 CHAPTER VI. OF ROBBERY UNDER ARMS. After we had fairly settled to stay, Father began to be more pleasant than he had ever been before. We were pretty likely, he said, to have a visit from Starlight and the Half-Cast in a day or two if we'd like to wait. He was to meet him at the Hollow on purpose to help him out with the mob of fat bullocks we had looked at. Father, it appears, was coming here by himself when he met this outlying lot of Mr. Hunter's cattle and thought he and old crib could bring them in by themselves. And a mighty good haul it was! Father said we should share the weeners between the three of us. That meant fifty pounds of peace at least. The Devil always helps beginners. We put through a couple of days pleasantly enough, after our hardish bit of work. Jim found some fish hooks and a line and we caught plenty of mullet and eels in the deep, clear waterholes. We found a couple of double-barreled guns and shot ducks enough to last us a week. No wonder the old frequenters of the Hollow used to live here for a month at a time, having great times of it as long as their grog lasted, and sometimes having the tribe of blacks that inhabited the district to make merry and corrals with them, like the buccaneers of the Spanish Maine that I've read about, till the plunder was all gone. There were scrawls on the wall of the first cave we had been in that showed all the visitors had not been rude, untaught people. And Jim picked up part of a woman's dress splashed with blood, and in one place, among some smoldering packages and boxes, a long lock of woman's hair, fair, bright brown, that looked as if the name of terrible Hollow might not have been given to this lonely, wonderful glen for nothing. We spent nearly a week in this way, and were beginning to get rather sick of the life, when father, who used always to be looking at a bear patch in the scrub above us, said, they're coming at last. Who are coming, friends? Why, friends, of course. That starlight signal. See that smoke? The half-caste always sends that up, like the blacks in his mother's tribe, I suppose. Any cattle or horses with them, said Jim. No, or they'd send up two smokes. They'll be here about dinnertime, so we must get ready for them. We had plenty of time to get ourselves or anything else ready. In about four hours, we began to look at them through a strong spyglass which father brought out. By and by, we got sight of two men coming along on horseback, on the top of the range, the other side of the far wall. They wasn't particularly easy to see, and every now and then, we'd lose sight of them as they got into thick timber or behind rocks. Father got the spyglass on to them at last, pretty clear, and nearly threw it down with an oath. By blankety-blank, he says, I believe starlights hurt somehow. He's so infernal rash, I can see the half-caste holding them on. If the police are on his tracks, they'll spring the plant here, and the whole thing will be blown. We saw them come to the top of the wall, as it were. Then they stopped for a long while, then all of a sudden, they seemed to disappear. Let's go over to the other side, says father. They're coming down the gully now. It's a terrible, steep, rough track, worse than the other. If starlights hurt bad, he'll never ride down. But he has the pluck of the devil, sure enough. We rode over to the other side, where there was a kind of gully that came in, something like the one we came in by, but rougher and full of gibbers or boulders. There was a path, but it looked as if cattle could never be driven or forced up it. We found out afterwards that they had an old-pack bullock that they'd trained to walk up this and down too, when they wanted him, and the other cattle followed in his track as cattle will. Fathers showed us a sort of cave by the side of the track, where one man, with a couple of guns and a pistol or two, could have shot down a small regimen as they came down one at a time. We stayed in there by the track, and after about half an hour, we heard the two horses coming down slowly, step by step, kicking the stones down before them. Then we could hear a man groaning, as if he couldn't bear the pain, and partly as if he was trying to smother it. Then another man's voice, very soft and soothing like, trying to comfort another. My head's a fire, and these cursed ribs are grinding against one another, every step of this infernal ladder. Is it far now? How he groaned then. Just got to the bottom, hold on a bit longer, and you'll be all right. Just then the leading horse came out into the open before the cave. We had a good look at him and his rider. I never forgot them. It was a bad day I ever saw either, and many a man had caused to say the same. The horse held up his head and snorted as he came abreast of us, and we showed out. He was one of the grandest animals I had ever seen, and I afterwards found he was better than he looked. He came stepping down that beastly rocky goat track, he, a clean, thoroughbred that ought never to have trod upon anything rougher than a rolled training track, or the sound bush turf. And here he was with a heavy weight on his back, a half-dead, fainting man that couldn't hold the reins, and him walking down as steady as an old mountain bull or a walleroo on the side of a creek bank. I hadn't much time to look him over. I was too much taken up with the rider who was lying forward on his chest across a coat rolled round and strapped in front of the saddle and his arms around the horse's neck. He was as pale as a ghost. His eyes, great dark ones they were, too, were staring out of his head. I thought he was dead and called out to father and Jim that he was. They ran up and we lifted him off after undoing some straps and a rope. He was tied on. That was what the half-cast was waiting for at the top of the gully. When we laid him down his head fell back and he looked as much like a corpse as if he'd been dead a day. Then we saw he had been wounded. There was blood on his shirt and the upper part of his arm was bandaged. It's too late, father, said I. He's a dead man. What pluck he must have had to ride down there. He's worth too dead and jet, said father, who had his hand on his pulse. Hold his head up, one of you, while I go for the brandy. How'd he get hit, Warrigal? That blankety blank Sergeant Goreng, said the boy, a slight active-looking chap, about sixteen that looked as if he could jump into a gum tree and back again, and I believe he could. Sergeant Goreng, he very near grabbed us at Dilliga. We got a load of old Jobeson's cattle when he came on us. He jumped off his horse when he could see he couldn't catch us and very near dropped Starlight. My word, he very nearly fall off, just like that. Here he imitated a man reeling in his saddle. But the old horse stopped steady with him. My word, till he come to. Then the Sergeant fired at him again, hit him in the shoulder with his pistol. Then Starlight come to his senses and we clear. My word, he couldn't see the way the old horse went. Here the young devil laughed till the trees and rocks rang again. Galloped different ways, too, and met at the old needle rock. But they was miles away then. Before the wild boy had come to the end of his story, the wounded man had proved that it was only a dead faint, as the women call it. Not the real thing. And after he had tasted a panicking full of brandy and water, which father brought him, he sat up and looked like a living man once more. Better have a look at my shoulder, he said. That blankety-blank fellow shot like a prize winner at Wimbledon. I had a squeak for it. Puts me in mind of our old poaching rose, said father, while he carefully cut the shirt off that was stiffened with blood and showed where the bullet had passed through the muscle, narrowly missing the bone of the joint. We washed it and relieved the wounded man by discovering that the other bullet had only been spent after striking a tree most like, when it had knocked the wind out of him and nearly unhorsed him, as Waragul said. Fill my pipe, one of you. Who the devil are these lads? Yours, I suppose, Marston, or you wouldn't be full enough to bring them here. Why didn't you leave them at home with their mother? Don't you think you and I and this devil's limb enough for this precious trait of ours? They'll take their luck as it comes, like others, growled father. What's good enough for me isn't too bad for them. We want another hand or two to work things right. Oh, we do, do we? said the stranger, fixing his eyes on father as if he was going to burn a hole in him with a burning glass. But if I had a brace of fine boys like those of my own, I'd hang myself before I'd drag them into the pit after myself. That's all very fine, said father, looking very dark and dangerous. Is Mr. Starlight going to turn parson? You'll be just in time, for we'll all be shopped if you run against the police like this and next thing to lay them on to the hollow by making for it when you're too weak to ride. What would you have me do? Pull up and hold up my hands. There was nowhere else to go. And that new sergeant rode devilish, well, I can tell you, with a big chestnut well bred horse that gave old Rainbow here all he knew to lose him. Now, once for all, no more of that, Marston, and mind your own business. I'm the superior officer in this ship's company. You know that very well. Your business is to obey me and take second place. Father growled out something, but did not offer to deny it. We could see plainly that the stranger was or had been far above our rank, whatever were the reasons which had led to his present kind of life. We stayed for about 10 days while the stranger's arm got well. With care and rest, it soon healed. He was pleasant enough too when the pain went away. He had been in other countries and told us all kinds of stories about them. He said nothing, though, about his own former ways, and we often wondered whatever could have made him take to such a life. Unknown to Father, too, he gave us good advice. Warned us that what we were in was the road to imprisonment or death in due course, and not to flatter ourselves that any other ending was possible. I have my own reasons for leading the life I do, he said, and must run my own course, of which I foresee the end as plainly as if it was written in a book before me. Your father had a long account to square with society, and he has a right to settle it his own way. That yellow welp was never intended for anything better, but for you lads. And here he looked kindly and poor old Jim's on his face, and an honest face in heart Jim's was, and that I'll live and die on. My advice to you is to clear off home when we go and never come back here again. Tell your father you won't come. Cut loose from him once and for all. You'd better drown yourselves comfortably at once than take to this cursed trade. Now mind what I tell you, and keep your own counsel. By and by the day came when the horses were run in for Father and Mr. Starlight and Warrigal, who packed up to be off for some other part. When they were in the yard we had a good look at his own horse. A good look. And if I'd been a fellow that painted pictures, and that kind of thing, I could draw a middle and good likeness of him now. By George, how fond I am of a good horse. A real well-bred clinker. I'd never been here if it hadn't been for that, I do believe. And many another currency chap can say the same. A horse or a woman, that's about the size of it, one or two other generally fetches us. I shall never put foot and stir up again, but I'll try and scratch out a sort of likeness of Rainbow. He was a dark bay horse, nearly brown, without a white hair on him. He wasn't above 15 hands and an inch high, but looked a deal bigger than he was, for the way he held his head up and carried himself. He was deep and thick through behind the shoulders and girthed ever so much more than you'd think. He had a short back, and his ribs went out like a cask, long quarter, great thighs and hocks, wonderful legs, and feet, of course, to do the work he did. His head was plainish but clean and bony, and his eye was big and well opened, with no white showing. His shoulder was sloped back that much that he couldn't fall, no matter what happened, his forelegs, all his paces were good too. I believe he could jump, jump anything he was ridden at, and very few horses could get the better of him for one mile or three. Where he'd come from, of course, we were not to know then. He had a small private sort of brand that didn't belong to any of the big studs, but he was never bred by a poor man. I afterwards found out that he was stolen before he was fouled, like many another plum, and his dam killed as soon as she had weaned him. So, of course, no one could swear to him, and Starlight could have ridden past the Supreme Court at the ass sizes, and never been stopped, as far as this horse was concerned. Before we went away, Father and Starlight had some terrible long talks, and one evening Jim came to me and says he, what do you think they're up to now? How should I know? Sticking up a bank, or boning a flock of maiden youths to take up a run with? They seem to be game for anything. There'll be a hanging match in the family if us boys don't look out. There's no knowing, says Jim, with a roguish look in his eye. I didn't think, then, how near the truth I was. But it's about a horse this time. Oh, a horse, that alters the matter. But what's one horse to make such a shine about? Ah, that's the point, says poor old Jim. It's a horse worth talking about. Don't you remember the important entire that they had his picture in the papers, him that Mr. Windhall gave 2,000 pounds for? What, the marquee of Lorne? Why, you don't mean to say they're going for him? By George I do, says Jim, and they'll give him here and 20 blood mares to put to him before September. They're all gone mad. They'll raise the country on us. Every police trooper in the colony will be after us like a pack of dingos after an old man kangaroo in the ground's boggy, and they'll run us down, too. They can't be off it. Whatever made them think of such a big touch as that? That's Starlight's the devil, I think, said Jim slowly. Father didn't seem to like it at first, but he brought him round bit by bit. Said he knew a squatter in Queensland he could pass him on to, that they'd keep him there for a year and get a crop of fouls by him, and when the dairy was off he'd take him over himself. But how's he going to nail him? People say Windhall keeps him locked up at night and his box is close to his house. Starlight says he has a friend handy. He seems to have one or two everywhere. It's wonderful, as Father told him, where he gets his information. By George it would be a touch and no mistake, and if we get a few colts by him out of thoroughbred mares we might win half the races every year on our side, no one a bit the wiser. It did seem a grand sort of thing, young fools that we were, to get a hold of this wonderful stallion that we'd heard so much about, as thoroughbred as eclipse, good as anything England could turn out. I say again, if it weren't for the horse flesh part of it, the fun and hard riding and tracking and all the rest of it, there wouldn't be anything like the crosswork that there is in Australia. It lies partly between that and the dry weather. There's the long spells of drought when nothing can be done by young or old. Sometimes for months you can't work in the garden, nor plow, nor sow, nor do anything useful to keep the devil out of your heart. Only sit at home and do nothing, or else go out and watch the grass withering and the water drying up and the stock dying by inches before your eyes. And no change, maybe for months. The ground like iron and the sky like brass, as the parson said, and very true, too, last Sunday. Then the youngsters, having so much idle time on their hands, take to gaffin' and flash talk, and money must be got to sport and pay up if they lose, and the stock all rambling about and mixed up, and there's the temptation to collar somebody's calves or fouls like we did that first red heifer. I shall remember her to my dying day. It seems as if I had put that brand on my own heart when I jammed it down on her soft skin. Anyhow, I never forgot it, and there's many another like me I'll be bound. The next morning Jim and I started off home. Father said he should stay in the hollow till Starlight got round a bit. He told us not to tell Mother or Ily a word about where we'd been. Of course they couldn't be off knowing that we'd been with him, but we were to stall them off by saying we'd been helping him with a bit of bush work or anything we could think of. It'll do no good, and your mother's quite miserable enough as it is, boys, he said. She'll know time enough and maybe break her heart over it too. Poor Nora. Dashed if I ever heard Father say a soft thing before. I couldn't have believed it. I always thought he was iron bark outside and in, but he seemed real sorry for once, and I was near saying, why don't you cut the whole blessed lot then and come home and work steady and make us all comfortable and happy. But when I looked again his face was all changed and hard like. Off you go, he says with his old voice. Next time I want either of you I'll send Warrell go for you. And with that he walked off from the yard where we had been catching our horses and never looked nigh us again. We rode away to the low end of the gully, and then we led the horses up foot by foot and hard work it was, like climbing up the roof of a house. We were almost done when we got to the table land at the top. We made our way to the yard, where there were the tracks of the cows all around about it, but nothing but the wild horses had ever been there since. What a scrubby hole it is, said Jim. I wonder how in the world they ever found out the way to the hollow. Some runaway government men, I believe, so that half-cast chap told me, and a gin showed them the track down, and where to get water and everything. They lived on kangaroos at first, then by degrees they used to crawl out by moonlight and collar a horse or two or a few cattle. They managed to live there years and years. One died, one was killed by the blacks, the last man showed it to the chaps that passed it on to Starlight. Warrell's mother, or aunt or something, was the gin that showed it to the first white men. END OF CHAPTER VI I was at home, and poor mother and Eileen were that glad to see us that they didn't ask too many questions. Mother would sit and look at the pair of us for ever so long without speaking, and then the tears would come into her eyes, and she'd turn away her head. The old place looked very snug, clean, and comfortable, too, after all the camping out. And it was first great to have our own beds again. Then the milk and fresh butter, and the eggs and bacon. My word, how Jim did lay in. He'd have thought he was going on all night. By George, home's a jolly place after all, he said. I am going to stay ever so long this time, and work like an old, near-side polar. See if I don't. Let's look at your hands, Eileen. My word, you've been doing your share. Indeed has she, said mother. It's a shame, so it is. And with her two big brothers, too. Poor Allie, said Jim. She's had to take an axe, had she, in her pretty little hands. But she didn't cut all that wood that's outside the door, and I nearly broke my neck over. I'll go bail. How do you know, says she, smiling roguish-like. All the world might have been here for what you've been the wiser. Going away, nobody knows where. And coming home at night, like, like. Bushrangers says I. Say it out. But we haven't turned out yet, if that's what you mean, Ms. Marston. I don't mean anything. But what's kind and loving, you naughty boy, says she. Throwing her arms about my neck. But why will you break our hearts, poor mothers and mine, by going off in such a wild way and staying away, as if you were doing something that you were ashamed of? Women shouldn't ask questions, I said roughly. You'll know time enough, and if you never know, perhaps it's all the better. Jim was alongside of mother by this time, lying down like a child on the old native dog-skin rug that we had tanned ourselves with Waddlebark. She had her hand on his hair, thick and curly it was, always from a child. She didn't say anything, but I could see the tears drip, drip, down from her face. Her head was on Jim's shoulders, and by and by he put his arm around her neck. I went off the bed, I remember, and left them to it. Next morning Jim and I were up at sunrise, and got in the milkers, as we always did when we were at home. Eileen was up too. She had done all the derringing lately by herself. There were about a dozen cows to milk, and she had managed it all herself, every day, that we were away. Put up the calves every afternoon, and drove up the cows in the cold mornings, made the butter, which she used to salt and put into a keg, and feed the pigs with the skim milk. It was rather hard work for her, but I never saw her equal for farm work, rough or smooth. And she used to manage to dress neat and look pretty all the time, not like some small settlers' daughters that I have seen, slouching about, with a pair of bolcher boots on, no bonnet, a dirty frock, and a petticoat like a blanket rag. Not bad-looking girls, either. And their hair like a dry mop. No, Eileen was always neat and tidy, with a good pair of thick boots outside, and a thin pair for the house, when she'd done her work. She could frighten a wildish cow, and bale up anything that would stay in a yard with her. She could ride like a bird, and drive bullocks on a pinch in a tray, or at plow. Chop wood, too, as well as here and there a one. But when she was in the house and regularly set down to her sewing, she'd look that quiet and steady going. You'd think she was only fit to teach in a school, or sell laces and gloves. And so she was when she was let work in her own way. But if she was crossed or put upon, or saw anything going wrong, she'd hold up her head and talk as straight as any man I ever saw. She'd a look just like father when he made up his mind. Only her way was always the right way. What a difference it makes, doesn't it? And she was so handsome with it. I've seen a goodish lot of women since I left the old place, let alone her, that's helped to put me where I am. But I don't think I ever saw a girl that was a patch on Eileen for looks. She had a wonderful fair skin, and her eyes were large and soft like poor mothers. When she was a little raised like, you'd see a pink flush come on her cheeks like a peach blossom in September. And her eyes had a bright startled look, like a doe kangaroo when she jumps up and looks around. Her teeth were as white and even as a black jins. The mouth was something like father's, and when she shut it up, we boys always knew she had made up her mind, and wasn't going to be turned from it. But her heart was that good, that she was always thinking of others and not of herself. I believe I know she'd have died for anyone she loved. She had more sense than all the rest of us put together. I've often thought that if she'd been the oldest boy instead of me, she'd have kept Jim straight, and managed to drive father out of his crossways. That is, if anyone living could have done it. As for riding, I have never seen anyone that could sit a horse or handle him through rough, thick country like her. She could ride barebacked or next to it, sitting sideways on nothing but a gunny bag, and send a young horse flying through scrub and rocks or down ranges where you'd think a horse could hardly keep his feet. We could all ride a bit out of the common, if it comes to that. Better if we had learned nothing but how to walk behind a plow year in, year out, like some of the folks in father's village in England, as he used to tell us about when he was in a good humor. But that's all as people are reared, I suppose. We've been used to the outside of a horse ever since we could walk almost, and it came natural to us. Anyhow, I think Eileen was about the best of the lot of us, at that, as in everything else. Well, for a bit, all went on pretty well at home. Jim and I worked away steady, got in a tidy bit of crop, and did everything that lay in our way, right and regular. We milked the cows in the morning, and brought in a big stack of firewood and chopped as much as would last for a month or two. We mended up the paddock fence and tidied the garden. The old place hadn't looked so smart for many a day. When we came in at night, old mother used to look that pleased and happy. We couldn't help feeling better in our hearts. Eileen used to read something out of the paper that she thought might amuse us. I could read pretty fair, and so could Jim. But we were both lazy at it. And after working pretty hard all day, didn't so much care about spelling out the long words in the farming news or the stories they put in. All the same, it would have paid us better if we had read a little more, and put the bull locking on one side at odd times. A man can learn as much out of a book or a paper sometimes in an hour as will save him work for a week, or put him up to working to better purpose. I can see that now, too late, and more is the pity. Anyhow, Eileen could read pretty near as fast as any one I ever saw, and she used to reel it out for us as we sat smoking over the fire in a way that kept us jolly and laughing till it was nearly turning in time. Now and then George Storfield would come and stay an hour or two. He could read well, nearly as well as she could. Then he had always something to show her that she had been asking about. His place was eight miles off, but he'd always get his horse and go home, whatever the night was like. I must be at my work in the morning, he'd say. It's more than half a day gone if you lose that, and I have no half days to spare, or quarter days either. So we all got on first rate, and anybody would have thought that there wasn't a more steady going, hardworking, happy family in the colony. No more there wasn't while it lasted. After all, what is there that's half as good as being all right and square, working hard for the food you eat and the sleep you enjoy, able to look at all the world in the face and afraid of nothing and nobody. We were so quiet and comfortable till the winter was over and the spring coming on, till about September, that I almost began to believe we'd never done anything in our lives we could be made to suffer for. Now and then, of course, I used to wake up in the night and my thoughts would go back to terrible hollow, that wonderful place, and one night with the unbranded cattle and starlight, with the blood dripping onto his horse's shoulders, and the half-caste with his hawk's eye and glittering teeth, father with his gloomy face and dark words. I wondered whether it was all a dream, whether I and Jim had been in at all, whether any of the cross-work had been found out, and if so, what would be done to me and Jim. Most of all, though, whether father and starlight were away after some big touch, and if so, where and what it was, and how soon we should hear of it. As for Jim, he was one of those happy-go-lucky fellows that didn't bother himself about anything he didn't see or run against. I don't think it ever troubled him. It was the only bad thing he'd ever been in. He'd been drawn in against his will, and I think he made up his mind, pretty nearly, not to go in for any more. I have often seen Eileen talking to him, and they'd walk along in the evening when the work was done. He, with his arm around her waist, and she looking at him with that quiet, pleased face of hers, seeming so proud and fond of him, as if he had been the little chap she used to lead about and put on the old pony, and bring into the calf-pen when she was milking. I remember he had a fight with a little bull calf, about a week old, that came in with a wild heifer, and Eileen made as much of his pluck as if it had been a mally scrubber. The calf bawed and butted at Jim, as even the youngest of them will, if they've the wild blood in them, and nearly upset him. He was only a bit of a toddler, but Jim picked up a loose leg of a milking stool, and the two went at it hammer and tongs. I could hardly stand for laughing, till the calf gave him best, and walked. Eileen pulled him out and carried him into mother, telling her that he was the bravest little chap in the world, and I remember I got scolded for not going to help him. How these little things come back. I'm beginning to be afraid, says George one evening, and it's going to be a dry season. There's plenty of time yet, says Jim, who always took the bright side of things. It might rain towards the end of the month. I was thinking the same thing, I said. We haven't had any rain to speak of for a couple of months, and that bit of wheat of ours is beginning to go back. The oats look better. Now think of it, put in Jim. Dick Dawson came in from the outside, and he said things are shocking bad, all the frontage bear already, and the water drying up. It's always that way, I said, bitter like. As soon as a poor man's got a chance of a decent crop, the season turns against him, or prices go down, so that he never gets a chance. It's as bad for the rich man, isn't it? said George. It's God's will, and we can't make or mend things by complaining. I don't know so much about that, I said sullenly, but it's not as bad for the rich man. Even if the squatters suffer by a drought and lose their stock, they have more stock and money in the bank, or else credit to fall back on, while the likes of us lose all we have in the world, and no one would lend us a pound afterwards to save our lives. It's not quite so bad as that, said George. I shall lose my year's work, and less rain comes, and most of the cattle and horses besides, but I shall be able to get a few pounds to go on with, however the season goes. Oh, if you like to bow and scrape to rich people, well and good, I said, but that's not my way. We have as good a right to our share of the land, and some other good things as they have, and why should we be done out of it? If we pay for the land as they do, certainly, said George. But why should we pay? God Almighty, I suppose, made the land and the people, too, one to live on the other. Why should we pay, for what is our own? I believe in getting my share somehow. That's a sort of argument that doesn't come out right, said George. How would you like another man to come and want to have the farm with you? I shouldn't mind. I should go haves with someone else who has a bigger one, I said. More money, too, more horses, more sheep, a bigger house. Why should he have it and not me? That's a lazy man's argument, and well, not an honest man's, said George, getting up and putting on his cabbage tree. I can't sit and hear you talk such a rot. Nobody can work better than you and Jim when you like. I wonder you don't leave such talk to fellows like Frowser. That's always spouting at the shearer's arms. Nonsense or not, if a dry season comes and knocks all our work over, I shall help myself to some one's stuff that has more than he knows what to do with. Why can't we all go shearing and make as much as will keep us for six months, said George? I don't know what we'd do without the squatters. Nor I either. More ways than one. But Jim and I are going shearing next week. So perhaps there won't be any need for it duffing, after all. Oh, Dick, said Eileen, I can't bear to hear you make a joke of that kind of thing. Don't we all know what it leads to? Wouldn't it be better to live on dry bread and be honest than to be full of money and never know the day when you'd be dragged to jail? I've heard all that before. But ain't there lots of people that have made their money by all sorts of villainy that look as well as the best and never see a jail? They're always caught some day, says poor Eileen, sobbing, and what a dreadful life of anxiety they must lead. Not at all, I said. Look at Lusly, Squeezer, and frying Pan Jack. Everybody knows how they got their stock and their money. See how they live? They've got stations and public houses and town property, and they get richer every year. I don't think it pays to be too honest in a dry country. Your naughty boy, Dick, isn't he, Jim, she said, smiling through her tears. But he doesn't mean half what he says, does he? Not he says, Jim. And very likely, we'll have lots of rain after all. The Big Squatter, as he was called on our side of the country, was Mr. Falkland. He was an Englishman that had come young to the colony and worked his way up by degrees. He had had no money when he first came, people said. Indeed, he often said so himself. He was not proud at any rate in that way, for he was not above telling a young fellow that he should never be downhearted because he had a coat to his back or a shilling in his pocket because he, Herbert Falkland, had known what it was to be without either. This was the best country in the whole world, he used to say, for a gentleman who was poor or a working man. The first sort could always make an independence if they were moderately strong, liked work, and did not drink. There were very few countries where idle, unsteady people got rich. As for the poor man, he was the real rich man in Australia, high wages, cheap food, lodging, clothing, traveling. What more did he want? He could save money, live happily, and die rich, if he wasn't a fool or a rogue. Unfortunately, these last were highly popular professions, and many people, high and low, belonged to them here and everywhere else. We were all well up in this kind of talk because, for the last two or three years, since we had begun to share pretty well, we had always shorn at his shed. He was one of those gentlemen, and he was a gentleman, if ever there was one, that takes a deal of notice of his working hands, particularly if they were young. Jim he took a great fancy to, the first moment he saw him. He didn't care so much about me. You're a sulky young dog, Richard Marston, he used to say. I'm not sure that you'll come to any good, and though I don't like to say all I hear about your father before you, I'm afraid he doesn't teach you anything worth knowing. But Jim there is a grand fellow. If he'd been caught young, and weaned from all of your lot, he'd have been an honor to the land he was born in. He's too good for you all. Every one of you gentlemen wants to be a small God Almighty, I said impudently. You'd like to break us all in, and put us in yolks and bows, like a lot of working bullocks. You mistake me, my boy, and all the rest of us who are worth calling men, let alone gentlemen. We are your best friends, and would help you in every way if you'd only let us. I don't see so much of that. Because you often fight against your own good, we should like to see you all have farms of your own, to be all well taught and able to make the best of your lives, not driven to drink as many of you are, because you have no notion of any rational amusement, and anything between hard work and idle dissipation. And suppose you had all this power, I said. For if I was afraid of father, there wasn't another man living that could over-crow me. Don't you think you'd know the way to keep all good things for yourselves? Hasn't it always been so? I see your argument, he said, quite quiet and reasonable, just as if I had been a swell like himself. That was why he was unlike any other man I ever knew. And it is a perfectly fair way of putting it. But your class might, I think, always rely upon there being enough kindness and wisdom in ours to prevent that state of things. Unfortunately, neither side trusts the other enough. And now the bell is going to ring, I think. Jim and I stopped at Borey Shed till all the sheep were cut out. It pays well if the weather is pretty fair. And it isn't bad fun when there's twenty or thirty chaps of the right sort in the shearers hut. There's always some fun going on. Shears work pretty hard. And as they buy their own rations generally, they can afford to live well. After a hard day shearing, that is, from five o'clock in the morning till seven at night, going best pace all the time, every man working as hard as if he was at it for his life, one would think a man would be too tired to do anything. But we were mostly strong and hearty. And at that age a man takes a deal of killing. So we used to have a little card playing at night to pass away the time. Very few of the fellows had any money to spend. They couldn't get any either until shearing was over and they were paid off. But they'd get someone who could write to scribble a lot of IOUs. And they did as well. We used to play all fours, and Lou, and now and then an American game, which some of the fellows had picked up. It was strange how soon we managed to get into big stakes. I won at first, and then Jim and I began to lose. Anne had such a lot of IOUs out that I was afraid we'd have no money to take home after shearing. Then I began to think what a fool I'd been to play myself and drag Jim into it, for he didn't want to play at first. One day I got a couple of letters from home. One from Eileen. And another in a strange hand. It had come to our little post office, and Eileen had sent it on to Boree. When I opened it there were a few lines with Father's name at the bottom. He couldn't write, so I made sure that Starlight had written it for him. He was quite well, it said, and to look out for him about Christmas time. He might come home then, or send for us, to stop at Boree if we could get work, and keep a couple of horses in good trim, as he might want us. A couple of five-pound notes fell out of the letter as I opened it. When I looked at them, first I felt a kind of fear. I knew what they came from, and I had a sort of feeling that we should be better without them. However, the devil was too strong for me. Money's attempting thing, whether it's notes or gold, especially when a man's in debt. I had begun to think the fellows looked a little cool on us the last three or four nights as our losses were growing big. So I gave Jim his share, and after tea we sat down again. There weren't more than a dozen of us that were in the card racket. I flung down my note, and Jim did his, and told them that we owed to take the change out of that and hand us over their paper for the balance. They all stared for such a thing hadn't been seen since the shearing began. Shears, as a rule, come from their homes in the settled districts very bare. They are not very well supplied with clothes. Their horses are poor and done up, and they very seldom have a note in their pockets, unless they have managed to sell a spare horse on the journey. So we were great men for the time, looked at by others with wonder and respect. We were fools enough to be pleased with it. Strangely, too, our luck turned from that minute, and it ended in our winning not only our own back, but more than as much more from the other men. I don't think Mr. Faulkman liked these goings on. He wouldn't have allowed cards at all if he could have helped it. He was a man that hated what was wrong, and didn't value his own interest a pin when it came in the way. However, the shearing hut was our own, in a manner of speaking, and as long as we shore clean and kept the shed going the overseer, Mr. McIntyre, didn't trouble us had much about our doings in the hut. He was anxious to get done with the shearing, to get the wool into the bales before the dust came in, and the grass seed ripened, and the clover-burrs began to fall. Why should he fast she-self, I heard him say once to Mr. Faulkman, about these young devils like the Martstons? There is goods ready money in old Knicks purse. It's bread and borne and welding in them. You just have the burrs and seeds among the wool, if you keep losing a smart shearer, for the sake of a wean card and dice, and you'll make nay heed of converting these young catarans, only mare, then you'll change a norway falcon into a barn door chucky. I wonder if what he said was true, if we couldn't help it, if it was in our blood. It seems like it, and yet it's hard lines to think a fellow must grow up and get on the cross in spite of himself, and come to the gallows foot at last, whether he likes it or not. The parson here isn't bad at all. He's a man and a gentleman too, and he talked and read to me by the hour. I suppose some of us chaps are like the poor stupid tribes that the Israelites found in Canaan, only meant to live for a bit, and then to be rubbed out to make room for better people. When the shearing was nearly over, we had a Saturday afternoon to ourselves. We had finished all the sheep that were in the shed, and old McIntyre didn't like to begin a fresh flock. So we got on our horses and took a ride into the township just for the fun of the thing, and for a little change. The horses had gotten quite fresh with the rest and the spring grass. Their coats were shining, and they all looked very different from what they did when we first came. Our two were not so poor when they came, so they looked the best of the lot, and jumped about in style when we mounted. Ah, only to think of a good horse. All the men washed themselves and put on clean clothes. Then we had our dinner, and about a dozen of us started off for the town. Poor old Jim, how well he looked that day. I don't think you could pick a young fellow anywhere in the countryside that was a patch on him for good looks and manliness, somewhere about six foot or a little over, as straight as a rush, with a bright blue eye that was always laughing and twinkling, and curly dark brown hair. No wonder all the girls used to think so much of him. He could do anything and everything that a man could do. He was as strong as a young bull, and as active as a rock wallaby, and ride, while he sat on his horse as if he was born on one. With his broad shoulders and upright easy seat, he was a regular picture on a good horse. And he had a good one under him today, a big brown resolute, well bred horse. He had got in a swamp because the man that had him was afraid of him. Now that he had got a little flesh on his bones, he looked something quite out of the common. A deal too good for a poor man, and him honest, as old McIntyre said. But Jim turned on him pretty sharp, and said he had got the horse in a fair deal, and had as much right to a good mount as anyone else, super or squatter. He didn't care who he was. And Mr. Falkland took Jim's part, and rather made Mr. McIntyre out in the wrong for saying what he did. The old man didn't say much more, only shook his head, saying, I, ye a grand laddie and a birdie, and know that thrall either, like ye, dick ye born devil lookin' at me. But I miss doubt, sir, ye die with your boots on. There's a smack of Johnny Armstrong in the glint of your eye. Ye be to drear your weird that an A help fort. What's all that lingo, Mr. McIntyre called out Jim, all good natured again? Is it French or Queensland black's yabber? Blessed if I understood a word of it. But I didn't want to be nasty. Only I'm a regular shook on this old moke, I believe, and he's as square as Mr. Falkland's dog cart horse. Maybe ye brought him fair enough, I'll no deny ye. I saw the receipt myself. But where did yawn, lang-legged, long-locket, fish-river moss-top and gallant, win-haught at him? Answer me that, Jim's. I says nothing, answered Jim. I'm not supposed to trace back every horse in the country, and find out all the people that owned him since he was a foal. He's mine now, and mine he'll be till I get a better one. A cut-tuma-acious and stiff-neck generation, said the old man, walking off and shaking his head. And yet he's a fine laddie, a grand and laddie, what he'd be with good guidance. It's the Lord's doing, nay doot. We don't afault it. It's wondrous in our aim. That was the way old Mac always talked. Droll lingo, wasn't it? End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Robbery Under Arms This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Well, anyway, we went to this township. Bunda was the name of it. Not that there was anything to do or see when we got there. It was the regular up-country village, with a public house, a store, a pound, and a blacksmith's shop. However, a public house is not such a thing as a township, but a township, a township, a township, a township, a township, a township, and a blacksmith's shop. However, a public house is not such a bad place. At any rate, it's better than nothing when a fellow is young and red-hot for anything, like a bit of fun, or even a change. Some people can work away day after day and year after year, like a bullock in a team, or a horse in a chaff-cutting machine. It is all to better for them, if they can, though I suppose they never enjoy themselves, except in a cold-blooded sort of way. But there's other men that can't do that sort of thing, and it's no use talking. They must have life and liberty and a free range. There are some birds and animals, too, that either pine in a cage or kill themselves. And I suppose it's the same way with some men. They can't stand the cage of what's called honest labor, which means working for someone else for twenty or thirty years, never having a day to yourself, or doing anything you like, and saving up a trifle for your old age when you can't enjoy it. I don't wonder youngsters break traces and gallop off like a colt out of a team. Besides, sometimes there's a good-looking girl, even out of bush-public. The daughter, or the barmaid, and it's odd, now, what a difference that makes. There's a few glasses of grog going, a little noisy, rattling talk, a few smiles and a saucy answer or two from the girl, a look at the last newspaper, or a bit of the town news from the landlord. He has always time to read, hang him, I mean confound him, for he's generally a sly old spider, who sucks us fellows pretty dry, and then don't care what becomes of us. Well, it don't amount to much, but it's life, the only taste of it that chaps like us are likely to get. And people may talk as much as they like, boys and men, too, will like it, and take to it, and hanker after it, as long as the world lasts. There's danger in it, and misery and death, often enough comes of it, but what of that? If a man wants to swim on the seashore, he won't stand all day on the beach, because he may be drowned, or snapped up by a shark, or knocked against a rock, or tired out and drawn under by the surf. No, if he's a man, he'll jump in and enjoy himself all the more, because the waves are high and the water's deep. So it was very good fun to us, simple as it might sound to some people. It was pleasant to be bowling along, over the firm green turf, along the plain, through the forest, gully, and over the creek. Our horses were fresh, and we had a scurry or two, of course, but there wasn't one that could hold a candle to Jim's brown horse. He was a long striding, smooth-goer, but he got over the ground in wonderful style. He could jump, too, for Jim had put him over a big log fence or two, and he sailed over them, like a forester buck over the head of a fallen wattle. Well, we had our lark at the Bunda Royal Hotel, and were coming home to Tea, at the station, all in good spirits, but sober enough, when, just as we were crossing one of the roads that came through the run, over the pretty plain, as they called it, we heard a horse coming along, best pace. When we looked, who should it be but Miss Faulkland, the owner's only daughter. She was an only child in the very apple of her father's eye, you may be sure. The shears mostly knew her by sight, because she had taken a fancy to come down with her father a couple times, to see the shed when we were all in full work. A shed's not exactly the best place for a young lady to come into. Shears are rough in their language now and then, but every man liked and respected Mr. Faulkland, so we all put ourselves on our best behavior. And two or three flash-fellows, who had no sense or decent feeling, were warned that if they broke out at all, they would get something to remember it by. But when we saw that beautiful, delicate-looking creature, stepping down the boards between the two rows of shears, most of them stripped to their jerseys and working like steam engines, looking curiously and pitifully at the tired men and the patient sheep with her great, soft, dark eyes and fair-white face like a lily, we began to think we heard of angels from heaven, but never seen one before. Just as she came opposite Jim, who was trying to shear sheep and sheep with the ringer of the shed, who was next on our right, the wetter he was holding, kicked and knocking the shears out of his hand, sent them point down against his wrist. One of the points went right in, and though it didn't cut the sinews, as luck would have it, the point stuck out at the other side, out spurred it blood, and Jim was going to let out when he looked up and saw Ms. Faulkland looking at him, with her beautiful eyes so full of pity and surprise that he could have had his hand chopped off, so he told me afterwards, rather than vex her for a moment. So he shut up his mouth and ground his teeth together, for it was no joke in the way of pain, and the blood began to run like a blind creek after a thunderstorm. Oh poor fellow, what a dreadful cut! Look, Papa, she cried out. Hadn't something better be bound grounded? How it bleeds, does it pain much? Not a bit, Miss, said Jim, standing up like a schoolboy going to say his lesson. That is, it doesn't matter if it don't stop my shearing. Tar sings out my next door neighbor. Here boy, Tar, want it for number thirty-six. That'll put it all right, Jim. It's only a scratch. You mind your shearing, my man, said Mr. Faulkland quietly. I don't know whether Mr. McIntyre would quite approve of that last shape of yours. This is rather a serious wound. The best thing is to bind it up at once. Before anyone could say another word, Ms. Faulkland had whipped out her soft, fine, cambrick handkerchief and tore it in two. Hold up your hand, she said. Now, Papa, lend me yours. With the last, she cleared the wound of the flowing blood, and then neatly and skillfully bound up the wrist firmly with the strips of cambrick. This she further protected by her father's handkerchief, which she helped herself to and finally stopped the blood with. Jim kept looking at her small, white hands all the time she was doing it. Neither of us had ever seen such before, the dainty skin, the pink nails, the glittering rings. There, she said, I don't think you ought to shear any more today. It might bring on inflammation. I'll send to know how it gets on to-morrow. No, Miss, my grateful thanks, Miss, said Jim, opening his eyes and looking as if he'd like to drop down on his knees and pray to her. I shall never forget your goodness, Ms. Faulkland. If I live to I'm a hundred. Then Jim bent his head a bit. I don't suppose he ever made a bow in his life before, and then drew himself up as straight as a soldier, and Miss Faulkland made kind of a bow and smile to us all, and passed out. Jim did shear all the same that afternoon, though the townly wasn't any great things. I can't go and lie down in a bunk in the men's hut, he said. I must chance it, and he did. Next day it was worse and very painful. But Jim stuck to the shears, though he used to turn white with the pain at times, and I thought he'd faint. However, it gradually got better, and except the scar, Jim's hand was as good as ever. Jim sent back Mr. Faulkland's handkerchief after getting the cook to wash it, and iron it out with a bit of broken axle-tree. But the strips of white handkerchief, one had CF in the corner, he put away in his swag, and made some foolish excuse when I laughed at him about it. She sent down a boy from the house next day to ask how Jim's hand was, and the day after that, but she never came to the shed any more, so we didn't see her again. So it was this young lady that we saw, come tearing down the back road, as they called it, that led over the pretty plain. A good way behind we saw Mr. Faulkland, but he had as much chance of coming up with her as a cattle-dog of catching a brush-flyer. The stable boy, Billy Don Ellen, had told us, of course, like all those sorts of youngsters, he was fond of getting among the men and listening to them talk, all about Miss Faulkland's new mayor. She was a great beauty and thoroughbred. The stud groom had bought her out of a travelling mob from New England, when she was dog-poor, and hardly able to drag herself along. Everybody thought she was going to be the best lady's horse in the district. But though she was quiet as a lamb at first, she had begun the show a nasty temper lately, and to get very touchy. I don't care about chestnuts myself, says Master Billy, smoking a short pipe, as if he were thirty. They have a deal of temper, and she's got too much white in her eyes for my money. I'm afraid she'll do some mischief before we've done with her, and Miss Faulkland's that game, as she won't have nothing done to her. I'd ride the tail off her, but what I'd bring her to, if I had my way. So this was the brute that had got away with Miss Faulkland. The day we were coming back from Bunda. Some horses, and a good many men and women, are all pretty right, as long as they're well kept under, and starved a bit at odd times. But give them an easy life, and four feeds of corn a day, and they're troublesome brutes, and mischievous too. It seems this mayor came of a strain that had turned out more devils and killed more grooms and breakers than any other in the country. She was a troubadour, it seems. There never was a troubadour yet that wouldn't buck and bolt, and smash himself and his rider, if he got a fright, or his temper was roused. Men and women, horses and dogs, are very much alike. I know which can talk best, as to the rest, I don't know whether there's so much for us to be proud of. It seems that this cranky wrench of a mayor had been sliding and fidgeting, when Mr. Faulkland and his daughter started for their ride. But had gone pretty fairly, Miss Faulkland, like my sister Eileen, could ride anything in reason, when suddenly a dead limb dropped off a tree close to the side of the road. I believe she made one wild plunge and set two. She propped and reared, but Miss Faulkland sat her splendidly and got her head up. When she saw she could do nothing that way, she stretched out her head and went off as hard as she could lay her legs to the ground. She had one of those mouths that are not so bad when horses are going easy, but get quite callous when they are overeager and excited. Anyhow, it was like trying to stop a male coach going down Mount Victoria with the break-off. So what we saw was the wretch of a mayor coming along as if the devil was after her and heading straight across the plain at its narrowest part. It wasn't more than half a mile wide there, in fact, it was more like a flat than a plain. The people about Borey didn't see much open country, so they made a lot of what they had. The mayor, like some women when they get their monkey up, was clean out of her senses, and I don't believe anything could have held her under a hide-rope with a turn round the stockyard post. This was what she wanted, and, if it had broken her infernal neck, so much the better. Miss Faulkland was sitting straight and square with her hands down, leaning a bit back and doing her level best to stop the brute. Her hat was off, and her hair had fallen down and hung down her back. Plenty of it there was, too. The mayor's neck was stretched straight out. Her mouth was like a deal-board. I expect by that time. We didn't sit staring at her all the time, you bet. We could see the boy ever so far off. We gathered up our reins and went after her, not in a hurry, but just collecting ourselves a bit to see what would be the best way to wheel the brute and stop her. Jim's horse was far and away the fastest, and he led out to head the mayor off from a creek that was just in front and at the end of the plane. By George said one of the men, a young fellow who lived near the place. The mayor's turning off her course, and she's heading straight for the trooper's downfall, where the policeman was killed. If she goes over that, they'll be smashed up like a matchbox, horse and rider. What's that, I said, closing up alongside of him? We were all doing our best, and were just in line to back up Jim, who looked as if he were overhauling the mayor fast. Why, it's a bluff a hundred feet deep, a straight drop and rocks at the bottom. She's making as straight as a beeline for it now, blaster. And Jim doesn't know what I said. He's closing up to her, but he doesn't calculate to do it for a quarter of a mile more. He's letting her take it out of herself. He'll never catch her in time, said the young chap. My God, it's an awful thing, isn't it, and a fine young lady like her, so kind to his chaps as she was. I'll see if I can make Jim here, I said. For though I looked cool, I was as nearly mad as I could be, to think of such a girl being lost before our eyes. No, I can't do that, but I'll telegraph. End of Chapter 9 Recording by Richard Kilmer, Real Medina, Texas Chapter 10 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. Recording by Mike Harris. Robbery Under Arms by Ralph Boulder Wood Chapter 10 Now Jim and I had many a long talk together about what we should do in case we want to signal to each other very pressing. We thought the time might come someday when we might be near enough to sign but not to speak, so we hit upon one or two things a little out of the common. The first idea was, in case of one wanting to give the other the office that he was to look out his very brightest for danger, and not to trust to what appeared to be the state of affairs, the sign was to hold up your hat or cap straight over your head. If the danger threatened on the left to shift to that side, if it was very pressing and on the jump as it were quite unexpected, and as bad as bad could be the signal was to get up on the saddle with his knees and turn half around. We could do this easy enough in a lot of circus tricks besides, so how did we learn them? In the long days we had spent in the saddle tailing the milkers and searching after lost horses for many a night. As luck would have it, Jim looked around to see how we were getting on and up went my cap. I could see him turn his head and keep watching me when I put on the whole box and dice of the telegraph business. He dropped, I could see. He took up the brown horse and made such a rush to call her the mare that showed he intended to see for himself what the danger was. Cross-grain jade, she was a well-bred wretch and be hanged to her. Went as if she wanted to win the derby. Gave Jim all he knew to challenge her. We could see a line of timber just ahead of her and that Jim was riding for his life. But that'd be both over it, said the young shearer. They can't stop themselves at that base and they must be close up now. He's neck and neck, I said. Stick to her, Jim, old man! We were all close together now, several of the men knew the place, and the word had been passed around. No one spoke for a few seconds. We saw the two horses rush up at top speed to the very edge of the timber. But Jove, they're over it! No, no, no, he's reaching for her rein. It's no use now. Now, she's saved. Oh, my God, they're both right. By the Lord, well done. All right, one shear more for Jim Marston. It was all right. We saw Jim suddenly reach over as the horses were going stride and stride, so him lift Miss Faulkland from her saddle, as if she'd been a child and place her before him. So the brown horse prop and swing round on his haunches in a way that showed he had not been called the crack cutting out horse on a big cattle run for nothing. We saw Jim jump to the ground and lift the young lady down. We saw only one horse. Three minutes after Mr. Faulkland overtook us, and we rode up together. His face was white and his dry lips couldn't find words at first, but he managed to say to Jim when he got up, You have saved my child's life, James Marston, and if I forget the service, make God in that hour forget me. You are a noble fellow. You must allow me to show my gratitude in some way. You needn't thank me so out and out as all that, Mr. Faulkland said, Jim, standing up very straight and looking at the father first, and then at Mr. Faulkland, who was pale and trembling not altogether from fear but excitement, and trying to choke back the sobs that would come out now and then, I'd risk life and limb any day before Mr. Faulkland's finger should be scratched, let alone see her killed before my eyes. I wonder if there's anything left to the mare, poor thing, not that she don't deserve it all and more. Here we all walked forward to the deep creek bank, a yard or two farther and the brown horse and his burden must have gone over the terrible drop, as straight as a plumb line onto the awful rocks below. We could see where the brown had torn up the turf, as he struck all four hooves deep into it at once. Indeed, he had been newly shot a freak of Jim's about a bet with a traveling blacksmith. Then the other tracks, the long score on the brink, over the brink, where the frightened maddened animal had made an attempt all to her speed, all in vain, and had plunged over the bank in the hundred feet of fall. We peered over and saw a bright colored mass among the rocks below. Very still. Just at the time one of the ration carriers came by with a spring card. Mr. Faulkland lifted his daughter in and took the reins, leaving his horse to be written home by the ration carrier. As for us, we rode back to the shearers hut, not quite so fast as we came, with Jim in the middle. He did not seem inclined to talk much. Oh, it's lucky I turned around when I did, Dick, he said at last. I saw you making the danger-look-out-sharp signal. I couldn't think what the Dickens it was. I was so cock-sure of catching the mare in half a mile further that I couldn't help wondering what it was all about. Anyhow, I knew he agreed it was never to be worked for nothing, so I thought the best thing I could do was to call in the mare and see if I could find out anything then. When I got alongside, I could see that Mr. Faulkland's face was that white, that something must be up. It weren't the mare she was afraid of, she was coming back to her. It took something to frighten her, I knew, so it must be something I did not know or didn't see. What is it, Miss Faulkland, I said? Oh, she cried out, Don't you know another fifty yards and we'll all be over the downfall where the trooper was killed? Oh, my poor father! Don't be afraid, I said. We'll not go over if I can help it. So I reached over and got hold of the reins. I pulled and jerked. She said her hands were cramped and no wonder. Pulling double for a four-mile heat's no joke, even of a man's in training. Fancy a woman, a young girl! Having to sit still and drag at a runaway horse all the time. I couldn't stop the brute, she was boring like a wild bull. So just as we came pretty close I lifted Miss Faulkland off the saddle and yelled at old Brownie as if I'd been on a cattle camp, swinging round to the near side at the same time. Roundy came like one o'clock. I could see the mare make one prop to stop herself and go flying right through the air till I heard a beastly thud at the bottom. Miss Faulkland didn't faint, though she turned white and then red and trembled like a leaf when I lifted her down. Looked up at me with a sweet smile and said, Jim, you have paid me for binding up your wrist, haven't you? You saved me from a horrible death, and I shall think of you as a brave and noble fellow all the days of my life. What could I say? said Jim. I stared at her like a fool. I'd have gone over the bank with you, Miss Faulkland, I said. I could not have saved you. Well, I'm afraid some of my admirers would have stopped short of that, James, you said. She did indeed. And then Mr. Faulkland and all of you came up. I say, Jim, said one of the young fellows, your fortune's made. Mr. Faulkland will stand a farm, you may be sure, for this little figment. And I say, Jack, says old Jim, very quietly. I told you all the yarn, and if there's any chaff about it after this, the cove will have to see whether he's best man or me. Said, don't make any mistake now. There was no more chaff. They weren't afraid. There were two or three of them pretty smart with their hands, and not likely to take much from anybody. But Jim was a heavyweight, and could hit like a horse, kicking. So they thought it wasn't good enough and left him alone. Next day Mr. Faulkland came down and wanted to give Jim a check for a hundred. But he wouldn't hear of so much as a note. Then he said he'd give him a billet on the run, making him under overseer, after a bit by a farm for him and stock it. No, Jim wouldn't touch a nothing or take a billet on the place. He wouldn't leave his family, he said. And as for taking money or anything else for saving Mr. Faulkland's life, it was ridiculous to think of it. There wasn't a man of the lot in the shed down to the tarboy that wouldn't have done the same or tried to. All that was in it was that his horse was the fastest. It's not a bad thing for a poor man to have a fast horse now, and that is it, Mr. Faulkland. He said, looking up and smiling just like a boy. He was very shy, was poor Jim. I don't grudge a poor man a good horse or anything else he likes to have or enjoy. You know that, all of you. It's the fear I have of the effect of the dishonest way that horses of value have come by. And the net of roguery that often entangles fine young fellas like you and your brother. That's what I fear, said Mr. Faulkland. Looking at the pair of his so kind and pitiful eye. I looked him in the face, though I felt I could not say he was wrong. I felt too just then as if I could have given all the world to be afraid of no man's opinion. What a thing it is to be perfectly honest and straight, to be able to look the whole world in the face. But if more gentlemen were like Mr. Faulkland, I do really believe no one would rob them for very shame's sake. When shearing was over we were all paid up. Shearers, washers, and knock-about-men cooks and extra shepherds. Every soul about the place except Mr. McIntyre and Mr. Faulkland seemed to have got a check and a walking ticket at the same time. Away they went, like a lot of boys out of school. And half of them didn't show as much sense, either. As for me and Jim, we had no particular wish to go home before Christmas, so as there's always contracts to be led about a big run like Banda, we took a contract for some bushwork and went at it. Mr. McIntyre looked quite surprised. But Mr. Faulkland praised us up and was proud we were going to turn over a new leaf. Nobody could say at that time we didn't work. Fencing, dam-making, horse-breaking, stock-writing, from making hay to building a shed, all bushwork came easy enough to us, Jim in particular. He took a pleasure in it and was never happier than when he'd had a real tearing day's work with settling himself after his tea to a good steady smoke. A great smoker he'd come to be. He never was much for drinking, except now and again, and then he could knock it off as easy as any man I ever seen. Poor old Jim. He was born good and intended to be so like mother. Like her, his luck was dead out and being mixed up with a lot like ours. One day we were out at the back making some lambing yards. We were about 20 miles from the head station and had about finished the job. We were going in the next day. We'd been camping in an old shepherd's hut and had been pretty jolly all by ourselves. It was first-rate feed for our horses, as the grass was being saved for the lambing season. Jim was in fine spirits and as we had plenty of good rations and first-rate tobacco, we made ourselves pretty comfortable. Jim used to say, What a jolly thing it is to have nothing on your mind. I hadn't once, and what a fine time it was. Now I'm always waking up with a start and expecting to see a policeman of that infernal half-caste. He's never far off when there's villainy on. Some fine day he'll sell us all, I really do believe. If he don't, somebody else will, but why do you bitch upon him? You don't like him somehow. I don't see that he's worse than any other. Besides, we haven't done anything much to have a reward put on us. No, that's to come, answered Jim very dismally for him. I don't see what else is to come of it. Miss, isn't that a horse's step coming this way? Yes, and a man on him, too. It was a bright, clear night, though only the stars were out, but the weather was that clear that you could see ever so well and hear ever so far also. Jim had a black fella's hearing. His eyes were like a hawk's. He could see in about any light and read tracks like a printed book. I could hear nothing at first. Then I heard a slight noise, a good way off, and a stick breaking every now and then. Talk of the devil, growl, Jim, and here he comes. I believe that's Master Warrigal, infernal scoundrel that he is. Of course, he's got a message from our respectable old dad, or Starlight, asking us to put our heads in a loose for them again. How do you know? I know it's that ambling horse he used to ride, says Jim. I can make out his sidling kind of way of using his legs. All amblers do that. You're right, I said, after listening for a minute. I can hear the regular bass different from a horse's walk. How does he know we're here, I wonder, says Jim. Well, some of the telegraphs piped as I suppose I entered. I begin to wish they forgot us all againing. No such luck, says Jim. Let's keep dark and see what this black snake of a Warrigal will be up to. I don't expect he'll ride straight up to the door. And Jim was right. The horse would have stopped just inside a thick bit of scrub, just outside the open ground on which the hut stood. After a few seconds we heard the cry of the Mopoke. It's not a cheerful sound at the dead of night, and now for some reason other it affected Jim and me in much the same manner. I remember the last time I'd heard the bird at home, just before we started over for a terrible hollow. And it seemed unlucky. Perhaps we were both a little nervous. We hadn't drunk anything but tea for weeks. We drank it awfully black and strong and a great lot of it. Anyway, as we heard the quick light tread of the horse pacing in his two feet on one side way over the sandy, thin grass soil. Every moment come a nearer and nearer. This queer, dismal-voiced bird hooting its horse's deep notes out of the dark tree that swished inside. Like in front of the sand hill, a queer feeling came over both of us that something unlucky was on the boards for us. We felt quite relieved when the horse's footsteps stopped. After a minute or so we could see a dark form creeping toward the hut. End of Chapter 10, Recording by Mike Harris Chapter 11 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. Recording by Mike Harris Robbery Under Arms By Rolf Baldrewood Chapter 11 Warrigal left his horse at the edge of the timber for fear he might want him in a hurry, I suppose. He was pretty fly and never threw away a chance as long as he was sober. He could drink a bit like the rest of us. Now and then, not often, but when he did, it made a regular devil of it. That is, it brought the devil out that lives low down in most people's hearts. He was a worse one than usual, Jim said. He saw him once in one of his breakouts and heard him boast of something he'd done. Jim never liked him afterwards. For the matter of that he hated Jim and me too. The only living things he cared about were Starlight and the three-cornered weed he rode that had been a brumby, and wouldn't let anyone touch him much less ride him but himself. How he used to snort if a stranger came near him. He could kick the eye out of a mosquito and bite too if he got the chance. As for Warrigal, Starlight used to knock him down like a log if he didn't please him, but he never offered to turn upon him. He seemed to like it and looked regular put out once when Starlight heard his knuckles against his hard skull. Us he didn't like, as I said before. Why I don't know, nor we him. Likes and dislikes are curious things. People hardly know the rights of them, but if you take a regular strong down upon a man or woman when you first see him, it's ten to one that you'll find some day is you good reason for it. We couldn't say what grounds we had for hating the sight of Warrigal neither, for he was as good a tracker as ever followed man or beast. He could read all the signs of the bush like a printed book. He could ride any horse in the world and find his way day or night to any place he'd ever once been to in his life. Sometimes we should have been hard pushed when we were making a cross country at night only for him. Hour after hour he'd ride ahead through scrub or forest, uphill or down-dale with that brute of a horse of his. He called him Bilba, ambling away till our horses, except Rainbow, used to shake the lives out of us jogging. I believe he did it on purpose. He was a fine shot and could catch fish in game in all sorts of ways that came in handy when we had to keep dark. He had flock too, and he could fight a pretty sharp battle with his fists if he wasn't over-weighted. There were white men that didn't at all find him a good thing if they went to bully him. He tried it on with Jim once, but he knocked the seven senses out of him inside of three rounds and that satisfied him. He pretended to make up, but I was always expecting him to play us some dog's trick yet. Anyway, so far he was all right. And as long as Starlight and us were mixed up together, he couldn't hurt one without the other. He came gliding up to the old hut in the dull light by bits of moves, just as if he'd been a bush that had changed his place. We pretended to be asleep near the fire. He peeped in through a chink. He could see us by the firelight and didn't suppose we were watching up. Hello, Warragul! Sung out, Jim, suddenly. What's up now? Some devil's work, I suppose, or you wouldn't be in it. Why don't you knock at the gentleman's door when you come a-visiting? Wasn't sure it was you, he answered, showing his teeth. It didn't do to get so old. Might've been troopers for all I know. Fitty we wasn't, said Jim. I'd have the hobbles on you by this time, and you'd have got fitted to rights. I wish I'd gone under the police sometimes. It isn't a bad game for a chap that can ride and track, and likes a bit of rough and tumble now and then. If I'd been a police tracker, I'd have had a good a chance of nailing you, Jim Marston, spoke up Warragul. Perhaps I will some day. Mr. Garten wanted me too bad once, and said they'd never go again me for old times, but that says nothing. Starlight's out at the back, and the old man too. They want you to go to them. Sure. What for? Dunno. I was to tell you and show the camp, and now give me some grub for I've had nothing since sunrise but the leg of apostle. All right, said Jim, putting the billy on. Here's some damper and mutton to go on with while the tea warms. Wait till I hobble, old billy-bob. He's as hungry as I am and thirsty too, my word. Take some out of the barrel. We shan't want it. Tomorrow, said Jim. Hungry as Warragul was, and when he began to eat, I thought he never would stop. He went and looked after his horse first, and got him a couple of buckets of water out of the cask they used to send us out every week. There was no surface water near the hut. Then he hobbled him out of a bit of old sheep yard and came in. The more I know of men, the more I see what curious lumps of good and bad they're made up of. People that won't stick at anything in some ways will be that soft and good feeling in others, ten times more so than your regular good people. Anyone that thinks all mankind's divided into good, bad, midland, and that they can draft them like a lot of cattle, the sum to one yard, sum to another. They don't know much. There's a mob in most towns, though, I think, that wants boiling down bad. Someday they'll do it, maybe. They'll have to, when all the good country's stocked up. After Warragul had his supper, he went out again to see his horse and then coiled himself up before the fire, wouldn't hardly say another word. How far was it to where Starlight was? Long way it took me all day to come. Had he been there long? Yes, had a camp there. Anybody else with him? Three more men from this side. Did the old man say we were to come at once? Yes, or leave it alone, whichever you like. Then he shut his eyes and his mouth, too, and was soon as fast asleep as if he never intended to wake under a week. What shall we do, Jim? I said, go or not? If you leave it to me, says Jim, I say, don't go. It's only some other cross-cattle or horse-racket. We're bound to be knobbled some day. Why not cut it now and stick to the square thing? We couldn't do better than we're doing now. It's rather slow, but we'll have a good check by Christmas. I'm half a mind to tell Warragul to go back and say we're not on, I said. Lots of other chaps would join without making any bones about it. Sounded once more the night bird from the black tree outside. Damn the bird. I believe he's the devil in the shape of a mopok. And yet I don't like Starlight to think we're afraid. He and the old man might be in a fix and want help. Suppose we toss up. All right, says Jim, speaking rather slowly. You couldn't tell from his face or voice how he felt about it. But I believe now, more than that, he let on once to me that he was awfully cut up about my changing, and thought we were just in for a spell of straightforward work and would stash the other thing for good and all. We put the fire together. It burned up bright for a bit. I pulled out a shilling. If it's heads, we go. Jim, if it's woman, we stay here. I sent up the coin. We both bent over near the fire to look at it. The head was uppermost. Came the night bird's harsh croak. There was a heavy-ish stake on that throw, if we'd only known. Only ruin, only death. Four men's lives lost, and three women made miserable for life. Jim and I looked at one another. He smiled and opened the door. It's all the fault of that cursed owl, I believe, he said. I'll have his life if he waits till it's daylight. We must be off early and get up our horses. I know what a long day for Warrigal and that amblin three-corner devil of his means. Seventy or eighty miles, if it's a yard. We slept sound enough till daybreak and could sleep then, whatever was on the cart. As for Jim, he slept like a baby, always once he turned in. When I woke, I got up at once. It was half dark. There was a little light in the east, but Warrigal had been out before me, and was leading his horse up to the hut with the hobbles in his hand. Our horses were not far off. One of them had a bell on. Jim had his old brown, and I had a chestnut that I thought nearly as good. We weren't likely to have anything to ride that wasn't middling fast and plucky. Them that overhauled us would have to ride for it. We saddled up and took our blankets, and what few things we couldn't do without. The rest stopped in the hut for anyone that came after us. We left our wages, too, and never asked for them from that day to this. A trifle like that didn't matter after what we were going in for, or as the pity. As we moved off, my horse propped once or twice, and Warrigal looked at us in a queer side sort of way and showed his teeth a bit. Smile or laugh, it wasn't. Only a way he had when he thought he knew more than we did. My word, your horse didn't wear the feeds good. We're going a good way today. I wonder if there'll be as flash as they are now. They'll carry us wherever that three-quartered mule of yours will shuffle to tonight, said Jim. Never you mind about them. You ride straight, and don't get up to any monkey tricks, or by George I'll straighten you. So as you'll know better next time. You know a lot, Jim Marston, said the half-caste, looking at him with his long, dark sleepy eyes, which I always thought were like a half-roused snakes. Never mind. You'll know more one of these days. We'd better push on. He went off at a hand gallop, and then pulled back into a long, darting kind of canter, which Bilba thought was quite the thing for a journey. Anyhow, he never seemed to think of stopping it. Went on mile after mile as if he was not going to pull up this side of sundown. A wiry brute, always in condition, was this, said Bilba, and just at this time as hard as nails. Our horses had been doing nothing lately, and being on good young feet had, of course, got fat and were rather soft. After four or five miles they began to blow we couldn't well pull up. The ground was hard in places and bad for tracking, if we went on at the pace we should cook our horses. As soon as we got into a bit of open I raced up to him. Now look here, wiry girl, I said. You know why you're doing this, and so do I. Our horses are not up to gallop in fifty or sixty miles on and just off a spell and with no work for months. If you don't pull up and go our pace I'll knock you off your horse. Oh, you riled, he said, looking as impudent as he dared, but slackening all the same. Pulled up before, if I had known your horses were getting baked. Thought they were up to anything, same as you and Jim. So they are. You'll find that one of these days. If there's work ahead, you want to have sense enough not to knock smoke out of fresh horses before we begin. You all right, plenty of work to do, my word. And Starlight said, tell them to be here today if they can. I know he's afraid of someone following up our tracks, as it is. That's all right, Waragul, and but you ride steady all the same. And don't be tearing away through thick timber like a malley scrubber that's got into the open and sees the devil behind him until he can get cover again. We shall be there tonight, if it's not a hundred miles, and that's time enough. We did drop in for a long day and no mistake. We only pulled up for a short halt in the middle and Waragul's cast iron pony was off again, as if he was bound right away for the other side of the continent. However, though we were not going slow either, we kept up a reasonable fast pace. It must have been past midnight when we rode into Starlight's camp. Very glad Jim and I were to see the fire. Not a big one either. We'd been taking it pretty easy, you see, for a month or two, and we're not quite so ready for an 80 mile ride as if we'd been in something like training. The horses had had enough of it, too, though. Neither of them would give in, not if we'd ridden them 20 miles farther. As for Waragul's Bilbaugh, he was near as fresh as when he started, and kept tossing his head and amblin and pacing away as if he was walking for a wage around a ring in a show yard. As we rode up, we could see a ganya made out of bows and a longish wing of dog-leg fence, made light but well put together. As soon as we got near enough, a dog ran out and looked as if he was going to worry us. Didn't bark, either, but turned round and waited for us to get off. It's old cribs at Jim with a big laugh. Blessed of it ain't. Fathers somewhere handy. They're going to take up a back block and do the thing regular. Marston, Starlight and Company, that's the fakemen. They want us out to make dams or put up a woolshed or something. I don't see why they shouldn't, as well as Crossman and Fakesley. It's six o' one half dozen of another as far as being on the square goes. Depend upon it. Dad's turning over a new leaf. The old fellas want anything to eat, said a voice that I knew to be Starlight's. If you do, there's tea near the fire and some grub in that flower-bag. Help yourselves and hobble out your horses. We'll settle matters a bit in the morning. You're a respected parent's a bed in his own camp and it's just as well not to wake him unless you want his blessing ere you sleep. We went with Starlight to his gunya. The path led through a clump of pine so thick that a man might ride around it and never dream there was anything but more pines inside. A clear place had been made in the sand hill and a snug crib enough rigged with saplings and a few sheets of bark. It was neat and tidy, like everything he had to do with. I was at sea when I was young, he once said to Jim, when he was a bit haunt. And a man learns to be neat there. There was a big chimney outside and a lot of leaves and rushes out of a swamp which he had made warrigal gather. Put your blankets down there, boys, and turn in. You'll see how the land lies in the morning. We didn't want asking twice. Jim's eyes were not as shut as it was. The sun was up when we woke. Outside the first thing we saw was Father and Starlight talking. Both of these seemed a bit cranky. That's a damn shame, we heard Starlight say as he turned and walked off. We could have done it well enough by ourselves. I know what I'm about, says Father. It's all or none. What's the use of crying about being in it up to our neck? Someday you'll think different, says Starlight, looking back at him. I often remembered it afterwards. Well then, said Father, looking straight at us, I wasn't sure as you'd come. Starlight's been barneying with me about sending for you, but we've got a big thing on now and I thought you'd like to be in it. We have come, says I, pretty short. Now we're here. What's the play called, and when does the curtain rise? We're on. I was riled, vexed at Starlight, talking as if we were children, and thought I'd show as we were men, like a young fool as I was. All right, said Father, and he sat down on a log and began to tell us how there was any quantity of cattle running at the back where they were camped, a good lot straight and mixed up from the last dry season, and had never been mustered for years. The stockman hardly ever came out till the autumn musters. One of the chaps that was in it knew all his side and had told him. They were going to muster for a month or so and drive the mob right through to Adelaide. Store cattle were dear, then, and we could get them off easy there and come back by sea. No one was to know we were not regular overlanders, and when we got the notes in our pockets it would be a hard matter to trace the cattle or prove that we were the men that sold them. How many head do you expect to get, says Jim? A thousand to twelve hundred, half of them fat, and two thirds of them young cattle. Buy it, George, that's something like a haul. But you can't muster such a lot as that without a yard. I know that, says Father. We're putting up a yard on a little plain about a mile from here. When they find it, it'll be an old nest and the birds flown. Well, if that ain't the cheekiest thing I've ever heard tell of, says I, laughingly, to put up a yard at the back of a man's run and muster his cattle for him, I never heard the like before nor anyone else. Let's suppose the cove or his men come across it. Taint no way as likely, says Father, and the sleepiest lot of chaps in this frontage I ever saw. It's hardly worthwhile touching them. There's no fun in it. It's like shooting pheasants when they ain't preserved. There's no risk, and when there's no risk there's no pleasure. Anyway, that's my notion. Talking about risks, why didn't you work that marquis of Lorne racket better? We saw in the papers that the troopers hunted you so close you had to kill him in the ranges. Father looked over at us and then began to laugh, not long, and he broke off short. Laughing wasn't much in his line. Killed him, did we? And a horse worth nigh of two thousand pounds. You ought to have known your old father better than that. We did kill a chestnut horse when we picked out a purpose. White legs, white knees, short underlip, everything quite regular. We even fed him for a week on prayer regular ass just like the marquis had been eating bless you. We knew how to work all that. We deceived Wendall his own self, and he thinks he's pretty smart. No, the marquis is all safe. You know where. I opened my eyes and stared at Father. You've some call to crow if you can work things like that. How you ever got him away beats me, but not more than how you managed to keep him hid with a ring of troopers all around you from every side of the district. We had friends, Father said. Me and Warrigal done all the traveling by night. No one but him could have gone afoot, I believe, much less let a blood horse through the beastly scrub and ranges, he showed us. But the devil himself could not beat him in that little brute bill by in rough country. I believe you, I said. Thinking of our ride yesterday? It's quite bad enough to follow him on level ground, but don't you think our tracks will be easy to follow with a thousand head of cattle before us? Any fool could do that. It ain't that as I'm looking at, said Father. Of course, an old woman could do it and knit stockings all the time. But our dart is to be off and have a month's start before anybody knows they're off the run. They won't think of mustering before fat cattle takes a bit of a turn. And that won't be for a couple of months yet. Then they may catch us if they can. We had a long talk with Starlight, and what he said came to much the same. One Stockman they had squared and he was to stand in. They had got him two or three flash-chaps to help muster and drive, who were to swear they thought we were dealers. And we had bought cattle all right. One or two more were to meet us further on. If we could get the cattle together and clear off before anything was suspected, the rest was easy. The yard was nearly up, and Jim and I wired in and soon finished it. It didn't want very grand work putting into it as long as it would last our time. So we put it up roughly but pretty strong with fine saplings. The drawing in was the worst, for we had to hump the most of them ourselves. Jim couldn't help bursting out laughing from time to time. It does seem such a jolly cheeky thing, he said, driving off a mob of cattle on the quiet I've known haven't once or twice, but I'm dashed, if ever I heard tell of putting up duffin improvements of a superior class on a cove's run and clearing off with a thousand-drafted cattle, all quiet and regular, and him pottering about his home station and never dropping into it, no more than if he was in Sydney. I said people ought to look after their stock closer than they do. It's their fault almost as much as ours, but they're too lazy to look after their own work and too miserable to pay a good man to do it for them. They just get a half-and-half sort of fellow that'll take low wages and make it up with duffin. And, of course, he's not likely to look very sharp after the back-country. You're not far away, says Jim. But don't you think we'd have to look precious sharp and get up very early in the morning to be leveled with chaps like Father and Starlight, let alone Warrigal, who's as good by night as day? Then there's you and me. Don't try and make us out better than we are, Dick. We're all damn scoundrels. That's the truth of it. And honest men haven't a chance with us except in the long run. Except in the long run. That's where they'll have us, Dick Marston. That's quite a long speech for you, Jim, I said. But it won't matter much that I know of whose fault it is that we're in this duffin racket. It seems to be our fate, as the chap says in the book. We'll have a jolly spree and adulate if this journey comes out right. And now let's finish this evening off. Tomorrow they're going to yard the first mob. After that we didn't talk much except after the work. Starlight and Warrigal were out every day and all day. The three new hands were some chaps who formed part of a gang that did most of the horse stealing in that neighborhood, though they never showed up. The way they managed it was this. They picked up any good-looking nag or second-class racehorse that they fell across, and took them to a certain place. There they met another lot of fellows who took the horses from them and cleared out to another colony. At the same time they left the horses they'd brought. So each lot traveled different ways and were sold in places where they were quite strange and no one was likely to claim them. After a man had had a year or two at this kind of work he was good or rather bad for anything. These young chaps like us had done pretty well at these games, and one of them, falling in with Starlight, had proposed to him to put up a couple hundred head of cattle on outer back mumbra, as the run was called. Then father and he had seen that a thousand were as easy to get as a hundred. Of course there was a risky feeling, but it wasn't such bad fun while it lasted. We were out all day running the cattle. The horses were in good wind and condition now. We had plenty of rations, flour, tea, and sugar. There was no cart, but some good back horses, just the same as if we were a regular station party on our own run. Father had worked all that before we came. We had the best of fresh beef and veal, too. You may be sure of that. There was no stint in that line. And at night we were always sure of a yarn from Starlight. That is, if he was in a good humor. Sometimes he wasn't, and then nobody dared speak to him, not even father. He was an astonishing man, certainly. Jim and I used to wonder by the hour what he'd been in the old country. He'd been all over the world, in the islands and New Zealand, in America, and among melees and other strange people that we'd hardly ever heard of. Such stories as he'd tell us, too, about slaves and wild chiefs that he'd lived with, and gone out to fight with against their enemy. People think a great deal of a dead man now and then in this innocent country, he said once, when the grog was uppermost. Why, I've seen fifty men killed before breakfast and in cold blood, too, chopped up alive, a next thing to it. In a drove of slaves, men, women, and children as big nearly as our mob, handed over to a slave-dealer and driven off in chains, just as you'd start a lot of station cattle. They didn't like it, going off their run, neither, those poor devils. The women would try and run back after their pickin'in'is when they dropped. Just like that heifer when Warrigal knocked her calf on the head to-day. What a man he was! This was something like life, Jim and I thought. When we'd sold the cattle, if we got him down to Adelaide, all right, we'd take a voyage to some foreign country, perhaps, and see sights, too. What a paltry thing, working for a pound a week, seemed when a rise like this was to be made. Well, the long and short of it is that we mustered the cattle quite comfortably, nobody coming an extra anias any more than if we'd taken the thing by contract. You wouldn't have thought there was anybody nearer than Bathurst. Everything seemed to be in our favor, so it was, just at the start. We drafted out all the worst and weadiest of the cattle, besides all the old cows, and when we counted the mob out we had nearly eleven hundred first-rate store cattle. Lots of fine young bullocks and heifers, more than half, fat altogether, a prime, well-bred mob that no squatter or dealer could fault in any way, if the price was right. We could afford to sell them for a shade under-market price for cash. Ready money, of course, we were bound to have. Just as we were starting there was a fine roan bull came running up with a small mob. Cut him out and beat him back, says father. We don't want to be bothered with the likes of him. I'm dashed if that ain't the hood's imported bull, says Billy the Boy. I'm an arrow native that we had with us. I know him well. How's he come to get back? Why, the cove gave two hundred and fifty notes for him before he left England, I've heard him say. Bring him along, said Starlight, who came up just then. In for a penny, in for a pound. They'll never think of looking for him on the Courant, and we'll be there before they miss any cattle worth talking about. So we took the fifteenth Duke of Cambridge along with us, a red roan he was, with a little white about the flank. He wasn't more than four years old. He'd been brought out from England as a yearling. How he'd worked his way out to this back part of the run where a bull of his quality ain't often seen nobody could say. But he was a lively, active beast, and he'd got into fine, hard fettle with living on salt brush, dry grass, and scrub for the last few months, so he could travel as well as the others. I took particular notice of him from his little waxy horns to his straight locks and long square quarters, and so I'd need to, but that came after. He'd only a little bit of a private brand on the shoulder that was easily faked and would come out quite different. End of Chapter 11 Recording by Mike Harris