. For him sympathy has been universally expressed. He is regarded rather as a victim than as an active agent in the many criminal offences chargeable to the account of Starlight's gang. Since writingly above we have been informed that Trooper Walsh, who with another constable was escorting James Marston to Bargo Jail, has been brought and badly wounded. The other Trooper reports that he was shot down and the party attacked by persons concealed in the thick timber near Wild Horse Creek at the end of Bargo Brush. In the confusion that ensued the prisoner escaped, it was at first thought that Walsh was fatally injured, but our latest report gives good hope of his recovery. We shall be agreeably surprised that this be the end and not the commencement of a series of darker tragedies. End of Chapter 32 Nothing doing, and nothing to think of except what was miserable enough. God knows. Then things began to shape themselves in a manner of speaking. We didn't talk much together, but each man could see plain enough what the others were thinking of. Dad growled out a word now and then, and Warren Gull would look at us from time to time with a flash in his hawk's eye that we'd seen once or twice before, and knew the meaning of. As for Jim, we were bound to do something or other, if it was only to keep him from going melancholy mad. I never seen any man changed more from what he had used to be than Jim did. He, that was the most careless, happy-go-lucky chap that ever stepped, always in a good temper and full of his larks. At the end of the hottest day in summer on the plains, with no water handy, or the middle of the coldest winter night in an iron bark forest, and we were sitting on our horses, waiting for daylight, with the rain pouring down our backs, not game to light a fire, and our hands that cold we could hardly hold the rains. It was all one to Jim. Always jolly, always ready to make a little of it all. Always ready to laugh or chafe, or go on with monkey tricks like a boy. Now it was all the other way with him. He'd sit grizzling and smoking by himself all day long, no getting a word out of him. The only time he seemed to brighten up was once, when he got a letter from Jeannie. He took it away into the bush and stayed hours and hours. From never thinking about anything or caring what came uppermost, he seemed to have changed all on the other tack, and do nothing but think. I'd seen a chap in Bermuda, something like him, for a month or two. One day he manned the barber's razor and cut his throat. I began to be afraid. Jim would go off his head and blow his brains out with his own revolver. Starlight himself got to be cranky and restless like two. One night he broke out as we were standing smoking under a tree, a mile or so, from the cave. By all the devil's dick I can't stand this sort of thing much longer. We shall go mad or drink ourselves to death. We'd all been pretty well on the night before. If we stick here, we're trapped or smoked out like a guana out of a tree-spout. We must make a rise somehow and try for blue water again. I've been fighting against the notion the whole time we've been here, but the devil and your old dad, who's a near relative I believe, have been too strong for us. Of course you know what it's bound to be. I suppose so. I know when dad was away last week he saw that beggar and some of his mates. They partly made it up a while back, but didn't fancy doing it altogether by themselves. They'd been waiting on the chance of us standing in and you taking command. Of course the old story, he says, throwing his cigar away and giving a half laugh, such a laugh it was too. Captain Starlight again, I suppose. The paltry vanity of leadership and of being in front of my fellow men has been the ruin of me ever since I could recollect. If my people had let me go into the army as I begged and prayed of them to do, it might have been all the other way. I recollect the day and hour when my old governor, refused my boyish petition, laughed at me, sneered at me. I took the wrong road then. I swear to you, Dick, I never had thought of evil to that cursed day which made me reckless and indifferent to everything. And this is the end, a wasted life, a felon's doom. Quite melodramatic, isn't it, Richard? Well, we'll play out the last act with spirit. Enter first robber and so on. Good night. He walked away. I never heard him say so much about himself before. It set me thinking of what luck and chance there seemed to be in this world. How men were not let to do what they knew was best for them, and often and often. But something seemed to drive them farther and farther along the wrong road, like a lot of stray wild cattle that want to make back to their own run. And a dog here offends the other way. A man on foot or a flock of sheep always keeps frightening them farther and farther from the old beat till they get back into a bit of backcountry or mally scrub and stop there for good. Cattle and horses and men and women are awful like one another in their ways, and the more you watch them, the more it strikes you. Another day or two of idling and card-playing, another headache after too much grog at night, brought us to a regular go in about business, and then we fixed it for good. We were to stick up the next monthly gold escort, that was all. We knew it would be a heavy one, and trusted to our luck to get clear off with the gold, and then take a ship for Honolulu or San Francisco. A desperate chance, but we were desperate men. We had tried to work hard and honest. We had done so for the best part of a year. No one could say that we had taken the value of a half-penny from any man. And yet we were not let stay right when we asked for nothing, but to be let alone and live out the rest of our lives like men. They wouldn't have us that way, and now they must take us across the grain, and see what they would gain by that. So it happened. We went out one day with Warren Gall to show us the way, and after writing for hours and hours, we came to a thick scrub. We rode through it till we came to an old cattle-track. We followed that till we came to a tumble down slab hut, with a stockyard beside it. The yard had been mended, and the rails were up. Seven or eight horses were inside, all in good condition, as many men were sitting or standing about, smoking outside the old hut. When we rode up, they all came forward, and we had it out. We knew who was coming, and we were ready for them. There was Moran, of course, quiet and savage looking, just as like a black snake as ever, twisting about with his deadly glittering eyes, wanting to bite someone. There was Daley and Burke, Wall and Hubert, and two or three more. I won't say who they were now. And if you please, who should come out of the hut last, but Master Billy the boy, as impudent as you like, with a pipe in his mouth and revolver in his belt, trying to copy Moran and Daley. I felt sorry when I see him, and thought what he'd gradually come to bit by bit, and where he'd most likely end, all along of the first money he had from Father for telegraphing. But after all, I have a notion that men and women grow up as they are intended to from the beginning. All the same as a tree from seed. You may twist it this road or that, make it a bit bigger or smaller, according to the soil, or the way it's pruned, and cut down when it's young, but you won't alter the nature of that tree, or the fruit that it bears. You won't turn a five-quarter into a quince, or a jibong into an orange, twist and twine and dig in water as you like. So whichever way Billy the boy had been broken and named, he'd have bolted and run off the course. Take a pet dingo now. He might look very tame, and follow them that feed him, and stand the chain. But as soon as anything passes close that he could kill, he'll have his teeth into it, and be lapping its blood before you can say knife. And the older he got, the worse he'd be. Well, Dick, says this young lamb of Satan, so you've took to the Queen's Highway again, as the chap says in the play. I thought you and Jim was going to join the Methodies, or the Sons of Temperance, at Turin. You both got the look so thundering square on it. Poor old Jim looks dreadful down in the mouth. Don't he, though? It would be all the better for you if you'd joined some other body, you young scamp, I said. Who told you to come here? I've half a mind to belt you home again to your mother, and I walked towards him. No, you won't, Dick Martson. Don't you make any mistakes, says the young bullpup looking nasty. I'm as good a man as you with this little tool. Here he pulled out his revolver. I have as much right to turn out as you have. What odds is it to you what I do? I looked rather foolish at this, and Moran and Burke began to laugh. You'd better set up a nice school, Dick, said Burke, and get Billy and some of the other flash kiddies to come. They might turn over a new leaf in time. If you'll stand up, or more in there, that's grinning behind you, I'll make some of you laugh on the wrong side, I said. Come on, draws, Moran, take an office coat and walking up. I'd like to have a smack at you before you go into the church. We should have been at it hammering tongs. We both hated one another like poison. Only the others interfered. And Billy said we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for quarreling like schoolboys. We were nice sort of chaps to stick up a gold escort. That made a laugh, and we knocked off. Well, it looked as if no one wanted to speak. Then Hubert, a very quiet chap, says, I believe Ben Marston's the oldest man here. Let's hear what he's got to say. Father gets up at once and looks steady at the rest of him, takes his pipe out of his mouth, and shakes the backie out. Then he says, All on ye knows without my telling what we've come here about, and what there's hanging to it. It's good enough if it's done rites, but make no mistake, boys, it's a battle as must be fought game, and right back to the ropes or not at all. If there's a bird here that won't stand the steel, he'd better be put in a bag and took home again. Never mind about the steel, Daddy, says one of the new men. We're all good for a flutter when the wager's good. What will it be worth, a man? And where are we going to divide? We know your mobs got a crib up in the mountains that no one knows about. We don't want the swag that took there and planted. It might be found easy. Did every one of you here tell of me acting crooked, says Father? Look here, Bill. I'm not as young as I was, but you stand up to me for three rounds, and I'll take some of the cheek out of you. Bill laughed. No fear, Daddy. I'd sooner face Dick or Jim, but I only want what's fair between man and man. It's a big touch, you know, and we can't take it to the bank to divide, like diggers, or summons you either. What's the good of growling and snapping, says Burke? We're all going in regular, I suppose, share and share alike. The men nodded. Well, there's only one way to make things ship shape, and that's to have a captain. We'll pick one of ourselves, and whatever he says we'll bind ourselves to do, life or death. Is that it, boys? Yes, yes, that's the only way, came from all hands. Now the next thing to work on is who we're going to make captain. There's one here, as we can all depend on, who knows more about road work than all the rest of us put together. You know who I mean, but I don't want you to choose him or any man because I tell you. I propose Starlight for captain, if he'll take it, and them, that don't believe me, let them find a better man if they can. I vote for Dan Moran, says another man, a youngish farmer looking chap. He's a bushman like ourselves, and not a heft-bread swell. That's just as likely to clear out when we want him most as do anything else. You go back to the springs and feed them pigs, Johnny, says father, walking toward the young chap. That's about what you're bred for. Nobody'll take you for a swell, quarter-bread or anything else. Howsoever, let's draw lots for it. Every man put his fancy down on a piece of paper, and put him into my old hat here. This was done after a bit, and the end of it was ten votes for Starlight, and two or three for Moran, who looked savage and sulkier than ever. When this was over, Starlight walked over from where he was standing, near me and Jim, and faced the crowd. He drew himself up a bit, and looked around as haughty as he used to do, when he walked up the big room at the prospector's arms in Turin, as if all the rest of us was dirt under his feet. Well, my lass, he said, you've done me the great honor to elect me to be your captain. I'm willing to act, or I shouldn't be here. If you're fools enough to risk your lives and liberties, for a thousand ounces of gold a man, I'm full enough to show you the way. Hurrah! said a half a dozen of them, flinging up their hats. We're on, Captain. Starlight, forever. You ride ahead and we'll back up. That will do, he says, holding up his hand, as if to stop a lot of dogs barking. But listen to me. Here he spoke a few words, in that other voice of his, that always sounded to me and Jim, as if it was a different man talking, or the devil in his likeness. Now mind this before we go. You don't quite know me, you will, by and by, perhaps. When I take command of this gang, for this bit of work, or any other, my words law, do you hear? And if any man disputes it, or disobeys my orders, by, I'll shoot him like a dog. As he stood there, looking down at the lot of them, as if he were their king, with his eyes burning up at last, with that slow fire that lay at the bottom of them, and only showed out sometimes. I couldn't help thinking of a pirate crew that I'd read of when I was a boy, and the way the pirate captain ruled him. CHAPTER XXXIV We were desperate fidgety and anxious till the day came. While we were getting ready, two or three things went wrong, of course. Jim got a letter from Jeannie all the way from Melbourne, where she'd gone. It seems she'd got her money from the bank, Jim's share of the gold, all right. She was a saving, careful little woman, and she told him she'd enough to keep them both well for four or five years anyhow. What she wanted him to do was to promise that he'd never be mixed up in any more dishonest work, and to come away down to her at once. It was the easiest thing in the world, she said, to get away from Melbourne to England or America. Ships were going every day, and glad to take any man that was strong and willing to work his passage for nothing. They'd pay him besides. She'd met one or two friends down there, as would do anything to help her and him. If he would only get down to Melbourne, all would yet be well. But she begged and prayed him, if he loved her, and for the sake of the life she hoped to live with him yet, to come away from his companions, and take his own Jeannie's advice, and try and do nothing wrong for the future. If Jim had got his letter before we made up matters, just at the last he'd have chucked up the sponge and cleared out for good and all. He is good as said so, but he was one of them kind of men that once he'd made a start never turned back. There'd been some chaff to make things worse between Moran and daily, and some of the other fellows about being game and what not, especially after what Father said at the hut, so he wouldn't draw out of it now. I could see it fretted him worse than anything since we came back, but he filled himself up with the idea that we'd be sure to get the gold all right, and clear out different ways to the coast, and then we'd have something worthwhile leaving off with. Another thing, we'd been all used to having what money we wanted lately, and we none of us fancied living like poor men again in America or anywhere else. We hadn't had hardly a scrap from Eileen since we'd come back this last time. It wasn't much odds. She was regular brokenhearted. You could see it in every line. She had been foolish enough to hope for better things, she said. Now she expected nothing more in this world, and was contented to wear out her miserable life the best way she could. If it wasn't that her religion told her it was wrong, and that mother depended on her, she'd drown herself in the creek before the door. She couldn't think why some people were brought into this miserable world at all. Our family had been marked out to evil, and the same fate would follow us to the end. She was sorry for Jim, and believed if he had been let take his own road, that he would have been happy and prosperous today. It was a pity he could not have got away safely to Melbourne with his wife, before that wicked woman, who deserved to be burnt alive, ruined everything. Even now we might all escape, the country seemed in so much confusion with all the strangers and bad people. Bad people, well, everyone thinks their own crew the blackest, that the gold fields had brought into it, that it wouldn't be hard to get away in a ship somehow. If nothing else bad turned up, perhaps it might come to pass yet. This was the only writing we'd had from poor Eileen. It began all misery and bitterness, but got a little better at the end. If she and Gracie could have got hold of Kate Morrison, there wouldn't have been much left of her in a quarter of an hour. I could see that. Inside was a little bit of paper with one line, for my sake, that was all. I knew the writing, there was no more. I could see what Gracie meant, and wished over and over again that I had the chance of going straight, as I'd wished a thousand times before. But it was too late, too late. When the coach is running downhill and the break's off, it's no use trying to turn. We had all our plan laid out and settled to the smallest thing. We were to meet near Eugora Rocks a good hour or two before the escort passed, so as to have everything ready. I remember the day as well as if it was yesterday. We were all in great buckle and very fit, certainly. I don't think I ever felt better in my life. There must be something out and out, spiriting in a real battle, when a bit of a scrimmage like this sent our blood boiling through our veins, made us feel as if we weren't playing Dick and Jim Marsden, but regular grandfellows in a manner of speaking. What fools men are when they're young, and sometimes after that itself, to be sure. We started at daylight, and only stopped once on the road for a bite for ourselves, and to water the horses, so that we were in good time. We brought a little corn with us, just to give the horses something. They'd be tied up for hours and hours when we got to the place pitched on. They were all there before us. They hadn't as good horses by a long chalk as we had, and two of their packers were poor enough. Jim and I were riding ahead with Starlight a little on the right of us. When the fellows saw Rainbow, they all came crowding round him as if he'd been a show. By George, says Burke, that's a horse worth calling a horse, Captain. I often heard tell of him, but never set eyes on him before. I've two minds to shake him and leave you my horse in a share of the gold to boot. I never saw his equal in my life, and I've seen some plums, too. Honor among well-bush rangers, A. Burke, says Starlight cheerily. He's the right sort, isn't he? We shall want good goers to-night. Are we all here now? We'd better get to business. Yes, they were all there—a lot of well-built, upstanding chaps, young and strong, and fit to do anything that a man could do in the way of work or play. It was a shame to see them there, and us, too, for the matter of that, but there was no getaway now. There will be falls and rogues to the end of the world, I expect. Even Moran looked a bit brighter than he did last time. He was one of those chaps that a bit of real danger smartens up. As for Burke, Daley, and Hulbert, they were like a lot of schoolboys, so full of their fun and larks. Starlight just spoke a word to them all. He didn't talk much, but looked hard and stern about the face as a captain ought to do. He rode up to the gap and saw where the trees had been cut down to block up the road. It would be hard work getting the coach through there now, for a bit to come. After that, our horses and the two Packers were left behind with Warrigal and Father, close enough for hearing, but well out of the way for seeing. It was behind a thick belt of timber. They tied up some to trees and short-hobbled others, keeping them all so as to be ready at a moment's notice. Our men hid themselves behind rocks and stumps on the high side of the road so as they could see well, and had all the shadow on their side. Wall and Hulbert and their lot had their mob of horses, Packers, and all planted away, and two young fellows belonging to their crowd minding them. We'd been ready a good bit when a cove comes tearing up full-bat. We were watching to see how he shaped and whether he looked likely to lay on the police, when I saw it was Billy the boy. Now I call this something like, says he, pulling up short, army and readiness, the enemy not far off. My word, it is a fine thing to turn out. Ain't it, Dick? Do you chaps feel shaky at all? Ain't you galle'd the least little bit? There are coming. How long will they be, Starlight said? Just remember that you're not skylarking at a pound-yard, my boy. All right, Captain, he answered, quiet enough. I started on ahead the moment I saw him leave the camp. They're safe to be here in ten minutes now. You can see him when they come into the flat. I'll clear out to the back for a bit. I want him to think I come up promiscuous like when it's over. So the young rascal galloped away till the trees hid him, and in a quarter of an hour more we saw the leaders of the four-horse drag that carried the escort gold turn around on the forest road and show out into the flat. It gave me a queer feeling just at first. We hadn't been used to firing on the Queen's servants, not in cold blood anyhow, but it was them or us for it now. There was no time to think about it. They came along at his steady trot up the hill. We knew the churren sergeant of police that drove, a tall man with a big black beard down to his chest. He had been in an English dragoon regiment, and could handle the ribbons above a bit. He had a trooper alongside him on the box with his rifle between his knees. Two more were in the body of the drag. They had put their rifles down and were talking and laughing, not expecting anything sudden. Two more of the mounted men rode in front, but not far. The couple behind were a good way off. All of a sudden the men in front came on the trees lying across the road. They pulled up short, and one of them jumped down and looked to see if anything could be done to move them. The other man held his horse. The coach drove up close so that they were bunched up pretty well together. Who the devil has been doing that, sung out the sergeant, just as if the road isn't bad enough without these infernal, lazy scoundrels of bullet-drivers cutting down trees to make us go round? It's a beastly track here at the best of times. I believe them trees have been fallen on purpose, says the trooper that was down. There's been men and horses, too, about here to-day by the tracks. They're up to no good. Fire! The order was given in Starlight's clear, bold voice. Just like a horn it sounded, you might have heard it twice as far off. A dozen shots followed the next second, making as much row as fifty because of the way the sand echoed among the rocks. I never saw a bigger surprise in my life, and wasn't likely to do as this was my first regular battle. We had plenty of time to take aim, and just at first it looked as if the whole blessed lot of the police was killed and wounded. The sergeant threw up his arms and fell off the box like a log, just under the horse's feet. One of the troopers on ahead dropped, he that was holding the horses, and both horses started off at full gallop. The two men in the body of the drag were both hit, one badly, so when the two troopers came up full gallop from the back they found us cutting the traces of the team that was all plunging like mad and letting the horses go. We opened fire at them directly, they showed themselves, of course they couldn't do much in the face of a dozen men, all well armed and behind good cover. They kept it up for a bit till one of their horses was hit, and then made tracks for Churon to report that the escort had been stuck up by twenty or thirty men at Ugoa Rocks. The others had come up with the pack horses by this time, along with Master Billy, the boy, firing his revolver, and shouting enough for half a dozen. So we looked a big crowd, that all the men were shot dead, wounded, or taken prisoners, and that a strong force had better be dispatched at once to recapture the gold. A good deal of this was true, though not all, the only man killed was the sergeant. He was shot clean through the heart, and never stirred again. Of the five other men, three were badly wounded and too slightly. We attended them as well as we could, and tied the others so that they would not be able to give any bother for an hour or two at any rate. Then the trouble began about dividing the gold. We opened the sort of locker there was in the centre of the coach, and took out the square boxes of gold. They held canvas bags, all labelled and weighed to the grain, of about one thousand ounces each. There were fourteen boxes in all, not a bad haul. Some of the others couldn't read or write, and they wouldn't trust us, so they brought their friend with them, who was an educated man, sure enough. We were a bit stunned to see him holding the sort of position he did at the Churon, but there he was, and he did his work well enough. He brought a pair of scales with him, and weighed the lot, and portioned it all out amongst us, just the same as Mr. Scott the banker used to do for us at the Churon, when we brought in our months washing up. We had five thousand ounces, Starlight had an extra share on account of being captain, and the rest had somewhere about eight thousand ounces or nine thousand ounces among them. It wasn't so bad. Dad wasn't long before he had our lot safely packed and on his two pack horses. Rorrigal and he cleared out at a trot, and went out of sight in a jiffy. It was every man for himself now. We waited a bit to help them with their swag. It was awful heavy. We told them that their pack horses would never carry it if there was anything of a close run for it. Suppose you think you've got the only good horse in the country, Dick Marston, says daily. We'll find a horse to run anything you've got bar in rainbow. I've got a little Rowan horse here, as she'll run ever a horse you own, for three mile for a hundred notes, with twelve stone up. What do you think of that now? Don't take your shirt off, Patsy, I said. I know the Rowan's as good as ever was fold. So he was. The police got him after Patsy was done for, and kept him till he died of old age. But he's in no condition. I'm talking of the pack horses. They're not up to much, as you'll find out. We didn't want to rush off at once, for fear the other fellows might say something afterwards if anything happened cross. So we saw them make a fair start for a spot on Wedding Mountain, where they thought they were right. We didn't think we could be caught once we made tracks in earnest. After a couple or three hours riding, we should be pretty safe, and daylight would see us at the hollow. We stopped, besides, to do what we could for the wounded men. They were none of them regularly done for, except the sergeant. One man was shot through the lungs, and was breathing out blood every now and then. We gave them some brandy and water, and covered them all up, and left them as comfortable as we could. Besides that, we sent Billy the boy, who couldn't be recognized, to the camp to have a doctor send as soon as possible. Then we cleared and started off, not the way we had to go, but so as we could turn into it. We couldn't ride very slow after such a turn as that, so we made the pace pretty hot for the first twenty miles or so. By Jove it was a great ride. The forest was middling open, and we went three-part speed when we could see before us. The horses seemed to go as if they knew there was something up. I can see Rainbow now, swinging along with that beautiful bounding style of going he had, snorting now and then, and sending out his legs as if one hundred miles more or less was nothing. His head up, his eyes shining like a star, his nostrils open, and every now and then, if anything got up, he'd give a snort as if he'd just come up out of the bush. They'd had a longish day, and a fast ride before they got to Eugora, just enough to eat to keep them from starving with a drink of water. Now they were going the same style back, and they'd never had the saddles off their backs. All the night through we rode before we got to the top of Nullar Mountain, very glad to see it we were then. We took it easy for a few miles now and again, then we'd push on again. We felt awful sleepy at times, we'd been up and at it since the morning before, long before daylight too. The strangeness and the chance of being followed kept us up, else I believe we'd have dropped off our horse's backs, regular deadbeat. We lost ground now and then through Warragall not being there to guide us, but Jim took the lead and he wasn't far out, besides the horses knew which way to steer for their grass at the hollow. They wouldn't let us go much off the line if it was ever so dark, we gave them their heads mostly. The sun was just rising as we rode across the last table, and we got off and stumbled along horses and men down the track to the hollow. Dad and Warragall hadn't come back, of course they couldn't stand the pace we did. They'd have to camp for a bit, but they both knew of plants and hiding-holes where all the police in the colony couldn't find them. We knew they'd turn up some time next day, so we let go our horses, and after a bit of supper, laid down and slept till well on in the afternoon. When I looked round I saw the dog sleeping at Jim's feet, old crib. He never left father very far, so of course the old man must be home or pretty close up. I was that deadbeat and tired out that I turned over and went to sleep for another couple of hours. When I next woke up I was right and felt rested, so I put on my things, had a good wash, and went out to speak to father. He was sitting by the fire outside smoking, just as if he'd never been away. We'd done that job to rights if we'd never done another, a lad, says father, reaching out for a coal to put in his pipe. Seems like it, I said. There'll be a juice of a bobbery about it. We shan't be able to move for a bit, let alone clear out. We'll show him a trick or two yet, says dad. I could see he had a tot early as it was. I wonder how them chaps got on, but we'll hear soon. How shall we hear anything? Nobody'll be mad enough to show out of here for a bit. I could get word here, says father. If there was a police barrack on the top of Nala Mountain, I've done it before and I can do it again. Well, I hope it won't be long, for I'm pretty full up of this staying at home business in the hollow. It's well enough for a bit, but it's awful slow when you've too much of it. It wouldn't be very slow if we was all grabbed and tried for our lives, Mr. Dick Marston. Would you like that better for a change? says the old man, showing his teeth like a dog that's making up his mind to have you, and don't see where he's to get first bite. You leave the thing to them as knows more than you do, or you'll find yourself took in and that precious sharp. You'll find your pals Burke and Moran and their lot will have their turn first, I said, and with that I walked off, for I saw the old man had been drinking a bit after his night's work, and that always started his temper the wrong way. There was no doing anything with him then, as I knew by long experience. I was going to ask him where he'd put the gold, but thought it best to leave that for some other time. By and by, when we all turned out and had some breakfast, we took a bit of a walk by ourselves and talked it over. We could hardly think it was all done and over. The gold escort stuck up. Fourteen thousand ounces of gold taken. Sergeant Hawkins shot dead. The robbers safe off with their booty. This is the sort of thing that we were sure to see in all the papers. It would make a row and no mistake. It was the first time such a thing had been thought of, much less carried out to rights, as Father said, in any of the colonies. We had the five thousand ounces of gold safe enough too. That was something, whether we should be let to enjoy it, or what chance we had of getting right away out of the country was quite another matter. We were all sorry for Sergeant Hawkins, and would have been better pleased if he'd been only wounded like the others. But these sorts of things couldn't be helped. It was the fortune of war. His luck this time, ours next. We knew what we had to expect. Nothing would make much difference. As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, we were up to our necks in it now and must fight our way out the best we could. But any man betraying the secret of the hollow, we might be safe for years to come, as long as we were not shot or taken in fair fight. And who was to let out the secret? No one but ourselves had the least notion of the track or where it led to, or of such a place as the hollow being in the colony. Only us five were in possession of the secret. We never let any of these other men come near, much less to it. We took good care never to meet them within twenty miles of it. Father was a man that, even when he was drunk, never let out what he didn't want other people to know. Jim and I and Starlight were not likely to blab, and Warrigal would have had his throat cut sooner than let on about anything that might be against Starlight, or that he told him not to do. We had good reason, then, to think ourselves safe, as long as we had such a place to make for whenever we were in danger or had done a stroke. We had enough in gold and cash to keep us comfortable in any other country, provided we could only get there. That was the rub. When we'd got a glass or two in our heads, we thought it was easy enough to get across country, or to make away one by one at shearing time, disguised as swagsmen to the coast. But when we thought it over carefully in the mornings, particularly when we were a bit nervous after the grog had died out of us, it seemed a rather blue lookout. There was the whole countryside pretty thick with police stations, where every man, from the sergeant to the last joined recruit, knew the height, size, colour of hair, and so on, of every one of us. If a suspicious-looking man was seen or heard of, within miles the telegraph wires could be set to work. He could be met, stopped, searched, and overhauled. What chance would any of us have then? Don't flatter yourselves, my boy, Starlight said, when we'd got the length of thinking how it was to be done, that there's any little bit of a chance, for a year or two at any rate, of getting away. Not a kangaroo rat could hop across from one scrub to another if there was the least suspicion upon him, without being blocked or run into. Jim, old man, I'm sorry for you, but my belief is we're quartered here for a year or two certain, and the sooner we make up our minds to it the better. Here, poor old Jim groaned. Don't you think, he said, quite timid like, that about shearing time a man might take his chance, leading an old horse with a swag on, as if he wanted to get shearing in some of the big down-the-river sheds? Not a bit of it, says Starlight. You're such a good-looking, upstanding chap, that you're safe to be pulled up and made answer for yourself before you'd get fifty miles. If you rode a good horse, they'd think you were too smart looking for a regular shearer, and nail you at once. But I'd take an old screw with a big leg, pleaded Jim. Haven't I often seen a cove, walking, and leading one, just to carry his blankets and things? Then they'd know a chap like you, full of work, and a native, to boot, or to have a better turnout, if it wasn't a stall, so they'd have you for that. But there's Isaac Lawson and Campbelltown. You've seen them. Isaac's an inch taller than me, and the same cut and make. Why shouldn't they shop them when they're going shearing? They're square enough, and always was. And Campbelltown's a good deal like Dick, beard and all. Well, I'll bet you a new mere shound that both men are arrested on suspicion before shearing. Of course they'll let them go again, but you mark my words they'll be stopped, as well as dozens of others. That will show how close the search will be. I don't care, says Jim, in his old obstinate way, which he never put on except very seldom. I'll go in a month or two, police or no police. I'll make for Melbourne, if there was an army of soldiers between me and Jeannie. We had to settle where the gold was to be hid. After a lot of talk, we agreed to keep one bag in a hole in the side of the wall of the cave, and bury the others in the place where we'd found old Mr. Devro's box. His treasure had laid many a year safe and sound without anybody touching it, and we thought ours might do the same. Besides, to find it they must get into the hollow first. So we packed it out bag by bag, and made an iron-bark coffin for it, and buried it away there, and put some couch-grass turfs on it. We knew they'd soon grow up, and nobody could tell that it hadn't always been covered up the same as the rest of the old garden. It felt pretty hard lines to think we shouldn't be able to get away from this lonely place after the life we'd led the last year, but Starlight wasn't often wrong, and we came to the same way of thinking ourselves when we looked it all round steady and quiet like. We'd been a week or ten days all by ourselves, horse-breaking, fishing, and shooting a bit, thinking how strange it was that we should have more than twenty thousand pounds in gold and money, and not be able to do anything with it, when Dad, sudden like, said he'd go out himself and get some of the newspapers, and perhaps a letter or two if any came. Starlight laughed at him a bit for being foolhardy, and said we should hear of his being caught and committed for trial. Why, they'll know the dog says he, and make him give evidence in court. I've known that done before now. Inspector Merlin nailed a chap through his dog. I knowed that case. A sheep-stealing one. They wanted to make out Brummy was the man who owned the dog, a remarkable dog he was, too, and had been seen driving the sheep. Well, what did the dog do? Identify the prisoner, didn't he? Well, the dashed fool of a coolly did, jumps up as soon as he was brought into court, and whines and scratches at the dock rails and barks, and goes on tremendous trying to get at Brummy. How did his master like it? Oh, Brummy! He looked as black as the ace of spades. He'd have made it hot for that dog if he could have got at him, but I suppose he forgave him when he came out. Why should he? Because the jury fetched him in guilty without leaving the box, and the judge gave him seven years. You wouldn't find this old varment a doing no such foolishness as that. Here he looks at crib, as was lying down a good way off, and not letting on to know anything. He saw father's old mare brought up, though, and saddled, and knowed quite well what that meant. He never rode her unless he was going out of the hollow. I believe that dog could stick up a man himself as well as some fellows we know, says Starlight, and he'd do it, too, if your father gave him the word. While we were taking it easy, and except for the loneliness of it, as safe as if we had been out of the country altogether, Moran and the other fellows hadn't quite such a good time of it. They were hunted from pillar to post by the police, who were mad to do something to meet the chaff that was always being cast up to them, of having a lot of bush-rangers robbing and shooting all over the country, and not being able to take them. There were some out-of-the-way places enough in the Weddon Mountains, but none like the Hollow, where they could lie quiet and untroubled for weeks together if they wanted. Besides, they had lost their gold by their own foolishness in not having better pack-horses, and hadn't much to carry on with, and it's not a life that can be worked on the cheap, I can tell you, as we often found out. Money comes easy in our line, but it goes faster still, and a man must never be short of a pound or two to chuck about if he wants to keep his information fresh, and have people working for him night and day with a will. So they had some everyday sort of work cut out to keep themselves going, and it took them all their time to get from one part of the country, where they were known, to some other place where they weren't expected. Having out-and-out good hacks, and being all of them chaps that had been born in the bush and knew it like a book, it was wonderful how they managed to rob people at one place one day, and then be at some place a hundred miles off the next. Ever so many times they came off, and they'd call one another Starlight and Marsden, and so on, till the people got regularly dumbfounded, and couldn't tell which of the gang it was that seemed to be all over the country, and in two places at the same time. We used to laugh ourselves sometimes when we'd hear tell that all the travellers passing Big Hill on a certain day were stuck up by walls gang and robbed. Every man-jack that came along for hours was made to stand behind a clump of trees with two of the gang guarding them, so as the others couldn't see them as they came up. They all had to deliver up what they'd got about them, and no one was allowed to stir till sundown for fear they should send word to the police. Then the gang went off, telling them to stay where they were for an hour, or else they'd come back and shoot them. This would be on the western road, perhaps. Next day a station on the southern road, a hundred and twenty miles off, would be robbed by the same lot, money and valuables taken away, and three or four of the best horses. Their own they'd leave behind in such a state that any one could see how far and fast they'd been ridden. They often got stood to when they were hard up for a mount, and it was this way, the squatters weren't alike, by any manner of means, in their way of dealing with them. Many of them had lots of fine riding horses in their paddocks. These would be yarded some fine night, the best taken and ridden hard, perhaps return next morning, perhaps in a day or two. It was pretty well known who had used them, but nothing was said. The best policy, some think, is to hold a candle to the devil, especially when the devils camped close handy to your paddock, and might any time sack your house, burn down your woolshed and stacks, or even shoot at your worshipful self if he didn't like the way you treated him and his imps. These careful, respectable people didn't show themselves too forward either in giving help or information to the police. Not by no means. They never encouraged them to stay when they came about the place, and weren't that over-liberal in feeding their horses, or giving them a hand in any way that they'd come again in a hurry. If they were asked about the bush-rangers, or when they'd been last seen, they were very careful and said as little as possible. No one wonders at people like the barns' or little farmers, or the very small sort of settlers, people with one flock of sheep or a few cows, doing this sort of thing. They have a lot to lose and nothing to get if they gain ill will. But regular country gentlemen with big properties, lots of money, and all the rest of it, they're there to show a good example to the countryside, whether it paid for the time or whether it didn't, and all us sort of chaps on the cross or not, like them all the better for it. When I say all of us, I don't mean Moran. A sulky, black-hearted, revengeful brute he always was, I don't think he'd any manly feeling about him. He was a half-bred gypsy, they told us, that knew where he was reared, and Starlight said gypsy blood was a queer cross, for devilry and hardness it couldn't be beat, he didn't wonder a bit at Moran's being the scoundrel he was. No doubt he had it in for more than one of the people who helped the police to Chevy Wall and his lot about. From what I knew of him I was sure he'd do some mischief one of these days and make all the country ten times as hot against us as they were now. He had no mercy about him. He'd rather shoot a man any day than not, and he'd burn a house down just for the pleasure of seeing how the owner looked when it was lighted. Starlight used to say he despised men that tried to save themselves cowardly like more than he could say, and thought them worse than the Bush rangers themselves. Some of them were big people too. But other country gentlemen, like Mr. Falkland, were quite of a different pattern. If they all acted like him I don't think we should any of us have reigned as long as we did. They helped and encouraged the police in every possible way. They sent them information whenever they had received any worthwhile. They lent them horses freely when their own were tired out and beaten. More than that when Bush rangers were supposed to be in the neighborhood they went out with them themselves, lying out and watching through the long cold nights and taking their chance of a shot as well as those that were paid for it. Now there was a Mr. Whitman that had never let go a chance from the start of running their trail with the police, and had more than once given them all they knew to get away. He was a native of the country, like themselves, a first-class horseman and tracker, a hardy, game sort of chap that thought nothing of being twenty-four hours in the saddle, or sitting under a fence watching for the whole of a frosty night. Well, he was pretty close to Moran once, who had been out by himself. That close he ran him he made him drop his rifle and ride for his life. Moran never forgave him for this, and one day, when they had all been drinking pretty heavy, he managed to persuade Wall, Holbert, Burke, and Daley to come with him and stick up Whitman's house. I sent word to him I'd pay him out one of these fine days he'd rolled out, and he'll find that Dan Moran can keep his word. He picked a time when he knew Whitman was away at another station. I always thought Moran was not so game as he gave himself out to be, and I think if he'd had Whitman's steady eyes looking at him and seeing a pistol in his hand, he wouldn't have shot as straight as he generally did when he was practising at a gum-tree. Anyhow, they laid it out all right as they thought to take the place unawares. They'd been drinking at a flash kind of inn, no great way off, and when they rode up to the house, it seems as if they were all of them three sheets to the wind, and fit for any kind of villainy that came uppermost. As for Moran, he was a devil unchained, I know what he was. The people in the house that day trembled and shook when they heard the dog's bark, and saw five strange horsemen ride through the back gate into the yard. They'd have trembled a deal more if they'd known what was coming. End of chapter thirty-five