I 
 
 • 
 
EOBBEEY UNDER ARMS 
 

EOBBERY UNDER ARMS 
 
 A STORY OF 
 
 LIFE A>sD ADVENTURE IX THE BUSH AND IN 
 THE GOLDFIELDS OF AUSTRALIA 
 
 BY 
 
 ROLF BOLDREWOOD 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'the MIKER'S RIGHT," ' THE SQUATTEB'S DREAM,' 
 ' A COLONIAL REFORMER,' ETC. 
 
 
 \< 
 
 Eontion 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAX COiJPAXY 
 1902 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
V 
 
 \ 
 
 J 
 
 First Edition published elsewhere 
 
 Second Edition (i Vol. Crown Zvo^ June 1889 
 
 Reprinted August and December iHg; February, June, September, and 
 
 Noz'embcr 1890 ; February, May, and September 1891, 1892 
 
 Janv.arv and Neve Jnber \Z(^1, iBg^ (twice) 
 
 1897, i°9S, 1S99, 1901, 1902 
 
 SPRECKELS 
 

 f^ 
 
 
 
 PREFACE TO NEW EDITION 
 
 fCi 
 
 n 
 
 I DEDICATE this * ower true tale ' of the wilder aspects of 
 Australian life to my old comrade R. Murray Smith, late Agent- 
 General in London for the colony of Victoria, with hearty 
 thanks for the time and trouble he has devoted to its publica- 
 tion. I trust it will do no discredit to the rising reputation of 
 Australian romance. -But though presented in the guise of 
 fiction, this chronicle of the Marston family must not be set 
 down by the reader as wholly fanciful or exaggerated. Much of 
 the narrative is literally true, as can be verified by official 
 records. A lifelong residence in Australia may be accepted as 
 a guarantee for fidelity as to local colour and descriptive detail. 
 I take this opportunity of acknowledging the prompt and 
 liberal recognition of the tale by the proprietors of the Sydney 
 Mail, but for which it might never have seen the light. 
 
 ROLF BOLDREAYOOD. 
 
 117 Collins Steeet West, 
 
 Melbourne, I2th December 1888. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 My name's Dick Marston, Sydney-side native, I'm twenty-nine 
 years old, six feet in my stocking soles, and thirteen stone 
 weight. Pretty strong and active with it, so they say. I don't 
 want to blow — not here, any road — but it takes a good man to 
 put me on my back, or stand up to me with the gloves, or the 
 naked mauleys. I can ride anything— anything that ever was 
 lapped in horsehide— swim like a musk-duck, and track like a 
 Myall blackfellow. Most* things that a man can do I'm up to, 
 and that's all about it. As I lift myself now I can feel the 
 muscle swell on my arm like a cricket ball, in spite of the— well, 
 in spite of everything. 
 
 The morning sun comes shining through the window bars ; 
 and ever since he was up have I been cursing the daylight, 
 cursing myself, and them that brought me into the world. Did 
 I curse mother, and the hour I was born into this miserable life 1 
 
 Why should I curse the day ? Why do I lie here, groaning ; 
 yes, crying like a child, and beating my head against the stone 
 floor? I am not mad, though I am shut up in a cell No. 
 Better for me if I was. But it's all up now ; there's no get 
 away this time ; and I, Dick Marston, as strong as a bullock, as 
 active as a rock -wallaby, chock-full of life and spirits and 
 health, have been tried for bush -ranging— robbery under arms 
 they call it— and though the blood runs through my veins like 
 the water in the mountain creeks, and every bit of bone and 
 sinew is as sound as the day I was born, I must die on the 
 gallows this day month. 
 
 Die— die— yes, die ; be strung up like a dog, as they say. I'm 
 blessed if ever 1 did know of a dog being hanged, though, if it 
 comes to that, a shot or a bait generally makes an end of 'em 
 in this country. Ha, ha ! Did I laugh 1 What a rum thing it 
 is that a man should have a laugh in him when he's only got 
 twenty-nine days more to live — a day for every year of my life. 
 Well, laughing or crying, this is what it has come to at last. 
 All the drinking and recklessness ; the flash talk and the idle 
 ways; the merry cross-country rides that we used to have, 
 
 109350 
 
2 ROBBERY [JNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 night or day, it made no odds to us ; every man well mounted, 
 as like as not on a racehorse in training taken out of his stable 
 within the week ; the sharp brushes with the police, when now 
 TEind then a man was wounded on each side, but no one killed. 
 That came later on, worse luck. The jolly sprees we used to 
 have in the bush townships, where we chucked our money 
 about like gentlemen, where all the girls had a smile and a 
 kind word for a lot of gan:ie upstanding chaps, that acted like 
 men, if they did keep the road a little lively. Our ' bush 
 telegraphs ' were safe to let us know when the * traps ' were 
 closing in on us, and then — why the coach would be ' stuck up ' 
 a hundred miles awav, in a different direction, within twenty- 
 four hours. ^Marston s gang again ! The police are in pursuit ! 
 That's what we'd see in the papers. We had 'em sent to us 
 regular ; besides having the pick of 'em when we cut open the 
 mail bags. 
 
 And now — that chain rubbed a sore, curse it ! — all that 
 racket's over. It's more than hard to die in this settled, in- 
 fernal, fixed sort of way, like a bullock in the killing-yard, all 
 ready to be ' pithed.' I used to pity them when I was a taoy, 
 walking round the yard, pushing their noses through the rails, 
 trying for a likely place to jump, stamping and pawing ana 
 roaring and knocking their heads against the heavy close rails, 
 with misery and rage in their eyes, till their time was up. No- 
 body told them beforehand, though ! 
 
 Have I and the likes of me ever felt much the same, I 
 wonder, shut up in a pen like this, with the rails up, and not a 
 place a rat could creep through, waiting till our killing time was 
 come ? The poor devils of steers have never done anything but 
 ramble off the run now and again, while we — but it's too late to 
 think of that. It is hard. There's no saying it isn't ; no, nor 
 thinking what a fool, what a blind, stupid, thundering idiot a 
 fellow's been, to laugh at the steady working life that would 
 have helped him up, bit by bit, to a good farm, a good wife, and 
 innocent little kids about him, like that chap, George Storefield, 
 that came to see me last week. He was real rightdown sorry 
 for me, I could tell, though Jim and I used to laugh at him, and 
 call him a regular old crawler of a milker's calf in the old days. 
 The tears came into his eyes reg'lar like a woman as he gave 
 my hand a squeeze and turned his head away. We was little 
 chaps together, you know. A man always feels that, you know. 
 And old George, he'll go back — a fifty-mile ride, but what's that 
 on a good horse 1 He'll be late home, but he can cross the rock 
 ford the short way over the creek. I can see him turn his horse 
 loose at the garden-gate, and walk through the quinces that 
 lead up to the cottage, with his saddle on his arm. Can't I see 
 it all, as plain as if I was there ? 
 
 And his wife and the young 'uns 11 run out when they hear 
 father's horse, and want to hear all the news. When he goes in 
 there's his meal tidy and decent waiting for him, while he teUjs 
 
I ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 8 
 
 theru about the poor chap he's been to see as is to be scragged 
 next month. Ha ! ha ! what a rum joke it is, isn't it ? 
 
 And then he'll go out in the verandah, with the roses growin' 
 all over the posts and smellin' sweet in the cool night air. After 
 that he'll have his smoke, . and sit there thinkin' about me, 
 perhaps, and old days, and what not, till all hours — till his wife 
 comes and fetches him in. And here I lie — my God ! why didn't 
 they knock me on the head when I was born, like a lamb in a 
 dry season, or a blind puppy — blind enough, God knows ! They 
 do so in some countries, if the books say true, and what a hell 
 of misery that must save some people from I 
 
 Well, it's done now, and there's no get away. I may as well 
 make the best of it. A sergeant of police was shot in our last 
 scrimmage, and they must lit some one over that. It's only 
 natural. He was rash, or Starlight would never have dropped 
 him that day. Not if he'd been sober either. We'd been 
 drinking all night at that Willow Tree shanty. Bad grog, too ' 
 When a man's half drunk he's fit for any devilment tliat comes 
 before him. Drink ! How do you think a chap that's taken to 
 the bush — regularly turned out, I mean, with a price on his 
 head, and a fire burning in his heart night and day — can stand 
 his life if he don't drink ? When he thinks of what he might 
 have been, and what he is ! Why, nearly every man he meets 
 is paid to run him down, or trap him some way like a stray dog 
 that's taken to sheep-killin'. He knows a score of men, and 
 women too, that are only looking out for a chance to sell his 
 blood on the quiet and pouch the money. Do you think that 
 makes a chap mad and miserable, and tired of his life, or not 1 
 And if a drop of grog will take him right out of his wretched 
 self for a bit why shouldn't he drink 1 People don't know what 
 they are talking about. Why, he is that miserable that he 
 wonders why he don't hang himself, and save the Government 
 all the trouble ; and if a few nobblers make him feel as if he 
 might have some good chances yet, and that it doesn't so much 
 matter after all, why shouldn't he drink ? 
 
 He does drink, of course ; every miserable man, and a good 
 many women as have something to fear or repent of, drink. 
 The worst of it is that too much of it brings on the 'horrors,' 
 and then the devil, instead of giving you a jog now and then, 
 sends one of his imps to grin in your face and pull your heart- 
 strings all day and all night long. By George, I'm getting 
 clever — too clever, altogether, I think. If I could forget for one 
 moment, in the middle of all the nonsense, that I was to die on 
 Thursday three weeks ! die on Thursday three weeks ! die on 
 Thursday ! That's the way the time runs in my ears like a 
 chime of bells. Bat it's all mere bosh I've been reading these 
 long six months I've been chained up here — after I was com- 
 mitted for trial. When I came out of the hospital after curing 
 me of that wound— for I was hit bad by that black tracker — 
 they gave me some books to read for fear I'd go mad and cheat 
 
4 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 the hangmaiL I was always fond of reading, and many a night 
 I've read to poor old mother and Aileen before I left the old 
 place. 1 was that weak and low, after I took the turn, and I 
 lelt glad to get a book to take me away from sitting, staring, 
 and blinking at nothing by the hour t-ogether. It was all very 
 well then ; I was too weak to think much. But when I began 
 to get well again I kept always coming across something in the 
 book that made me groan or cry out, as if some one had stuck a 
 knife in me. A dark chap did once — through the ribs — it didn't 
 feel so bad, a little sharpish at first ; why didn't he aim a bit 
 higher ? He never was no good, even at that As I was saying, 
 there'd be something about a horse, or the country, or the spring 
 weather — it's just coming in now, and the Indian corn's shooting 
 after the rain, and Fll never see it ; or they'd put in a bit 
 about the cows walking through the river in the hot summer 
 afternoons ; or they'd go describing about a girl, until I began 
 to think of sister Aileen again ; then I'd run my head against 
 the wall, or do something like a madman, and they'd stop the 
 books for a week ; and I'd be as miserable as a bandicoot, worse 
 and worse a lot, with all the devil's tricks and bad thoughts in 
 my head, and nothing to put them away. 
 
 I must either kill myself, or get something to fill up my time 
 till the day — yes, the day comes. I've always been a middling 
 writer, tho' I can't say much for the grammar, and spelling, and 
 that, but I'll put it all down, from the beginning to the end, 
 and maybe it'll save some other unfortunate young chap from 
 pulling back like a colt when he's first roped, setting himself 
 against everything in the way of proper breaking, making a 
 fool of himself generally, and choking himself down, as I've 
 done. 
 
 The gaoler — he looks hard — he has to do that, there's more 
 than one or two within here that would have him by the throat, 
 with his heart's blood running, in half a minute, if they had 
 :heir way, and the warder was ofi' guard. He knows that very 
 well. But he's not a bad-hearted chap. 
 
 ' You can have books, or paper and pens, anything you like,' 
 he said, 'you unfortunate young beggar, until you're turned 
 off.' 
 
 'If I'd only had you to see after me when I was young,' 
 says I 
 
 ' Come ; don't whine,' he said, then he burst out laughing. 
 'You didn't mean it, I see. I ought to have known better. 
 You're not one of that sort, and I like you ail the better for it.' 
 
 Well, here goes. Lots of pens, a big bottle of ink, and ever 
 so much foolscap paper, the right sort for me, or I shouldn't have 
 been here. I'm blessed if it doesn't look as if^ I was going to 
 write copies again. Don't I remember how i used to go to 
 school in old times ; the rides there and back on the old pony • 
 and pretty little Grace Storefield that I was so fond of, and 
 
I ROBBERY UT^DER ARMS 5 
 
 used to show her how to do her lessons. I believe I learned 
 more that way than if Id had only myself to think about. 
 There was anoiher girl, the daughter of the poundkeeper, that 
 I wanted her to beat ; and the way we both worked, and I 
 coached her up, was a caution. And she did get above her in 
 her class. How proud we were ! She gave me a kiss, too, and 
 a bit of her hair. Poor Gracey ! I wonder where she is now, 
 and what shed think if she saw me here to-day. If I could 
 have looked ahead, and seen myself — chained now like a dog, 
 and going to die a dog's death tliis day month ! 
 
 Anyhow, I must make a start. How do people begin when 
 they set to work to write their own sayings and doings 1 
 There's been a deal more doing than talking in my life — it was 
 the wrong sort — more's the pity. 
 
 Well, let's see ; his parents were p<>< >r, but respectable. 
 That's what they always say. My parents were poor, and 
 mother was as good a soul as ever broke bread, and wouldn't 
 have taken a shilling's worth that wasn't her own if she'd been 
 starving. But as for father, he'd been a poacher in England, a 
 Lincolnshire man he was, and got sent out for it. He wasn t 
 much more than a boy, he said, and it was only for a hare or 
 two, which didn't seem much. But I begin to think, being 
 able to see the right of things a bit now, and having no bad 
 grog inside of me to turn a fellow's head upside down, as 
 poaching must be something like cattle and horse dulling — not 
 the worst thing in the world itself, but mighty likely to lead 
 to it. 
 
 Dad had always been a hard-working, steady-going sort of 
 chap, good at most things, and like a lot more of the Govern- 
 ment men, as the convicts were always called round our part, 
 he saved some money as soon as he had done his time, and 
 married mother, who was a simple emigrant girl just out fron^. 
 Ireland. Father was a square-built, good-looking chap, I 
 believe, then ; not so tall as I am by three inches, but wonder- 
 fully strong and quick on his pins. They did say as he could 
 hammer any man in the district before he got old and stiflf. I 
 never saw him * shape ' but once, and then he rolled into a man 
 big enough to eat him, and polished him off in a way that 
 showed me — though I was a bit of a bey then — that he'd been 
 at the game before. He didn't ride so bad either, though he 
 hadn't had much of it where he came from ; but he was afraid 
 of nothing, and had a quiet way with colt^. He could make 
 pretty good play in thick country, and ride a roughish horse, 
 too. 
 
 Well, our farm was on a good little flat, with a big mountain 
 in front, and a scrubby, rangy country at the back for milea 
 People often asked him wliy he chose such a place. 'It suits 
 me,' he used to say, with a* laugh, and txlk of something else. 
 We could onlv raise about enough com und potatoes, in a 
 general way, for ourselves from the flat ; but tiiere were other 
 
8 EOBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 chances and pickings which helped to make the pot boil, and 
 them we'd have been a deal better without. 
 
 First of all, though our cultivation paddock was small, and 
 the good land seemed squeezed in between the hills, there was a 
 narrow tract up the creek, and here it widened out into a large 
 well-grassed flat. This was where our cattle ran, for, of course, 
 we had a team of workers and a few milkers when we came. 
 No one ever took up a farm in those days without a dray and a 
 team, a year's rations, a few horses and milkers, pigs ana fowls, 
 and a little furniture. They didn't collar a 40-acre selection, as 
 they do now — spend all their money in getting the land and 
 squat down as bare as robins — a man with his wife and 
 children all under a sheet of bark, nothing on their backs, and 
 very little in their bellies. However, some of them do pretty 
 well, though they do say they have to live on 'possums for a 
 time. We didn't do much, in spite of our grand start. 
 
 The flat was well enough, but there were other places in the 
 gullies beyond that that father had dropped upon when he v/as 
 out shooting. He was a tremendous chap for poking about on 
 foot or on horseback, and though he was an Englishman, he 
 was what you call a bom bushman. I never saw any man 
 almost as was his equal. Wherever he'd been once, there he 
 could take you to again ; and what was more, if it was in the 
 dead of the night he could do it just the same. People said he 
 was as good as a blackfellow, but I never saw one that was as 
 good as he was, all round. In a strange country, too. That 
 was what beat me — he'd know the way the creek run, and 
 noticed when the cattle headed to camp, and a lot of things 
 that other people couldn't see, or if they did, couldn't remember 
 again. He was a great man for solitary walks, too — he and an 
 old dog he had, called Crib, a cross-bred mongrel-looking brute, 
 most like what they call a lurcher in England, father said. 
 Anyhow, he could do most anything but talk. He could bite 
 to some purpose, drive cattle or sheep, catch a kangaroo, if it 
 wasn't a regular flyer, fight like a bulldog, and swim like a 
 retriever, track anything, and fetch and carry, but bark he 
 wouldn't. He'd stand and look at dad as if he worshipped him, 
 and he'd make him some sign and off he'd go like a child that's 
 got a message. Why he was so fond of the old man we boys 
 couldn't make out. We were afraid of him, and as far as we could 
 see he never patted or made much of Crib. He thrashed him 
 unmerciful as he did us boys. Still the dog was that fond of 
 him you'd think he'd like to die for him there and then. But 
 dogs are not like boys, or men either — better, perhaps. 
 
 Well, we were all born at the hut by the creek, I suppose, for 
 I remember it as soon as I could remember anything. It 
 was a snug hut enough, for father was a good bush carpenter, 
 and didn't turn his back to any one for splitting and fencing, 
 hut-building and shingle-splitting ; he had had a year or two 
 at sawing, too, but after he was married he dropped that. But 
 
I ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 7 
 
 I've heard mother say that he took great pride in the hut when 
 he brought her to it first, and said it was the best- built hut 
 within fifty miles. He split every slab, cut everv post and 
 wallplate and rafter himself, with a man to help him at odd 
 times ; and after the frame was up, and the bark on the roof, 
 he camped underneath and finished every bit of it — chimney, 
 flooring, doors, windows, and partitions — by himself. Then he 
 dug up a little garden in front, and planted a dozen or two 
 peaches and quinces in it ; put a couple of roses — a red and a 
 white one— by the posts of the verandah, and it was all ready 
 for his pretty Norah, as she says he used to call her then. If 
 I've heard her tell about tiie garden and the quince trees and 
 the two roses once, I've heard her tell it a hundred times. Poor 
 mother ! we used to get round her — Aileen, and Jim, and I — 
 and say, 'Tell us about the garden, mother.' _ She'd never 
 refuse ; those were her happy days, she always said. She used 
 to cry afterwards — nearly always. 
 
 The first thing almost that I can remember was riding the 
 old pony, 'Possum, out to bring in the milkers. Father was 
 away somewhere, so mother took us all out and put me on the 
 pony, and let me have a whip. Aileen walked alongside, and 
 very proud I was. My legs stuck out straight on the old pony's 
 fat back. Mother had ridden him up when she came— the first 
 horse she ever rode, she said. He was a quiet little old roan, 
 with a bright eye and legs like gate-posts, but he never fell 
 down with us boys, for all that If we fell off he stopped still 
 and began to feed, so that he suited us all to pieces. We soon 
 got sharp enough to flail him along with a quince stick, and we 
 used to bring up the milkers, I expect, a good deal faster than 
 was good for them. After a bit we could milk, leg-rope, and 
 bail up for ourselves, and help dad brand the calves, which 
 began to come pretty thick. There were only three of us 
 children — my brother Jim, who was two years younger than I 
 was, and then Aileen, who was four years behind him. I know 
 we were both able to nurse the baby a while after she came, and 
 neither of us wanted better fun than to be allowed to watch 
 her, or rock the cradle, or as a great treat to carry her a few 
 steps. Somehow we was that fond and proud of her from the 
 first that we'd have done anything in the world for her. And 
 so we would now — I was going to say — but that poor Jim lies 
 under a forest oak on a sandhill, and I— well, I'm here, and if 
 I'd listened to her advice I should have been a free man. A 
 free man ! How it sounds, doesn't it ? with the sun shining, 
 and the blue sky over your head, and the birds twittering, and 
 the grass beneath your feet ! I wonder if I shall go mad before 
 my time's up. 
 
 Mother was a Roman Catholic— most Irishwomen are ; and 
 dad was a Protestant, if he was anything. However, that says 
 nothing. People that don't talk much about their religion, or 
 follow it up at all, won't change it for all that. So father, 
 
8 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS cii.iP. i 
 
 though mother tried him hard enough when they were first 
 married, wouldn't hear of turning, not if he was to be killed for 
 it, sls I once heard him say. ' No ! ' he says, ' my father and 
 grandfather, and all the lot, was Church people, and so I shall 
 live and die. I don't know as it would make much matter to 
 me, but such as my notions is, I shall stick to 'em as long as 
 the craft holds together. You can bring up the girl in your 
 own way ; it's made a good woman of you, or found you one, 
 which is most likely, and so she may take her chance. But I 
 stand for Church and King, and so shall the boys, as sure as my 
 name's Ben Marston.' 
 
CHAPTER U 
 
 Father was one of those people that gets shut of s- deal of 
 trouble in this world by always sticking to one thing. If he 
 said he'd do this or that he always did it and nothing else. As 
 for turning him, a wild bull half-way down a range was a 
 likelier try-on. So nobody ever bothered him after he'd once 
 opened his mouth. They knew it was so much lost labour. 1 
 sometimes thought Aileen was a bit like him in her way of 
 sticking to thing's. But then she was always right, you see. 
 
 So that clinched it. Mother gave in like a wise woman, 
 as she was. The clergyman from Bargo came one day and 
 christened me and Jim — made one job of it. But mother took 
 Aileen herself in the spring cart all the way to the township 
 and had lier christened in the chapel, in the middle of the 
 service all right and regular, by Father Boche. 
 
 There's good and bad of every sort, and Ive met plenty that 
 were no chop of all churches ; but if Father Boche, or Father 
 anybody else, had any hand in making mother and Aileen half 
 as good as they were, I'd tura to-morrow, if I ever got out 
 again. I don't suppose it was the religion that made much 
 ditlerence in our case, for Patsey Daly and his three brothers, 
 that lived on the creek higher up, were as much on the cross as 
 men could be, and many a time I've seen them ride to chapel 
 and attend mass, and lo^jk as if they'd never seen a ' clearskin ' 
 in their lives. Patsey was hanged afterwards for bush-ranging 
 and gold robbery, and he had more than one man's blood to 
 answer for. Now we weren't Hke tliat ; we never troubled the 
 church one way or the other. We knew we were doing what 
 we oughtn't to do, and scorned to look pious and keep two faces 
 under one hood. 
 
 By degrees we all grew older, began to be active and able to do 
 half a man's work. We learned to ride pretty well— at lea^t, 
 that is we could ride a bare-backed horse at full gallop through 
 timber or down a range; could back a colt just caught and 
 have him as quiet as an old cow in a week. We could use the 
 axe and the cross-cut saw, for father droppetl that sort of work 
 himself, and made Jim and I do all the rough jobs of mending 
 
10 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 the fences, getting firewood, milking the cows, and, after a bit, 
 ploughing tne bit of flat we kept in cultivation. 
 
 Jim and I, when we were fifteen and thirteen — he weis bigger 
 for his age than 1 was, and so near my own strength that 1 
 didn't care about touching him — were the smartest lads on the 
 creek, father said — he didn't often praise us, either. We had 
 often ridden over to help at the muster of the large cattle 
 stations that were on the side of the range, and not more than 
 twenty or thirty miles from us. 
 
 Some of our young stock used to stray among the squatters' 
 cattle, and we liked attending the muster because there was 
 plenty of galloping about and cutting out, and fun in the men's 
 hut at night, and often a half-crown or so for helping some one 
 away with a big mob of cattle or a lot for the pound. Father 
 didn't go himself, and I used to notice that whenever we came 
 up and said we were Ben Marston's boys both master and super 
 looked rather glum, and then appeared not to think any more 
 about it. I heard the owner of one of these stations say to his 
 managing man, ' Pity, isn't It ? fine boys, too.' I didn't under- 
 stand what they meant, I do now. 
 
 We could do a few things besides riding, because, as I told 
 you before, we had been to a bit of a school kept by an old chap 
 that had once seen better days, that lived three miles off, near 
 a little bush township. This village, like most of these places, 
 had a public-house and a blacksmith's shop. That was about 
 all. The publican kept the store, and managed pretty well to get 
 hold of all the money that was made by the people round about, 
 that is of those who were ' good drinking men. He had half- 
 a-dozen children, and, though he was not up to much, he wasn't 
 that bad that he didn't want his children to have the chance of 
 being better than himself. I've seen a good many crooked 
 people in my day, but very few that, though they'd given 
 themselves up as a bad job, didn't hope a bit that their 
 jT-oungsters mightn't take after them. Curious, isn't it 1 But 
 it is true, I can tell you. So Lammerby, the publican, though 
 he was a greedy, sly sort of fellow, that bought things he knew 
 were stolen, ana lent out money and charged everybody two 
 prices for the things he sold 'em, didn't like the thought of his 
 children growing up Like Myall cattle, as he said himself, and 
 so he fished out this old Mr, Howard, that had been a friend or 
 a victim or some kind of pal of his in old times, near Sydney, 
 and got him to come and keep schooL 
 
 He was a curious man, this Mr. Howard. What he had been 
 or done none of us ever knew, but he spoke up to one of the 
 squatters that said something sharp to him one day in a way 
 that showed us boys that he thought himself as good as he was. 
 And he stood up straight and looked him in the face, till we 
 hardly could think he was the same man that was so bent and 
 shambling and broken-down-looking most times. He used to 
 live in & little hut in the township all by himself. It was just 
 
n ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 11 
 
 big enough to hold him and tis at our lessons. He had his 
 dinner at the inn, along with Mr. and Mrs. Lammerby. She 
 was always kind to hira, and made him puddings and things 
 when he was ill. He was pretty oft^n ill, and then he'd hear us 
 our lessons at the bedside, and make a short day of it. 
 
 Mostly he drank nothing but tea. He used to smoke a good • 
 deal out of a big meerschaum pipe with figures on it that he 
 used to show us when he was in a good humour. But two or 
 three times a year he used to set-to and drink for a week, and 
 then school was left off till he was right. We didn't think 
 much of that. Everybody, almost, that we knew did the same 
 —all the men— nearly all, that is— and some of the women— not 
 mother, though ; she wouldn't have touched a drop of wine or 
 spirits to save her life, and never did to her dying day. We 
 just thought of it as if they'd got a touch of fever or sunstroke, 
 or broke a rib or something. They'd get over it in a week or 
 two, and be all right again. 
 
 All the same, poor old Mr. Howard wasn't always on the 
 booze, not by any manner of mean.s. He never touched a drop 
 of anything, not even ginger-beer, while he was straight, and he 
 kept us all going from nine o'clock in the morning till three in the 
 afternoon, summer and winter, for more than six years. Then 
 he died, poor old chap — found dead in his bed one morning. 
 Many a basting he gave me and Jim with an old malacca cane 
 he had with a silver knob to it. We were all pretty frightened 
 of him. He'd say to me and Jim and the other boys, ' It's the 
 best chance of making men of yourselves you ever had, if you 
 only knew it. You'll be rich farmers or settlers, perhaps 
 magistrates, one of these day.s— that is, if you're not hanged. 
 It's you, I mean,' he'd say, pointing to me and Jim and the 
 Dalys ; ' I believe some of you ivill be hanged unle.ss you change 
 a good deal. It's cold blood and bad blood that runs in your 
 veins, and you'll come to earn the wages of sin some day. It's 
 a strange thing,' he used to say, as if he was talking to himself, 
 ' that the girls are so good, while the boys are delivered over to 
 the Evil One, except a case here and there. Look at Mary 
 Darcy and Jane Lammerby, and my little pet Aileen here. I 
 defy any village in Britain to turn out such girls— plenty ot 
 rosy-cheeked gigglers— but the natural refinement and intelli- 
 gence of these little damsels astonishes me.' 
 
 Well, the old man died suddenly, as I said, and we were all 
 very sorry, and the school was broken up. But he had taught 
 us all to write fairly and to keep accounts, to read and spell 
 decently, and to know a little geography. It wasn't a great 
 deal, but what we knew we knew well, and I often think of 
 what he said, now it's too late, we ought to have made better 
 use of it. Aft^r school broke up father said Jim and I knew 
 quite as much as was likely to be any good to us, and we must 
 work for our living like other people. We'd always done a 
 pretty fair sharo of that, and our hands were hard with using 
 
12 BOBBERY UNDEE ARMS chap. 
 
 the axe and the spade, let alone holding the plough at cdd times 
 and harrowing, helping father to kill and brand, and a lot of 
 other things, besides getting up while the stars were in the sky so 
 as to get the cows milked early, before it was time to go to school. 
 
 All this time we had lived in a free kind of way — we wanted 
 for nothing. We had plenty of good beef, and a calf now and 
 then. About this time I began to wonder how it was that so 
 many cattle and horses passed through father's hands, and what 
 became of them, 
 
 I hadn't lived all my life on Rocky Creek, and among some of 
 the smartest hands in that line that old New South Wales ever 
 bred, without knowing what ' clearskins ' and ' cross ' beasts 
 meant, and being well aware that our brand was often put on 
 a calf that no cow of ours ever suckled. Don't I remember well 
 the first calf I ever helped to put our letters on ? I've often 
 wished I'd defied father, then taken my licking, and bolted 
 away from home. It's that vei-y calf and the things it led to 
 that's helped to put me where I am ! 
 
 Just as I sit here, and these cursed irons rattle whenever 1 
 move my feet, I can see that very evening, and father and the 
 old dog with a little mob of our crawling cattle and half-a-dozen 
 head of strangers, cows and calves, and a fat little steer coming 
 through the scrub to the old stockyard. 
 
 It was an awkward place for a yard, people used to say ; 
 scrubby and stony all round, a blind sort of hole— you couldn't 
 see till you were right on the top of it. But there was a ' wing ' 
 ran out a good way through the scrub — there's no better guide 
 to a yard like that — and there was a sort of track cattle fol- 
 lowed easy enough once you were round the hill. Anyhow, 
 between father and the dog and the old mare he always rode, 
 very few beasts ever broke away. 
 
 These strange cattle had been driven a good way, I could see. 
 The cows and calves looked done up, and the steer's tongue was 
 out — it was hottish weather; the old dog had been 'heeling' 
 him up too, for he was bleeding up to the hocks, and the end of 
 hirf tail was bitten off. He was a savage old wretch was Crib. 
 Like all dogs that never bark — and men too — his bite was all 
 the worse. 
 
 'Go and get the brands — confound you — don't stand there 
 frightening the cattle,' says father, as the tired cattle, after 
 smelling and jostling a bit, rushed into the yard. ' You, Jim, 
 make a fire, and look sharp about it. I want to brand old 
 Polly's calf and another or two.' Father came down to the hut 
 while the brands were getting ready, and began to look at the 
 harness-cask, which stood in a little back skillion. It was pretty 
 empty ; we had been Living on eggs, bacon, and bread and 
 butter for a week. 
 
 ' Oh, mother i there's such a pretty red calf in the yard,' I 
 said, ' with a star and a white spot on the ilank ; and there's a 
 yellow steer fat enough to kill ! ' 
 
n EOBBEEY UNDER ARMS 13 
 
 ' What ! ' said mother, turning round and looking at father 
 with her eyes staring — a sort of dark blue they were — people 
 used to say mine and Jim's were the same colour — and her 
 brown hair pushed back off her face, as if she was looking at a 
 ghosL ' Is It doing that again you are, after all you promised 
 me, and you so nearly caught — after the last one ? Didn't I go 
 on my knees to ye to ask ye to drop it and lead a good life, 
 and didn't ye tell me ye'd never do the like again ? And 
 the poor innocent children, too, I wonder ye've the heart to 
 do it' 
 
 It came into my head now to wonder why the sergeant and 
 two policemen had come down from Bargo, very early in the 
 morning, about throe months ago, and asked father to show 
 them the beef in his cask, and the hide belonging to it. I 
 wondered at the time the beast was killed why father made the 
 hide into a rope, and before he did that had cut out the brand 
 and dropped it into a hot tire. The police saw a hide with our 
 brand on, all right — killed about a fortnight. They didn't 
 know it had been taken off a cancered bullock, and that father 
 took the trouble to ' stick ' him and bleed him before he took the 
 hide off, 60 as it shouldn't look dark. Father certainly knew 
 most things in the way of working on the cross. I can see now 
 he'd have marie his money a deal easier, and no trouble of mind, 
 if he d only chosen to go straight. 
 
 When motlier said this, father looked at her for a bit as if he 
 was sorry for it ; then he straightened himself up, and an ugly 
 look came into his face as he growled out — 
 
 * You mind your own business ; we must live as well as other 
 people. There's squatters here that does as bad. They're just 
 like the squires at home ; think a poor man hasn't a right to 
 live. You bring the brand and look alive, Dick, or I'll sharpen 
 ye up a bit.' 
 
 The brand was in the comer, but mother got between me 
 and it, and stretched out her hand to father as if to stop me and 
 him. 
 
 'In God's name,' she cried out, 'aren't ye satisfied with losing 
 your own soul and bringing disgrace upon your family, but ye 
 must be the ruin of your innocent children ? Don't touch the 
 brand, Dick ! ' 
 
 But father wasn't a man to be crossed, and what made it 
 worse he had a couple of glasses of bad grog in him. There was 
 an old %'illain of a shanty -keep>er that lived on a back creek. 
 He'd been there as he came by and had a glass or two. He had 
 a regular savage temper, father had, tl^iough he was quiet enough 
 and not bad to us when he was right. But the grog always 
 spoiled him. 
 
 He gave p>oor mother a shove which sent her reeling against 
 the wall, where she fell down and hit her head against the 
 stool, and lay there. Aileen, sitting down in the comer, turned 
 white, and began to cry, while father catches me a box on the 
 
U ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. u 
 
 €ar which sends me kicking, picks up the brand out of the 
 corner, and walks out, v/ith me after him. 
 
 I think if I'd been another year or so older I'd have struck 
 back — I felt that savage about poor mother that I could have 
 gone at him myself — but we had been too long used to do 
 everything he told us ; and somehow, even if a chap's father's 
 a bad one, he don't seem like other men to him. So, as Jim 
 had lighted the fire, we branded the little red heifer calf first — 
 a fine fat six-months-old nugget she was — and then three bull 
 calves, all strangers, and then Polly's calf, I suppose just for a 
 blind. Jim and I knew the four calves were all strangers, but 
 we didn't know the brands of the mothers ; they all seemed 
 different. 
 
 After this all was made right to kill a beast. The gallows 
 was ready rigged in a corner of the yard ; father brought his 
 gun and shot the yellow steer. The calves were put into our 
 calf-pen — Polly's and all — and all the cows turned out to go 
 where they liked. 
 
 We helped father to skin and hang up the beast, and pretty 
 late it was when we finished. Mother had laid us out our tea 
 and gone to bed with Aileen. We had ours and then went to 
 bed. Father sat outside and smoked in the starlight. Hours 
 after I woke up and heard mother crying. Before daylight we 
 were up again, and the steer was cut up and salted and in the 
 harness-cask soon after sunrise. His head and feet were all 
 popped into a big pot where we used to make soup for the pigs, 
 and by the time it had been boiling an hour or two there was 
 no fear of any one swearing to the yellow steer by 'head-mark.' 
 
 We had a hearty breakfast off the 'skirt, but mother 
 wouldn't touch a bit, nor let Aileen take any : she took 
 nothing but a bit of bread and a cup of tea, and sat there 
 looking miserable and downcast. Father said nothing, but sat 
 very dark-looking, and ate his food as if nothing was the 
 matter. After breakfast he took his mare, the old dog 
 followed ; there was no need to whistle for him — it's my belief 
 he knew more than many a Christian — and away they went. 
 Father didn't come home for a week — he had got into the habit 
 of staying away for days and days together. Then things went 
 on the old way. 
 
CHAPTER m 
 
 So the years went on — slow enough they seemed to us some- 
 times—the green winters, pretty cold, 1 tell you, with frost 
 and hail-storms, and the long hot summers. We were not 
 called boys any longer, except by mother and Aileen, but took 
 our places among the men of the district. We lived mostly at 
 home, in the old way ; sometimes working pretty hard, some- 
 times doing very little. WTien the cows were milked and the 
 wood chopped, there was nothing to do for the rest of the day. 
 The creek was that close that mother used to go and dip the 
 bucket into it herself, when she wanted one, from a little 
 wooden step above the clear reedy waterhole. 
 
 Now and then we used to dig in the garden. There was 
 reaping and corn-pulling and husking for part of the year ; 
 but oft€n, for weeks at a time, there was next to nothing to do. 
 No hunting worth much— we were sick of kangarooing, like the 
 dogs themselves, that as they grew old would run a little way 
 ind then pull up if a mob came, jump, jump, past them. No 
 shooting, except a few ducks and pigeons. Father used to 
 laugh at the shooting in this country, and say they'd never 
 have poachers here — the game wasn't worth it. No fishing, 
 except an odd codfish, in the deepest waterholes ; and you 
 might sit half a day without a bite. 
 
 Now this was very bad for us boys. Lads want plenty of 
 work, and a little play now and then to keep them straight. If 
 there's none, theyll make it; and you can't tell how far they 11 
 go when they once start. 
 
 Well, Jim and I used to get our horses and ride off quietly m 
 the afternoon, as if we were going after cattle ;_but, in reality, 
 as soon as we were out of sight of mother, to ride over to that 
 old villain. Grimes, the shanty-keeper, where we met the 
 young Dalys, and others of the same sort— talked a good deal 
 of nonsense and gossip ; what was worse played at all-fours 
 and euchre, which we had learned from an American harvest 
 hand, at one of the large farms. . 
 
 Besides playing for money, which put us rather mto trouble 
 sometimes, as we couldn't always find a half-crown if we lost it, 
 
16 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 we learned another bad habit, and that w&a to drink spirits. 
 What burning nasty stuff* I thought it at first ; and so did we 
 all ! But every one wanted to be thought a man, and up to all 
 kinds of wickedness, so we used to make it a point of drinking 
 our nobbier, and sometimes treating the others twice, if we 
 had cash. 
 
 There was another family that lived a couple of miles off, 
 higher up the creek, and we had always been good friends with 
 them, though they never came to our house, and only we boys 
 went to theirs. They were the parents of the little girl that 
 went to school with us, and a boy who was a year older 
 than me. 
 
 Their father had been a gardener at home, and he married a 
 native girl who was born somewhere about the Hawkesbury, 
 near Windsor. Her father had been a farmer, and many a 
 time she told us how sorry she was to go away from the old 
 place, and what fine corn and pumpkins they grew • and how 
 they had a church at Windsor, and used to take their hay and 
 fruit and potatoes to Sydney, and what a grand place Sydney 
 was, with stone buildings called markets for people to sell fruit 
 and vegetables and poultry in ; and how you could walk down 
 into Lower George Street and see Sydney Harbour, a great 
 shining salt-water plain, a thousand times as big as the 
 biggest waterhole, with ships and boats and sailors, and every 
 kind of strange thing upon it. 
 
 Mrs. Storefield was pretty fond of talking, and she was 
 always fond of me, because once when she was out after the 
 cows, and her man was away, and she had left Grace at home, 
 the little thing crawled down to the waterhole and tumbled in. 
 I happened to be riding up with a message for mother, to 
 borrow some soap, when I heard a little cry like a lamb's, and 
 there was poor little Gracey struggling in the water like a 
 drowning kitten, with her face under. Another minute or two 
 would have finished her, but I was otl' the old pony and into the 
 water like a teal fiapper. I had her out in a second or two, and 
 she gasped and cried a bit, but soon came to, and when Mrs. 
 Storefield came home she first cried over her as if she would 
 break her heart, and kissed her, and then she kissed me, and 
 said, 'Now, Dick Marston, you look here. Your mother's a 
 good woman, though simple ; your father I don't like, and I 
 hear many stories about him that makes me think the less we 
 ought to see of the lot of you the better. But you've saved my 
 child's life to-day, and I'U be a friend and a mother to you as 
 long as I live, even if you turn out bad, and I'm rather afraid 
 you will — you and Jim both — but it won't be my fault for want 
 of trying to keep you straight ; and John and I will be your 
 kind and loving friends as long as we live, no matter what 
 happens.' 
 
 After that — it was strange enough — but I always took to the 
 little toddling thing that I'd pulled out of the water. I wasn't 
 
ni ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 17 
 
 very big myself, if it comes to that, and she seemed to have a 
 feeling about it, for she'd come to me every time I went there, 
 and sit on my knee and look at me v.ith her big brown serious 
 eyes — they were just the same after the grew up — and talk to 
 me in her little childish lingo. I believe she knew all about it, 
 for she used to say, ' Dick pull Gracey out of water ; ' and then 
 she'd throw her arms round my neck and kiss me, and walk ofi 
 to her mother. If I'd let her drown then, and tied a stone 
 round my neck and dropped through the reeds to the bottom 
 of the big waterhole, it would have been better for both of us. 
 
 When John came home he was nearly as bad as the old 
 woman, and wanted to give me a hlly, but I wouldn't have it, 
 boy as I was. I never cared for money nor money's worth, and 
 I was not going to be paid for picking a kid out of the water. 
 
 George iStorefield, Gracey's brother, was about my own age. 
 He thought a lot of what I'd done for her, and years afterwards 
 I threatened to punch his head if he said anything more about 
 it. He laughed, and held out his hand. 
 
 ' You and I might have been better friends lately,' says he ; 
 ' but don't you forget you've got another brother besides Jim — 
 one that will stick to you, too, fair weather or foul.' 
 
 I always had a great belief in George, though we didn't get 
 on over well, and often had fallings out. He was too steady 
 and hardworking altogether for Jini and me. He worked all 
 day and every day, and saved every penny he made. Catch 
 him galHng ! — no, not for a sixpence. He called the Dalys and 
 Jacksons thieves and swindlers, who would be locked up, or 
 even hanged, some day, unless they mended themselves. As 
 for drinking a glass of grog, you might just as soon ask him to 
 take a little laudanum or arsenic. 
 
 'Why should I drink grog,' he used to say — 'such stuff, too, 
 as you get at that old villain Grimes's — with a good appetite and 
 a good conscience? I'm afraid of no man; the police may 
 come and live on my ground for what I care. I work all day, 
 have a read in the evening, and sleep like a top when I turn in. 
 What do I want moi-e 1 ' 
 
 ' Oh, but you never see any life,' Jim said ; ' you're just like 
 an old working bullock that walks up to the yoke in the morn- 
 ing and never stops hauling till he's let go at night. This is a 
 free country, and I don't think a fellow was born for that kind 
 of thing and nothing else.' 
 
 'This country's Hke any other country, Jim,' George would 
 say, holding up his head, and looking straight at him ^vith his 
 steady gray eyes ; 'a man must work and save when he's young 
 if he don't want to be a beggar or a slave wlien he's old. I 
 believe in a man enjoying himself as well as you do, but my 
 notion of that is to have a good farm, well stocked and paid for, 
 by and by, and then to take it easy, perhaps when my back is a 
 little stitier than it is now.' 
 
 'But a man must have a little fun when he is young,' I said. 
 
 
 
18 ROBBERY ITNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 ' What's the use of having money when you're old and rusty, 
 and can't take pleasure in anything ? ' 
 
 ' A man needn't be so very old at forty,' he says then, * and 
 twenty years' steady work will put all of us youngsters well up 
 the ladder. Besides, I don't call it fun getting half -drunk with 
 a lot of blackguards at a low pothouse or a shanty, listening to 
 the stupid talk and boasting lies of a pack of loafers and worse. 
 They're fit for nothing better ; but you and Jim are. Now, 
 look here, I've got a small contract from Mr Andrews for a lot 
 of fencing stuff. It will pay us wages and something over. If 
 you like to go in -wdth me, we'll go share and share. I know 
 what hands you both are at spHtting and fencing. What do you 
 say?' 
 
 Jim, poor Jim, was inclined to take George's offer. He was 
 that good-hearted that a kind word would turn him any time. 
 But 1 was put out at his laving it down so about the Dalys 
 and us shantying and gaffing, and I do think now that some 
 folks are born so as they can't do without a taste of some sort 
 of fun once in a way. I can't put it out clear, but it ought to 
 be fixed somehow for us chaps that haven't got the gift of work- 
 ing all day and every day, but can do two days' work in one 
 when we like, that we should have our allowance of reasonable 
 fun and pleasure — that is, what we called pleasure, not what 
 somebody thinks we ought to take pleasure in. Anyway, I 
 turned on George rather rougli, and I says, 'We're not good 
 enough for the likes of you, Mr. Storefield. It's very kind of 
 you to think of us, but we'll take our own line and you take yours.' 
 
 ' I'm sorry for it, Dick, and more sorry that you take huff 
 at an old friend. All I want is to do you good, and act a friend's 
 part. Good-bye — some day you'll see it.' 
 
 'You're hard on George,' says Jim, 'there's no pleasing you 
 to-day ; one would think there were lots of chaps fighting how 
 to give us a lift. Good-bye, George, old man • I'm sorry we 
 can't wire in with you ; we'd soon knock out those posts and 
 rails on the ironbark range.' 
 
 ' Y^ou'd better stop, Jim, and take a hand in the deal,' says I 
 (or, rather, the devil, for I believe he gets inside a chap at 
 times), 'and then you and George can take a turn at local- 
 preaching when you're cut out. I'm off. ' So without another 
 word I jumped on to my horse and went off down the hill, 
 across the creek, and over the boulders the other side, without- 
 much caring where I was going. The fact was, I felt I had 
 acted meanly in sneering at a man who only said what he did 
 for my good ; and I wasn't at all sure that I hadn't made a 
 breach between Gracey and myself, and, though I had such a 
 temper when it was roused that all the world wouldn't have 
 stopped me, every time I thought of not seeing that girl again 
 made my heart ache as if it would burst 
 
 I was nearly home before I heard the clatter of a horse's 
 feet, and Jim rode up alongside of me. He was just the same 
 
m ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 19 
 
 as ever, with a smile on his race, ^oa didn't often see it with- 
 out one. 
 
 I knew he had come after me, and had given up his own 
 isLUCY for mine., 
 
 ' I thousrht vou were going to stay and turn good,' I said. 
 ' Why didn t you ? ' 
 
 ' It might have been better for me if I had,' he said, ' but 
 you know very well, Dick, that whatever turns up, whether it's 
 for good or evil, you and I go together.* 
 
 We looked at one another for a moment. Our eyes met. We 
 didn't say anything ; but we understood one another as well as 
 if we had talked for a week. We rode up to the door of our 
 cottage without speaking. The sun had set, and some of the 
 stars had come out, early as it was, for it was late autumn. 
 Aileen was sitting on a bench in the verandah reading, mother 
 was working away as usual at something in the house. Mother 
 couldn't read or write, but you never caught her sitting with 
 her hands before her. Except when she was asleep I don't 
 think she ever was quite stilL 
 
 Aileen ran out to us, and stood while we let go our horses, 
 and brought the saddles and bridles under the verandah. 
 
 'I'm glad you're come home for one thing,' she said. ' There 
 is a message from father. He wants you to meet him.' 
 
 ' Who brought it ? ' I said. 
 
 ' One of the Dalys — Patsey, I think.' 
 
 'All right,' said Jim, kissing her as he lifted her up in his 
 great strong arms. ' I must go in and have a gossip with the 
 old woman. Aileen can tell me after tea. I daresay its not so 
 good that it won't keep.' 
 
 Mother was that fond of both of us that I believe, as sure as 
 I sit here, she'd have put her head on the block, or died in any 
 other way for either of her boys, not because it was her duty, 
 but glad and cheerful like, to have saved us from death or dis- 
 grace. I think she was fonder of us two than she was of Aileen. 
 Mothers are generally fonder of their sons. Why I never could 
 see ; and if she thought more of one than the other it was 
 Jim. He was the youngest, and he had that kind of big, frolic- 
 some, loNTng way with him, like a Newfoundland pup about 
 half-grown. I always used to think, somehow, nobody ever 
 seemed to be able to get into a pelter with Jim, not even 
 father, and that was a tliino: as some people couldn't be got to 
 believe. As for mother an^ Aileen, they were as fond of him 
 as if he'd l>een a big baby. 
 
 So while he went to sit down on the stretcher, and let mother 
 put her arms round his neck and hug him and cry over him, as 
 she always did if he'd been away more than a day or two, I took 
 a walk down the creek with Aileen in the starlight, to hear all 
 about this message from father. Besides, I could see that she 
 was very serious over it, and I thought there might be some- 
 thing in it more than common. 
 
20 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 'First of all, did you make any agreement with G^eorge 
 Storefield ? ' she said, 
 
 ' No ; why should I ? Has he been talking to you about me 1 
 
 What right has he to meddle with my business ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, Dick, don't talk like that. Anything that he said was 
 
 only to do you a kindness, and Jim.' 
 
 ' Hang him, and his kindness too,' I said. ' Let him keep it 
 
 for those that want it. But what did he tell you 1 ' 
 
 * He said, first of all,' answered poor Aileen, with the tears in 
 her eyes, and trying to take hold of ray hand, 'that he had a 
 contract for fencing timber, which he had taken at good prices, 
 which he would share with you and Jim ; that he knew you two 
 and himself could finish it in a few weeks, and that he expected 
 to get the contract for the timber for the new bridge at Dargo, 
 which he would let you go shares in too. He didn't like to 
 speak about that, because it wasn't certain ; but he had calcu- 
 lated all the quantities and jDrices, and he was sure you would 
 make £70 or £80 each before Christmas. Now, was there any 
 harm in that ; and don't you think it was very good of him 
 to think of it ? ' 
 
 'Well, he's not a Ijad fellow, old George,' I said, 'but he's 
 a little too fond of interfering with other people's business. 
 Jim and I are quite able to manage our own affairs, as I told 
 him this evening, when I refused to have anything to do with 
 his fencing arrangement.' 
 
 ' Oh, Dick, did you 1 ' she said. ' What a pity ! I made sure 
 Jim would have liked it so, for only last week he said he was 
 sick and tired of ha\dng nothing to do — that he should soon 
 lose all his knack at using tools that he used to be so proud of. 
 Didn't he say he'd like to join George ? ' 
 
 ' He would, I daresay, and I told him to do as he liked. I 
 came away by myself, and only saw him just before we crossed 
 the range. He's big enough and old enough to take his own line," 
 
 * But you know he thinks so much of you,' she groaned out, 
 ' that he'd follow you to destruction. That will be the end of it, 
 depend upon it, Dick. I tell you so now ; you've taken to bad 
 ways ; you'll have biis blood on your head yet.' 
 
 'Jim's old enough and big enough to t-ake care of himself,' I 
 said sulkily. ' If he likes to come my way I won't hinder him ; 
 I won't try to persuade him one way or the other. Let him 
 take his own line ; I don't believe in preaching and old women's 
 talk. Let a man act and think for himself.' 
 
 ' Youll break my heart and poor mother's, too,' said Aileen. 
 suddenly taking both my hands in hers. 'What has she done 
 but love us ever since we were born, and what does she live 
 for? You know she has no pleasure of any kind, you know 
 she's afraid every morning she wakes that the police will get 
 father for some of his cross doings ; and now you and Jim are 
 going the same wild way, and what ever — what ever will be 
 the end of it ?' 
 
in ROBBERY UXDER ARMS 21 
 
 Here she let go my hands, and sobbed and cried as if she was 
 a child again, much as I remember her doing one day when my 
 kangaroo dog killed her favourite cat. And Aileen v/as a girl 
 that didn't cry much generally, and never about anything that 
 happened to herself ; it vras always about somebody else and 
 their misfortunes. She was a quiet girl, too, very determined, 
 and not much given to talking about what she was going to do ; 
 but when she made up her mind she was sure to stick to it. I 
 used to think she was more like father than any of us. She 
 had his coloured hair and eyes, and his way of standing and 
 looking, as if the whole world wouldn't shift him. But she'd 
 mother's soft heart for all that, and I took the more notice of her 
 crying and whimpering this time becauseitwas so strange for her. 
 
 If any one could have seen straight into my heart just then 
 I was regularly knocked over, and had two minds to go inside 
 to Jim and tell him we'd take George's splitting job, and start 
 to tackle it tirst thing to-morrow morning ; but just then one 
 of those confounded night-hawks tlitted on a dead tree before 
 us and began his *hoo-ho,' as if it was laughing at me. I can 
 see the place now — the mountain black and dismal, the moon 
 low and strange-looking, the little waterhole glittering in the 
 half-light, and this dark bird hooting away in the night. An 
 odd feeling seemed to come over my mind, and if it had been 
 the devil liimself standing on the dead limb it could not have 
 had a worse effect on me as I stopped there, uncertain whether 
 to turn to the right or the left. 
 
 TVe don't often know in this world sometimes whether we 
 are turning off along a road where we shall never come back 
 from, or whether we can go just a little way and look at the 
 far-off hills and new rivers, and come home safe. 
 
 I remember the whole lot of bad-meaning thoughts coming 
 with a rush over my heart, and I laughed at myself for being 
 so soft as to choose a hard-working, pokey kind of life at the 
 word of a slow fellow like Greorge, when I might be riding about 
 the country on a fine horse, eating and drinking of the best, 
 and only doing what people said half the old settlers had made 
 their money by. 
 
 Poor Aileen told me afterwards that if she'd thought for a 
 moment I could be turned she'd have gone down on her knees 
 and never got up till I promised to keep straight and begin to 
 work at honest daily labour like a man — like a man who hoped 
 to_ end his days in a good house, on a good farm, with a good 
 wife and nice children round him, and not in a prison celL 
 Some people would call the first., after years of honest work, 
 and being always able to look every one in the face, being more 
 of a man than the other. But people have different ways and 
 different idea.s. 
 
 'Com^ Ailie,' I said, 'are you going to wliine and cry aD 
 night? I shall be afraid to come home if you're going to be 
 Uke this. What's the message from father ? ' 
 
22 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 She wiped away her tears, and, putting her hand on my 
 shoulder, looked steadily into my face. 
 
 * Poor boy — poor, dear Dick,' she said, ' I feel as if 1 should 
 see that fresh face of yours looking very different some day or 
 other. Something tells me that there's bad luck before you. 
 But never mind, you'll never lose your sister if the luck's ever 
 so bad. Father sent word you and Jim were to meet him at 
 Broken Creek and bring your whips with you.' 
 
 'What in the world's that for?' I said, half speaking to 
 myself. 'It looks as if there was a big mob to drive, and 
 where's he to get a big mob there in that mountainous, beastly 
 place, where the cattle all bolt like wallabies, and where I never 
 saw twenty head together ? ' 
 
 ' He's got some reason for it,' said Aileen sorrowfully. ' If I 
 were you I wouldn't go. It's no good, and father's trying now 
 to drag you and Jim into the bad ways he's been foUowiug 
 these years.' 
 
 'How do you know it's so bad?' said I. 'How can a girl 
 Uke you know 1 ' 
 
 ' I know very well,' she said. * Do you think I've lived here 
 all these years and don't know thLugs 1 What makes him 
 always come home after dark, and be that nervous every time 
 he sees a stranger coming up you'd think he was come out of 
 gaol? Why has he always got money, and why does mother 
 look so miserable when he's at home, and cheer up when he 
 goes away ? ' 
 
 'He may get jobs of droving or something,' I said. 'You 
 have no right to say that he's robbing, or something of that 
 sort, because he doesn't care about tying himself to mother's 
 apron-string.' 
 
 Aileen laughed, but it was more like crying. 
 
 'You told me just now,' she said — oh ! so sorrowfully — 'that 
 you and Jim v/ere old enough to take a line of your own. Why 
 don't you do it now ? ' 
 
 ' And tell father we'll have nothing more to do with him ! ' 
 
 'Why not?' she said, standing up straight before me, and 
 facing me just as I saw father face the big bullock-driver before 
 he knocked him down. ' Why not ? You need never ask him 
 for another meal ; you can earn an easy living in half-a-dozen 
 ways, you and Jim. Why should you let him spoil your life 
 and ruin your soul for evermore ? ' 
 
 ' The priest put that into your head,' I said sneeringly ; 
 'Father Doyle — of course he knows what they'll do with a 
 fellow after he's dead' 
 
 ' No ! ' she said, ' Father Dmrle never said a word about you 
 that wasn't good and kind He says mother's a good Catholic, 
 and he takes an interest in you boys and me because of her.' 
 
 'He can persuade you women to do anything,' I said, not 
 that I had any grudge against poor old Father Doyle, who used 
 to come riding up the rough mountain track on his white hors-s, 
 
Ill ROBBEHY UNDER ARMS 28 
 
 and tiring his old bones, just 'to look after his flock,' as he said 
 — and nice lambs some of them were — but I wanted to tease 
 her and make her break off with this fancy of hers. 
 
 'He never does, and couldn't persuade me. except for my 
 
 she knelt down), as Almighty God shall help me at the last day, 
 if you and Jim will promise me to start straight off up the 
 country and take bush-work till shearing comes on, and never 
 to have any ti-uck with cross chaps and their ways, I'll turn 
 Protestant. Ill go to church with you, and keep to it till I die.' 
 
 Wasn't she a trump? I've known women that would give 
 up a lot for a man they were sweet on, and wives that would 
 follow their husbands about like spaniels, and women that 
 would lie and deceive and all but rob and murder for men they 
 were fond of, and sometimes do nearly as much to spite other 
 women. But I don't think I ever knew a woman that would 
 give up her religion for any one before, and it's not as if she 
 wasn't staunch to her own faith. She was as regular in her 
 prayers and crossings and beads and all the rest of it as mother 
 herself, and if there ever was a good girl in the whole world she 
 was one. She turned faint as she said this, and I thought she 
 was going to drop down. If anything could have turned me 
 then it would have been this. It was almost like giving her 
 life for ours, and I don't think she'd have valued hers two 
 straws if she could have saved us. There's a great deal said 
 about different kinds of love in this world, but I can't help 
 thinking that the love between brothers and sisters that have 
 been brought up together and have had very few other people 
 to care about is a higher, bett<3r sort than any other in the 
 world. There's less selfishness about it — no thought but for 
 the other's good. If that can be made safe, death and pain and 
 poverty and misery are all little things. And wasn't I fond of 
 Aileen, in spite of all my hardness and cross-grained obstinacy ? 
 — so fond that I was just going to hug her to me and say, ' Take 
 it all your own way, Ailie dear,' when Jim came tearing out of 
 the hut, bareheaded, and stood listening to a far-off sound that 
 caught aU our ears at once. We made out the source of it too 
 well — far too weU. 
 
 What was the noise at that hour of the night 1 
 
 It was a hollow, faint, distant roaring that gradually kept 
 getting louder. It was the strange mournful bellowing that 
 comes from a drove of cattle forced along an unknown track. 
 ,As we hstened the sound came clearly on the night wind, faint, 
 yet still clearly coming nearer. 
 
 * Cattle being driven,' Jim cried out ; ' and a big mob toa 
 It's father — for a note. Let's get our horses and meet him.' 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 * All right,' said I, ' he must have got there a day before his 
 time. It is a big mob and no mistake. I wonder where they're 
 taking them to.' Aileen shrugged her shoulders and walked in 
 to mother with a look of misery and despair on her face such as 
 I never saw there before. 
 
 She knew it was no use talking to me now. The idea of 
 going out to meet a large lot of unknown cattle had strongly 
 excited us, as would have been the case with every bush-bred 
 lad. All sorts of wonders passed through our minds as we 
 walked do^vn the creek bank, with our bridles in our hands, 
 towards where our horses usually fed. One was easy to catch, 
 the other with a little management was secured. In ten 
 minutes we were riding fast through the dark trees and fallen 
 timber towards the wild gullies and rock -strewed hills of 
 Broken Creek. 
 
 It was not more than an hour when we got up to the cattle. 
 We could hear them a good while before we saw them. * My 
 word,' said Jim, ' ain't they restless. They can't have come far, 
 or they wouldn't roar so. Where can the old man have 
 "touched "for them?' 
 
 ' How should I know ? ' I said roughly. I had a kijid of 
 idea, but I thought he would never be so rash. 
 
 AVhen we got up I could see the cattle had been rounded up 
 in a flat with stony ridges all round. There must have been 
 three or four hundred of them, only a man and a boy riding 
 round and wheeling them every now and then. Their horses 
 were pretty well knocked up. I knew farther at once, and the 
 old chestnut mare he used to ride — an animal with legs like 
 timbers and a mule rump ; but you couldn't tire her, and no 
 beast that ever was calved could get away from her. The boy 
 was a half-caste that father had picked up somewhere ; he was 
 as good as two men any day. 
 
 °So you've come at last,' growled father, 'and a good thing 
 too. I didn't expect to be here till to-morrow morning. The 
 dog came home, I suppose — that's what brought you here, 
 
CHAP. IV ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 26 
 
 wasn't it ? I thought the infernal cattle would beat Vfarrigal 
 and me, and we d have all our trouble for nothing.' 
 
 ' Whose cattle are they, and what are you going to do with 
 themj ' 
 
 * Never you mind ; ask no questions, and you'll see all about 
 it to-morrow. I'll go and take a snooze now ; I've had no sleep 
 for three niglits.' 
 
 "With our fresh horses and riding round so we kept the cattle 
 easily enough. We did not tell Warrigal he might go to rest, 
 not thinking a half-caste brat like him wanted any. He didn't 
 say anything, but went to sleep on his horse, which walked in 
 and out among the angry cattle as he sat on the saddle with 
 his head down on the horse's neck. They sniffed at him once 
 or twice, some of the old cows, but none of them horned him ; 
 and daylight came rather quicker than one would think. 
 
 Then we saw whose cattle they were ; they had all Hunter's 
 and Falkland's brands on, which showed that they belonged to 
 Banda and Elingamah stations. 
 
 'By George ! ' says Jim, 'they're Mr. Hunter's cattle, and all 
 these circle dots belong to Banda. What a mob of calves ! not 
 one of them branded ! What in the world does father intend to 
 do with them 1 ' 
 
 Father was up, and came over where we stood with our 
 horses in our hands before we had time to say more. He wasn't 
 one of those that slept after daylight, whether he had work to 
 do or not. He certainly could work ; daylight or dark, wet or 
 dry, cold or hot, it was all one to father. It seems a pity what 
 he did was no use to him, as it turned out ; for he was a man, 
 was old dad, every inch of him. 
 
 'Now, boys,' he said, quite brisk and almost good-natured 
 for him, ' look alive and we'll start the cattle ; we've been long 
 enough here ; let 'em head up that gully, and I'll show you 
 something you've never seen before for as long as you've known 
 Broken Creek Ranges.' 
 
 ' But where are you going to take 'em to 1 ' I said. * They're 
 all Mr. Hunter's and Mr. Falkland's ; the brands are plain 
 enough.* 
 
 ' Are the calves branded, you blasted fool ? ' he said, while the 
 black look came over his face that had so often frightened me 
 when I was a child. 'You do what I tell you if you've any 
 pluck and gumption about you ; or else you and your brother 
 can ride over to Dargo PoUce Station and " give me away " if 
 you like ; only don't come home again, I warn you, sons or no 
 sons.' 
 
 If I had done what 1 had two minds to do — for I wasn't 
 afraid of him then, savage as he looked — told him to do his own 
 dulEng and ridden away with Jim there and then — poor Jim, 
 who sat on his horse staring at both of us, and saying nothing — 
 how much better it would have been for all of us, the old man 
 as well as ourselves ; but it seemed as if it wasn't to be. Partly 
 
26 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS oeat. 
 
 from use, and partly from a love of danger and something new, 
 which is at the bottom of half the crime in the bush districts, 1 
 turned my horse's head after the cattle, which were now begin- 
 ning to straggle. Jim did the same on liis side. How easy it is 
 for chaps to take the road to hell ! for that was about the 
 size of it, and we were soon too busy to think about much 
 else. 
 
 The track we were driving on led along a narrow rocky gully 
 which looked as if it had been split up or made out of a crack 
 in the earth thousands of years ago by an earthquake or some- 
 thing of that kind. The hills were that steep that every now 
 and then some of the young cattle that were not used to that 
 sort of country would come sliding down and bellow as if they 
 thought they were going to break their necks. 
 
 The water rushed down it like a torrent in wet winters, and 
 formed a sort of creek, and the bed of it made what track there 
 was. There were overhanging rocks and places that made you 
 giddy to look at, and some of these must have fallen down and 
 blocked up the creek at one time or other. We had to scramble 
 round them the best way we could. 
 
 When we got nearly up to the head of the gully — and great 
 work it was to force the footsore cattle along, as we couldn't 
 use our whips overmuch — Jim called out — 
 
 * Why, here comes old Crib. Who'd have thought he'd have 
 seen the track 1 Well done, old man. Now we're right.' 
 
 Father never took any notice of the poor brute as he came 
 limping along the stones. Woman or child, horse or dog, it's 
 the same old thing — the more any creature loves a man in this 
 world the worse they're treated. It looks like it, at any rate. 
 I saw how it was ; father had given Crib a cruel beating the 
 night before, when he was put out for some trifling matter, and 
 the dog had left him and run home. But now he had thought 
 better of it, and seen our tracks and come to work and slave, 
 with his bleeding feet — for they were cut all to pieces — and got 
 the whip across his back now and then for his pains. It's a 
 queer world ! 
 
 When we got right to the top of this confounded gully, nearly 
 dead-beat all of us, and only for the dog heeling them up every 
 now and then, and making his teeth nearly meet in them, with- 
 out a whimper, I believe the cattle would, have charged back 
 and beat us. There was a sort of rough table-land — scrubby 
 and stony and thick it was, but still the grass wasn't bad in 
 summer, when the country below was all dried up. There were 
 wild horses in troops there, and a few wild cattle, so Jim and I 
 knew the place well ; but it was too far and too much of a 
 journey for our own horses to go often. 
 
 'Do'vou see that sugar-loaf hill with the bald top, across the 
 range ? said father, riding up just then, as we were taking it 
 easy a little. ' Don't let the cattle straggle, and make straight 
 for that,' 
 
rr ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 27 
 
 'Why, it's miles away,' said Jim, looking rather dismal 'We 
 could never get 'em thera' 
 
 'Were not going there, stupid,' says father •, 'that's only the 
 line to keep. I'll show you something about dinner-time that'll 
 op>en your eyes a bit.' 
 
 Poor Jim brightened up at the mention of dinner-time, for, 
 boylike, he was getting very hungry, and as he wasn't done 
 growing he had no end of an appetite. I was hungry enough 
 for the matter of that, but I wouldn't own to it. 
 
 'Well, we shall come to somewhere, I suppose,' says Jim, 
 when father was gone. ' Blest if I didn't think he was going to 
 keep us wandering in this blessed Nulla Mountain all day. I 
 wish I'd never seen the blessed cattle. I was only waiting for 
 you to hook it when we first seen the brands by daylight, and 
 I'd ha' been off like a brindle " Mickey " down a range.' 
 
 ' Better for us if we had ' I said ; ' but it's too late now. We 
 must stick to it, I suppose. 
 
 We had kept the cattle going for three or four miles through 
 the thickest of the country, every now and then steering our 
 course by the clear round top of Sugarloaf, that could be seen 
 for miles round, but never seemed to ^et any nearer, when we 
 came on a rough sort of log-fence, which ran the way we were 
 going. 
 
 'I didn't think there were any farms up here,' I said to 
 Jim. 
 
 'It's a "break,"' he said, almost in a whisper. 'There's a 
 " dutfing-yard " somewhere handy ; that's what's the matter.' 
 
 ' Keep the cattle along it, anyway. We'll soon see what it 
 leads to.' 
 
 The cattle ran along the fence, as if they expected to get to 
 the end of their troubles soon. The scrub was terribly thick in 
 places, and every now and then there was a break in the fence, 
 when one of us had to go outside and hunt them until we came 
 to the next bit. At last we came to a little open kind of flat, 
 with the scrub that thick round it as you couldn't hardly ride 
 through it, and, just as Jim said, there was the yard. 
 
 It was a ' duffiing-yard ' sure enough. No one but people who 
 had cattle to hide and voung stock they didn't want other people 
 to see branded would have made a place there. 
 
 Just on the south side of the yard, which was built of great 
 heavy stringy-bark trees cut down in the line of the fence, and 
 made up with Hmbs and logs, the range went up as steep as the 
 side of a house. The cattle were that tried and footsore — half 
 their feet were bleeding, poor devils — that they ran in through 
 the sliprails and began to lay down. 
 
 ' Light a fire, one of you boys,' says father, putting up the 
 heavy sliprails and fastening them. 'We must brand these 
 calves before dark. One of you can go to that gunyah, just 
 under the range where that big white rock is, and you'll find 
 tea and sugar and something to eat.' 
 
28 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS (JKA:f. 
 
 Jim rusheii off at once, while I sulkily began to put some 
 bark and twigs together and build a fire, 
 
 ' What's the use of all this cross work 1 ' I said to father ; 
 ' we're bound to be caught some day if we keep on at it.^ Then 
 there'll be no one left to take care of mother and Aileen.' 
 
 He looked rather struck at this, and then said quietly— 
 
 'You and your brother can go back now. Never say I 
 kept you against your will Y'ou may as well lend a hand to 
 brand these calves ; then you may clear out as soon as you 
 like.' 
 
 Well, I didn't quite Hke leaving the old chap in the middle 
 of the work like that. I remember thinking, like many another 
 young fooL I suppose, that I could draw back in time, just after 
 I'd tackled this job. 
 
 Draw back, indeed ! When does a man ever get the chance 
 of doing that, once he's regularly gone in for any of the devil's 
 work and wages? He takes care there isn't much drawing 
 back afterwards. So I said — 
 
 ' We may as well give you a hand with this lot ; but we'll go 
 home then, and drop all this duffing work. It don't pay. I'm 
 old enough to know that, and you'll find it out yet, I expect, 
 father, yourself.' 
 
 'The fox lives long, and gives the hounds many a long chase 
 before he's run into,' he said, with a grim chuckle. *I swore I'd 
 be revenged on 'em all when they locked me up and sent me 
 out here for a paltry hare : broke my old mother's heart, so it 
 did. I've had a pound for every hair in her skin, and I shall go 
 on till I die. After all, if a man goes to work cautious and runs 
 mute it's not so easy to catch him in this country, at any rate.' 
 
 .Tim at this came rujining out of the cave with a face of joy, 
 a bag of ship-biscuit, and a lot of other things. 
 
 ' Here's tea and sugar,' he said ; ' and there's biscuits and jam, 
 and a big lump of cheese. Get the fire right, Dick, while I get 
 some water. We'll soon have some tea, and these biscuits are 
 JoUy.' 
 
 The tea was made, and we all had a good meal. Father found 
 a bottle of rum, too ; he took a good drink himself, and gave 
 Jim and me a sip each. I felt less inclined to quarrel with 
 father after that. So we drafted all the calves into a small pen- 
 yard, and began to put our brand on them as quick as we could 
 catch 'em. 
 
 A hundred and sixty of 'em altogether — all ages, from a month 
 old to nearly a year. Fine strong calves, and in rare condition, 
 too. We could see they were all belonging to Mr. Hunter and 
 Mr. Falkland. How they came to leave them all so long un- 
 branded I can't say. V' ery careless they often are on these large 
 cattle-stations, so that sharp people like father and the Dalys, 
 and a lot more, get an easy chance at them. 
 
 Whatever father was going to do with them all when he had 
 branded em, we couldn't make out. 
 
IT ROBBERY UNDER AEilS 29 
 
 ' There's no place to tail or wean 'em,' whispered Jim. ' We're 
 not above thirty miles from Banda in a straight line. These 
 cows are dead sure to make straight back the very minute 
 they're let out, and very nice work it'll look with all these calves 
 with our brand on sucking these cows.' 
 
 Father happened to come round for a hot brand just as Jim 
 finished. 
 
 ' Never you mind about the weaning,' he snarled. ' I shan't 
 ask you to tail th^m either. It wouldn't be a nice job here, 
 would it 1 ' and father actually laughed. It wasn't a very gay 
 kind of a laugh, and he shut up his mouth with a sort of snap 
 again. Jim and I hadn't seen him laugh for I don't know how 
 long, and it almost frightened us. 
 
 As Jim said, it wouldn't do to let the cattle out again. If 
 calves are weaned, and have only one brand on, it is very hard 
 for any man to swear that they are not the property of the man 
 to whom that brand belongs. He may believe them to be hi.5, 
 but may never have seen them in his life ; and if he has seen 
 them on a camp or on the run, it's very hard to swear to any 
 one particular red or spotted calf as you would to a horse. 
 
 The great dart is to keep the young stock away from their 
 mothers until thev forget one another, and then most of the 
 danger is past. But if calves with one man's brand on are 
 seen sucking another man's cows, it is pretty plain that the 
 brand on the calves has been put on without the consent of the 
 owner of the cows — which is cattle-stealing ; a felony, according 
 to the Act 7 and 8 George IV., No. 29, punishable with three 
 years' imprisonment, with hard labour on the roads of the colony 
 or other place, as the Judge may direct. 
 
 There's a lot of law ! How did I learn it ? I had plenty of 
 time in Berrima Gaol — worse luck — my first stretch. But it 
 was after I'd done the foolishness, and not before. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ' Now then, you boys ! ' says father, coming up all of a sudden 
 like, and bringing out his words as if it was old times with us, 
 when we didn't know whether he'd hit first and talk afterwards, 
 or the other way on, ' get out the lot we've just branded, and 
 drive 'em straight for that peak, where the water shines dripping 
 over the stones, right again the sun, and look slippy ; we're 
 burning daylight, and these cows are making row enough, blast 
 'em I to be heard all the way to Banda, I'll go on and steady 
 the lead ; you keep 'em close up to me.' 
 
 Father mounted the old mare. The dog stopped behind ; he 
 knew he'd have to mind the tail— that is the hindmost cattle — 
 and stop 'em from breaking or running clear away from the 
 others. We threw down the rails. Away the cattle rushed out. 
 all in a long string. You'd 'a thought no mortal men could 'a 
 kept 'em in that blind hole of a place. But father headed 'em, 
 and turned 'em towards the peak. The dog worried those that 
 wanted to stay by the yard or turn another away. We dropped 
 our whip on 'em, and kept 'em going. In five minutes they 
 were all a-moving along in one mob at a pretty sharpish trot 
 like a lot of store cattle. Father knew his way about, whether 
 the country was thick or open. It was all as one to him. WTiat 
 a slashing stockman he would have made in new country, if he 
 only could have kept straight. 
 
 It took us an hour's hard dinkum to get near the peak. 
 Sometimes it was awful rocky, as well as scrubby, and the poor 
 de\'ils of cattle got as sore-footed as babies — blood up to the 
 knee, some of 'em ; but we crowded 'em on ; there was no help 
 for it. 
 
 At last we rounded up on a flat, rocky, open kind of a place ; 
 and here father held up his hand. 
 
 * Let 'em ring a bit ; some of their tongues are out. These 
 young things is generally soft. Come here, Dick.' I rode up, 
 and he told me to follow him. 
 
 We walked our horses up to the edge of the mountain and 
 looked over. It was like the end of the world. Far down there 
 was a dark, dreadful drop into a sort of deep valley below. 
 
CHAP. V ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 81 
 
 You couldn't see the bottom of it The trees on the mountain 
 side looked like bushes, and they were big iix)nbarks and mess- 
 mates too. On three sides of us was this awful, desolate- looking 
 precipice — a dreary, gloomy, God-forsaken kind of spot. The 
 sky got cloudy, and the breeze turned cold and began to mur- 
 mur and whistle in an odd, unnatural kind of way, while father, 
 seeing how scared and puzzled I was, began to laugh, I 
 shuddered. A thought crossed my mind that it might be the 
 Enemy of Souls, in his shape, going to carry us off for doing 
 such a piece of wickedness. 
 
 ' Looks queer, doesn't it ? ' says father, going to the brink and 
 kicking down a boulder, that rolled and crashed down the steep 
 mountain side, tearing its way through scrub and heath till it 
 settled down in the glen below. ' It won't do for a man's horse 
 to slip, will it, boy ? And yet there's a track here into a fine 
 large paddock, open and clear, too, where I'm going to put these 
 cattle into.' 
 
 I stared at him, without speaking, thinking was he mad. 
 
 ' No ! the old man isn't mad, youngster,' he said ; ' not yet, 
 at least. I'm going to show you a trick that none of you native 
 boys are up to, smart as you think yourselves.' Here he got 
 off the old mare, and began to lead her to the edge of the 
 mountain. 
 
 ' Now, you rally the cattle well after me,' he said ; ' they'll 
 follow the old mare after a bit. I left a few cows among 'em 
 on purpose, and when they "draw" keep 'em going well up, 
 but not too fast.' 
 
 He had lengthened the bridle of the maro, and tied the end 
 of a light tether rope that he had round her neck to it. I saw 
 her foflow him slowly, and turn do%vn a rocky track that seemed 
 to lead straight over a bluff of the precipice. 
 
 However, I gave the word to 'head on.' The dog had 
 started rounding 'em up as soon as he saw the old mare walk 
 towards the mountain side, and the cattle were soon crushed 
 up pretty close to the mare's heels. 
 
 Mind this, that they were so footsore and tender about the 
 hoofs that they could not have run away from us on foot if they 
 had tried. 
 
 After ' ringing ' a bit, one of the quiet cows followed up the 
 old mare that was walking step by step forward, and all the 
 rest followed her like sheep. Cattle will do that. I've seen a 
 stockrider, when all the horses were dead beat, trying to get fat 
 cattle to take a river in flood, jump off and turn his horse loose 
 into the stream. If he went straight, and swam across, all the 
 cattle would follow him like sheep. 
 
 Well, when the old mare got to the bluff she turned short 
 round to the right, and then I saw that she had struck a 
 narrow path do^vn a gully that got deeper and deeper every 
 yard we went. There was just room foi- a couple or three 
 calves to go abreast, and by and by all of 'em was walking down 
 
32 ROBBERY UKDER ARMS chap. 
 
 it like as if they was the beasts agoing into Noah's Ark. It 
 wound and wound and got deeper and deeper till the walls of 
 rock were ever so far above our heads. Our work was done 
 then ; the cattle had to walk on like sheep in a race. We led 
 our horses behind them, and the dog walked along, saving his 
 sore feet as well as he could, and never tried to bite a beast 
 once he got within the walls. He looked quite satisfied, and 
 kept chuckling almost to himself. I really believe I've seen 
 dogs laugh. Once upon a time I've read of they'd have taken 
 poor Crib for a familiar spirit, and hanged or burnt him. Well, 
 be knew a lot, and no mistake. I've seen plenty of Christians 
 as he could buy and sell, and no trouble to him. I'm dashed if 
 the old mare, too, didn't take a pleasure in working cattle on 
 the cross. She was the laziest old wretch bringing up the cows 
 at home, or running in the horses. Many a time J im and I took 
 a turn out of her when father didn't know. But put her after a 
 big mob of cattle — she must have known they couldn't be ours — 
 and she'd clatter down a range like the wall of a house, and bite 
 and kick the tail cattle if they didn't get out of her way. They 
 say dogs and horses are all honest, and it's only us as teaches 'em 
 to do wrong. My notion's they're a deal like ourselves, and 
 some of 'em fancies the square racket dull and safe, wliile some 
 takes a deal kindlier to the other. Anyhow, no cattle-dufl'er 
 in the colonies could have had a better pair of mates than old 
 SaUy and Crib, if the devil himself had broken 'em in special 
 for the trade. 
 
 It was child's play now, as far as the driving went. Jim and 
 I walked along, leading oui horses and yarning away as we 
 used to do when we were little chaps bringing in the milkers. 
 
 ' 2^Iy word, Dick, dad's dropped into a fine road through this 
 thundering mountain, hasn't he ? I wonder where it leads to ? 
 How high the rock-walls are getting above us 1 ' he says. ' I 
 know now. I think I heard long ago from one of the Crosbies 
 of a place in the ranges down towards behind the Nulla Moun- 
 tain, " Terrible Hollow." He didn't know about it himself, but 
 said an old stockman told him about it when he was drunk. 
 He said the Government men used to hide the cattle and horses 
 there in old times, and that it was never found out.' 
 
 ' Why wasn't it found out, Jim ? If the old fellow " split '" 
 about it some one else would get to know.' 
 
 'Well, old Dan said that they killed one man that t-alked 
 of telling ; the rest were too frightened after that, and they 
 all swore a big oath never to tell any one except he was on 
 the cross,' 
 
 ' That's how dad come to know, I suppose,' said Jim. ' I wish 
 he never had. I dont care about those cross doings. I never 
 did. I never seen any good come out of them yet.' 
 
 'WeU, we must go through with it now, I suppose. It won't 
 do to leave old dad in the lurch. You won't, will you, Jim ? ' 
 
 'You know very well I won't,' says Jim, very soberlike. 'I 
 
7 ROBBERY F^DER ARMS 33 
 
 don't like it any the more for that. But I wish father had 
 broke his leg, and was lying up at home, with mother nursing 
 him, before he found out this hell-hole of a place.' 
 
 'Well, we're going to get out of it, and soon too. The gully 
 seems getting wider, and I can see a bit of open country 
 through the trees.' 
 
 ' Thank God for that ! ' says Jim. ' My boots '11 part company 
 soon, and the poor devils of calves won't have any hoofs either, 
 if there's much more of this,' 
 
 'They're drawing faster now. The leading cattle are 
 beginning to run. AVe're at the end of the drive.' 
 
 So it was. The deep, rocky gully gradually widened into an 
 open and pretty smooth flat ; this, again, into a splendid little 
 plain, up to the knees in grass ; a big natural park, closed 
 round on every side with sandstone rockwalls, as upright as if 
 they were built, and a couple of thousand feet above the place 
 where we stood. 
 
 This scrub country was crossed by two good creeks ; it was 
 several miles across, and a tride more in length. Our hungry 
 weaners spread out and began to feed, without a notion of their 
 mothers they'd left behind; but they were not the only ones 
 there. We could see other mobs of cattle, some near, some 
 farther oft'; horses, too ; and the well-worn track in several 
 ways showed that this was no new grazing ground. 
 
 Father came riding back quite comfortable and hearty-like 
 for him. 
 
 'Welcome to Terrible Hollow, lads,* says he, 'You're the 
 youngest chaps it has ever been shown to, and if I didn't know 
 you were the right stuft', you'd never have seen it, though you're 
 my own flesh and blood. Jump otf, and let vour horses go. 
 They can't get away, even if they tried ; they don't look much 
 like that.' 
 
 Our poor nags were something like the cattle, pretty hungry 
 and still'. They put their heads down to the thick green grass, 
 and went in at it with a will, 
 
 ' Bring your saddles along \vith you,' father said, ' and come 
 after me. I'll show you a good camping place. You deserve a 
 treat after last night's work.' 
 
 We turned back towards the rocky wall, near to where we 
 had come in, and there, behind a bush and a big piece of sand- 
 stone that had fallen down, was the entrance to a cave. The 
 walls of it were quite clean and white-looking, the floor was 
 smooth, and the roof was pretty high, well blackened with 
 smoke, too, from the fires which had been lighted in it for many 
 a year gone by. 
 
 A kind of natural cellar had been made by scooping out the 
 soft sandstone behind a ledge. From this father took a bag of 
 flour and corn-meal. We very soon made some cakes in the 
 pan, that tasted well, I can tell you. Tea and sugar too, and 
 quart pots, some bacon ina flour-bag ; and that rasher fried in 
 
 D 
 
34 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 the pan was the sweetest meat I ever ate in all my bom 
 days. 
 
 Then father brought out a keg and poured some rum into a 
 pint pot. He took a pretty stiff pull, and then handed it to us. 
 'A little of it won't hurt you, boys,' he said, ' after a night's 
 work.' 
 
 I took some — not much ; we hadn't learned to drink then — to 
 keep down the fear of something hanging over us, A dreadful 
 fear it is. It makes a coward of every man who doesn't lead a 
 square life, let him be as game as he may. 
 
 Jim wouldn't touch it. 'No,' he said, when I laughed at 
 him, * I promised mother last time I had more than was good 
 for me at Dargo Races that I wouldn't touch it again for two 
 years ; and I won't either. I can stand what any other man 
 can, and without the hard stuff, either.' 
 
 ' Please yourself,' said father. * When you're ready well have 
 a ride through the stock.' 
 
 We finished our meal, and a first-rate one it was. A man 
 never has the same appetite for his meals anywhere else that he 
 has in the bush, specially if he has been up half the night. It's 
 so fresh, and the air makes him feel as if he'd ate nothing for a 
 week. Sitting on a log, or in the cave, as we were, I've had the 
 best meal I've ever tasted since I was born. Not like the close- 
 feeling, close-smelling, dirty-clean graveyard they call a gaol 
 But it's no use beginning on that. We were young men, and 
 free, too. Free ! By all the devils in hell, if there are devils — 
 and there must be to tempt a man, or how could he be so great 
 a fool, so blind a born idiot, as to do anything in this world that 
 would put his freedom in jeopardy ? And what for 1 For folly 
 and nonsense. For a few pounds he could earn with a month's 
 honest work and be all the better man for it. For a false 
 woman's smile that he could buy, and ten like her, if he only 
 kept straight and saving. For a l)it of sudden pride or vanity 
 or passion. A short bit of what looks Like pleasure, against 
 months and years of weariness, and cold and heat, and dull half- 
 death, with maybe a dog's death at the end ! 
 
 I could cry Like a child when I think of it now. I have cried 
 many's the time and oft^n since I have been shut up here, and 
 dashed my head against the stones tiU I pretty nigh knocked 
 all sense and feeling out of it, not so much in repentance, 
 though I don't say I feel soriy, but to think what a fool, fool, 
 fool I'd been. Yes, fool, three times over — a hundred times — to 
 put my liberty and life against such a miserable stake — a stake 
 the devil that deals the pack is so safe to win at the end. 
 
 I may as well go on. But I can't help breaking out some- 
 times when I hear the birds caUing to one another as they fly 
 over the yard, and know it's fresh air and sun and green grass 
 outside that I never shall see again. Never see the river- 
 rippling under the big drooping trees, or the cattle coming 
 down in the twilight to drink after the long hot day. Never, 
 
V ROBBEEY UNDEE ARMS 35 
 
 liever more ! And whose fault is it t Who have I to blame i 
 Perhaps father helped a bit ; but I knew better, and no one ia 
 half as much to blame as myself. 
 
 Where were we? Oh, at the cave-mouth, coming out with 
 our bridles in our hands to cateh our horses. We soon did that, 
 and then we rode away to the other cattle. They were a queer 
 lot, in fine condition, but all sorts of ages and breeds, with 
 every kind of brand and ear-mark. 
 
 Lots of the brands we didn't know, and had never heard of. 
 Some had no brands at all — full-grown beasts, too ; that was a 
 thing we had very seldom seen. Some of the best cattle and 
 some of the finest horses — and there were some real plums 
 among the horses — had a strange brand, JJ. 
 
 'Who does the J J brand belong to?' I said to father. 
 ' They're the pick of the lot, whose ever they are.' 
 
 Father looked black for a bit, and then he growled out, 
 'Don't you ask too manv questions, lad. There's only four 
 living men besides yourselves knows about this place ; so take 
 care and don't act foolishly, or you'll lose a plant that may save 
 your life, as well as keep you in cash for many a year to come. 
 That brand belongs to Starlight, and he was the only man left 
 alive of the men that first found it and used it to put away 
 stock in. He wanted help, and told me five years ago. He 
 took in a half-caste chap, too, against my will He helped him 
 with that last lot of cattle that you noticed.' 
 
 ' But where did those horses come from ? ' Jim said. * I never 
 hardly saw such a lot before. All got the JJ brand on, too, 
 and nothing else ; all about three year old.' 
 
 'They were brought here as foals,' says father, 'following 
 their mothers. Some of them was foaled here ; and, of course, 
 as they've only the one brand on they never can be claimed or 
 sworn to. They're from some of Mr. ^Max well's best thorough- 
 bred mares, and their sire was Earl of Atheling, imported. He 
 was here for a year,' 
 
 'Well, they might look the real thing,' said Jim, his eyes 
 brightening as he gazed at them. ' I'd Uke to have that dark 
 bay colt with the star. My word, what a forehand he's got ; 
 and what quarters, too. If he can't gallop I'll never say I know 
 a horse from a poley cow.' 
 
 ' You shall have him, or as good, never fear, if you stick to 
 your work,' says father. ' You mustn't cross Starlight, for he's 
 a bom devil when he's taken the wrong way, though he talks 
 so soft. The half-caste is an out-and-out chap with cattle, and 
 the horse doesn't stand on four legs that he can't ride — and 
 make follow him, for the matter of that But he's worth wateh- 
 ing. I don't believe in him myself. And now ye have the lot.' 
 ' And a d— d fine lot they are,' I said, for I was vexed with 
 Jim for taking so easy to the bait father held out to hixn about 
 the horse. ' A very smart crowd to be on the roads inside of 
 five years, and drag us in with 'em.' 
 
S6 ROBBERY UFDER ARMS chap. 
 
 ' How do you make that out ? ' says father. * Are you going 
 to turn dog, now you know the way in? Isn't it as easy to 
 carry on for a few years more as it was twenty years ago 1 ' 
 
 ' Not by a long chalk,' I said, for my blood was up, and I felt 
 as if I could talk back to father and give him as good as he 
 sent, and all for Jim's sake. Poor Jim ! He'd always go to the 
 mischief for the sake of a good hor-^e, and many another 'Cur- 
 rency ' chap has gone the same way. It's a pity for some of 'em 
 that a blood horse was ever foaled. 
 
 'You think you can't be tracked,' says I, 'but you must bear 
 in mind you haven't got to do with the old-fashioned mounted 
 police as was potierin' about when this " bot " was first hit on. 
 There's chaps m the police getting now, natives or all the same, 
 as can ride and track every bit as well as the half-caste you're 
 talking about. Some day they'll drop on the track of a mob 
 coming in or getting out, and then the game will be all up.' 
 
 ' You can cut it if you like now,' said father, looking at me 
 curious like. 'Don't say I dragged you in. You and your 
 brother can go home, and no one will ever know where you 
 were ; no more than if you'd gone to the moon.' 
 
 Jim looked at the brov/n colt that just came trotting up as 
 dad finished speaking — trotting up with his head high and his 
 tail stuck out like a circus horse. If he'd been the devil in a 
 horsehide he couldn't have chosen a better moment. Then his 
 eyes began to glitter. 
 
 We all three looked at each other. No one spoke. The colt 
 stopped, turned, and galloped back to his mates like a red flyer 
 with the dogs close behind him. 
 
 It was not long. We all began to speak at once. But in 
 that time the die was cast, the stakes were down, and in the 
 pool were three men's lives. 
 
 ' I don't care whether we go back or not,' says Jim ; ' 111 do 
 either way that Dick likes. But that colt I must have.' 
 
 'I never intended to go back,' I said. 'But we're three 
 d — d fools all the same — father and sons. It'll be the dearest 
 horse you ever bought, Jim, old man, and so I tell you.' 
 
 ' Well, I suppose it's settled now,' says father ; ' so let's have 
 no more chat. We're like a pack of old women, blessed if we 
 ain't.' 
 
 After that we got on more sociably. Father took us all over 
 the place, and a splendid paddock it was — walled all round but 
 where we had come in, and a narrow gash in the far side that 
 not one man in a thousand could ever hit on, except he was 
 put up to it ; a wild country for miles when you did get out — 
 all scrub and rock, that few people ever had call to ride over. 
 There was splendid grass everywhere, water, and shelter. It 
 was warmer, too, than the country above, as you could see by 
 the coats of the cattle and horses. 
 
 'If it had only been honestly come by,' Jim said, 'what a 
 joUy place it would have been ! ' 
 
Y ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 37 
 
 Towards the north end of the paddock was a narrow gully 
 with great sandstone walls all round, and where it narrowed the 
 first discoverers had built a stockyard, partly with dry stone 
 walls and partly with logs and rails. 
 
 There was no trouble in getting the cattle or horses into this, 
 and there were all kinds of narrow yards and pens for branding 
 the stock if they were clearskins, and altering or ' faking ' the 
 brands if they were plairt This led into another yard, which 
 opened into the narrowest part of the gully. Once in this, like 
 the one they came down, and the cattle or horses had no chance 
 but to walk slowly up, one behind the other, till they got on the 
 tableland above. Here, of course, every kind of work that can 
 be done to help to disguise cattle was done. Ear-marks were 
 cut out and altered in shape, or else the whole ear was cropped 
 off; every letter in the alphabet was altered by means of 
 straight h&Ts or half-circles, figures, crosses, everything you could 
 think of. 
 
 'Mr. Starlight is an edicated man,' said father. 'This is all 
 his notion ; and many a man has looked at his own beast. 
 with the ears altered and the brand faked, and never dreamed 
 he ever owned it. He's a great card is Starlight. It's a pity he 
 ever took to this kind of life.' 
 
 Father said this with a kind of real sorrow that made me 
 look at him to see if the grog had got into his head ; just as if 
 his life, mine, and Jim's didn't matter a straw conipiired to this 
 man's, whoever he was, that had had so many better chances 
 than we had and had chucked 'em all away. 
 
 But it's a strange thing that I don't think there's any place 
 in the world wiiere men feel a more real out-and-out respect for 
 a gentleman than in Australia. Everybody's supposed to be free 
 and equal now ; of course, they couldn't be in the convict days. 
 But somehow a man that's born and bred a gentleman will 
 always be different from other men to the end of the world. 
 What's the most surprising part of it is that men like father, 
 who have hated the breed and suffered by them, too, can't helu 
 having a curious likmg and admiration for them. They'll 
 follow them like dogs, fight for them, shed their blood, and die 
 for them ; must be some sort of a natural feeling.^ Whatever it 
 is, it's there safe enough, and nothing can knock it out of nine- 
 tenths of all the men and women you meet. I began to be 
 uneasy to see this wonderful mate of father's, who was so many 
 things at once — a cattle-stealer, a bush-ranger, and a gentleman. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Aftee wed fairly settled to stay, father began to be more 
 pleasant than he'd ever been before. We were pretty likely, ha 
 said, to liave a visit from Starlight and the half-ca-ste 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 himseK 
 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 weaners between the three of us ; that meant £50 a piece 
 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 water- 
 holes. We found a couple of double-barrelled 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 
 ha^dng the tribe of blacks that inhabited the district to make 
 meri-y and carouse with them, like the buccaneers of the Spanish 
 Main 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 smouldering 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 bare patch in the scrub above us, said— 
 
 'They're coming at last.' 
 
 * Who are coming — friends 1 ' 
 
 ' Why, friends, of course. Thaf s Starlight's signal See that 
 smoke t The balf-caate always sends that up — like the blacks 
 in his mother's tribe, I suppose/ 
 
CHAP. VT EOBBERY UNDEE ARMS 39 
 
 ' Any cattle or horses with them T said Jim. 
 
 *Xo, or they^d send up two smokes. They'll be here about 
 dinner-time, so we must get ready for them.' 
 
 We had plenty of time to get ourselves or anything else 
 ready. In aoout 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 par- 
 ticularly easy to see, and every now and then we'd lose sight of 
 'em as they got into thick timber or behind rocks. 
 
 Father got the spyglass on to 'em at last, pretty clear, and 
 Dearly threw it down with an oath. 
 
 ' By ! ' he says, ' I believe Starlight's hurt somehow. He's 
 
 so infernal rash. I can see the half-caste holding him on. If the 
 police are on his tracks they'll spring the plant here, and the 
 whole thing '11 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 aisappear. 
 
 ' Let s go over to the other side,' says father ; ' they're commg 
 down the gully now. It's a terrible steep, rougli track, worse 
 than the other. If Starlight's 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 
 gullv that came in, something like the one we came in by, but 
 rougher, and full of gibbers (boulders). There was a path, but 
 it looked as if cattle could never be driven or forced up it. We 
 found afterwards that they had an old pack buUock 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 
 
 Father showed us a sort of cave by the side of the track, 
 where one man, \^ath a couple of guns and a pistol or two, could 
 have shot down a small regiment 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 cui^ed ribs are grinding against 
 one another every step of this infernal ladder. Is it far now ? ' 
 How he groaned then ! m i. ii 
 
 ' Just got the bottom ; hold on a bit longer and you 11 be all 
 right' ^ , , 
 
 Just then the leading horse came out into the open betore 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 
 cause to say the same. 
 
 The horse held up his head and snorted as he came abreast of 
 as, and we showed out He was one of the grandest animals I'd 
 
40 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 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 any- 
 tliing 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 wallaroo 
 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 round 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-caste 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 
 had 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 ; ^ hes a dead man. What pluck 
 he must have had to ride down there ! ' 
 
 ' He's worth two dead 'uns yet,' said father, who had his hand 
 on his pulse. ' Hold his head up one of you while I go for the 
 brandy. How did he get hit, Warrigal ? ' 
 
 'That Sergeant Goring,' 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. ' Ser- 
 geant Goring, he very near grab us at Dilligah. We got a lot 
 of old Jobson's cattle when he came on us. He jump off his 
 horse when he see he couldn't catch us, and very near drop 
 Starlight. My word, he very nearly fall off — just like that' 
 (here he imitated a man reeling in his saddle) ; 'but the old 
 horse stop steady with him, my word, till he come to. Then 
 the sergeant tire at him again ; hit him in the shoulder with hia 
 pistol. Then Starlight come to his senses, and we clear. My 
 word, he couldn't see the way the old horse went. Ha, ha ! ' — 
 here the young devil laughed till the trees and rocks rang again. 
 ' Gallop 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 
 pannikin 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 
 
 fellow shot like a prize-winner at \Vimbledon. I've had a 
 squeak for it.' 
 
VI 
 
 ROBBERY HN^DER ARMS 4i 
 
 * Puts me in mind of our old poaching rows/ 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 stril^ing a tree most Like, when 
 it had knocked the wind out of him and nearly unhorsed him, 
 as Warrigal said. 
 
 'Fill my pipe, one of you. Who the devil are these lads? 
 Yours, I suppose, Marston, or you wouldn't be fool enough to 
 bring them here. Why didn't you leave them at home with 
 their mother 1 Don't you tliink you and I and this devil's limb 
 enough for this precious trade of ours V 
 
 '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 tilings right' 
 
 'Oh! we do, do weT 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'd a Ijrace of tine boys like those of my own I'd 
 hang myself before I'd drag tliem 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.' 
 
 MVhat would you have me do? Pull up and hold up my 
 hands 1 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. 
 Xow, 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 ten 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, 
 
 ' 1 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 
 
42 BOBBEEY UTfDES ARMS chap, 
 
 had a long account to square with society, and he has a right to 
 settle it bis own way. That yellow whelp was never intended 
 for anything better. But for you lads ' — and here he looked 
 kindly in poor old Jim's honest face (and an honest face and 
 heart Jim's was, and that 111 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 ; cat 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 Td been a fellow that painted 
 pictures, and that kind of thing, I could draw a middlin' good 
 likeness of him now. 
 
 By George ! how fond I am of a good horse — a real well-bred 
 clinker. I'd never have 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 t'other 
 generally fetches us. I shall never put foot in stirrup 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 fore legs. 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 ao^y 
 of the big studs ; but he was never bred by a poor mam 1 
 afterwards found out that he was stolen before he was foaled, 
 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 
 assizes, 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 I Sticking up a bank, or boning & flock 
 
VT ROBBESY UNDER ARMS 48 
 
 of maiden ewes to take up a run with ? They seem to be game 
 for anything. Therell be a hanging match in the family if ua 
 boys dont look out.' 
 
 ' There's no knowing/ says Jim, with a rogiiish look in his 
 eye (I didn't think then how near the truth I wa^s), 'but it's 
 about a hoi-se this time.' 
 
 ' Oh ! a horse ; that alters the matter. But what's one hoi'se 
 to make such a shine about 1 ' 
 
 * Ah, that's the point,' says poor old Jim, 'it's a horse worth 
 talking about. Don't you remember the imnorted entire that 
 they had his picture in the papers — him that Mr. Windhall gave 
 £2000 fort' 
 
 ' What 1 the Marquis of Lome ? Why, you don't mean to say 
 they're going for him 1 ' 
 
 ' By George, I do ! ' says Jim ; ' and theyll have him here, 
 and twenty 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 '11 be after us like a pack of 
 dingoes after an old man kangaroo when the ground's boggy, 
 and they'll run us down, too ; they can't be oil' it. Whatever 
 made 'em think of such a big touch as that 1 ' 
 
 'That Starlight's tlie 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 foals by him, and when the "derry " was off 
 he'd take him over himsell' 
 
 ' But how's he going to nail him 1 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 rather told him, where 
 he gets infonnation.' 
 
 'By Gleorge ! it would be a touch, and no mistake. And if 
 we could get a few colts by him out of thoroughbred mares we 
 might win half the races every year on our side and no one a 
 bit the wiser.' 
 
 It did seem a grand sort of thing — young fools that we were 
 — to get hold of this wonderful stallion that we'd heard so much 
 of, as thoroughbred as Eclipse ; good as anything England could 
 turn out. I say again, if it weren't for the hor^e-flesh part of it, 
 the fun and hard-riding and tracking, and all the rest of it, 
 there wouldn't be anything like the cross-work that there is in 
 Austi-alia. It lies partly between that and the dry weather. 
 Tliere's the long speHs of drought when nothing can be done by 
 young or old. Sometimes for months you can't work in the 
 garden, nor plough, nor sow, nor do anything useful to keep 
 the devil out of your heart. Only sit at home and do nothing, 
 w else go out and watch the grass witherin' and tho water 
 dryin' up, smd the stock dyin' by inches bijfore your eyes. And 
 no change, maybe, for months. The ground lik:e iron and tiie 
 
44 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ceap. vi 
 
 sky like brass, as the parson said, and very true, too, last 
 Sunday. 
 
 Then the youngsters, havin' 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 ; anci the stock all ramblin' about and 
 mixed up, and there's a temptation to collar somebody's calves 
 or foals, 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 ofif home. Father said 
 he should stay in the Hollow till Starlight got round a bit. He 
 told us not to tell mother or Ailie a word about where we'd 
 been. Of course they couldn't be off knowin' that we'd been 
 with him j 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 Norah ! ' 
 
 Dashed if I ever heard father say a soft thing before. I 
 couldn't 'a believed it. I always thought he was ironbark out- 
 side and in. But he seemed real sorry for once. And I was 
 near sayin', ' Why don't ye 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 Warrigal 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 tableland at the top. 
 
 We made our way to the yard, where there were the tracks 
 of the cows all round 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 V 
 
 'Some runaway Government men, I believe, so that half- 
 caste chap told me, and a gin^ showed 'em 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. Warrigal's mother, or aunt or something, v/as the 
 gin that showed it to the first white men.' 
 
 - A black -woEian. 
 
CHAPTER Vn 
 
 [t was pretty late that night when we got home, and poor 
 mother and Aileen were that glad to see us that they didn't 
 ask too many questions. Motner 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 snuj,', clean, and comfortable, too, 
 after all the camping-out, and it was first-rate to have our own 
 beds again. Then the milk and fresh butter, and the eggs and 
 bacon — my word ! how Jim did lay in ; you'd have thought he 
 was goin' 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 poler— see if I don t. Let's look at your hands, Aileen ; 
 my word, you've been doing your share.' 
 
 ' Indeed, has she,' said mother. ' It's a shame, so it is, and 
 her with two big brotliers, too.' 
 
 'Poor Ailie,' said Jim, ' she 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 1 ' says she, smiling roguish-like. 'All 
 the world might liave been here for what you'd been the wiser 
 — going away nobody knows where, and coming home at night 
 like-like ' 
 
 ' Bush-rangers,' says L ' Say it out ; but we haven't turned 
 out yet, if that's what you mean, !^^iss Marston.' 
 
 'I don't mean anything but what's kind and loving, you 
 naughty boy,' says she, thro\\4ng her arms about my neck ; 
 'but why will you break our hearts, poor mother's and niine, 
 by goin^ off in such a wild way and staying away, as if you 
 were doing something that you were ashamed of 1 ' 
 
 'Women shouldn't ask questions,' I said roughly.^ 'You'U 
 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 dogskin rug that we tanned ourselves 
 with wattle bark. She h^ her hand on his hair — thick and 
 
46 EOBBEEY UKDER ARMS chap. 
 
 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 shoulder, and by and by he put his arms round 
 her neck, I went off to bed, I remember, and left them to it. 
 
 Next morning Jim and I were up at sunrise and got in the 
 milkei-s, as we always did when we were at home. Aileen was 
 up too. She had done all the dairying 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, 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 Blucher 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, Aileen 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 bail up anything that 
 would stay in a yard with her. She could ride Kke a bird and 
 drive bullocks on a pinch in a dray or at plough, 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 steadv-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 heaa and talk as straight as any man I ever 
 saw. She'd a look just like father when he'd made up his mind, 
 only her way was always the right way. What a diflterence 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 Aileen for looks. She had a 
 wonderful fair skin, and her eyes were large and soft like poor 
 mother's. 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 round. Her teeth were as whit^e 
 and even as a black gin's. The mouth was something like 
 father's, and when she shut it up we boys always knew she'd 
 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 hersell I belie%^e — I know — she'd have died for any 
 one she lored. She had more sense than all the rest of us put 
 tvOgether. Fve often thought if she'd been the oldest boy instead 
 of me she'd have kept Jim straight, and managed to drive 
 father out of his cross ways — that is, if any on© living could have 
 
vu ROBBERY IjyDEE ARMS 47 
 
 done it As for riding, I have never seen any one 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 dying through 
 scrub and rocks, or down ranges where you'd thuik 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'd learned nothing 
 but how to walk behind a plough, year in year out, like some of 
 the folks in father's village in England, as lie used to tell us 
 about when he was in a good humour. But that's all as people 
 are reared, I suppose. We'd been used to the outside of a horse 
 ever since we could walk almost, and it came natural to us. 
 Anyhow, I think Aileen 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 every- 
 thing that lay in our way rigVit and regular. We milked the 
 cows in the morning, and brought in a big stack of tire wood 
 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. 
 Aileen 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'd read a little more and put 
 the ' bullocking ' on one side, at <y\d times. A man can learn as 
 much out of a book or a paper sometimes in an hour as will save 
 his work for a week, or put him up to working to better purpose. 
 I can see that now — too late, and more's the pity. 
 
 Anyhow, Aileen could read pretty near as fast as any one I 
 evei' 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 Storefield 
 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'lier that she'd been asking about. His place was eight 
 miles oS, but he'd always get his horse and go home, whatever 
 the night was Hke. 
 
 ' 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've 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, hard-working, 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 
 
48 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 square, working hard for the food you eat, and the sleep you 
 enjoy, able to look 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 Avould go back to ' Terrible Hollow,' that wonder- 
 ful place ; and one night with the unbranded cattle, and Star- 
 light, with the blood dripping on to his horse's shoulder, and 
 the half-caste, with his hawk's eye and glittering teeth — father, 
 v/ith 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 lie didnt 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 had made up his mind — pretty nearly — not 
 to go in for any more. 
 
 I have often seen Aileen talking to him, and they'd walk 
 along in the evening when the work was done — he with his 
 arm round her waist, and she lookiug at him with that quiet, 
 
 E leased face of hers, seeming so proud and fond of him, as if 
 e'd 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 Aileen made as much of his 
 pluck as if it had been a mallee scrubber. The calf baaed and 
 butted at Jim, as even the youngest of them will, if they've the 
 wild blood in 'em, 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. 
 
 Aileen pulled him out, and carried him in to 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, ' that 
 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 
 
TU ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 49 
 
 of wheat of ours is beginning to go back. The oats look 
 better.* 
 
 ' Now I think of it/ put in Jim, * Dick Dawson carae in from 
 outside, and he said things are shocking bad ; all the frontage 
 bare already, and the water drying up.' 
 
 ' It's always the 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 Greorge. * 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've more stock and money in 
 the bank, or else credit to fall back on ; while the like 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 unless 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 vou 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 
 Greorge. ' IIow would you like another man to come and want 
 to halve the farm with you V 
 
 ' I shouldn't mind ; I should go halves with some one else who 
 had a bigger one,' I said. ' More money too, more horses, more 
 sheep, a bigger house ! WTiy 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 sucn rot. Nobody can work 
 better than you and Jim, when you Hke. I wonder you don't 
 leave such talk to fellows like Frowser, that's always spouting 
 at the Shearers' Arms.' 
 
 * Nonsense or not, if a dry season comes and knocks aU our 
 Iwork over, I shall help myself to some one's stuff that has more 
 ■than he knows what to do with.' 
 
 I * Why can't we all go shearing, and make as much as will 
 Ikeep 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 
 
 Isl 
 
 shearing next week. So perhaps there won't be any need for 
 "dutfing" after all.' 
 
 S 
 
50 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. m 
 
 ' Oh, Dick ! ' said Aileen, * 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 gaol ? ' 
 
 ' 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 gaol ? ' 
 
 ' They're always caught some day,' says poor Aileen, sobbing, 
 ' and what a dreadful life of anxiety they must lead ! ' 
 
 ' Not at all,' I said. * Look at Lucksly, Squeezer, and Frying- 
 pan Jack. Everybody knows how they got their stock and 
 their money. See how they live. They've got stations, and 
 pubHc -house and town property, and they get richer every 
 year. I don't think it pays to be too honest in a dry country.' 
 
 ' You're a naughty boy, Dick ; isn't he, Jim ? ' she said, smil- 
 ing through her tears. ' But he doesn't mean half what he says, 
 does he 1 ' 
 
 ' Not he,' says Jim ; ' and very likely we'll have lots of rain 
 after all.' 
 
CHAPTER Vni 
 
 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 hadn't 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, un- 
 steady people got rich. 'As for the poor man, he was the real 
 rich man in Australia ; high wages, cheap food, lodging, cloth- 
 ing, travelling. "\Miat 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 highlv popular professions ; and 
 many pe«3ple, high and low, belonged to them here — and every- 
 where else.' 
 
 We were all well up in this kind of talk, because for the last 
 two or three years, since we had begun to shear 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 jlarston," he used to say. 
 'I'm not sure that you'll come to any good ; and though I don't 
 Hke to say all I hear about your father before you, I'm afraid he 
 doesn't teach you anything worth knowing. But Jim there's a 
 grand fellow ; if he'd been caught young and weaned from all of 
 your lot^ he'd have been an honour 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 ail 
 
52 ROBBERY nJTDEE ARMS crap. 
 
 in and put us in yokes ami 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 f&rms oi 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 dissipa- 
 tion.* 
 
 ' And suppose you had all this power/ I said — for if I was 
 afraid of father there wasn't another man living that could 
 overcrow me — ' don't you think you'd know the way to keep all 
 the 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 pre- 
 vent 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 Boree shed til] 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. Shearers 
 work pretty hard, and as they buy their own rations generally, 
 they can afford to live weD. After a hard day's shearing — that 
 is, from five o'clock in the morning to 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 vv-ere 
 paid off j but they'd get some one who could write to scribble a 
 lot of I O U's, and they did as v/ell. 
 
 We used to play 'all-fours' and 'loo,' 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, and had such a 
 lot of I O U's 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 
 Aileen and another in a strange hand. It had come to our 
 little post-office, and Aileen had sent it on to Boree. 
 
viu ROBBERY UNDIK ARMS 59 
 
 When 1 opened it there were a fe-vr 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 vfant us.^ A coaple 
 of five-pound not^ fell out of the letter as I opened it 
 
 When I looked at them first I felt a kind of foar. I knew 
 what they came from. And I had a sort of feeling that we 
 should be better without theuL However, the devil was too 
 strong for me. Money's a tempting thing, whether it's notes 
 or gold, especially when a man's in debt 1 had began 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, when 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 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. Shearers^ as a rule, come from their homes in 
 the settled districts very V)are. 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 the 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. Falkland 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 shear- 
 
 doingE 
 
 was anxious to get done with the shearing, to get the wool into 
 the bales before the du.st came in, and the grass seed ripened, 
 and tlie clover burrs begain to fall 
 
 ' Why should ye fash yoursel',' I heard him say once to Mr. 
 Falkland, ' aboot these young deevils like the Aiarstons ? They're 
 as good's ready money in auld Nick's purse. If s bred and bom 
 ana welded in them. Yell just have the burrs and seeds atmang 
 the wool if ye keep losing a smart shearer for the sake o'^ a 
 wheen cards and dice ; and yell mak^ nae heed of convairtin' 
 thae young caterans ony mair than yell change a Norroway 
 falcon into a barn-door chuckle.' 
 
 I wonder if what he said was true — if we couldn't help it ; if 
 it was in. our blood 1 It seems like it ; and yet it's hard linei to 
 
54 ROBBESY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 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 lik:e5i 
 it or not. The parson here isn't bad at all. He's a man and a 
 gentleman, too ; and he's 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 after- 
 noon to ourselves. We had finished all the sheep that were in 
 the shed, and old M'Intyre 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 got quite fresh with the rest and the spring grasa Their 
 coats were shining, and they all looked very difierent 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 oflT 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 ! Well, he sat on his horse as 
 if he was bom 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 to-day ; a big, brown, 
 resolute, well-bred horse he had got in a swap 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 M'Intyre 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 
 any one else — super or squatter, he didn't care who he was. 
 
 And Mr. Falkland took Jim's part, and rather made Mr. 
 Mintyre out in the wrong for saying what he did. The old 
 man didn't say much more, only shook his head, saying — 
 
 ' Ah, ye're a grand laddie, and buirdly, and no that thrawn, 
 either — ^like ye, Dick, ye born deevil,' looking at me. 'But I 
 misdoot sair ye'll die wi' your boots on. There's a smack o' 
 Johnnie Armstrong in the glint o' yer e'e. Ye'll be to dree yer 
 weird, there's nae help for't.' 
 
 ' What's all that lingo, Mr. M'Intyre ? ' called out Jim, all 
 
fill ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 65 
 
 good-natured again. *Is it French or Queensland blacks' 
 yabber ? Blest if I understand a word of it. But I didn't want 
 to be nasty, only I am regular shook on this old moke, I 
 believe, and he's as square as Mr. Falkland's dogcart horse.' 
 
 * Maybe ye bocht him fair eneugh. I'll no deny you. I saw 
 the receipt mysel'. But where did yon lang-leggit, long-lockit, 
 Fish River moss-trooping callant win haud o' him ? Answer me 
 that, Jeems.' 
 
 'That says nothing,' answered Jim. Tm 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 contuma-acious and stiff-necked generation,' said the old 
 man, walking off and shaking his head. * And yet he's a fine 
 laddie ; a gra-and laddie wad he be with good guidance. It's 
 the Lord's doing, nae doot, and we daurna fault it ; it's won- 
 drous in our een.' 
 
 That was the way old Mac always talked. Droll lingo, 
 wasn't it ? 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Well, away we went to this township. Bundah 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 bad place — at any rate it's better 
 than nothing when a fellow's 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's all the better 
 for them if they can, though I suppose they never enjoy them- 
 selves 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's some 
 birds, and animals too, that either pine in a cage or kill them- 
 selves, and I suppose it's the same way \s4th some men. They 
 can't stand the cage of what's called honest labour, which 
 means working for some one 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 Lik:e a colt 
 out of a team. 
 
 Besides, sometimes there's a good-looking girl even at a 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's 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 tast€ of it that chaps like us are likely to get. And people 
 may talk as much as they like ; boys, and men too, will Rke 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 cornea 
 of it, but what of that ? If a man wants a swim on the sea- 
 shore he won't stand all day on the beach because he maj b« 
 
OBAP. TX ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 67 
 
 drowued 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 hell 
 jump in and enjoy himself all the more because the waves are 
 high and the waters deep. So it was very good fun to us, simple 
 as it might souiid 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 horsa He was a long- 
 striding, smooth goer, but he got over the ground in wonderful 
 style. He could jump, too, for Jim 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'd had our lark at the Bundah 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 Falkland, the owner's only daughter. 
 
 vShe was an only child, and tlie very apple of her father s eye, 
 vou may be sure. The shearers mostly knew her by sight, 
 because she had taken a fancy to come down with her father a 
 couple of times to see the shed when we were all in full work. 
 
 A shed's not exactly the best place for a young ladv to come 
 into. Shearers are rough in their language now and then. But 
 every man liked and respected Mr. Falkland, so we all put our- 
 selves on our best behaviour, and the 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 shearers, 
 most of them stripped to their jerseys and working like steam- 
 engineSj 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'd 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 wether 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 spurted the blood, and Jim was just going to let out 
 when he looked up and saw !^Iiss Falkland looking at binL with 
 her beautiful eyes so full of pity and surprise that he coula have 
 had his hand chopped ofl^ 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 b^^an to run like a bUnd creek after a thunaerstorm. 
 
 * Oh ! poor fellow. What a dreadful cut ! Look, jmpa ! ' she 
 
68 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 cried out. ' Hadn't something better be bound round it ? How 
 it bleeds ! Does it pain much ? ' 
 
 * Not a bit, miss ! ' said Jim, standing up like a schoolboy- 
 going to say his lesson. * That i^, it doesn't matter if it don't 
 stop my shearing.' 
 
 ' Tar ! ' sings out my next-door neighbour. ' Here, boy ; tar 
 wanted for No. 38. That'll put it all right, Jim ; it's only a 
 scratch.' 
 
 *You mind your shearing, my man,' said Mr. Falkland 
 quietly. *I don't know whether Mr. M'Intyre will quite 
 approve of that last sheep of yours. This is rather a serious 
 wound. The best thing is to bind it up at once.' 
 
 Before any one could say another word Miss Falkland had 
 whipped out her soft fine cambric handkerchief and torn 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 skilfully bound up the wrist firmly with the 
 strips of cambric. 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 
 to-day ; 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. Miss Falk- 
 land, if I live till 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 
 Falkland made a kind of bow and smile to us all and passed 
 out= 
 
 Jim did shear all the same that afternoon, though the tally 
 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 a scar, Jim's hand was as good as ever. 
 
 Jim sent back Mr. Falkland's handkerchief after getting the 
 cook to wash it and iron it out with a bit of a broken axletree ; 
 but the strips of white handkerchief — one had C. F. 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. 
 
a ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 59 
 
 So it was this young lady that we saw coming tearing down 
 the back road, as they callea it, that led over the Pretty Plain. 
 A good way behind we saw Mr. Falkland, but he had as much 
 chance of coming up with her as a cattle dog of catching a 
 ' brush flyer.' 
 
 The stable boy, Billy Donnellan, had told us (of course, like 
 ail those sort of youngsters, he was fond of getting among the 
 men and listening to them talk) all about Miss Falkland's new 
 mare. 
 
 She was a great beauty and thoroughbred. The stud groom 
 had bought her out of a travelling mob from Now 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 as quiet as a lamb at first she 
 had begun to 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 was thirty ; 'they've a deal 
 of temper, and she's got too much white in her eye for my money. 
 I'm afeard she'll do some mischief afore we've done with her ; 
 and Miss Falkland'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 Falkland, 
 the day we were coming back from Bundah. Some horses, and 
 a good many men and women, are all pretty right as long as 
 they're weU kept under and starved a bit at oad 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 mare 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 him- 
 self 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 wretch of a mare had l)een sideling 
 and fidgeting when Mr. Falkland and his daughter started for 
 their ride ; but had gone pretty fairly — Miss Falkland, like my 
 sister Aileen, 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 to ; she propped 
 and reared, but Miss Falkland 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 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 over-eager 
 and excited. Anyhow, it was like trying to stop a mail-coach 
 going down Mount Victoria with the brake off 
 
60 KOBBERY DNDER ARMS 0iiAJ>. ii 
 
 So what we saw was the wretch of a mare coming along a8 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 
 Boree didn't see much open country, so they made a lot out of 
 what they had. 
 
 The mare, like some women when they get their monkey un. 
 was clean out of her senses, and I don't believe anything could 
 have held her under a hide rope with a turn round a stockyard 
 post. This w£is what she wanted, and if it had broken her 
 infernal neck so much the better. 
 
 Miss Falkland 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 
 ana hung down her back — plenty of it there was, too. The 
 mare'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 let out to 
 head the mare off from a creek that was just in front and at the 
 end of the plain. 
 
 ' By Greorge ! ' said one of the men — a young fellow who lived 
 near the place — 'the mare's turning off her course, and she's 
 heading straight for the Trooper's Downfall, where the police- 
 man 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 the line to back up 
 Jim, who looked as if he was overhauling the mare 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 bee-line 
 for it now, blast her ! ' 
 
 ' And Jim don't know it,' 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.' 
 
 ' Hell 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 us chaps as she was.' 
 
 ' m see if I can make Jim hear,' I said, for though I l<x>ked 
 cool I was as nearly mad as I could be to think of such a 
 girl teing lost before our eyes, ' No, I oan't do that, but 111 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Now Jim and 1 had had many a long talk together about what 
 we should do in case we wanted to signal to each other very 
 pressing. We thought the time might come some day 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 bnghtest for danger, 
 and not to trust to what appeared to be the state of aOairs, 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 bau as bad could be, the signalman was to get up on the 
 saddle with his knees and turn hsdf round. 
 
 We could do this easy enough and a lot of circus tricks 
 besides. How had we learned them ? Whv, 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 round 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 collar the mare 
 that showed he intended to see for himself what the danger was. 
 The cross-grained jade ! She was a well-bred wretch, and be 
 hanged to her ! W ent as if she wanted to win the Derby and 
 gave Jim all he knew to challenge her. We could r,ee a line 
 of timber just ahead of her, and that Jim was riding for his life. 
 
 'By ! they'll both be over it,' said the young shearer. 
 
 'They can't stop themselves at that pace, 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 l)een passed round. 
 
 No one spoke for a few seconds. We saw the two horses 
 rush up at top speed to the very etige of the timber. 
 
 ' By Jove ! they're over. No ! he's reaching for her rein. 
 
62 SOBBERY UNDER ARMS ohai. 
 
 It's no usa Now — now ! She's saved ! Oh, my God ! they're 
 both right. By the Lord, well done ! Hurrah ! One cheer 
 more for Jim Marston ! ' 
 
 It was all right. We sav/ Jim suddenly reach over as the 
 horses were going stride and stride ; saw him lift Miss Falk- 
 land from her saddle as if she had been a child and place her 
 before him ; saw 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. Falkland 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 we 
 got up— 
 
 'You have saved my child's life, James ]Marst^n, and if I 
 forget the service may God in that hour forget me. You are a 
 noble fellow. Y^'ou must allow me to show my gratitude in some 
 way.' 
 
 'You needn't thank me so out and out as all that, Mr. Falk- 
 land,' said Jim, standing up very straight and looking at 
 the father first, and then at Miss Falkland, 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 Miss Falkland's 
 finger should be scratched, let alone see her killed before my 
 eyes. I wonder if there's anything left of 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 bro^'.'n horse and his burden must have 
 gone over the terrible drop, as straight as a plumb-line, on to 
 the awful rocks below. Vre could see where the brown had torn 
 up the turf as he struck all four hoofs deep into it at once. 
 Indeed, he had been newly shod, a freak of Jim's about a bet 
 with a travelling blacksmith. Then the other tracks, the long 
 score on the brink — over the brink — where the frightened, 
 maddened animal had made an attempt to alter her speed, all 
 in vain, and had plunged over the bank and the hundred feet 
 of fall 
 
 We peered over, and saw a bright-coloured mass among the 
 rocks below — very still. Just at the time one of the ration- 
 carriers came by with a spring cart. Mr. Falkland lifted his 
 daughter in and took tlie reins, leaving his horse to be ridden 
 home by the ration-carrier. As for us we rode back to the 
 shearer's hut, not quite so fast as we came, with Jim in the 
 middle. He did not seem inclined to talk much. 
 
 ' It's lucky I turned round when I did, Dick,' he said at last, 
 'and saw j^ou making the "danger-look-out-sharp" signal I 
 couldn't think what the dickens it was. I was so cocksure of 
 
% ROBBEEY UNDER AEMS 68 
 
 catching the mare in half-a-mile farther that I couldn't help 
 wondering what it was all about. Anyhow, I knew we agreed 
 it was never to be worked for nothing, so 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 Miss 
 Falkland'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. 
 
 * " ^Miat is it, Miss Falkland ? " I said. 
 
 '"Oh !" she cried out, "don't vou know? Another fifty yards 
 and we'll be over the downfall where the trooper was killed. 
 Oh, my poor father ! " 
 
 ' " Don't be afraid," I said. " Well 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, 
 rulling double for a four-mile heat is no joke, even if a man's 
 in training. Fancy a woman, a young girl, having to sit stili 
 and drag at a runaway horse all the time. I couldn't stop the 
 brute ; she was boring like a wild bull. So iust as we came 
 pretty close I lifted Miss Falkland off the saddle and yelled at 
 old Brownie as if I had been on a cattle camp, swinging round 
 to the near side at the same time. Round he came like one 
 o'clock. I could see the mare make one prop to stop herself, and 
 then go flying right through the air, till I heard a beastly 
 " thud " at the bottom. 
 
 'Miss Falkland didn't faint, though she turned whit« and 
 tlien red, and trembled like a leaf when I lifted her down, and 
 looked up at rne with a sweet smile, and said — 
 
 * " Jim, you have paid me for binding up your wrist, haven't 
 you 1 You have saved me from a horrible death, and I shall 
 thinl: of you as a brave and noble fellow all the days of my 
 life." 
 
 * \Miat could I say ? ' said Jim. * I stared at her like a fool. 
 "I'd have gone over the bank with you, Miss Falkland," I said, 
 " if I could not have saved you.' 
 
 * " Well, I'm afraid some of my admirers would have stopped 
 short of that, James," she said. She did indeed. And then Mr. 
 Falkland and all of you came up.' 
 
 '1 say, Jim,' said one of the young fellows, 'your fortune's 
 made. Mr. Falkland '11 stand a farm, you may be sure, for this 
 little fakement,' 
 
 'And I siay, Jack,' says old Jim, very quiet like, ' I've told you 
 all the yam, and if there's any chaff about it after this the cove 
 will have to see whetlier he's best man or me ; so 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 heavy 
 
64 KOBBERY UNDER ASMS chaj-. 
 
 weight and could hit like a horse kicking ; so they thought it 
 wasn't good enough, and left him alone. 
 
 Next day Mr. Falkland came down and wanted to give Jim 
 a cheque for a hundred : but he wouldn't hear of so much as a 
 note. Then he said he'd give him a bDlet on the run — make him 
 under-overseer • after a bit buy a farm for him and stock it. 
 No ! Jim wouldn't tc»uch 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 Miss Falkland'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 then, is it, Mr. Falkland?' he said, looking up and smiling, 
 iust like a boy. He was verj'^ 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 are 
 come by, and the net of roguery that often entangles fine young 
 fellows like you and your brother ; that's what I fear,' said Mr. 
 Falkland, looking at the pair of us so kind and pitiful like. 
 
 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. Falkland 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, 
 knock-about men, cooks, and extra shepherds. Every soul 
 about the place except Mr. M'Intyre and Mr. Falkland seemed 
 to have got a cheque and a walking-ticket at the same time. 
 Awav they went, like a lot of boys out of school : and half of 'em 
 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 let about a big run like Banda we took 
 a contract for some bush work, and went at it. Mr. M'Intyre 
 looke<i quite surprised. But Mr. Falkland 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-riding, 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 and was 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 olT 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 in being 
 mixed up with a lot like ours. 
 
X ROBBEEY U^S^DEE ARMS 65 
 
 One day we were out at the back making some lambing 
 yards. ^Ve were about twenty miles froiii the head station and 
 had about finished the job. We were going in the next day. 
 We had been camping in an old shepherd's hut and had been 
 pretty jolly all by ourselves. There wa^ 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 ration>s 
 and first-rate tobacco we made ourselves pretty comfortable. 
 
 ' What a jolly thing it is to have nothing on your mind ! ' Jim 
 used to say. *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 or that infernal half-caste. He's never far oil' when 
 there's villainy on. Some fine day he'll sell us all, I really do 
 believe.' 
 
 ' If he don't somebody else vdW ; but why do you pitch 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. Hist ! isn't that a 
 horse's step coming this way 1 Yes, and a man on him, too.' 
 
 It was a bright night, though only the stai*s were out ; but 
 the weather was that clear that you could see ever so well 
 and hear ever so far also. Jim had a blackfellow'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 1 heard a slight noise a 
 good way off, and a stick breaking every now and then. 
 
 ' Talk of the de^^l ! ' growled Jim, * and here he comes. I 
 believe that's Master Warrigal, infernal scoundrel that he is. 
 Of course he's got a messaL-^e from our respectable old dad or 
 StarUght, asking us to put our heads in a noose 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 sideling 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 pace, dififerent from a horse's walk.' 
 
 ' How does he Know we're here, I wonder ? ' says Jim. 
 
 * Some of the telegraphs piped us, I suppose,' 1 answered. ' I 
 begin to wish they forgot us altogether.' 
 
 ' 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.' 
 
 He was right The horse hoofs 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 cheei-ful sound at the dead of night, and now, for 
 some reason or other, it affected Jim and me in much the same 
 
66 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ck.\t. x 
 
 manner. I remembered the last time I had heard the bird at 
 home, just before we started over for Teriible 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._ 
 
 Anyhow, as we heard the quick light tread of the horse 
 pacing in his two-feet-on-one-side way over the sandy, thin- 
 grassed soil, every moment coming nearer and nearer, and this 
 queer dismal-voiced bird hooting its hoarse deep notes out of 
 the dark tree that swished and sighed-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 towards the hut. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Warrtgal left his horse at the edge of the timber, for fear he 
 mieht 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 him — 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 break-outs, and heard him boast of some- 
 thing 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 al>jut were Starlight and the three-cornered weed he 
 rode, that had been a ' bruml>ee,' and wouldn't let any one 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 oflered to turn upon him. 
 He seemed to like it, and looked regular put out once when 
 Starlight hurt 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 'em it's ten to 
 one that you'll find some day as you've good reason for it. We 
 couldn't say what grounds we had for hating the sight of War- 
 rigal neither, for he was as good a tracker as ever followed man 
 or beasts. 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 across country at night only for him. Hour after hour 
 he'd ride ahead through scrub or forest, up hill or down dale, 
 with that brute of a horse of his — he called him 'Bilbah' — 
 ambling away, till our horses, except EaLnbow, 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 and game in all sorts 
 
68 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 of ways that came in haudy when ^ e had to keep dark. He had 
 pluck enough, and could fight a pretty sharp battle with his 
 fists if he wasn't over v.- sighted. There were v^hite 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 ne 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 haxi changed its place. We pretended to be a,sleep near the 
 fire. 
 
 He peeped in through a chink. He could see us by the fire- 
 light, and didn't suppose sve were watching him. 
 
 'Hullo, Warrigal ! ' sung out Jim suddenly, 'what's up nowl 
 Some devil's work, I suppose, or you wouldn't be in it. Why 
 don't you knock at a gentleman's door when you come a- 
 visiting 1 ' 
 
 ' Wasn't sure it was you,' he answered, showing his teeth ; 
 'it don't do to get sold. Might been troopers, for all I know.' 
 
 ' Pity 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 into 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 as good a chance of 
 nailing you, Jim Marston,' spoke up Warrigal. ' Perhaps I will 
 some day. Mr. Garton wanted me bad once, and said they'd 
 never go agin me for old times. But that says nothin'. Star- 
 light's out at the back and the old man, too. "They want you to 
 go to them — sharp.' 
 
 'What for?' 
 
 ' Dunno. I was to tell you, and shov/ tlie camp ; and now 
 gimme some grub, for I've had nothing since sunrise but the leg 
 of a 'possum.' 
 
 ' 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 out Bilbah ; he's as hungry as I am, and 
 thirsty too, my word.' 
 
 ' Take some out of the barrel ; we shan't want it to-morrow,' 
 said Jim. 
 
 Hungry as Warrigal 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 
 
 I 
 
XI ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 69 
 
 at anything in some ways will be tliat soft and good-feeling in 
 others — ten times more so than your regular good people. 
 Any one that thinks all mankind's divided into good, bad, and 
 middliii', and that they can draft 'em like a lot of cattle — some 
 to one yard, some to another— don't know much. There's a 
 mob in most towns though, I think, that wanta boilin' down 
 bad. Some day they'll do it, maylxj ; they'll have to when all 
 the good country's stocked up. After Warrigal had his supper 
 he went out again to see his horse, and then coiled himself up 
 before the fire and wouldn't hardly say another word. 
 
 'How far was it to where Starlight was?' 
 
 ' Long way. Took me all day to come.' 
 
 ' Had he been there long 1 ' 
 
 * 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 — which you like<l.' 
 
 Then he shut his eyes, and his mouth too, and was soon as 
 fa^t 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 
 nobbled some day. Wliy 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 cheque by Christmas.' 
 
 ' I'm half a mind to tell Warrigal to go back and say we're 
 not on,' I said. ' Lots of other chaps would join without making 
 any bones about it' 
 
 'Hoo — boo — hoo — hoo,' sounded once more the night-bird 
 from the black tree outside. 
 
 ' I) the bird ! I believe he's the devil in the shape of 
 
 a mopoke ! And yet I don't like Starlight to think we're atraid. 
 He and the old man might be in a tix and want help. Suppose 
 we toss up 1 ' 
 
 'All right,' says Jim, speaking rather slowly. 
 
 Y'ou couldn't t«ll 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 alx)ut my changing, and thought v/e were 
 just in for a spell of straightforward work, and would stash the 
 other thing for good and alL 
 
 We put the lire together. It burnt up bright for a bit I 
 pulled out a shilling. 
 
 ' If it's head 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 
 
 ' Hoo — hoo — hoo — hoo,' came the night - bird's harsh 
 croak. 
 
 There was a heavyish stake on that throw, if we'd only 
 
70 ROBBERY UNDEB ASMS gthap. 
 
 knowEL Only ruin — only death. Four men's lives lost, and 
 three women max^ie miserable for life, 
 
 Jim and I looked at one another. Ke smiled and opened 
 the door. 
 
 'It's all the fault of that cursed owl, I believe,' he said ; '111 
 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 a,mbling three-cornered 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 card. 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 middlin' 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 any one that came after us. We left 
 our wages, too, and never asked for 'em from that day to this. 
 A trifle like that didn't matter after what we were going in for. 
 More's the pity. 
 
 As we moved off my horse propped once or twice, and 
 Warrigal looked at us in a queer siae sort of way and showed 
 his teeth a bit — smile nor laugh it wasn't, only a way he had 
 when he thought he knew more than we did. 
 
 ' My word ! your horse's been where the feed's good. We're 
 goin' a good way to-day. I wonder if they'll be as flash as they 
 are now.' 
 
 ' They'll carry us v\herever that three-coraered mule of yours 
 will shuffle to to-night,' said Jim. 'Never you mind about 
 them. You ride straight, and don't get up to any monkey 
 tricks, or, by Greorge, I'll straighten you, so as you'll know 
 better next time.' 
 
 ' Y'^ou 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 snake's. ' 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 cantor, which Bilbah thought was quite 
 the thing for a journey — anyhow, he never seem^ to thiuk 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 condi- 
 tion, was this said Bilbah, and just at this time as hard as 
 nails. Our horses had been doing nothing lately, and being 
 on good young feed had; of course, got fat, and were rather 
 soft 
 
xj ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 71 
 
 ^Vfter four or five miles they began to blow. We couldn't 
 well pull up ; the ground was hard in places and bad for track- 
 ing. 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. 
 
 *Xow, look here, Warrigal,' I said, 'you know why you're 
 doing this, and so do L Our horses are not up to galloping 
 fiity or sixty miles on end just off a spp'U and with no work for 
 months. If you don't pull up and go our pace I'll knock yon 
 off your horse.' 
 
 ' Oh ! you're riled ! ' he said, looking as impudent as he 
 dared, but slackening all the same. * Pulled up before if I 
 knowed 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 ought to have sense enough not to knock 
 smoke out of fresh horses before we begin.' 
 
 ' All right. Plenty of work to do, my word. And Starlight 
 said, "Tell 'em to be here to-day if they can." I know he's 
 afraid of some one follerin' up our tracks, as it is.' 
 
 'That's all right, Warrigal ; but you ride steady all the 
 same, and don't be tearing away through thick timber, like 
 a mallee scrubber that's got into the open and sees the devil 
 behind him until he can get cover again. We shall be tliere 
 to-night 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 Warrigal'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, but 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 had been taking it pretty easy, you see, for a month or 
 two, and were not quite so ready for an eighty-mile ride as if 
 we had 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 em twenty mile farther. As for Warrigal's Bilbah 
 }\e was near as fresh as when he started, and kept tossin' 
 his head an' ambhn' and pacin' away as if he was walkin' for a 
 wager round a ring in a show-yard. 
 
 As we rode up we could see a gunyah made out of boughs, and 
 a longish wing of dogleg fence, matie 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 tor us to get off. 
 
 ' It's old Crib,' said Jim, with a big laugh ; ' blest if it ain't 
 Father's somewhere handy. They're going to take up a back 
 block and do the thing regular : Mars ton, Starlight, and Com- 
 pany — that's the fakement. 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 Crossmau and F akesiey. It's six of one 
 
72 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 and half-a-dozen of the other, as far as being on the square goes. 
 Depend upon it, dad's turned over a new leaf.' 
 
 ' Do you fellows want anything to eat 1 ' said a voice that I 
 knew to be Starlight's, ' If yoa do there's tea ne^r the fire, and 
 some grub in that flour bag. Help yourselves and hobble out 
 your horses. We'll settle matters a oit in the morning. Your 
 respected parent's abed 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 gunyah. A path led through 
 a clump of pines, so thick that a man might ride round it and 
 never dream there was anything but more pines inside. A 
 clear place had be«n made in the sandhill, 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 'on,' '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 nigh shut as it was. The sun was up 
 when we woke. 
 
 Outside the first thing we saw was father and Starlight talk- 
 ing. Both of these seemed a bit cranky. ' It's a d 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. 
 Wbat's the use of crying after being in it up to our neck 1 ' 
 
 'Some day you'll think different,' says Starlight, looking 
 back at him. 
 
 I often remembered it afterwards. 
 
 ' AVell, lads,' says father, looking straight at us, ' I wasn't sure 
 as you'd come. Starlight has 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,' says father, and he sat do^vn 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 strayed and mixed 
 up, from the last dry season, and had never been mustered for 
 years. The stockmen hardly ever came out till the autumn 
 musters. One of the chaps that was in it knew all this side and 
 had told them. 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. Ne one wa.<? to know we were not regulsr over- 
 
XI 
 
 ROBBERY ITN'DEK ARMS 78 
 
 landers ; and when we'd 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 'em, 
 
 ' How many head do you expect to get ? ' says Jim. 
 
 *A thousand or twelve hundred ; half of 'em fat, and two- 
 thirds of them young cattle.' 
 
 ' By George ! that's something like a haul ; but you can't 
 muster such a lot as that without a varrl.' 
 
 'I know that,' says father. 'Were putting up a vard on a 
 little plain about a mile from here. ^^ hen they find it, it'll be 
 an old nest, and the birds flown.' 
 
 'Well, if that ain't the cheekiest thing I ever hoard tell of,' 
 says I laughingly. 'To put up a yard at the back of a man's 
 run, and muster his cattle for h-m ! I never heard the like 
 before, nor any one else. But suppose the cove or his men come 
 across it 1 ' 
 
 • 'Tain't no ways likely,' says father. ' They're the sleepiest 
 lot of chaps in this frontage I ever saw. It's hardly worth while 
 "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 
 Lome racket better 1 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 on to two 
 thousand pounds. You ought to have known your old father 
 better than that. We did kill a chestnut horse, one we jacked 
 out a purpose ; w^hite legs, white knee, short under Hp, every- 
 thing quite regular. We even fed him for a week on prairie 
 grass, just like the Marquis had been eating. Bless you, we 
 knew how to work all that. We deceived Windhall his ov,ti self, 
 and he thinks he's pretty smart. No 1 the Marquis ib all safe — 
 you know where.' 
 
 1 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 round 
 you from every side of the district.' 
 
 ' We had friends,' father said. ' Me and W^arrigal done all the 
 travelling by night. No one but him could have gone afoot, I 
 believe, much less led a blood horse through the beastly scrub 
 and ranges he showed us. But the devil himself could not beat 
 him and that little brute Bilbah in rough country.' 
 
 ' I believe you,' I said, thinking of our nde yesterday. ' It's 
 quite bad enough to follow him on level ground. But don't 
 you think our tracks will be easy to foUow witli a thousand 
 head of cattle before us 1 Any fool could do that.' 
 
 ' It ain't that as I'm looking at,' said father ; ' of course an 
 
74 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 old woman could do it, and knit stockings all the time- but our 
 dart is to be off and have a month's st^rt before anybody knows 
 they are off the run. They won't think of mustering before fat 
 cattle takes a bit of a turn. 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 two or three flash chaps to help 
 muster and drive, who were to swear they thought we were 
 dealers, .and had bought cattle all right. One or two more 
 were to meet us farther on. If we could get the cattle together 
 and clear oil 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 pine 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 happen once or 
 twice ; but I'm dashed if ever I heard tell of putting up duffing 
 improvements of a superior class on a cove's run and clearing 
 off with a thousand drafted cattle, all quiet and regular, and 
 liim pottering about his home-station and never *' dropping " to 
 it no more than if he was in Sydney.' 
 
 ' People ought to look after their stock closer than they do,' 
 I said. ' It is their fault almost as much as ours. But they are 
 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 
 duffing, 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 they'd 
 have to look precious sharp and get up very early in the morn- 
 ing to be level 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 d; 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 don't 
 matter much that I know of whose fault it is that we're in this 
 duffing racket. It seems to be our fate, as the chap says in the 
 book. We'll have a jolly spree in xldelaide if this journey comes 
 out right. And now let's finish this evening off. To-morrow 
 they're going to yard the first mob.' 
 
 After that we didn't talk much except about the work. Star- 
 light 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 neighbourhood, though 
 
XI ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 75 
 
 they never showed up. llie 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 
 thev 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 had brought. So each lot travelled different 
 ways, and were sold in places where they were quite strange 
 ana no one was likely to claim them. 
 
 After a man had had a j'ear or two at this kind of work, he 
 was good, or rather V^ad, for anything. These youn^ chaps, like 
 us, had done pretty well at these games, and one of them, falling 
 in with StarHght, had proposed to him to put up a couple of 
 hundred head of cattle on Outer Back Momberah, 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 in 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 packhorses, just 
 the same as if we were a regular station party on our own run. 
 Father had worked ail 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 
 yam from Starlight — that is, if he was in a good humour. 
 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 Malays 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, or next 
 thin^ to it ; and a drove of slaves — men, women, and children — 
 as big nearly as our mob, handed over to a slave-dealer, and 
 driven oti in chains just as you'd start a lot of station cattle. 
 They didn't like it, going off their run either, poor devils. The 
 ^omen would try and run back aft^r their pickaninnies 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. V.'hen we'd sold the 
 cattle, if we got 'em down to Adelaide all light, we'd take a 
 voyage to some foreign country, j>erhaps, 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 
 quibo comfortably, nobody coming anext or anigh us any more 
 
76 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ciiAr. xj 
 
 than if we'd taken the thing by contract. You wouldn't have 
 thought there waa anybody nearer than Bathurst. Everything 
 seemed to be in our favour. So it was, just at the start. We 
 drafted out all the worst and weediest of the cattle, besides all 
 the old cows, and when we counted the mob out we had nearly 
 eleven hundred first-rate store cattle ; lot-s 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 
 pnce 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.' 
 
 'Why, I'm dashed if that ain't Hood's imported bull,' says 
 Billy the Boy, a Monaro native that we had with u.s. 'I know 
 him well. How's he come to get back ? Why, the cove gave 
 two hundred and fifty notes for him afore he left England, I've 
 heard 'em sa}'.' 
 
 '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 Coorong, and we'll be there before they miss any 
 cattle worth talking about.' 
 
 So we took ' 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 year 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 v>-a3 a lively active beast, and he'd got into 
 fine hard fettle with living on saltbush, 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 had only a little bit of a private 
 brand on the shoulder. That wa^s easily faked, and would oome 
 out quite difierent 
 
CHAPTER XU 
 
 We didn't go straight ahead along any main track to the Lower 
 Murray and Adelaide exactly. That would have been a little 
 too open and barefaced. No; we di\'ided the mob into tliree, 
 and settled where to meet in about a fortnight. Three men to 
 each mob. Father and Warrigal took one lot ; they had the 
 dog, old Crib, to help them. He was worth about two men 
 and a boy. Starlight, Jim, and I had another • and the three 
 stranger chaps another. We'd had a couple of knockabouts to 
 help with the cooking and stockyard work. They were paid by 
 the job. They were to stay at the camp for a week, to burn 
 the gunyahs, knock down the yard, and blind the track as much 
 as they could. 
 
 Some of the cattle we'd left behind they drove back and 
 forward across the track every day for a week. If rain came 
 they were to drop it, and make their way into the frontage by 
 another road. If they heard about the job being blown or the 
 police set on our track, they were to wire to one of the border 
 townships we had to pass. Weren't we afraid of their selling 
 us? No, not much ; they were well paid, and had often given 
 father and Starlight iufonnation before, though they took care 
 never to show out in the cattle or horse- stealing way them- 
 selves. As long as chaps in our line have money to spend, they 
 can always get good information, and other things too. It is 
 when the money runs short that the danger comes in. I don't 
 know whether cattle-duffing was ever done in New South 
 Wales before on such a large scale, or whether it will ever be 
 done again. Perhaps not. These wire fences stop a deal of 
 cross- work ; but it was done then, you take my word for it — a 
 man's word as hasn't that long to live that it's worth while 
 to lie — and it all came out right ; that is as far as our getting 
 safe over, selling the cattle, and having the money in our 
 pockets. 
 
 We kept on working by all sorts of outside tracks on the 
 main line of road — a good deal by night, too — for the first two 
 or three hundred miles. After we crossed the Adelaide border 
 we followed the Darling down to the Murray. We thought we 
 
78 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 were ail right, and got bolder. Starlight had changed his 
 clothes, and was dressed like a swell — away on a roughish trip, 
 but still like a swell. 
 
 ' They were his cattle ; he had brought them from one of his 
 stations on the Narran. He was going to take up country in 
 the Northern Territory. He expected a friend out from 
 England with a lot more capital.' 
 
 Jim and I used to hear him talking like this to some of the 
 squatters whose runs we passed through, as grave as you please. 
 They used to ask him to stay all night, but he always said ' he 
 didn't like to leave his men. He made it a practice on the 
 road.' When we got within a fortnight's drive of Adelaide, he 
 rode in and lived at one of the best hotels. He gave out that 
 he expected a lot of cattle to arrive, and got a friend that he'd 
 met in the billiard-room (and couldn't he play surprisin' ?) to 
 introduce him to one of the leading stock agents there. So he 
 had it all cut and dry, when one day Warrigai and I rode in, 
 and the boy handed him a letter, touching his hat respectfully, 
 as he had been learned to do, before a lot of young squatters 
 and other swells that he was going out to a picnic with. 
 
 * My confounded cattle come at last,' he says. ' Excuse me 
 for mentioning business. I began to hope they'd never come ; 
 'pon my soul i did. The time passes so deuced pleasantly here. 
 Well, they'll all be at the yards to-morrow. You fellows had 
 all better come and see them sold. There'll be a little lunch, 
 and perhaps some fizz. Y'^ou go to the stock agents, Runnimall 
 and Co. ; here's their address, Jack,' he says to me, looking me 
 straight in the eyes. ' They'll send a man to pilot you to the 
 yards ; and now off with you, and don't let me see your face till 
 to-morrow.' 
 
 How he carried it off ! He cantered away with the rest of 
 the party, as if he hadn't a thought in the world except about 
 pleasure and honest business. Nobody couldn't have told that 
 he wasn't just like them other young gentlemen with only their 
 stock and station to think about, and a little fun at the races 
 now and then. And what a risk he was running every minute 
 of his life, he and all the rest of us. I wasn't sorry to be out of 
 the town again. There were lots of police, too. Suppose one 
 
 of them was to say, ' Eichard Marston, I arrest you for ' 
 
 It hardly mattered what. I felt as if I should have tumbled 
 down with sheer fright and cowardliness. It's a queer thing 
 you feel like that off and on. Other times a man has as much 
 pluck in him as if his Life was worth fighting for — which 
 it isn't. 
 
 The agent knew all about us (or thought he did), and sent a 
 chap to show Mr. Carisforth's cattle (Charles Carisforth, Esq., 
 of Sturton, Yorkshire and Banda, Waroona, and Ebor Downs, 
 New South Wales ; that was the name he went by) the way to 
 the yards. We were to draft them all next morning into sepa- 
 rate pens — cows and bullocks, steers and heifers, and so on. 
 
xn ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 79 
 
 He expected to sell them ail to a lot of farmers and small 
 settlers that had taken up a new district lately and were very 
 short of stock. 
 
 ' You couldn't have come into a better market, young 
 fellow,' says the agent's man to me. ' Our boss he's advertised 
 'em that well as there'll be smart bidding between the farmers 
 and some of the squatt-ers. Good store cattle's been scarce, and 
 these is in such rattling condition. That's whatll sell 'em. 
 Your master seems a rog:ular free-hande<i sort of chap. He's 
 the jolliest squatter there's been in town these years, I hear 
 folk say. Puts 'em in mind of Hawdon and Evelyn Sturt in 
 the old overlander days.' 
 
 Next day we were at the yards early, you bet. We wanted 
 to have time to draft them into pens of twr-nty to fifty each, so 
 that the farmers and small settlers might have a chance to buy. 
 Besides, it was the last day of our work. Driving all day and 
 watching half the night is pretty stitHsh work, good weather 
 and bad, when you've got to keep it up for months at a time, 
 and we'd been three months and a week on the road. 
 
 The other chaps were wild for a spree. Jim and I had made 
 up our minds to Ije careful ; still, we had a lot to see in a big 
 town like Adelaide ; for we'd never been to Sydney even in our 
 lives, and we'd never seen the sea. That was something to look 
 at for the first time, wasn't iti 
 
 Well, we got the cattle drafted to rights, every sort and size 
 and age by itself, as near as could be. That's the way to draft 
 stock, whether they're cattle, sheep, or horses • then every man 
 can buy what he likes best, and isn't obliged to lump up one 
 sort with another. We had time to have a bit of dinner, j^'one 
 of us had touched a mouthful since before daylight. Tlieu we 
 began to see the buyers come. 
 
 There'd been a big tent rigged, as big as a small woolshed, 
 too. It came out in a cart, and then another cart came %Wth a 
 couple of waiters, and they laid out a long table of boards on 
 trestles with a real first-class feed on it, such as we'd never 
 seen in our lives before. Fowls and turkeys and tongues and 
 rounds of beef, beer and wine in bottles with gilt labels on. 
 Such a set-out it was. Father began to growl a bit. *If he's 
 going to feed the whole country this way, hell spend half the 
 stuff before we get it, let alone drawing a down on the whole 
 thing.' But Jim and me could see how Starlight had been 
 working the thing to rights while he was swelling it in the town 
 among the big bugs. Vie told him the cattle would fetch that 
 much more money on account of the lunch and the blowing the 
 auctioneer was able to do. These would pay for the feed and 
 the rest of the fal-lals ten times over. 'When he gets in v^dth 
 men like his old pals he loses his head, I believe,' father says, 
 ' and fancies he's what he used to be. Hell get " fitted " quite 
 simple some day if he doesn't keep a better look-out.' 
 
 That might be, but it waai't to come about tlus time. Star- 
 
80 ROBBEEY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 light came riding out by and by, dressed ug like a real gentle- 
 man, and lookin' so different that Jim and 1 hardly dared speak 
 to him — on a splendid horse too (not Rainbow, he'd been left 
 behind ; he was always left within a hundred miles of The 
 Hollow, and he could do it in one day if he was wanted to), 
 and a lot of fine dressed chaps with him — young squatters and 
 officers, and what not. I shouldn't have been surprised if he'd 
 had the Governor out with him. They told us afterwards he 
 did dine at Government House reg'lar, and was made quite free 
 and welcome there. 
 
 Well, he jumj>s down and shakes hands with us before them 
 alL * Well, Jack ! Well, Bill ! ' and so on, calls us his good 
 faithful fellows, and how well we'd brought the cattle over • 
 nods to father, who didn't seem able to take it all in ; says he'll 
 back us against any stockmen in Australia ; has up Warrigal 
 and shows him off to the company. 'Most intelligent lad.' 
 Warrigal grinned and showed his white teeth. It was as good 
 as a play. 
 
 Then everybody goes to lunch — swells and selectors, Germans 
 and Paddies, natives and immigrants, a good many of tliem, too, 
 and there was eating and drinking and speechifying till all was 
 blue. By and by the auctioneer looks at his watch. He'd 
 had a pretty good tuck-in himself, and they must get to 
 business. 
 
 Father opened his eyes at the price the first pen brought, all 
 prime young bullocks, half fa.t most of them. Then they all 
 went off like wildfire ; the big men and the little men bidding, 
 quite jealous, sometimes one getting the lot, sometimes another. 
 One chap made a remark about there being such a lot of dif- 
 ferent brands ; but Starlight said they'd come from a sort of 
 dep6t station of his, and were the odds and ends of all the 
 mobs of store cattle that he'd purchased the last four years. 
 That satisfied 'em, particularly as he said it in a careless, fierce 
 way which he coula put on, as if it was like a man's im- 
 pudence to ask him anything. It made the people laugh ; I 
 could see that. 
 
 By and by we comes to the imported bull. He was in a pen 
 by himself, looking first-rate. His brand had been faked, and 
 the hair had grown pretty welL It would have took a sharp 
 hand to know him again. 
 
 * Well, gentlemen,' says the auctioneer, ' here is the imported 
 bull " Duke of Brunswick." It ain't often an animal of his 
 quality comes in with a mob of store cattle ; but I am informed 
 by Mr. Carisforth that he left orders for the whole of the cattle 
 to be cleared off the run, and this valuable animal was brought 
 away in mistake. He was to return by sea ; but as he liappens 
 to be here to-day, why, sooner than oisappoint any intending 
 buyer, Mr. Carisforth has given me instructions to put him 
 up, and if he realises anything near his value he will be sold.' 
 
 ' Yes ! ' drawls Starlight, as if a dozen imported bulls, more 
 
xn ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 81 
 
 or less, made no odds to him, 'put him up, by all means, Mr. 
 RunnimalL Expectin' rather large shipment of Bates's 
 *' Duchess " tribe next month, Kather prefer them on the 
 whole. The "Duke" here is full of Booth blood, so he may 
 just as well ^o with the others. I shall never get what he 
 cost, though ; 1 know that. He's been a most expensive animal 
 tome. 
 
 Many a true word spoken in jest. He had good call to know 
 him, as '>vell as the rest of us, for a most expensive animal, 
 before all was said and done. What he cost us all round it 
 would be hard indeed to cipher up. 
 
 Anyhow, there was a great laugh at Starlight's easy way of 
 taking it. First one and then another of the sc^uatters that was 
 going in for breeding began to bid, thinking hed go cheap, until 
 they got warm, and the bull went up to a price that v. e never 
 dreamed he'd fetch. Everything seemed to turn out lucky that 
 day. One would have thought they'd never seen an imported 
 bull before. The young squatters got running one another, as 
 I said before, and he went up to £270 ! Then the auctioneer 
 squared off the accounts as sharp as he could ; an' it took him 
 all his time, what witli the German and the small farmers, w^ho 
 took their time about it, paying in greasy notes and silver and 
 copper, out of canvas bags, and the squatters, who were too busy 
 chalii ng and talking among themselves to pay at all. It was 
 dark before everytliing was settled up, and all the lots of cattle 
 delivered. Starlight told the auctioneer he'd see him at his 
 office, in a deuced high and miglity kind of way, and rode off 
 with his new friend. 
 
 All of us went back to our camp. Our work was over, but 
 we had to settle up among ourselves and divide shares. I could 
 hardly believe my eyes when I saw the cattle all sold and gone, 
 and nothing left at the camp but the horses and the swags. 
 
 ^Vllen we got there that night it was late enough. After tea 
 father and I and Jim had a long yam, settling over what we 
 should do and wondering whether we were going to get clean 
 away with our share of the money after all. 
 
 ' By George ! ' says Jim, ' it's a big touch, and no mistake. 
 To think of our getting over all right, and selling out so easy, 
 just as if they was our own cattle. Won't there be a jolly row 
 when it's all out, and the Momberah people miss their cattle 1 ' 
 (more than half 'em was theirs). ' And when they muster they 
 can't be off seein' they're some hundreds short.' 
 
 * That's what's botherin' me,' says father. ' I wish Starlight 
 hadn't been so thundering dash with it all Itll draw more 
 notice on us, and every one' 11 be gassin' ab>out this big sale, and 
 all that, till people's set on to ask where the cattle come from, 
 and wliat not.' 
 
 ' I don't see as it makes any difference,' I said. ' Somebody 
 was bound to buy 'em, and we'd have had to give the brands 
 and receipts just the same. Only if we'd sold to any one that 
 
 6 
 
82 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 thought there was a cross look about it, we'd have had to take 
 half money, that's all. They've fetched a rattling price, through 
 Starlight's working the oracle with those swells, and no mis- 
 take.' 
 
 * Yes, but that ain't all of it,' says the old man, filling his pipe. 
 ' We've got to look at what comes after. I never Uked that 
 imported bull being took. They'll rake all the colonies to get 
 hold of him again, partic'ler as he sold for near three hundred 
 pound.' 
 
 ' We must take our share of the risk along with the money,' 
 said Jim. 'We shall have our whack of that according to what 
 they fetched to-day. It'll be a short life and a merry one, 
 though, dad, if we go on big licks like tliis. Whatll we tackle 
 next — a bank or Government House ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing at all for a good spell, if you've any sense,' growled 
 father. ' It'll give us all we know to keep dark when this thing 
 gets into the papers, and the police in three colonies are all in 
 full cry like a pack of beagles. The thing is, what'll be our best 
 dart now 1 ' 
 
 ' I'll go back overland,' says he. ' Starlight's going to take 
 Warrigal with him, and they'll be off to the islands for a turn. 
 If he knows what's best for him, he'll never come back. These 
 other chaps say they'll separate and sell their horses when they 
 get over to the Murray low down, and work their way up by 
 degrees. Which way are you boys going ? ' 
 
 ' Jim and I to Melbourne by next steamer,' I said. ' May as 
 well see a bit of life now we're in it. We'll come back overland 
 when we're tired of strange faces.' 
 
 'AH right,' says father, 'they won't know where I'm lyin' by 
 for a bit, I'll go bail, and the sooner you clear out of Adelaide 
 the better. Is ews like ours don't take long to travel, and you 
 might be nabbed very simple. One of ye write a line to your 
 mother and tell her where you're off to, or she'll be frettin' her- 
 self and the gal too — frettin' over what can't be helped. But I 
 suppose it's the natur' o' some women.' 
 
 We done our settling-up next day. All the sale money was 
 paid over to Starlight. He cashed the cheques and drew the lot 
 in notes and gold — such a bundle of 'em there was. He brought 
 them out to us at the camp, and then we ' whacked ' the lot. 
 There were eight of us that had to share and share alike. How 
 much do you think we had to divide 1 Why, not a penny under 
 four thousand pounds. It had to be divided among the eight of 
 us. That came to five hundred a man. A lot of money to carry 
 about, that was the worst of it. 
 
 Next day there was a regular split and squander. We didn't 
 wait long after daylight, you bet. Father M'as off and well on 
 his way before the stars were out of the sky. He took Warri- 
 gal's horse, Bilbah, back with him ; he and Starlight was going 
 off to the islands together, and couldn't take horses with them. 
 But he was real sorry to })art with the cross-grained varmint ; 
 
XII ROBBERY UXDER ARMS 83 
 
 I thought he was going to blubber when he saw father leading 
 him oE Bilbah wouldn't go neither at first ; pulled back, and 
 snorted and went on as if he'd never seen only one man afore in 
 his life. Father got vexed at last and makes a sign to old Crib ; 
 he fetches him suoh a ' heeler ' as gave him something else to 
 thing of for a few miles. He didn't hang back much after 
 that. 
 
 The three other chaps went their own road, lliey kept very 
 dark all through. I know their names well enough, but there's 
 no use in bringing them up now. 
 
 Jim and I cuts otf into the town, thinking we was due for a 
 little fun. We'd never been in a big to-svTi before, and it was 
 something new to us, Adelaide aint as grand quite as Mel- 
 bourne or Sydney, but there's something quiet and homelike 
 about it to my thinking— great wide streets, planted with trees j 
 lots of steadv-going German farmers, with their vineyards and 
 orchards ancl droll little waggons. The women work as hard as 
 the men, harder perhaps, and get bro^-n and scorched up in no 
 time— not that they've got much good looks to lose ; leastways 
 none we ever saw. 
 
 We could always tell the German farmers' places along the 
 road from one of our people by looking outside the door. If it 
 was an Englishman or an Australian, you'd see where they'd 
 throwed out the teapot leavings ; if it was a Grerman, you 
 wouldn't see notliing. They drink their own sour wine, if tlieir 
 \nnes are old enough to make any, or else hop beer ; but they 
 won't lay out tneir money in the tea chest or sugar bag ; no 
 fear, or the grog either, and not far wrong. Then the sea ! I 
 can see poor old Jim's face now the day we went down to the 
 port and he seen it for tlie first time. 
 
 'So we've got to the big waterhole at last,' he said. ' Don't 
 it make a man feel queer and small to think of its going away 
 right from here where we t-tand to the other side of the world 1 
 It's a long way across.' 
 
 'Jim,' says 1, 'and to think we've lived all our lives up to 
 this time and never set eyes on it before. Don't it seem as if 
 one was shut up in the bush, or tied to a gum tree, so as one can 
 never have a chance to see anything 1 I wonder we stayed in 
 it so long.' 
 
 ' It's not a bad place, though it is rather slow and wired in 
 sometimes,' says Jim. ' We might be sorry we ever left it yet. 
 ^Vlien does the steamer go to Melbourne ? ' 
 
 ' The day after to-morrow.' 
 
 ' I'll l:>e glad to be cleiu- otf ; won't you ? ' 
 
 We went to the theatre that night, and amused ourselves 
 pretty well next day and till the time came for our boat to start 
 for Melbourne. We had altered ourselves a bit, had our hair 
 cut and our beards trimmed by the hainlresser. We bought 
 fresh clothe.s, and what with this, and the feeling of being in a 
 new place and having more money in our pockets than we'd 
 
84 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS raip. 
 
 ever dreamed about before, we looked so transmogrified ■when 
 ^e saw ourselves in the glass that we hardly knew ourselves. 
 We had to change our names, too, for the first time in our lives : 
 and it went harder against the grain than you'd thini:. for all 
 we were a couple of cattle-dufiers, with a warrant apiece sure 
 to be after us before the year was out. 
 
 ' It sounds ugly,' says Jim, after we had given our names as 
 John Simmons and Henry Smith at the hotel where v.'<? put up 
 at till the steAmer was ready to start. * I never thought that 
 Jim Marston was to come to this — to be afraid to tell a fat, 
 greasy-looking fellow like that innkeeper what his real name 
 was. Seems such a pitiful mean lie, don't it, Dick ? ' 
 
 ' It isn't so bad as being called No. 14, No. 221, as they sing 
 out for the fellows in Berrima Gaol. How would you like that, 
 Jimr 
 
 * I'd blow my brains out first,' cried out Jim, ' or let some 
 other fellow do it for me. It wouldn't matter which,' 
 
 It was very pleasant, those two or three days in Adelaide, 
 if they'd only lasted. We used to stroll about the lighted 
 streets till all hours, watching the people and the shops and 
 everything that makes a large city different from the country. 
 The different sorts of people, the carts and carriages, buggies 
 and drays, pony-carriages and spring-carts, all jumbled up 
 together ; even the fruit and flowers and oysters and fish under 
 the gas-lights seemed strange and wonderful to us. We felt as 
 if we would have given all the v/orld to have got mother and 
 Aileen down to see it all. Then Jim gave a groan. 
 
 ' Only to think,' says he, ' that we might have had all this 
 fun some day, and bought and paid for it honest. Now it isn't 
 paid for. It's out of some other man's pocket. There's a curse 
 on it • it will have to be paid in blood or prison time before 
 all's done. I could shoot myself for being such a cursed fool.' 
 
 ' Too late to think of that,' I said ; ' we'll have some fun in 
 Melbourne for a bit, anyhow. For what comes after we must 
 "chance it," as we've done before, more than once or twice, 
 either.' 
 
 Next day our steamer was to sail. We got Starlight to come 
 down with us and show us how to take our passage. We'd j 
 never done it before, and felt awkward at it. He'd made up ^ 
 his mind to go to New Zealand, and after that to Honolulu, 
 perhaps to America. 
 
 ' I'm not sure that III ever come back, boys,' he said, ' and if 
 I were you I don't think I would either, If you get over to 
 San Francisco you'd find the Pacific Slope a very pleasant , 
 country to live in. The people and the place would suit you ] 
 all to pieces. At any rate I d stay away for a few years and 
 wait till all this blows over.' 
 
 I wasn't sorry when the steamer cleared the port, and got out 
 of sight of land. There we were — where we'd never been before 
 
ai ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 85 
 
 — in blue water. There was a stiff breeze, and in half-an-hour 
 we shouldn't have turned our heads if we'd seen Hood and the 
 rest of 'em come riding after us on seahorses, with warrants as 
 big as the mainsail. Jim made sure he was going to die straight 
 off, and the pair of us wished we'd never seen Outer Back 
 Momberah, nor Hood's cattle, nor Starlight, nor Warrigal, We 
 almost made up our minds to keep straight and square to the 
 last day of our lives. However, tlie wind died down a bit next 
 day, and we both felt a lot better* — better in body and worse in 
 mind — as often happens. Before we got to Melbourne we could 
 eat and drink, smoke and gamble, and were quite ourselves 
 again. We'd laid it out to have a reg'lar good month of it in 
 town, takin' it easy, and stopping nice and quiet at a good 
 hotel, havin' some reasonable pleasure. Why shouldn't we see 
 a little life ? We'd got the cash, and we'd earned that pretty 
 hard. It's the hardest earned money of all, that's got on the 
 cross, if fellows only knew, but they never do till it's too late. 
 
 When we got tired of doing nothing, and being in a strange 
 place, we'd get across the border, above Albury somewhere, and 
 work on the mountain runs till shearing came round again ; 
 and we could earn a fairish bit of money. Then we'd go home 
 for Christmas after it was all over, and see mother and Aileen 
 again. How glad and frightened they'd h>e to see us. It 
 wouldn't be safe altogether, but go we would. 
 
CHAPTER Xin 
 
 We got to Melbourne all right, and though it's a different sort 
 of a place from Sydney, it's a jolly enough town for a couple of 
 young chaps with money in their pockets. Most towns are, for 
 the matter of that. We took it easy, and didn't go on the spree 
 or do anything foolish. No, we weren't altogether so green as 
 that. We looked out for a quiet place to lodge, near the sea — 
 St. Kilda they call it, in front of the beach — and we went about 
 and saw all the sights, and for a time managed to keep down 
 the thought that perhaps sooner or later vre'd be caught, and 
 have to stand our trial for this last affair of ours, and maybe 
 one or two others. It wasn't a nice thing to think of ; and now 
 and then it used to make both of us take an extra drop of grog 
 by way of driving the thoughts of it out of our heads. That's 
 the worst of not being straight and square. A man's almost 
 driven to drink when ne can't keep from thinking of all sorts 
 of miserable things day and night. W"e used to go to the horse- 
 yards now and then, and the cattle-yards too. It was like old 
 times to see the fat cattle and sheepi penned up at Flemington, 
 and the butchers riding out on their spicy nags or driving 
 trotters. But their cattle-yards was twice as good as ours, and 
 me and Jim used often to wonder wliy the Sydney people 
 hadn't managed to have something like them all these years, 
 instead of the miserable cockatoo things at Homebush that 
 we'd often heard the drovers and squatters grumble about. 
 
 However, one day, as we was sitting on the rails, talking 
 away quite comfortable, we heard one butcher say to another, 
 *My word, this is a smart bit of cattle-dufiing — a thousand head 
 too ! ' ' What's that ? ' says the other man. ' WTiy, haven't you 
 heard of it ? ' says the first one, and he pulls a paper out of his 
 pocket, with this in bi^ letters : * Great Cattle Robbery. — A 
 thousand head of Mr. Hood's cattle were driven off and sold in 
 Adelaide. Warrants are out for the suspected parties, who are 
 supposed t-o have left the colony.' Hers was a bit of news ! 
 We felt as if we could hardly help falling off the rails ; but we 
 didn't show it, of course, and sat there for half-an-hour, talking 
 to the buyers and sellers and cracking jokes like the others. 
 
HAP. xjii ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 87 
 
 But we got away home as soon as vre could, and then we began 
 to settle what we should do. 
 
 Warrants were out, of course, for Starlight, and us too. He 
 was known, and so were we. Our descriptions were sure to be 
 ready t-o send out all over the country. Warrigal they mightn't 
 have noticed. It was common enough to have a black boy or a 
 half-caste with a lot of travelling cattle. Father had not shown 
 up much. He had an old pea-jacket on, and they mightn't 
 have droppeil down to him or the three other chaps that were 
 in it with us ; they were just like any other road hands. But 
 about iLere being warrants out, with descriptions, in all the 
 colonies, for a man to be identified, but generally known as 
 Starlight, and for liichard and James Mai-ston, we were as 
 certain as that we were in St. Kilda, in a nice quiet little inn, 
 overlooking the beach ; and what a murder it was to have to 
 leave it at all. 
 
 Leave the place we had to do at once. It wouldn't do to be 
 strollin' about Melbourne with the chance of every policeman 
 we met taking a look at us to see if we tallied with a full 
 description they had at the otfice : ' Richard and James Marston 
 are twenty-five and twenty-two, respectively ; both tall and 
 strongly built ; having the appearance of bushmen. Richard 
 Marston has a scar on left temple. James Marston has lost a 
 front tooth,' and so on. When we came to think of it, they 
 couldn't be off knowing us, if they took it into their heads to 
 bail us up any day. They had our height and make. We 
 couldn't help looking like bushmen — like men that had been in 
 the open air all their lives, and that had a look as if saddle and 
 bridle rein were more in our way than the spade and plouo;h- 
 handle. We couldn't wash the tan off our skins ; faces, necks, 
 arms, all showed pretty well that we'd come from where the 
 sun was hot, and that we'd had our share of it. They had my 
 scar, got in a row, and Jim's front tooth, knocked out by a fall 
 from a horse when he was a boy ; there was nothing for it but 
 to cut and run. 
 
 * It was time for us to go, my boys,' as the song the Yankee 
 sailor sung us one night runs, and then, which way to go 1 
 Every ship was watched that close a strange rat couldn't 
 get a passage, and, besides, we had that feeling we didn't like 
 to clear away altogether out of the old country ; there was 
 mother and Aileen still in it, and every man, woman, and child 
 that we'd known ever since we were born. A chap feels that, 
 even if he ain't much good other ways. We couldn't stand the 
 thought of clearin' out for America, as Starlight advised us. It 
 was like death to us, so we thought we'd chance it somewhere 
 in Australia for a bit longer. 
 
 Now where we put up a good many drovers from Gippsland 
 used to stay, as they brought in cattle from there. The cattle 
 had to be brought over Swanston Street Bridge and right 
 through the town after twelve o'clock at night. We'd once or 
 
88 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 twice, when we'd been out late, stopped to look at them, and 
 watched the big heavy bullocks and fat cows staring and start- 
 ing and slipping all among the lamps and pavements, with the 
 street all so strange and quiet, and laughed at the notion of some 
 of the shopkeepers waking up and seeing a couple of hundred 
 wild cattle, with three or four men behind 'em, shouldering and 
 horning one another, then rushing past their doors at a hard 
 trot, or breaking into a gallop for a bit. 
 
 Some of these chaps, seeing we was cattle-men and knew most 
 things in that line, used to open out about where they'd come 
 from, and v/hat a grand place Gippsland was — splendid grass 
 country, rivers that run all the year round, great fattening 
 country ; and snowy mountains at the back, keeping every- 
 thing cool in the summer. Some of the mountain country, like 
 Omeo, that they talked a lot of, seemed about one of the most 
 out-of-the-way places in the world. More than that, you could 
 get back to old New South Wales by way of the Snowy River, 
 and then on to Monaro. After that we knew where we were. 
 
 Going away was easy enough, in a manner of speaking ; but 
 we'd been a month in ^lelbourne, and when you mind that we 
 were not bad-looking chaps, fairishly dressed, and with our 
 pockets full of money, it was only what might be looked for if 
 we had made another friend or two besides Mrs. Morrison, the 
 landlady of our inn, and Gippsland drovers. When we had time 
 to turn round a bit in Melbourne of course we began to make a 
 few friends. Wherever a man goes, unless he keeps himself 
 that close that he won't talk to any one or let any one talk to 
 him, he's sure to find some one he Hkes to be with better than 
 another. If he's old and done with most of his fancies except 
 smokin' and drinkin' it's a man. If he's young and got his life 
 before him it's a woman. So Jim and I hadn't been a week in 
 Melbourne before we fell across a couple of — well, friends — that 
 we were hard set to leave. It was a way of mine to walk down 
 to the beach every evening and have a look at the boats in the 
 bay and the fishermen, if there were any — anything that might 
 be going on. Sometimes a big steamer would be coming in, 
 churning the water under her paddles and tearing up the bay 
 like a hundred bunyips. The first screw-boat Jim and I saw we 
 couldn't make out for the life of us what she moved by. We 
 thought all steamers had paddles. Then the sailing-boats, fly- 
 ing before the breeze like seagulls, and the waves, if it was a 
 rough day, rolling and beating and thundering on the beach. 
 I generally stayed till the stars came out before I went back to 
 the hotel. Everything was so strange and new to a man who'd 
 seen so little else except green trees that I was never tired of 
 watching, and wondering, and thinking what a little bit of a 
 shabby world chaps like us lived in that never seen anything 
 but a slab hut, maybe, all the year round, and a bush public on 
 high days and holidays. 
 
 Sometimes I used to feel as if we hadn't done such a bad 
 
XIII ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 89 
 
 stroke in cutting loose from all this. But then the horrible 
 feeling would come back of never being safe, even for a day, of 
 being dragged off and put in the dock, and maybe shut up for 
 years and years. Sometimes I used to throw myself down up>on 
 the sand and curse the day when I ever did anything that I ha<i 
 any call to be ashamed of and put myself in the power of every- 
 thing bad and evil in all my life through. 
 
 Well, one day 1 was strolling along, thinking about these 
 things, and wondering whether there was any other countrj- 
 where a man could go and feel himself safe from being hounded 
 down for the rest of his life, when I sjiw a woman walking on 
 the beach ahead of me. I came up with her before long, and as 
 I passed her she turned her head and 1 saw she was one of two 
 girls that we had seen in the landlady's parlour one afternoon. 
 The landlady was a good, decent Scotch woman, and had taken a 
 fancy to both of us (particularly to Jim — as usual). She thought 
 — she was that simple — that we were up-country squatters from 
 some far-back place, or overseers. Something in the sheep or 
 cattle line everybody could see that we were. There was no 
 hiding that But we didn't talk about ourselves overmuch, for 
 very good reasons. The less p>eople say the more others will 
 wonder and guess about you. So we began to be looked upon 
 as bosses of some sort, and to be treated with a lot of respect 
 that we hadn't been used to much before. So we began to talk 
 a bit — natural enough — this girl and L She was a good-looking 
 girl, with a wonderful fresh clear skin, full of life and spirits, 
 and pretty well taught. She and her sister had not been a long 
 time in the country ; their father was dead, and they h£id to 
 live by keeping a very small shop and by dressmaking. They 
 were some kind of cousins of the landlady and the same name, 
 so they used to come and see her of evenings and Sundays. 
 Her name was Kate Morrison and her sister's was Jeanie. This 
 and a lot more she told me before we got back to the hotel, 
 where she said she was going to stay that night and keep Mrs. 
 Morrison company. 
 
 After this we began to be a deal better acquainted. It all 
 came easy enough. The landlady thought she was doing the girls 
 a good turn by putting them in the way of a couple of hard- 
 working well-to-do fellows like us ; and as Jim and the younger 
 one, Jeanie, seemed to take a fancy to each other, Mrs. Morri- 
 son used to make up boating parties, and we soon got to know 
 each other well enough to be joked about falling in love and all 
 the rest of it. 
 
 After a bit we got quite into the way of calling for Kate and 
 Jeanie after their day's work was done, and taking them out 
 for a walk. I don't know that I cared so much for Kate in 
 those days anyhow, but by degrees we got to thuik that we 
 were what people call in love with each other. It went deeper 
 with her than me, I think. It mostly does with women. I 
 never really cared for any woman in the world except Gracey 
 
W ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 Storefiel'l, but she was far away, and I didn't see much likelihood 
 of my being able to live in that part of the world, much less to 
 settle down and marry there. So, though we'd broken a six- 
 pence together and I had my half, I locked upon her as ever 
 so much beyond me and out of my reach, and didn't see any 
 harm in amusing myself with any woman that I might happen 
 to fall across. 
 
 So, partly from idleness, partly from liking, and partly see- 
 ing that the girl had made up her mind to throw in her lot with 
 me for good and all, I just took it as it came ; but it meant a 
 deal more than that, if I could have foreseen the end. 
 
 I hadn't seen a great many women, and had made up my 
 mind that, except a few bad ones, they was mostly of one sort 
 — good to lead, not hard to drive, and, above all, easy to see 
 through and understand. 
 
 I often wonder what there was about this Kate Morrison to 
 make her so diiferent from other women ; but she was born un- 
 like them, I expect. Anyway, I never met another woman like 
 her. She v/asn't out-and-out handsome, but there was some- 
 thing very taking about her. Her figure was pretty near as 
 ^ood as a woman's could be ; her step was light and active ; her 
 leet and hands were small, and she took a pride in showing 
 them. I never thought she had any temper different from 
 other women ; but if I'd noticed her eyes, surely I'd have seen 
 it there. There was something very strange and out of the way 
 a,bout them. They hardly seemed so bright when you looked 
 at them first ; but by degrees, if she got roused and set up 
 about anything, they'd begin to burn with a steady sort of 
 glitter that got fiercer and brighter till you'd think they'd burn 
 everything they looked at. The light in them didn't go out 
 again in a hurry, either. It seemed as if those wonderful eyes 
 would keep on shining, whether their owner wished it or not. 
 
 I didn't find out all about her nature at once — trust a woman 
 for that. Vain and fond of pleasure I could see she was ; and 
 from having been always poor, in a worrying, miserable, 
 ill-contented way, she had got to be hungry for money and 
 jewels and fine clothes • just like a person that's been starved 
 and shivering with cold longs for a fire and a full meal and & 
 warm bed. Some people like these things when they can get 
 them : but others never seem to think about anything else, and 
 would sell their souls or do anything in the whole world to get 
 what their hearts are set on. When men are like this they're 
 dangerous, but they hardly hurt anybody, only themselves. 
 When women are born with hearts of this sort it'.s»»*bad look- 
 out for everybody they come near. Kate Morrison could see that 
 I had money. She thought I was rich, and she made up her mind 
 to attract me, and go shares in my property, whatever it might 
 be. She won over her younger sister, Jeanie, to her plans, and 
 our acquaintance was part of a regular put-up scheme. Jeanie 
 was a soft, grK)d- tempered, good-hearted girl, with beautiful 
 
mil ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 91 
 
 fair hair, blue eyes, and the pretticist mouth in the world. She 
 was as good as she was pretty, and would have worked away 
 without grumbling in that dismal little shop from that day to 
 this, if she'd been let alone. She was only just turned seven- 
 teen. She soon got to like Jim a deal too well for her own good, 
 and used to listen to his talk about the country across the 
 border, and such simple yarns as he could tell her, poor old 
 Jim ! until she said shed go and live with him under a salt-bush 
 if he'd come back and marry her after Christmas. And of 
 course he did promise. He didn't see any harm in that. He 
 intended to come back if he could, and so did 1 for that matter. 
 Well, the long and short of it was that we were both regularly 
 engaged and had made all kinds of plans to be married at 
 Christmas and go over to Tasmania or New Zealand, wlien this 
 terrible blow fell upon us like a shell. I did see one explode at 
 a review in Melbourne — and, my word ! what a scatteration it 
 made. 
 
 Well, we had to let Kate and Jeanie know the best way we 
 could that our business required us to leave Melbourne at once, 
 and that we shouldn't be back till after Christmas, if then. 
 
 It was terrible hard work to make out any kind of a story 
 that would do. Kate questioned and cross-questioned me about 
 the particular kind of business that called us away like a lawyer 
 (I've seen plenty of that since) until at last I was obhged to get 
 a bit cross and refuse to answer any more questions. 
 
 Jeanie took it easier, and was that down-hearted and miser- 
 able at parting with Jim that she hadn't the heart to ask any 
 questions of any one, and Jim looked about as dismal as she did. 
 They sat with their hands in each other's till it was nearly twelve 
 o'clock, when the old mother came and carried the girls off to 
 bed. We had to start at daylight next morning ; but we made 
 up our minds to leave them a hundred pounds apiece to keep 
 for us until we came back, and promised if we were alive to be 
 at St. Kilda next January, which they had to be contented 
 with. 
 
 Jeanie did not want to take the money ; but Jim said he'd 
 very likely lose it, and so persuaded her. 
 
 We were miserable and low-spirited enough ourselves at the 
 idea of going away aJl in a hurry. We had come to like Mel- 
 bourne, and had bit by bit cheated ourselves into thinking that 
 we might live comfortably and settle down in Victoria, out of 
 reach of our enemies, and perhaps live and die unsuspected. 
 
 From this dream we were roused up by the confounded 
 advertisement. Detectives and constables would be seen to be 
 pretty thick in all the colonies, and we could not reasonably 
 expect not to be taken some time or other, most likely before 
 another week. 
 
 We thought it over and over again, in every way. The more 
 we thought over it the more dangerous it seemed to stop in 
 Melbourne. There was only one thing for it, that was to go 
 
9*2 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohajp. 
 
 straight out of the country. The Gippsland men were the only 
 bushraen we knew at aU well, and perhaps that door might shut 
 soon. 
 
 So we paid our bill. They thought us a pair of quiet, respect 
 a,ble chaps at that hotel, and never would believe otherwise. 
 People may say what they like, but it's a great thing to have 
 some friends that can say of you — 
 
 ' Y/ell, I never knew no harm of him ; a better- tempered chap 
 couldn't be ; and all the time we knowed him he wa-s that par- 
 ticular about his bills and money matters that a banker couldn't 
 have been more regular. He may have had his faults, but we 
 never seen 'em. I believe a deal that was said of him wasn't 
 true, and nothing won't ever make me believe it.' 
 
 These kind of people will stand up for you all the days of 
 your life, and stick to you till the very last moment, no matter 
 what you turn out to be. Well, there's something pleasant in 
 it ; and it makes you think human nature ain't quite such a 
 low and paltry thing as some people tries to make out. Any- 
 how, when we went away our good little landlady and her sister 
 was that sorry to lose us, as you'd have thought they w^as our 
 blood relations. As for Jim, every one in the house was fit to 
 cry when he went off, from the dogs and cats upwards. Jim 
 never was in no house where everybody didn't seem to take 
 naturally to him. Poor old Jim ! 
 
 We bought a couple of horses, and rode away down to Sale 
 with these chaps that had sold their cattle in ^lelbourne and 
 was going home. It rained all the way, and it was the worst 
 road by chalks we'd ever seen in our lives ; but the soil was 
 wonderful, and the grass was something to talk about ; we'd 
 hardly ever seen anything like it. A few thousand acres there 
 would keep more stock than half the country we'd been 
 used to. 
 
 We didn't stay more than a day or so in Sale. Every morn- 
 ing at breakfast some one was sure to turn up the paper and 
 begin jabbering about the same old infernal Vjusiness. Hood's 
 cattle, and what a lot were taken, and whether they 11 catch 
 Starlight and the other men, and so on. 
 
 We heard of a job at Omeo while we were in Sale, v/hich we 
 thought would just about suit us. All the cattle on a run there 
 were to be mustered and delivered to a firm of stock agents that 
 had bought them ; they wanted people to do it by contract at so 
 much a head. Anybody who took it must have money enough 
 to buy stock horses. The price per head was pretty fair, what 
 would pay well, and we made up our minds to go in for it. 
 
 So we made a bargain : bought two more horses each, and 
 started away for Omeo. it was near 200 miles from where we 
 were. We got up there all right, and found a great rich country 
 with a big lake, 1 don't know how many feet above the sea. The 
 cattle were as wild as hares, but the country was pretty good 
 to ride over. We were able to keep our horses in good condition 
 
xiu ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 98 
 
 in the paddocks, and when we had mustered the whole lot we 
 found we had a handsome cheque to get. 
 
 It was a little bit strange buckling to after the easy life we'd 
 led for the last few months ; but after a day or two we found 
 ourselves as good men as ever, and could spin over the limestone 
 boulders and through the thick mountain timber as well as ever 
 we did. A man soon gets right again in the fresh air of the 
 bush ; and as it used to snow there every now and then the air 
 was pretty fresh, you bet, particularly in the moraings and 
 evenings. 
 
 Af te^ we'd settlesi up we made up our minds to get as far a:s 
 Monaro, and wait there for a month or two. After that we 
 might go in for the shearing till Christmas, and then whatever 
 happened we would both make a strike back for home, 
 and have one happy week, at any rate, with mother and 
 Aileen. 
 
 We tried as well as we could to keep away from the large 
 towns and the regular mail coach roaa. We worked on runs 
 where the snow came down every now and then in such a way 
 as to make us think that we might be snowed up alive some line 
 morning. It was very slow and tedious work, but the news- 
 papers seldom came there, and we were not worried day after 
 day with telegrams aV>out our Adelaide stroke, and descriptions 
 of Starlight's own look and way of speaking. We got into the 
 old way of working hard all day and sleeping well at night. 
 We could eat and drink well ; the corned beef and the darnper 
 were good, and Jim, like when we were at the back of Boree 
 when Warrigal came, wislied that we could stick to this kind of 
 thing always, and never have any fret or crooked dealings again 
 as long as we lived. 
 
 But it couldn't be done. We had to leave and go shearing 
 when the spring came on. We did go, and went from one big 
 station to the other when the spring was regularly on and 
 shearers were scarce. By and by the weather gets warmer, and 
 we had cut our last shed before the first week in December. 
 
 Then we couldn't stand it any longer. 
 
 'I don't care,' says Jim, 'if there's a policeman standing at 
 every corner of the street, I must make a start for home. They 
 may catch us, but our chance is a pretty good one ; and I'd just 
 as soon be lagged outright as have to hide and keep dark and 
 moulder away life in some of these God-forsaken spots. 
 
 So we made up to start for home and chance it. We worked 
 
 our way by degrees up the Snowy Kiver, bv Buchan and Galan- 
 
 ' tapee, ana gradually made towards BaJtxDka and Buckley's 
 
 Crossing. On the way we crossed some of the roughest country 
 
 we had ever seen or lidden over. 
 
 ' My word, Dick,' said Jim one day, as we were walking along 
 and leading our hortes, ' we could find a place here if we were 
 hard pushed near as good for hiding in as the Hollow. Look at 
 that bit of tableland that runs up towards Black ^[ountain, any 
 
04 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. xiii 
 
 man that could find a track up to it might live there for a year 
 and all the police of the country be after him.' ji 
 
 ' What would he get to eat if he was there ? ' 
 
 ' That long chap we stayed Tv-ith at Wargulmerang told us 
 that there were wild cattle on all those tablelands. Often they 
 get snowed up in winter and die, making a circle in the snow. 
 Then fish in all the creeks, besides the old SnoA^^r, and there are 
 places on the south side of him that people didn't see once in 
 five years. I believe I shall make a camp for myself on the 
 way, and live in it till they've forgot all about these cursed 
 cattle. Rot their hides, I wish we'd never have set eyes on one 
 of them.' 
 
 'So do T ; but like many things in the world it's too late- 
 too late, Jim ! ' 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 One blazing hot day in the Christmas week Jim and I rcxle up 
 the ' gap ' that led from the Southern road towards Rocky Creek 
 and the little flat near the water where our hut stood. The 
 horses were tired, for we'd ridden a long way, and not very slow 
 either, to get to the old place. How small and queer the old 
 homestead looked, and everything about it after all we had seen. 
 The trees in the garden were in full leaf, and we could see that 
 it was not let go to waste. Mother was sitting in tlie verandah 
 sewing, pretty near the same as we went away, and a girl was 
 walking slowly up from the creek carrying a bucket of water. 
 It was Aileen. We knew her at once. She was always as 
 straight as a rush, and held her head high, as she used to do : 
 but she walked very slow, and looked as if she was dull ana 
 weary of everything. All of a sudden Jim jumped off, dropped 
 his horse's bridle on the ground, and started U) run towards her. 
 She didn't see him till he was pretty close ; then she looked up 
 astonished-like, and put her bucket down. She gave a sudden 
 cry and rushed over to him ; the next minute she was in his 
 arms, sobbing as if lier heart would break. 
 
 I came along quiet. 1 knew she'd be glad to see me — but, 
 bless you, she and mother cared more for Jim's little finger than 
 for my whole body. Some people have a way of gettin' the 
 biggest share of nearly everybody's liking that comes next or 
 anigh 'em. 1 don't know how it's done, or what works it. But 
 so it is ; and Jim could always count on every man, woman, and 
 child, wherever he lived, wearing his colours and backing him 
 right out, through thick and thin. 
 
 When I came up Aileen was saying — 
 
 *0h, Jim, my dear old Jim ! now I'll die happy ; mother and 
 I were only talking of you to-day, and wondering whether we 
 should see you at Christmas — and now you have come. Oh, 
 Dick ! and you too. But we shall be frightened every time we 
 hear a horse's tread or dog's bark.' 
 
 ' Well, we're here now, Aileen, and that's something. I had 
 a great notion of clearing out for San Francisco and turning 
 Yankee. AVhat wguld you have done then ? ' 
 
96 EOBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 We walked up to the house, leading our horses, Jim and 
 Aileen hand in hand. Mother looked up and gave a scream ; 
 she nearly fell down ; when we got in her face was as white as 
 a sheet. 
 
 ' Mother of Mercy ! I vowed to you for this,' she said ; ' sure 
 she hears our prayers. I wanted to see ye both before I died, 
 and I didn't think you'd come. I was afraid ye'd be dreadin' the 
 police, and maybe stay awav for good and all The Lord be 
 thanked for all His mercies ! 
 
 We went in and enjoyed our tea. We had had nothing to eat 
 that day since breakfast ; but better than all was Aileen's 
 pleasant, clever tongue, though she said it was getting stiff for 
 want of exercise. She wanted to know all about our travels, 
 and was never tired of listening to Jim's stories of the wonders 
 we had seen in the great cities and the strange places we had 
 been to. 
 
 ' Oh ! how hapxjy you must have been ! ' she would say, ' while 
 we have been pining and wearying here, all through last spring 
 and summer, and then winter again — cold and miserable it was 
 last year ; and now Christmas has come again. Don't go away 
 again for a good while, or mother and I'll die straight out.' 
 
 Well, what could we say ? Tell her we'd never go away at all 
 if we could help it — only she must be a good girl and make the 
 best of things, for mother's sake? When had she seen father 
 last? 
 
 ' Oh ! he was away a good while once ; that time you and Jim 
 vrere at Mr. Falkland's back country. You must have had a 
 long job then ; no wonder you've got such good clothes and look 
 so smartened up like. He comes every now and then, just like 
 he used. We never know what's become of him.' 
 
 ' When was he here last ? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! about a month ago. He said he might be here about 
 Ohristmas ; but he wasn't sure. And so you saved Miss Falk- 
 land from being killed off her horse, Jim t Tell me all about it, 
 like a good boy, and what sort of a looking young lady is she ? ' 
 
 ' All right,' said Jim. ' I'll unload the story bag before we 
 get through ; there's a lot in there yet • but I want to look at 
 you and hear you talk just now. Hows George Storefield V 
 
 ' Oh ! he's just the same good, kind, steady-going fellow he 
 always was,' says she. *I don't know what we should do with- 
 out him when you're away. He comes and helps with the cows 
 now and then. Two of the horses got into Bargo pound, and he 
 went and released them for us. Then a storm blew off best part 
 of the roof of the barn, and the bit of wheat would have been 
 spoiled only for him. He's the best friend we have.' 
 
 ' You'd better make sure of him for good and all,' I said. ' I 
 suppose he's pretty well-to do nov/ with that new farm he 
 bought the other day.' 
 
 ' Oh ! you saw that,' she said. ' Yes ; he bought out the 
 <;;)umberers. They never did any good with Honeysuckle Flat, 
 
XIV ROBBERY UNDEE ARMS 97 
 
 though the land was so good. He's going to lay it all down in 
 lucerne, he says.' 
 
 ' And then he'll smarten up the cottage, and sister Aileen '11 
 
 to over, and live in it,' says Jim ; ' and a better tiling she couldn't 
 a' 
 
 'I don't know,' she said. * Poor George, I wish I was fonder 
 of him. There never was a better man, 1 believe ; but I cannot 
 leave mother yet, so it's no use talking.' Then she got up and 
 went in. 
 
 ' That's the waj of the world ' says Jim. ' George worships 
 the ground she treads on, and sne can't make herself care two 
 straws about him. Perhaps she ^vill in time. She'll have the 
 best home and the best chap in the whole district if she does.* 
 
 ' There's a deal of " if " in this world,' I said ; ' and " if " we're 
 " copped " on account of that last job, I'd like to think she and 
 mother had some one to look after them, good weather and bad.' 
 
 ' We might have done that, and not killed ourselves with work 
 either,' said Jim, rather sulkily for him ; and he lit his pipe and 
 walked off into the bush without saying another word. 
 
 I thought, too, how we might have been ten times, twenty 
 times, as nappy if we'd only kept on steady ding-dong work, 
 like George Storefield, having patience and seeing ourselves get 
 better off— even a little — year by year. What had he come to ? 
 And what lay before us? And though we were that fond of 
 poor mother and Aileen that we would have done anything in 
 the world for them— that is, we would have given our lives for 
 them any day — yet we had left them — father, Jim, and I— to 
 lead this miserable, lonesome life, looked do^vn upon by a lot of 
 people not half good enough to tie their shoes, and obliged to a 
 neighbour for help in every little distress. 
 
 Jim and I thought we'd chance a few days at home, no 
 matter what risk we ran ; but still we knew that if warrants 
 were out the old home would be weU watched, and that it was 
 the first place the police would come to. So we made up our 
 minds not to sleep at home, but to go away everv night to an 
 old deserted shepherd's hut, a couple of miles up the gully, that 
 we used to play in when we were boys. It had been strongly 
 built at first ; time was not much matter then, and there were 
 no wages to speak of, so that it was a good shelter. The 
 weather was that hot, too, it was just as pleasant sleeping under 
 : a tree as anywhere else. So we didn't show at home more than 
 one at a time, and took care to be ready for a bolt at any time, 
 day or night, when the police might show themselves. Our 
 place was middling clear all round now, and it was hard for 
 any one on horseback to get near it without warning ; and if we 
 could once reach the gully we knew we could run faster than 
 any man could ride. 
 
 One night, latish, just as we were walking off to our hut 
 there was a scratching at the door ; when we opened it tljere 
 was old Crib 1 He ran up to both of us and smelt round our 
 
 B 
 
98 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 legs for a minute to satisfy himself ; then jumped up once to 
 each of us as if he thought he ought to do the civil thing, 
 wagged his stump of a tail, and laid himself down. He was 
 tired, and had come a long way. We could see that, and that 
 he was footsore too. We knew that father wasn't so very far 
 oflf, and would soon be in. If there'd been anybody strange there 
 Crib would have run back fast enough • then father 'd have 
 dropped there was something up and not snowru No fear of the 
 dog not knowing who was right and who wasn't. He could tell 
 every sort of a man a mile ofi^ I believe. He knew the verv 
 walk of the police troopers' horses, and would growl, father said, 
 if he heard their hoofs rattle on the stones of the road. 
 
 About a quarter of an hour after father walks in, quiet as 
 usual. Nothing never made no difference to him, except he 
 thought it was worth while. He was middlin' glad to see us, 
 and behaved kind enough to mother, so the poor soul looked 
 quite happy for her. It was little enough of that she had for 
 her share. Bj and by father walks outside with us, and we had 
 a long private talk. 
 
 It was a brightish kind of starlight night. As we walked 
 down to the creek I thought how often Jim and I had come out 
 on just such a night 'possum hunting, and came home so tired 
 that we were hardly able to pull our boots off Then we had 
 nothing to think about when we woke in the morning but to 
 get in the cows ; and didn't we enjoy the fresh butter and the 
 damper and bacon and eggs at breakfast time ! It seems to me 
 the older people get the more miserable they get in this world. 
 If they don't make misery for themselves other people do it for 
 'em ; or just when everything's going straight, and they're doing 
 their duty first-rate and aU that, some accident happens 'em 
 just as if they was the worst people in the world. I can't make 
 it out at all. 
 
 * Well, boys,' says dad, ' you've been lucky so far ; suppose 
 you had a pretty good spree in Melbourne ? You seen the game 
 was up by the papers, didn't you f But why didn't you stay 
 where you were f ' 
 
 * Why, of course, that brought us away,' says Jim ; * we didn't 
 want to be fetched back in irons, and thought there was more 
 show for it in the bush here.' 
 
 'But even if the/d grabbed Starlight,' says the old man, 
 * vou'd no call to be afeard. Not much chance of his peaching, 
 if it had been a hanging matter.' 
 
 ' You don't mean to say there ain't warrants against ns and 
 the rest of the lot t ' I said. 
 
 * There's never a vvarrant out agin any one but Starlight,' said 
 the old man. ' Fve h&d the papers read to me regular, and I 
 rode over to Bargo and saw the reward of £200 (a chap along- 
 side of me read it) as is offered for a man generally known &h 
 Starlight, 3uppK>s©d to have left the country • but not a word 
 about you two and me, or Uie boy, or them other cores.' 
 
XIV ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 99 
 
 ' So we might as well have stayed where we were, JinL' Jim 
 gave a kind of a groan- 'Still, when you look at it-^ isn't it 
 queer,' I went on, *that they should only spot Starhght and 
 leave us out ? It looks as if they was keepin' dark for fear of 
 frightening us out of the country, but watching all the same.' 
 
 ' It's this wav I worked it,' says father, rubbing his tobacco 
 in his hands the old way, and bringing out his pipe : ' they 
 couldn't be off marking down Starlight along of his carryin' on 
 so. Of course he drawee! notice to himself all roads. But the 
 rest of us only come in Tvlth the mob, and soon as they was 
 sold stashed the camp and cleared out different ways. Them 
 three fellers is in Queensland long ago, and nobody was to know 
 them from any other road hands. I was back with the old 
 mare and Bilbah in mighty short time. I rode 'em night and 
 day, turn about, and they can both travel You kept prettv 
 quiet, as luck haid it, and was off to Melbourne quick. I don^t 
 really believe they dropped to any of us, bar Starlight ; and if 
 they don't nab him we might get shut of it altogether. I've 
 known worse things as never turned up in this world, and never 
 will now.' Here the old man showed his teeth as if he were 
 going to laugh, but thought better of it. 
 
 * Anyhow, we'd made it up to come home at Christmas,' says 
 Jim ; ' but it's all one. It would have saved us a deal of trouble 
 in our minds all the same if we'd known there was no warrants 
 out after us two. I wonder if they'll nail Starlight' 
 
 ' They can't be well off it,' says father. ' He's gone off his 
 head, and stopped in some swell town in New Zealand— Canter- 
 bury, I think it's called — livin' tiptop among a lot of young 
 English swells, instead of makin' off lor the Islands, as he laid 
 out to do.' 
 
 ' How do you know he's there ? ' I said. 
 
 ' I know, and that's enough,' snarls father. ' I hear a lot in 
 many ways about things and people that no one guesses on, 
 and I know this — that he's pretty well marked down by old 
 Stillbrook the detective as went down there a month ago.' 
 
 * But didn't you warn him 1 ' 
 
 * Yes, of course, as soon as I he^rd tell ; but it's too late, I'm 
 thinking. He has the devil's luck as well as his own, but I 
 always used to tell him it would fail him yet' 
 
 ' r believe you're the smartest man of the crowd, dad,' says 
 Jim, laying his hand on father's shoulder. He could pretty nigh 
 get round the old chap once in a way, could Jim, surly as he 
 was. ' What do you think we'd better do 1 What's our best 
 dart 1 
 
 Father shook off his hand, but not roughly, and his voice 
 wasn't so hard when he said — 
 
 ' Why, stop at home quiet, of course, and sleep in your beds 
 at night Don't go planting in the gully, or some one 11 think 
 you're wanted, and let on to the polica Ride about the countir 
 till I give you the office. Never fear but HI have word quick 
 
100 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 enough. Qo about and see the neighbours round just as 
 usuaU 
 
 Jim and I was quite stunned by this bit of news ; no doubt 
 we was pretty sorry as ever we left Melbourne, but there was 
 nothing for it now but to follow it out After all, we were at 
 home, and it v.as pleasant to think we wouldn't be hunted for a 
 bit and might ride about the old place and enjoy ourselves a 
 bit. Aileen was as happy as the day was long, and poor mother 
 used to lay her head on Jim's neck and cry for joy to have him 
 with her. Even father used to sit in the front, under the 
 quinces, and smoke his pipe, with old Crib at his feet, most as 
 if he thought he was happy. I wonder if he ever looked back 
 to the days when he was a farmin' boy and hadn't took to 
 poaching ? He must have been a smart, handy kind of lad, and 
 what a different look his face must have had then ! 
 
 We had our own horses in pretty good trim, so we foraged 
 up Aileen's mare, and made it up to ride over to George Store- 
 field's, and gave him a look-up. He'd been away when we 
 came, and now we heard he was home. 
 
 'George has been doing well all this time, of course,' 1 
 said. 'I expect he'll turn squatter some day and be made a 
 magistrate.' 
 
 'Like enough,' says Jim. 'More than one we could pick 
 began lower down than him, and sits on the Bench and gives 
 coves like us a turn when we're brought up before 'em. Fancy 
 old George sayin', "Is anything known, constable, of this 
 prisoner's anterseedents ? " as I heard old Higgler say one day 
 at Bargo.' 
 
 'Why do you make fun of these things, Jim, dear?' says 
 Aileen, looking so solemn and mournful like. 'Oughtn't a 
 steady worker to rise in life, and isn't it sad to see cleverer men 
 and better workers — if they liked — kept down by their ovm 
 fault?' 
 
 ' Why wasn't your roan mare bom black or chestnut ? ' says 
 Jim, laughing, and pretending to touch her up. ' Come along, 
 and let's see if she can trot as well as she used to do ? ' 
 
 * Poor Lowan,' says she, patting the mare's smooth neck (she 
 was a wonderful neat, well-bred, dark roan, with black points 
 — one of dad's, perhaps, that he'd brought her home one time 
 he was in special good humour about something. Where she 
 was bred or how, nobody ever knew) ; ' she was bom pretty and 
 good. How little trouble her life gives her. It's a pity we 
 can't all say as much, or have as little on our minds.' 
 
 ' Whose fault's that ? ' says Jim. ' The dingo must live as 
 well as the collie or the sheep either. One's been made just the 
 same as the other. I've often watched a dingo turn round twice. 
 and then pitch himself down in the long grass like as if he was 
 dead. He's not a bad sort, old dingo, and has a good time of it 
 aa long as it lasts.' 
 
 ' Yes, till he's trapped or shot or poisoned some day, which 
 
xtv ROBBEKY UJTOER AEMS iOl 
 
 he always is/ said Aileen bitterly. ' I wonder any man should 
 be content with a wicked life and a shameful death.' And she 
 struck Lowan with a switch, and spun down the slope of the 
 hill between the trees like a forester-doe with the hunter-hound 
 behind her. 
 
 Wlien we came up with her she was all right again, and tried 
 to smile. Whatever put her out for the time she always worked 
 things by kindness, and would lead us straight if she could. 
 Driven, she knew we couldn't be; and I believe she did us 
 about ten times as much good that way as if she had scolded 
 and raged, or even sneered at us. 
 
 When we rode up to Mr. Storefield's farm we were quite 
 agreeable and pleasant a^ain, Jim makin' believe his horse 
 could walk fast-est, and saying that her mare's pace was only a 
 double shuffle of an amble like Bilbah's, and she declaring that 
 the mare's was a true walk — and so it v/as. The mare could do 
 pretty well everything but talk, and all her paces were first- 
 cl&sn. 
 
 Old Mrs. Storefield was pottering about in the garden with 
 a big sun-bonnet on. She was a great woman for flowers. 
 
 ' Come along in, Aileen, my dear,' she said. * Qracey's in the 
 dairy ; she'll be out directly. George only came home yester- 
 day. Wlio be these you've got with ye ? Why. Dick ! ' she 
 says, lookin' again with her sharp, old, gray eyes, it's you, boy, 
 is it ? Well, you've changed a deal too ; and Jim too. Is he as 
 full of mischief as ever ? Well, God bless you, boys, I wish you 
 well ! I wish you well Come in out of the sun, Aileen ; and 
 one of you take the horses up to the stable. You'll find George 
 there somewhere.' 
 
 Aileen had jumped down bv this time, and had thrown her 
 rein to Jim, so we rode up to the stable, and a verv good one it 
 was, not long put upj that we could see. How the place had 
 changed, and how different it was from ours ! We remembered 
 the time when their hut wasn't a patch on ours, when old Isaac 
 Storefield, that had been gardener at Mulgoa to some of the 
 big gentlemen in the old days, had saved a bit of money and 
 taken up a farm ; but bit by bit their place had been getting 
 better and bigger every year, while ours had stood still and now 
 was going back. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 Qeokge Stokefleld's place, for the old man was dead and all 
 the place belonged to him and Gracey, quite stunned Jim and 
 me. We'd been away more than a year, and he'd pulled down 
 the old fences and put up new ones — first-rate work it was too ; 
 he was always a dead hand at splitting. Then there was a big 
 hay-shed, chock-full of good sweet hay and wheat sheaves, an(l 
 last of all, the new stable, with six stalls and a loft above, and 
 racks, all built of ironbark slabs, as solid and reg'lar as a church, 
 Jim said. 
 
 They'd a good six-roomed cottage and a new garden fence 
 ever so long. There were more fruit trees in the garden and a 
 lot of good draught horses standing about, that looked well^ 
 but as if they'd come ofi" a journey. 
 
 The stable door opens, and out comes old Gteorge as hearty 
 as ever, but looking full of business. 
 
 ' Glad to see you, boys,' he says ; * what a time you've been 
 away ! Been away myself these three months with a lot of 
 teams carrying. I've taken greatly to the business lately. I'm 
 just settling up with my drivers, but put the horses in,'there's 
 chafi' and com in the mangers, and I'll be down in a few 
 minutes. It's well on to dinner-time, I see.' 
 
 We took the bridles off and tied up the horses — there was 
 any amount of feed for them — and strolled down to the cottage 
 again. 
 
 'Wonder whether Gracey's as nice as she used to be,' says 
 Jim. ' Next to Aileen I used to think she wasn't to be beat. 
 When I was a little chap I believed you and she must be married 
 for certain. And old George and Aileen. I never laid out any 
 one for myself, I remember.' 
 
 'The first two don't look like coming off, I said. 'You're 
 the likeliest man to marry and settle if Jeanie sticks to 
 you.' 
 
 'She'd better go down to the pier and drown herself com- 
 fortably,' said Jim. 'If she knew what was before us all, 
 perhaps she would. Poor little Jeanie ! We'd no right to 
 drag other peopla into our troubles, I believe we're getting 
 
OHAP. XV ROBBERY tINDER ARM3 108 
 
 worse and worse. The sooner we're shot or locked up the 
 better.' 
 
 ' You won't think so when it comes, old man,' I said. ' Don't 
 bother your head — it ain't the best part of you — about things 
 that can't be helped We're not the only horses that can't be 
 kept on the course — with a good turn of speed too.' 
 
 '"They want shooting like the dingoes," as Aileen said. 
 They're never no good, except to ruin those that back 'em and 
 disgrace their owners and the stable they come out of. That's 
 our sort, all to pieces. Well, we'd better come in. Graceyll 
 think we're afraid to face her.' 
 
 When we went away last Grace Storeheld was a little over 
 seven;een, so now she was nineteen all out, and a fine girl 
 she'd grown. Though I never used to think her a beauty, now 
 I almost began to think she must be. She wasn't tall, and 
 Aileen looked slight alongside of her ; but she was wonderful 
 fair and fresh coloured for an Australian girl, with a lot of soft 
 brown hair and a pair of clear blue eyes that always looked 
 kindly and honestly into everybody's face. Every look of her 
 seemed to wish to do you good and make you think that nothing 
 that wasn't square and right and honest and true could live in 
 the same place with her. 
 
 She held out both hands to me and said — 
 
 ' Well, Dick, so you're back again. Y"ou must have been to 
 the end of the world, and Jim, too. I'm very glad to see you 
 both.' 
 
 She looked into my face with that pleased look that put me 
 in mind of her when she was a little child and used to come 
 toddling up to me, staring and smiling all over her face the 
 moment she saw me. Now she was a grown woman, and a 
 sweet-looking one too. I couldn't lift her un and kiss her as 
 I used to do, but 1 felt as if I should like to ao it all the same. 
 She was the only creature in the whole world, I think, that 
 liked me better than Jim. I'd been trying to drive all thoughts 
 of her out of my heart, seeing the tangle I'd got into in more 
 ways than one ; but now the old feeling which had been a part 
 of me ever since I'd grown up came rushing back stronger 
 than ever. I was surprised at myself, and looked queer I 
 daresay. 
 
 Then Aileen laughed, and Jim comes to the rescue and says— 
 
 ' Dick doesn't remember you, Gracey. Y'ou've grown such a 
 swell, too. You can't 1^ the little girl we used to carry on our 
 backs.' 
 
 ' Dick remembers very well,' she says, and her very voice was 
 ever so much fuller and softer, ' don't you, Dick ? ' and she looked 
 into my face as innocent as a child. ' I don't think he could 
 pull me out of the water and carry me up to the cottage now.' 
 
 ' Y'ou tumble in and we'll try,' says Jim ; ' first man to keep 
 you for good— eh, Gracey? It's fine hot weather, and Aileen 
 shall see fair play.' 
 
104 BOBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 'You're just as saucy as ever, Jim^' says she, blushing and 
 smiling. 'I see George coming, so I must go and fetch in 
 dinner. Aileen's going to help me instead of mother. You 
 must tell us all about your travels when we sit down.' 
 
 When George came in he began to talk to make up for lost 
 time, and told us where he had been — a long way out in some 
 new back country, just taken up with sheep. He had got a 
 first-rate paying price for his carriage out, and had brought 
 back and delivered a full load of wool. 
 
 ' I intend to do it every year for a bit,' he said. 'I can breed 
 and feed a good stamp of draught horse here. I pay drivers 
 for three waggons and drive the fourth myself. It pays first- 
 rate so far, and we had very fair feed all the way there and 
 back.' 
 
 * Suppose you get a dry season,' I said, * how will that be ? ' 
 
 ' We shall have to carrv forage, of course ; but then carriage 
 will be higher, and it will come to the same thing. I don't like 
 being so long away from home ; but it pays first-rate, and I 
 think I see a way to its paying better still.' 
 
 'So you've ridden over to show them the way, Aileen,' he 
 said, as the girls came in ; ' very good of you it was. I was 
 afraid you'd forgotten the way.' 
 
 * I never forget the way to a friend's place, George,' she said, 
 ' and you've been our best friend while these naughty boys have 
 left mother and me so long by ourselves. But you've been 
 away yourself.' 
 
 ' Only four months,' he said ; * and after a few more trips I 
 shan't want to go away any more.' 
 
 ' That will be a good day for all of us,' she said. * You know, 
 Gracey, we can't do without George, can we'i I felt quite 
 deserted, I can tell you.' 
 
 ' He wouldn't have gone away at all if you'd held up your 
 little finger, you know that, you hard-hearted girl,' said Grace, 
 trying to frown. ' It's all your fault.' 
 
 ' Oh ! I couldn't interfere with Mr. Storefield's business,' said 
 Aileen, looking very grave. ' What kind of a country was it 
 you were out in 1 ' 
 
 ' Not a bad place for sheep and cattle and blacks,' said poor 
 George, looking rather glum ; ' and not a bad country to make 
 money or do anything but live in, but that hot and dry and 
 full of flies and mosquitoes that I'd sooner live on a pound 
 a week down here than take a good sta,tion as a present there. 
 That is, if I was contented,' he went on to say, with a sort of a 
 groan. 
 
 There never was a greater mistake in the world, I believe, 
 than for a man to let a woman know how much he cAres for her. 
 It's right enough if she's made up her mind to take him, no 
 odds what happens. But if there's any half-and-half feeling in 
 her mind about him, and she's uncertain and doubtful whether 
 she likes him v, ell enough, all this down-on-your-knees buaines.'s 
 
XV ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 105 
 
 works against you, moi^ than your worst enemy could do. 1 
 didn't ^Q-w so much about it then. I've found it out since, 
 worse luck. And I really believe if George had had the savey 
 to crack himself up a little, and say he'd met a nice girl or two 
 in the back country and hid his hand, Aileen would nave made 
 it up with him that very Christmas, and been a happy woman 
 all her life. 
 
 When old Mrs, Storefield came in she put us through our 
 facings pretty brisk — where we'd been, what we'd done ? What 
 took us to Melbourne,— how we liked it ? What kind of people 
 they were 1 and so on. We had to tell her a good lot, part of 
 it truth, of course, but pretty mixed. It madfe rather a good 
 yam, and I could see Grace was listening with her heart as well 
 as her ears. Jim said e:onerally we met some verv nice people in 
 Melbourne named Jackson, and they were very Kind to us. 
 
 'Were there any daughters in the family, JimT asked 
 Grace. 
 
 ' Oh ! yes, three.' 
 
 ' Were they good-looking ? ' 
 
 ' No, rather homely, particularly the youngest.' 
 
 * What did they do ? ^ 
 
 * Oh ! their mother kept a boarding-house. We stayed there.' 
 I don't think I ever knew Jim do so much lying before ; but 
 
 after he'd begun he had to stick to it. He told me afterwards 
 he nearly broke down about the three daughters ; but was 
 rather proud of making the youngest the ugliest. 
 
 ' I can see Gracey's as fond of you as ever she was, Dick,' says 
 he ; * that's why she made me tell all those crammers. It's an 
 awful pity we can't all square it, and get spliced this Christmas 
 Aileen would take George if she wasn t a fool, as most women 
 are. I'd like to bring Jeanie up here, and join George in the 
 carrying business. It's going to be a big thing, I can see. You 
 might marry Gracey, and look after botn places while we. were 
 away.' 
 
 * And how about Kate V 
 
 ' The devil take her ! and then he'd have a bargain. I wish 
 you'd never dropped across her, and that she wasn't Jeanie's 
 sister,' blurts out Jim. ' Sliell bring bad luck among us before 
 she's done, I fe^l, as sure as we're standing here.' 
 
 ' It's all a toss up — Like our lives ; married or lagged, bush- 
 work or roadwork (in irons), free or bond. We can't tell how 
 it will be with us this day year.' 
 
 * I've half a mind to shoot myself,' says Jim, ' and end it all. 
 I would, t-oo, only for mother and Aileen. What's the use of 
 life that isn't life, but fear and misei-y, from one day's end to 
 another, and we only just grown up 1 It's d — d hard that a 
 chap's brains don't grow along with his legs and arms.' 
 
 We didn't ride home till quite the evening. Grace would 
 have us staj' for tea ; it was a pretty hot day, so there was no 
 use riding m the sun. (George ■i-^.ddlod his horse, and he and 
 
106 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap, y 
 
 Grace rode part of the way home with us. He'd got regular 
 sunburnt like us, and, as he could ride a bit, like most natives, 
 he looked better outside of a horse than on his own leers, being 
 rather thick-set and shortish ; but his heart was in tlie right 
 place, like his sister's, and his head was screwed on right, too. 
 I think more of old George now than I ever did before, and 
 wish I'd had the sense to value his independent straight-ahead 
 nature, and the track it led him, as he deserved. 
 
 Jim and I rode in front, with Gracey between us. She had 
 on a neat habit and a better hat and gloves than Aileen, but 
 nothing could ever give her the seat and hand and light, easy, 
 graceful way with her in the saddle that our girl had. All the 
 same she could ride and drive too, and as we rode side by side 
 in the twilight, talking about the places I'd been to, and she 
 wanting to know everything (Jim drew off a bit when the road 
 got narrow), I felt what a fool I'd been to let things slide, and 
 would have given my right hand to have been able to put them 
 as they were three short years before. 
 
 At last we got to the Gap ; it was the shortest halt from their 
 home. George shook hands with Aileen, and turned back. 
 
 ' Well come and see you next ' he said. 
 
 ' Christmas Eve ! ' said Aileen. 
 
 ' Christmas Eve let it be,' says George. 
 
 ' All right ' I said, holding Grace's hand for a bit. And so we 
 parted — for now long, do you think > 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 When we got home it was i)retty late, and the air was beginning 
 to cool after the hot day. There was a low moon, and every- 
 thing showed out clear, so that you could see the smallest 
 branches of the trees on Nulla Mountain, where it stood like a 
 dark cloud-bank against the western sky. There wasn't the 
 smallest breeze. The air was that still and quiet you could 
 have heard anything stir in the grass, or almost a 'possum 
 digging his claws into the smooth bark of the white gum trees. 
 The curlews set up a cry from time to time ; but they didn't 
 sound so queer and shrill as they mostly do at night. I don't 
 know how it was, but everything seemed quiet and pleasant and 
 
 particular 
 
 felt like it for years, and I never had the same feeling afterwards 
 — nor likely to. 
 
 ' Oh ! what a happy day I've had,' Aileen said, on a sudden. 
 Jim and I and her had been riding a long spell without speak- 
 ing. 'I don't know when I've enjoyed myself so much- I've 
 got quite out of the way of being happy lately, and hardly know 
 the taste of it. How lovely it would be if you and Jim could 
 always stay at home like this, and we could do our work happy 
 and comfortable together, without separating, and all this 
 deadly fear of something terrible happening, that's never out of 
 ray mind. Oh ! Dickj won't you promise me to stop quiet and 
 work steady at home, if you — if you and Jim haven't anything 
 brought against you ? ' 
 
 She bent forward and looked into my face as she said this. 
 I could see her eyes shine, and every word she said seemed to 
 come straight from her heart. How sad and pitiful she looked, 
 and we felt for a moment just as we did when we were boys, 
 and she used to come and persuade us to go on with our work 
 and not grieve mother, and run the risk of a licking from father 
 when he came home. 
 
 Her mare, Lowan, was close alongside of my horse, stepping 
 pJong at her fast tearing walk, tlirowing up her head and snort- 
 
108 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 ing every now and then, but Aileen sat in her saddle better 
 than some people can sit in a chair ; she held the rein and whip 
 together and kept her hand on mine till I spoke. 
 
 ' We'll do all we can, Aileen dear, for you and poor mother, 
 won't we, Jim ? ' I felt soft and down-hearted then, if ever I did. 
 * But it's too late— too late 1 You'll see us now and then ; but we 
 can't stop at home quiet, nor work about here all the time as we 
 used to do. That day's gone. Jim knows it as well as me. 
 There's no help for it now. We'll have to do like the rest — 
 enjoy ourselves a bit while we can, and stand up to our fight 
 when the trouble comes.' 
 
 She took her hand away, and rode on with her rein loose and 
 her head dovm. I could see the tears falling down her face, but 
 after a bit she put herself to rights, and we rode quietly up to 
 the door. Mother was working away in her chair, and father 
 walking up and down before the door smoking. 
 
 When we were letting go the horses, father comes up and 
 says — 
 
 ' I've got a bit of news for you, boys ; Starlight's been took, 
 and the darkie with him.' 
 
 'Where?' I said. Somehow I felt struck all of a heap by 
 hearing this. I'd got out of the way of thinking they'd drop on 
 him. As for Jim, he heard it straight enough, but he went on 
 whistling and patting the mare's neck, teasing her like, because 
 she was so uneasy to get her head-stall off and run after the 
 others. 
 
 'Why, in New Zealand, to be sure. The blamed fool stuck 
 there all this time, just because he found himself comfortably 
 situated among people as he liked. I wonder how hell fancy 
 Berrima after it aU ? Sarves him well right.' 
 
 ' But how did you come to hear about it ? ' We knew father 
 couldn't read nor write. 
 
 'I have a chap as is paid to read the papers reg'lar, and to 
 put me on when there's anything in 'em as I want to know. 
 He's been over here to-day and give me the office. Here's the 
 paper he left.' 
 
 Father pulls out a crumpled-up dirty-lookin' bit of news- 
 paper. It wasn't much to look at ; but there was enough to 
 keep us in readin', and thinkin', too, for a good while, as soon 
 Ets we made it out. In pretty big letters, too. 
 
 IMPORTANT CAPTURE BY DETECTIYE STILLBROOK, OF THE 
 
 NEW SOUTH WALES POLICE. 
 That was atop of the page, then comes this : — 
 
 Our readers may remember the description giver in this jonrnal, some 
 months since, of a cattle robbery on the largest Bcale, when upwards of a 
 thousand head were stolen from one of Mr. Hood's stations, driven to 
 Adelaide, and then sold, by a party of men whose names have not as yet 
 transpired. It is satisfactory to find that the Irt&der of the gang, 
 who b weh kiiown to the police bv the aaiumed came of 'SUrli^ht./ 
 
XVJ ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 109 
 
 with a half-ca«te lad recognised aa an accomplice, has been arrested by 
 this active officer. It appears that, from information received, Detective 
 Stillbrook ^ent to New Zealand, and, after several months' patient search, 
 took his passage in the boat which left that colony, in order to meet the 
 mail eteamer, outward bound, for San Francisco. As the passengers were 
 landing he arreuted a gentlemanlike and well-dressed personage, who, 
 with his servant, was about to proceed to Menzies's Hotel Considerable 
 surprise was manifested by the other passengers, with whom the prisoner 
 had become universally popular. He indignantly denied all knowledge of 
 the charge ; but we have reason to believe that there will be no difficulty 
 as to identification. A large sum of money in gold and notes was found 
 upon him. Other arrests are likely to follow. 
 
 This looked bad ; for a bit we didn't know what to think. 
 While Jim and I was makin' it all out, with the help of a bit of 
 candle we smuggled out — we dursn't take it inside — father was 
 smokin' his pipe — in the old fashion — and saying nothing. When 
 we'd done he put up his jpipe in his pouch and begins to talk. 
 
 'It's come just as I said, and knowed it would, through Star- 
 light's cussed flashness and carryin's on in fine company. If 
 he'd cleared out and made Tor the Islands as I warned him to 
 do, and he settled to, or as good, afore he left us that day at the 
 camp, he'd been safe in some o' them 'Merikin places he was 
 always gassin' about, and all this wouldn't 'a happened.' 
 
 ' He couldn't help that,' says Jim • 'he thought they'd never 
 know him from any other swell in Canterbury or wherever he 
 was. He's been took in like many another man. Wtat I look 
 at is this : he won't squeak. How are they to find out that we 
 had any hand in it ? ' 
 
 * That's what I'm dubersome about,' says father, lightin' his 
 pipe again. * Nobody down there got much of a Iook at me, and 
 I let my beard grow on the road and shaved clean soon's I got 
 back, same as I always do. Now the thing is, does any one know 
 that you boys was in the fakement ? ' 
 
 * Nobody s likely to know but him and Warrigal. The knock- 
 abouts and those other three chaps won't come it on us for their 
 own sakes. We may as well stop here till Christmas is over and 
 then make down to the Barwon, or somewhere thereabouts. 
 We could take a long job at droving till the derry's off a bit.' 
 
 ' If you'll be said by me,' the old man growls out, ' you'll make 
 tracks for the Hollow afore daylight and keep dark till we hear 
 how the play goes. I know Starlight's as close as a spring-lock ; 
 but that chap Warrigal don't cotton to either of you, and he's 
 likely to give you away if he's pinched himself — that's my notion 
 of him.' 
 
 'Starlight '11 keep him from doing that,' Jim says; 'the 
 boy "11 do nothing his master don't agree to, and he'd break his 
 neck if he foniid him out in any dog's trick like that.' 
 
 ' Starlight and he ain't in the same cell, you take your oath. 
 I don't trust no man except him. I'll be off now, and if you'll 
 take a fool's advice, though he is your father, youll go too ; we 
 can be there by daylight. 
 
ilO ROBBSIRY TINDER ARMS ohap 
 
 Jim and I looked at each other. 
 
 'We promised to stay Chris'mas with mother and Aileen,' 
 says he, * and if all the devils in hell tried to stop us, I wouldn't 
 break my word. But well come to the Hollow on Boxing Day, 
 won't we, Dick ? ' 
 
 * All right ! It's onlv two or three days. The day after to- 
 morrow's Chris'mas Eve. We'll chance that, as it's gone so 
 far.' 
 
 ' Take your own way,' growls father. ' Fetch me my saddle. 
 The old mare's close by the yard.' 
 
 Jim fetches the saddle and bridle, and Crib comes after him, 
 out of the verandah, where he had been lying. Bless you ! he 
 knew something was up. Just like a Christian he was, and 
 nothing never happened that dad was in as he wasn't down to. 
 
 ' May as well stop till morning, dad,' says Jim, as we walked 
 up to the yard. 
 
 'Not another minute,' says the old man, and he whips the 
 bridle out of Jim's hand and walks over to the old mare. She 
 lifts up her head from the dry grass and stands as steady as a 
 rock. 
 
 ' Good-bye,' he says, and he shook hands with both of us ; 'if 
 I don't see you again I'll send you word if I hear anything 
 fresh.' 
 
 In another minute we heard the old mare's hoofs proceeding 
 away among the rocks up the gully, and gradually getting 
 fainter in the distance. 
 
 Then we went in. Mother and Aileen had been in bed an 
 hour ago, and all the better for them. Next morning we told 
 mother and Aileen that father had gone. They didn't say much. 
 They were used to his ways. They never expected him till 
 they saw him, and had got out of the fashion of asking why he 
 did this or that. He had reasons of his own, which he never 
 told them, for going or coming, and they'd left off troubling 
 their heads about it. Mother was always in dread while he was 
 there, and they were far easier in their minds when he was away 
 off the place. 
 
 As for us, we had made up our minds to enjoy ourselves 
 while we could, and we had come to his way of thinking, that 
 most likely nothing was known of our being in the cattle affair 
 that Starlight and the boy had been arrested for. We knew 
 nothing would drag it out of Starlight about his pals in this or 
 any other job. Now they'd got him, it would content them for 
 a bit, and maybe take off their attention from us and the others 
 that were in it. 
 
 There were two days to Christmas, Next day George and 
 his sister would be over, and we ail looked forward to that for 
 a good reminder of old times. We were going to have a merry 
 Christmas at home for once in a way. After that we woula 
 clear out and get away to some of the far out stations, where 
 chains like our^v^ always made t-o when they wanted to keep 
 
XVI ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 111 
 
 dark. We might have the luck of other men that we had 
 known of, and never be traced till the whole thing had died out 
 and been half-forgotten. Though we didn't say much to each 
 other we had pretty well made up our minds to go straight from 
 this out. We might take up a bit of back country, and put 
 stock on it with some of the money we had left. Lots of men 
 had begun that way that had things against them as bad as us, 
 and had kept steady, and worked through in course of time. 
 Why shouldn't we as well as others ? We wanted to see what 
 the papers said of us, so we rode over to a little post town we 
 knew of and got a copy of the Evening Tijnes. There it all was 
 in fuU :- 
 
 CATTLE-LIFTING EXTRAORDINARY. 
 
 We have heard from time to time of cattle being stolen in lota of 
 reasonable size, say from ten to one hundred, or even as high as two 
 hundred head at the outside. But we never expected to have to record 
 the erecting of a substantial stockyard and the carrying off and disposing 
 of a whole herd, estimated at a thousand or eleven hundred head, chiefly 
 the property of one proprietor. Yet this has been done in New South 
 Wales, and done, we regret to say, cleverly and successfully. It has just 
 transpired, beyond all possibility of mistake, that Mr. Hood's Out^r Back 
 Momberah run has suffered to that extent in the past w-inter. The stolen 
 herd was driven to Adelaide, and there sold openly. The money waa 
 received by the robbers, who were permitted to decamp at their leisure. 
 
 When we mention the name of the notorious ' Starlight,' no one will 
 be surprised that the deed was planned, carried out, and executed with 
 consummat* address and completeness. It seems matter of regret that 
 we cannot persuade this illustrious depredator to take the command of 
 our pohce force, that body of life-assurers and property-protectors which 
 has proved so singularly ineffective as a preventive service in the present 
 case. On the well-known proverbial principle we mieht hope for the best 
 results under Mr. Starlight's intelligent superrision. We must not vrithhold 
 onr approval as to one item of success which the force has scored. Star- 
 light himself and a half-caste henchman have been cleverly captured by 
 Detective Stillbrook, just as the former, who has been ruffling it among 
 the •aristocratic' settlers of Christchurch, was about to sail for Hono- 
 lulu. The names of his other accomplices, six in number, it is said, have 
 not aa yet transpired. 
 
 This last part gave ua c»nfidence, but all the same we kept 
 everything ready for a bolt in case of need We got up our 
 horses every evening and kept them in the yard all night The 
 toed was good by the creek now — a little dried i:p but plenty of 
 bite, and better' for horses that had been ridden far and fast 
 than if it was green. We had enough of last year's hay to give 
 them a feed at night, and that was all they wanted They were 
 two pretty good ones and not slow either. We took care of 
 that when we bought them. Nobody ever saw^ us on bad ones 
 since we were boys, and we had broken them in to stand and 
 be caught day or night, and to let us jump on and off at s 
 moment's notice. 
 
112 EOBBEKY tnn)ER A?;MS chat. 
 
 All that day, being awful hot and close, we stayed in the 
 house and yarned away with mother and Aileen till they 
 thought — poor souls — that we had turned over a new leaf and 
 were going to stay at home and be good boys for the future. 
 When a man sees how little it takes to make women happy — 
 them that's good and never thinks of anything but doing their 
 best for everybody belonging to 'em — its wonderful how men 
 ever make up their minds to go wrong and bring all that lovea 
 them to shame and grief. When they've got nobody but them- 
 selves to think of it don't so much matter as I know of ; but to 
 keep on breaking the hearts of those as never did you anything 
 but good, and wouldn't if they lived for a hundred years, is 
 cowardly and unmanly any way you look at it. And yet we'd 
 done very little else ourselves these years and years. 
 
 We all sat up till nigh on to midnight with our hands in one 
 another's — Jim down at mother's feet ; Aileen and I close beside 
 them on the old seat in the verandah that father made such a 
 time ago. At last mother gets up, and they both started for 
 bed. Aileen seemed as if she couldn't tear herself away. Twice 
 she came back, then she kissed us both, and the tears came into 
 her eyes. * I feel too happy,' she said ; ' I never thought I 
 should feel like this again. God bless you both, and keep us all 
 from harm.' 'Amen,' said mother from the next room. We 
 turned out early, and had a bathe in the creek before we went 
 up to the yard to let out the horses. There wasn't a cloud in 
 the sky ; it was safe to be a roasting hot day, but it was cool 
 then. The little waterhole where we learned to swim when we 
 were boys was deep on one side and had a rocky ledge to jump 
 oK The birds just began to give out a note or two ; the sun 
 was rising clear and bright, and we could see the dark top of 
 Nulla Mountain getting a sort of rose colour against thejiky.^ 
 
 ' George and Gracey 11 be over soon after breakfast,' i said , 
 *we must have everything look ship-shape as well as we can 
 before they turn up.' 
 
 ' The horses may as well go down to the flat,' Jim says ; ' we 
 can catch them easy enough in time to ride back part of the 
 way with them. I'll run up Lowan, and give her a bit of hay 
 in the calf- pen.' 
 
 We went over to the yard, and Jim let down the rails and 
 walked in. I stopped outside. Jim had his horse by the mane, 
 and was patting his neck as mine came out, when three police 
 troopers rose up from behind the bushes, and covering us with 
 their rifles called out, ' Stand, in the Queen's name ! ' 
 
 Jim made one spring on to his horse's back, drove his heels 
 into his flank, and was out through the gate and half-way down 
 the hill before you could wink. 
 
 Just as Jim "cleared the gate a tall man rose up close^ behind 
 me and took a cool pot at hiir. with a revolver. I saw Jim's hat 
 fly off, and another bullet grazed his horse's hip. I saw the 
 hair fly, and the horse make a plunge that would have unseat^i 
 
£vi ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 118 
 
 moat men with no saddle between their legs. But Jim sat close 
 and steady and only threw up his arm and gave a shout as the 
 old horse tore down the hill a few miles an hour faster. 
 
 * D — n those cartridges,' said the tall trooper ; ' they always 
 put too much powder in them for close shooting. Now, Dick 
 Marston ! ' he went on, putting his revolver to my head, ' I'd 
 rather not blow your brains out before your people, but if you 
 
 don't put up your hands by 111 shoot you where you 
 
 stand. I had been staring after Jim all the time ; I believe I 
 had never thought of myself till he was safe away. 
 
 'Gret your horses, you d — d fools,' he shouts out to the 
 men, 'and see if you can follow up that madman. He's most 
 likely knocked off against a tree by this time.' 
 
 There was nothing else for it but to do it and be handcuffed. 
 As the steel locks snapped I saw mother standing below wring- 
 ing her hands, and Aileen trying to get her into the house. 
 
 'Better come down and get your coat on, Dick,' said the 
 senior constable. ' We want to search the place, too. By 
 Jove ! we shall get pepper from Sir Ferdinand when we go in. 
 I thought we had you both as safe as chickens in a coop. Who 
 would have thought of Jim givon' us the slip, on a barebacked 
 horse, without so much as a halter? I'm devilish sorry for 
 your family ; but if nothing less than a thousand head of cattle 
 will satisfy people, they must expect trouble to come of it.' 
 
 ' What are you talking about ? I said. ' You've got the wrong 
 story and the wrong men.' 
 
 ' AU right ; we'll see about that. I don't know whether yoit 
 want any breakfast, but I should like a cup of tea. It's deucet] 
 slow work watching all night, though it isn't cold. We've got 
 to be in Bargo barracks to-night, so there's no time to lose.' 
 
 It was all over now — the worst had come. What fools we 
 had been not to take the old man's adWce, and clear out when 
 he did. He was safe in the Hollow, and would chuckle to 
 himself — and be sorry, too — when he heard of my being taken, 
 and perhaps Jim. The odds were he might be smashed against 
 a tree, perhaps killed, at the pace he was going on a horse he 
 could not guide. 
 
 They searched the house, but the money they didn't get. Jim 
 and I had taken care of that, in case of accidents. Mother sat 
 rocking herself backwards and forwards, every now and then 
 crying out in a pitiful way, like the women in her country do, 
 I've heard tell, when some one of their people is dead : 
 ' keening,' I think they call it. Well, Jim and I were as good 
 as dead. If the troopers hafl shot the pair of us there and then, 
 same as bushmen told us the black police did their prisoners 
 when they gave 'em any trouble, it would have been better for 
 everybody. However, people don't die all at once when they 
 go to the bad, and take to stealing or drinking, or any of the 
 devil's favourite traps. Pity they don't, and have done with it 
 orioe and for all. 
 
114 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. xn 
 
 I know I thought so when 1 was forced to stand there with 
 my hands chained together for the first time in my life (though 
 I'd worked for it, I know that) ; and to see Aileen walking 
 about laying the cloth for breakfast like a dead woman, and 
 know what was in her mind. 
 
 The troopers were civil enough, and Goring, the senior 
 constable, tried to comfort them as much as he could. He knew 
 it was no fault of theirs : and though he said he meant to have 
 Jim if mortal men and norses could do it he thought he had a 
 fair chance of getting away. 'He's sure to be caught in the 
 long-run, though,' he went on to say. ' There's a warrant out 
 for him, and a description in every Police Gazette in the colonies. 
 My advice to him would be to come back and give himself up. 
 It's not a hanging matter, and as it's the first time you've been 
 fitted, Dick, the judge, as like as not, will let you off with a 
 light sentence.' 
 
 So they talked away until they had finished their breakfast. 
 I couldn't touch a mouthful for the life of me, and as soon as it 
 was all over they ran up my horse and put the saddle on. But 
 I wasn't to ride him. No fear ! Goring put me on an old screw 
 of a troop horse, with one leg like a gate-post. I was helped 
 up and my legs tied under his belly. Tnen one of the men took 
 the bridle and led me away. Goring rode in front and the other 
 men behind. 
 
 As we rose the hill above the place I looked back and saw 
 mother drop down on the ground in a kind of fit, while Aileen 
 bent over her and seemed to be loosening her dress. Just at 
 that moment George Storefield and his sister rode up to the 
 door. George jumped off and rushed over to Aileen and mother. 
 I knew Gracey had seen me, for she sat on her horse as if she 
 had been turned to stone, and let her reins drop on his neck. 
 Strange things have happened to me since, but I shall never 
 forget that to the last day of my miserable life. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 i wasn't in the humour for talking, but sometimes anything's 
 better than one's own thoughts. Goring threw in a word from 
 time to time. He'd only lately come into our district, and was 
 sure to be promoted, everybody said. Like Starlight himself, 
 he'd seen better days at home in England ; but when he ^ot 
 pinched he'd taken the right turn and not the wrong one, which 
 makes all the difference. He was earning his bread honest, 
 anyway, and he was a chap as liked the fun and dash of a 
 mounted policeman's life. As for the risk— and there is some 
 danger, more than people thinks, now and then — he liked that 
 the best of it. He was put out at losing Jim ; but he believed 
 he couldn't escape, and told me so in a friendly way. 'He's 
 inside a circle and he can't get away, you mark my words,' he 
 said, two or three times. * We have every police station warned 
 by wire, within a hundred miles of here, three days ago. 
 There's not a man in the colony sharper looked after than 
 Master Jim is this minute.' 
 
 ' Then you only heard about us three days ago i ' I 
 said. 
 
 * That's as it may be ' he answered, biting his lip. ' Anyhow, 
 there isn't a shepherd s liut within miles that he can get to 
 without our kno^ving it. The country's rough, but there's word 
 gone for a black tracker to go down. You'll see him in Bargo 
 before the week's out.' 
 
 I had a good guess where Jim would make for, and he knew 
 enough to hide his tracks for the last few miles if there was a 
 whole tribe of trackers after him. 
 
 That night we rode into Bargo. A long day too we'd had — 
 we were all tired enough when we got in. I was locked up, of 
 course, and as soon as we were in the cell Goring said, ' Listen 
 to me,' and put on his official face — devilish stern and hard- 
 looking he was then, in spite of all the talking and nonsense 
 we'd had coming along. 
 
 'Richard Marston, I charge you with unlawfully taking, 
 stealing, and carrying away, in company with others, one 
 thousand head of mixed cattle, more or less the property of 
 
116 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chaj'. 
 
 one Walter Hood, of Outer Back, Momberah, in or about the 
 month of June last.' 
 
 * All right ; why don't you make it a few more while you're 
 about it ?^ 
 
 ' That'll do,' he said, nodding hia head, ' you decline to say 
 anything. Well, I can't exactly wish you a merry Christmas — 
 fancy tms being Christmas Eve, by Jove ! — but youll be cool 
 enough this deuced hot weather till the sessions in February, 
 which is more than some of us can say. Gk)od-night.' He went 
 out and locked the door. I sat down on mv blanket on the 
 floor and hid my head in my hands. I wonder it didn't burst 
 with what I felt then. Strange that I shouldn't have felt half 
 as bad when the judge, the other day, sentenced me to be a 
 dead man in a couple of months. But I was young then. 
 
 Christmas Day ! Christmas Day ! So this is how I was to 
 spend it after all, I thought, as I woke up at dawn, and saw the 
 gray light just beginning to get through the bars of the window 
 of the celL 
 
 Here was I locked up, caged, ironed, disgraced, a felon and 
 an outcast for the rest of my life. Jim, flying for his life, hiding 
 from every honest man, every policeman in the country looking 
 after him, and authorised to catch him or shoot him down like 
 a sheep-killing dog. Father living in the Hollow, like a black- 
 fellow in a cave, s^raid to spend the blessed Christmas with his 
 wife and daughter, like the poorest man in the land could do if 
 he was only honest. Mother half dead with grief, and Aileen 
 ashamed to speak to the man that loved and respected her from 
 her childhood. Gracey Storefield not daring to think of me or 
 say my name, after seeing me carried off a prisoner before her 
 eyes. Here was a load of misery and disgrace heaped up 
 together, to be borne by the whole family, now and for the time 
 to come — by the innocent as well as the guilty. And for what ? 
 Because we had been too idle and careless to work regularly 
 and save our money, though well able to do it, like honest men. 
 Because, little by little, we had let bad dishonest ways and 
 flash manners grow upon us, all running up an account that 
 had to be paid some day. 
 
 And now the day of reckoning had come — sharp and sudden 
 with a vengeance ! Well, what^ call had we to look for any- 
 thing else ? We had been working for it ; now we had got it, 
 and had to bear it. Not for want of warning, neither. What 
 had mother and Aileen been saying ever since we could remem- 
 ber ? Warning upon warning. Now the end had come just as 
 they said. Of course I knew in a general way that I couldn't 
 be punished or be done anything to right off. I knew law 
 enough for that. The next thing would be that I should have 
 to be brought up before the magistrates and committed for trial 
 as soon as they could get any evidence. 
 
 After breakfast, flour and water or hominy, I forget which, 
 
XVII EOBBEKY UNDER ARMS 117 
 
 the warder told me that there wasn't much chance of my being 
 brought up before Christmas was over. The police magistrate 
 was away on a month's leave, and the other magistrates would 
 not be likely to attend before the end of the week, anyway. Sc 
 I must make myself comfortable T^^here I was. Comfortable ! 
 
 ' Had they caught Jim I ' 
 
 'Well, not that he'd heard of ; but Goring said it was im- 
 possible for him to get away. At twelve he d bring me some 
 dinner.' 
 
 I was pretty certain they wouldn't catch Jim, in spite of 
 Goring being so cocksure about it. If he wasn't knocked off 
 the first mile or so, he'd find ways of stopping or steadying his 
 horse, and facing him up to where we had gone to join father at 
 the tableland of the Nulla Mountain. Once he got near there 
 he could let go his horse. They'd be following his track, while 
 ho made the best of his way on foot to the path that led to the 
 Hollow. If he had five miles' start of them there, as was most 
 likely, all the blacks in the country would never track where he 
 got to. He and father could live there for a month or so^ and 
 take it easy until they could slip out and do a bit of father s old 
 trade. That was about what I expected Jim to do, and as it 
 turned out I was as nearly right as could be. They ran his 
 track for ten miles. Then they followed his horse-tracks till 
 late the second day, and found that the horse had slued round 
 and was making for home again with nobody on him. Jim was 
 nowhere to be seen, and they'd lost all that time, never expect- 
 ing that he was going to dismount and leave the horse to go his 
 own way. 
 
 They searched Nulla Mountain from top to bottom; but 
 some of the smartest men of the old Mounted Police and the 
 best of the stockmen in the old days— men not easy to beat- 
 had tried the same country many years before, and never found 
 the path to the Hollow. So it wasn't likely any one else would. 
 They had to come back and own that they were beat, which 
 put Goring in a rage and made the inspector, Sir Ferdinand 
 Morringer, blow them all up for a lot of duffers and old women. 
 Altogether they had a bad time of it, not that it made any 
 difference to me. 
 
 Aft€r the holidays a magistrate was fished up somehow, and 
 I was brought before him and the apprehending constable's 
 evidence taken. Then I was remanded to the Bench at Nomah, 
 where Mr. Hood and some of the other witnesses were to appear. 
 So away we started for another journey. Goring and a trooper 
 went with me, and all sorts of care was taken that I didn't give 
 them the slip on the road. Goring used to put one of my hand- 
 cuffs on his own wrist at night, so there wasn't much chance of 
 moving without waking him. I had an old horse to ride that 
 couldn't go much faster than I could run, for fear of accident 
 It was even betting that he'd fall and kill me on the road. If 
 Td had a laugh in me, I should b?^vft bad a joke against the 
 
118 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 Police Department for not keeping safer horses for their 
 prisoners to ride. They keep them till they haven't a leg to 
 stand upon, and long after they can't go a hundred yards with- 
 out trying to walk on their heads they re thought good enough 
 to carry packs and prisoners. 
 
 ' Some day,' Gk)ring said, * one of those old screws will be the 
 death of a prisoner before he's committed for trial, and then 
 there'll be a row over it, I suppose.' 
 
 We hadn't a bad journey of it on the whole. The troopers 
 were civil enough, and gave me a glass of grog now and then 
 when they had one themselves. They'd done their duty in 
 catching me, and that was all they thought about. What came 
 afterwards wasn't their look-out. I've no call to have any bad 
 feeling against the police, and I don't think most men of my sort 
 have. They've got their work to do, like other people, and as 
 long as they do what they're paid for, and don't go out of their 
 way to harass men for spite, we don't bear them any malice. If 
 one's hit in fair fight it's the fortune of war. TVTiat our side 
 don't like is men going in for police duty that's not in their line. 
 That's interfering, according to our notions, and if they fall into 
 a trap or are met with when they don't expect it they get it 
 pretty hot. They've only themselves to thank for it. 
 
 Goring, I could see by his ways, had been a swell, something 
 like Starlight. A good many young fellows that don't drop into 
 fortunes when they come out here take to the police in Australia, 
 and very good men they make. They like the half -soldiering 
 kind of life, and if they stick steady at their work, and show 
 pluck and gumption, they mostly get promoted. Goring was a 
 real smart, dashing chap, a good rider for an Englishman ; that 
 is, he could set most horses, and hold his own with us natives 
 anywhere but through scrub and mountain country. No man 
 can ride there, I don't care who he is, the same as we can, unless 
 he's been at it all his life. There we have the pull — not that it 
 is so much after all. But give a native a good horse and thick 
 country, and he'll lose any man Kving that's tackled the work 
 after he's grown up. 
 
 By and by we got to Nomah, a regular hot hole of a place, 
 with a log lock-up. I was stuck in, of course, and had leg-irons 
 put on for fear X should get out, as another fellow had done a 
 few weeks back. Starlight and Warrigal hadn't reached yet ; 
 they had farther to come. The trial couldn't come till the 
 Quarter Sessions. January, and February too, passed over, 
 and all this time I was mewed up in a bit of a jAaxie enough to 
 stifle a man in the burning weather we had. 
 
 I heard afterwards that they wanted to bring some of the 
 cattle over, so as Mr. Hood coidd swear to 'em being his pro- 
 perty. But he said he could only swear to its being his brand : 
 that he most likely had never set eyes on them in his life, ana 
 couldn't swear on his own knowie^ig© that they hadn't been 
 Gcld. like lots of 0tL<irs, by his* manager, bo tiuA looked like 
 
xvu ROBBERY UNDER ARMS US 
 
 a, hitch, as juries won't bring a man in guilty of cattle-stealing 
 unless there's clear swearing that the animals he sold were the 
 property of the prosecutor, and known by him to be such, 
 
 j^r. Hood had to go all the way to Adelaide himself, and 
 they told me we might likely have got out of it all, only for 
 the imported bull. When he saw him he said he could swear to 
 him point blank, brand or no brand. He'd no brand on him, of 
 course, when he left England ; but Hood happened to be in 
 Sydney when he came out, and at the station when he came up. 
 He was stabled for the first six months, so he used to go and 
 look him over every day, and tell visitors what a pot of money 
 he'd cost, till he knew every hair in his ta,il, as the saying is. 
 As soon as he seen him in Adelaide he said he could swear to 
 him as positive as he could to his favourite riding horse. So he 
 was brought over in a steamer from Adelaide, and then drove 
 all the way up to Nomah. I wished he'd broken his neck before 
 we ever saw him. 
 
 Next thing I saw was Starlight being brought in, hand- 
 cuffed, between two troopers, ana looking as if he'd ridden a 
 long way. He was just as easy-going and devil-may-care as ever. 
 He said to one of the troopers — 
 
 * Here we are at last, and I'm deuced glad of it. It's perfectly 
 monstrous you fellows haven't better norses. You ought to 
 make me remount agent, and I'd show you the sort of horses 
 tliat ought to be bought for police service. Let me have a glass 
 of beer, that's a good fellow, before I'm locked up. I suppose 
 there's no tap worth speaking of inside.' 
 
 The constable laughed, and had one brought to him. 
 
 ' It will be some time before you get another, captain. Here's 
 1 long one for you ; make the most of it.' 
 
 "Where, in the devil's name, is that Warrigal 1 I thought to 
 myself. Has he given them the slip 1 He had, as it turned out. 
 He had slipped the handcuffs over his slight wrists and small 
 hands, bidea his time, and then dashed into a scrub. There he 
 was at home. They rode and rode, but Warrigal was gone like 
 a rock wallaby. It was a good while before he was as near the 
 gaol again. 
 
 All this time Vd been wondering how it was they came to 
 drop on our names so pat, and to find out that Jim and I had a 
 share in the Jilomberah cattle racket. All they could have 
 known was that we left the back of Boree at a certain day ; and 
 that was nothing, seeing that for all they knew we might have 
 gone away to new country or anywhere. The more I looked at 
 it the more I felt sure that some one had given to the police 
 information about us — somebody who was in it and knew all 
 about everything. It wasn't Starlight. We could have depended 
 our life on him. It might have been one of the other chaps, but 
 I couldn't think of any one, except Warrigal He would do any- 
 thing in the world to spit« me and Jim, I knew ; but then he 
 couldn't hurt us without drawing the net tighter round Star- 
 
120 KOBBERY UNDER ARMS onAi. 
 
 light. Sooner than hurt a hair of his head he'd have pnt hia 
 hand into the fire and kept it there. I knew that from things 
 I'd seen him do. 
 
 Starlight and I hadn't much chance of a talk, but we managed 
 to get news from each other, a bit at a time ; that can always 
 be managed. We were to be defended, and a lawyer fetched aU 
 the way from Sydney to fight our case for us. The money was 
 there. Father managed the other part of it through people he 
 had that did every kind of work for him ; so when the judge 
 came up we should have a show for it. 
 
 The weary long summer days — every one of them about 
 twenty hours long — came to an end somehow or other. It 
 was so hot and close and I was that miserable I had two 
 minds to knock my brains out and finish the whole thing. I 
 couldn't settle to read, as I did afterwards. I was always 
 wishing and wondering when I'd hear some news from home, 
 and none ever came. Nomah was a bit of a place where hardly 
 anybody did anything but idle and drink, and spend money 
 when they had it. When they had none they went away. 
 There wasn't even a place to take exercise in, and the leg-irons 
 I wore night and day began to eat into my flesh. I wasn't 
 used to them in those days. I could feel them in my heart, too. 
 Last of all I got ill, and for a while was so weak and low they 
 thought I was going to get out of the trial altogether. 
 
 At last we heard that the judge and all his lot were on the 
 road, and would be up in a few days. We were almost as glad 
 when the news came as if we were sure of being let ofi". One 
 day they did come, and all the Little town was turned upside 
 down. The judge stopped at one hotel (they told us) ; the 
 lawyers at another. Then the witnesses in ours and other 
 cases came in from all parts, and made a great difference, 
 especially to the publicans. The jurors were summoned, and 
 had to come, unless they had a fancy for being fined. Most of 
 this I heard from the constables ; they seemed to think it was 
 the only thing that made any difference in their lives. Last of 
 all I heard that Mr. Hood had come, and the imported bull, and 
 some other witnesses. 
 
 There were some small cases first, and then we were brought 
 out, Starlight and I, and put in the dock. The court was 
 crammed and crowded ; every soul within a hundred miles 
 seemed to have come in ; there never were so many people in 
 the little courthouse before. Starlight was quietly dressed, and 
 looked as if he was there by mistake. Anybody would have 
 thought so, the way he lounged and stared about, as if he 
 thought there was something very curious and hard to under- 
 stand about the whole thing. I was so weak and ill that I 
 couldn't stand up, and aft«r a while the judge told me to eit 
 down, and Starlight too. Starlight made a most polite bow, 
 and thanked his Honour, as he called him. Then the jury were 
 called up, and our lawyer began his work. He stood alongside 
 
x:yu KOBBESY UNDEK ASMS 121 
 
 of Starlight, and whispered something to him, after vrhich Star- 
 light stood up, and about every second man called out 'Chal- 
 lenge' ; then that juror had to go do\m. It took a good while 
 to get our jury all together. Our lawyer seemed very particular 
 about the sort of jury he was satisfied with ; and when they did 
 manage to get twelve at last they were not the best-looking 
 men in the court by a very long way. 
 
 The trial had to go on, and then the Crown Prosecutor made 
 a speech, in which he talked about the dishonesty which was 
 creeping unche<)ked over the land, and the atrocious villainy 
 of criminals who took a thousand head of cattle in one lot, and 
 made out the country was sure to go to destruction if we were 
 not convicted. He said that unfortunately thev were not in a 
 position to bring many of the cattle back that had l^een taken 
 to another colony ; but one remarkable animal was as good for 
 purposes of evidence as a hundred. Such an animal he would 
 produce, and he would not trespass on the patience of jurors 
 and gentlemen in attendance any longer, but call his fiist 
 witness. 
 
 John Dawson, sworn : Was head stockman and cattle manager 
 at ^Momberah ; knew the back country, and in a general way 
 the cattle running there ; was not out much in the winter ; the 
 ground was boggy, and the cattle were hardly ever mustered 
 till spring ; when he did go, with some other stock - riders, 
 he saw at once that a large number of the Momberah cattle, 
 branded HOD and other brands, were missing ; went to Ade- 
 laide a few months after ; saw a large number of cattle of the 
 HOD brand, which he was told had been sold by the prisoner 
 now before the court, and known as Starlight, and others, to 
 certain farmers ; he could swear that the cattle he saw bore Mr. 
 Hoods brand ; could not swear that he recognised them as 
 having been at Momberah in his charge ; believed so, but could 
 not swear it ; he had seen a shorthorn bull outside of the court 
 this morning ; he last saw the said bull at the station of Messrs. 
 Fordham Brothers, near Adelaide ; they made a communication 
 to him concerning the bull ; he would and could swear to the 
 identity of the animal with the Fifteenth Duke of Cambridge, an 
 imported short-horn bull, the property of Mr. Hood ; had seen 
 him before that at Momberah ; knew that Mr. Hood had bought 
 said bull in Sydney, and was at ^Momberah when he was sent 
 up ; could not possibly be mistaken ; when he saw the bull at 
 Momberah, nine montlis since, he had a small brand like H on 
 the shoulder ; Mr. Hood put it on in witness's presence ; it 
 was a horse-brand, now it resembled J-E ; the brand had been 
 'faked ' or cleverly altered ; witness could see the original brand 
 quite plain underneath ; a-s far as he knew Mr. Hood ne^'er sold 
 or gave any one authority to take the animal ; he had missed 
 him some months since, and always believed he had strayed : 
 knew the bull to be a valuable aniinal, worth several hundrea 
 J ounds. 
 
122 ROBBERY UKDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 We had one bit of luck in having to be tried in an out-of-the 
 way place like Nomah. It was a regular outside bush town- 
 ship, and though the distance oughtn't to have much to say to 
 people's honesty, youll mostly find that these far-out back-of- 
 beyond places have got men and women to match 'em. 
 
 Except the squatters and overseers, the other people's mostly 
 a shady lot. Some's run away from places that were too hot to 
 hold 'em. The women ain't the men's wives that they live with, 
 but somebody else's — who's well rid of 'em too if all was known. 
 There's most likely a bit of horse and cattle stealing done on 
 the quiet, and the publicans and storekeepers know who are 
 their best customers, the square people or the cross ones. It 
 ain't so easy to get a regular up-and-down straight-ahead jury 
 in a place of this sort. So Starlight and I knew that our chance 
 was a lot better than if we'd been tried at Bargo or Dutton 
 Forest, or any steady-going places of that sort. 
 
 If we'd made up our minds from the first that we were to get 
 into it it wouldn't have been so bad ; we'd have known we had 
 to bear it. Now we might get out of it, and what a thing it 
 would be to feel free again, and walk about in the sun without 
 any one having the right to stop you. Almost, that is — there 
 were other things against us • but there wasn't so much of a 
 chance of their turning up. This \7as the great stake. If we 
 won we were as good as made. I felt ready to swear I'd go 
 home and never touch a shilling that didn't come honest again. 
 If we lost it seemed as if everything was so much the worse, 
 and blacker than it looked at first, just for this bit of hope and 
 comfort. 
 
 After the bull had been sworn to bjr Mr. Hood and another 
 witness, they brought up some more evidence, as they called it, 
 about the other cattle we had sold in Adelaide. They had 
 fetched some of the farmers up that had been at the sale. They 
 swore straight enough to having bought cattle with certain 
 brands from Starlight. They didn't know, of course, at the 
 time whose they were, but they could describe the brands fast 
 enough. There was one fellow that couldn't read nor write, 
 but he remembered all the brands, about a dozen, in the pen of 
 steers he bought, and described them one by one. One brand, 
 he said, was like a long-handled shovel. It turned out to be mD. 
 TD — Tom Dawson's, of Mungeree. About a hundred of his 
 were in the mob. They had drawn back for Mungeree, as 
 was nearly all frontage and cold in the winter. He was the 
 worst witness for us of the lot, very near. He'd noticed every- 
 thing and forgot nothing. 
 
 * Do you recognise either of the prisoners in the dock ? ' he 
 was asked. 
 
 ^ *Yes : both of em,' says he. I wish I could have got at 
 him. ' 1 see the swell chap first — him as made out he was the 
 owner, and gammoned all the Adelaide gentlemen so neat 
 Thei:^ was a half-caste chap ^ith him as followed him about 
 
^n KOBBERY UNDER ARMS 128 
 
 every wliere ; then there was anotiier man as didn't talk much^ 
 but seemed, by letting dovrn sliprails and what not, to be in it. 
 I heard this Starlight, as he calls hisself now, say to him, " You 
 Ltave everything ready to break camp by ten o'clock, and 111 
 be there to-morrow and square up." I thought he meant to 
 pay their wages. I never dropped but what they was his 
 men — his hired servants — as he was going to pay off or 
 send back.' 
 
 * Will you swear,' our lawyer says, ' that the younger prisoner 
 is the man you saw at Adelaide with the cattle ? ' 
 
 'Yes ; I'll swear. I looked at him pretty sharp, and nothing 
 ain't likely to make me forget him. He's the man, and that VU 
 swear to.' 
 
 '"Were there not other people there with the cattle?* 
 
 ' Yes ; there was an oldish, very quiet, but determined-like 
 man — he had a stunnin' dorg with him — and a young man 
 something like this gentleman — I mean the prisoner. I didn't 
 see the other young man nor the half-caste in court' 
 
 ' That's all very well,' says our lawyer, very fierce ; ' but will 
 you swear, sir, that the prisoner Marston took any charge or 
 ownership of the cattle ? ' 
 
 ' No, I can't,' says the chap. ' I see him a drafting 'em in the 
 morning, and he seemed to know all the brands, and so on ■ 
 but he done no more than I've seen hired servants do over ana 
 over again.' 
 
 The other witnesses had done, when some one called out, 
 ' Herbert Falkland,' and Mr. Falkland steps into the court 
 He walks in quiet and a little proud ; he couldn't help feeling 
 iti, but he didn't show it in his ways and talk, as little as any 
 man I ever saw. 
 
 He's asked by the Crown Prosecutor if he's seen the bull 
 outside of the court this day. 
 
 ' Yes ; he has seen him.' 
 
 ' Has he ever seen him before 1 ' 
 
 ' Never, to his knowledge.' 
 
 'He doesn't, then, know the name of his former owner?' 
 
 ' Has heard generally that he belonged to Mr. Hood, of Mom- 
 berah ; but does not know it of his own knowledge.' 
 
 'Has he ever seen, or does he know either of the 
 piisoners ? ' 
 
 ' Knows the younger prisoner, who has been in the habit of 
 vorking for him in various ways.' 
 
 ' When was prisoner Marston working for him last ? ' 
 
 'He, with his brother James, who rendered his family a 
 service he shall never forget, was working for him, after last 
 shearing, for some months. 
 
 ' Where were they working t ' 
 
 * At an out-station at the back of the run.' 
 ■ Wnen did they leave ? ' 
 
 ' About April or May last.' 
 
124 ROBBERY ITNDEE ARMS caiF. xvn 
 
 ' Was it known to you in what direction they proceeded after 
 leaving your service 1 ' 
 
 ' I have no personal knowledge ; I should think it improper 
 to quote hearsay.' 
 
 ' Had they been settled up with for their former work ? ' 
 
 ' No, there was a balance due to them.' 
 
 ' To what amount 1 ' 
 
 ' About twenty pounds each was owing.' 
 
 ' Did you not think it curious that ordinary labourers should 
 leave so large a sum in your hands ? ' 
 
 * It struck me as unusual, but I did not attach much weight 
 to the circumstance. I thought they would come back and ask 
 for it before the next shearing. I am heartily sorry that they 
 did not do so, and regret still more deeply that two young men 
 worthy of a better fate should have been arraigned on such 
 a charge.' 
 
 'One moment, Mr. Falkland,' says our counsel, as they call 
 them, and a first-rate counsellor ours was. If we'd been as 
 innocent as two schoolgirls he couldn't have done more for us. 
 ' Did the prisoner Marston work well and conduct himself pro- 
 perly while in your employ ? ' 
 
 ' No man better,' says Mr. Falkland, looking over to me with 
 that pitying kind of look in his eyes as made me feel what a 
 fool and rogue I'd been ten times worse than anjrthing else. 
 ' No man better ; he and his brother were in many respects, 
 according to my overseer's report, the most hard-working and 
 best-conducted labourers in the estabUshment' 
 
CHAPTER XVUl 
 
 Mr. Runnimall, the auctioneer, swore that the older prisoner 
 placed certain cattle in his hands, to arrive, for sale in the 
 usual way, stating that his name weis Mr. Charles Carisforth, 
 and that he had several stations in other colonies. Had no 
 reason for doubting him. Prisoner was then very well dressed, 
 was gentlemanly in his manners, and came to his office with a 
 young gentleman of property whom he knew well. The cattle 
 were sold in the usual way for rather high prices, as the market 
 was good. The proceeds in cash were paid over to the prisoner, 
 whom he now knew by the name of Starlight. He accounted 
 for there being an unusual number of brands by saying 
 publicly at the sale that the station had been used as a aep6t 
 for other runs of his, and the remainder lots of store cattle 
 kept there. 
 
 He had seen a short-horn bull outside of the court this day 
 branded * J-E ' on the shoulder. He identified him as one of 
 the cattle placed in his hands for sale by the prisoner Starlight. 
 He sold and delivered him according to instructions. He sub- 
 sequently handed over the proceeds to the said prisoner. He 
 included the purchase money in a cheque given for the bull and 
 other cattle sold on that day. He could swear positively to the 
 bull ; he was a remarkable animal He had not the slightest 
 doubt as to his identity. 
 
 ' Had he seen the prisoner Marston when the cattle were sold 
 now alleged to belong to Mr. Hood ? ' 
 
 * Yes ; he was confident that prisoner was there with some 
 other men whom he (witness) did not particularly remark. He 
 helped to draft the cattle, and to put them in pens on the morn- 
 ing of the sale.' 
 
 ' Was he prepared to swear that prisoner Marston was not a 
 hired servant oi prisoner Starlight f 
 
 ' No ; he could not swear. He had no way of knowing what 
 the relations were between the two. They were both in the 
 robbery ; he could see that' 
 
 ' How could you see that 1 ' said our lawyer. * Have you never 
 Been a paid stockman do all that you saw prisoner Marston do ? ' 
 
126 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 'Well, I have : but somehow I fancy this man -^as different' 
 
 ' We have notning to do with your fancies, sir,' says our man. 
 mighty hot, as he turns upon him ; ' you are here to give evi- 
 dence as to facts, not as to what you fancy. Have you any 
 other grounds for connecting prisoner Marston with the robbery 
 in question 1 ' 
 
 * No, he had not' 
 
 ' You can go down, sir, and I only wish you may live to ex 
 perience some of the feelings which fill the breasts of persons 
 who are unjustly convicted.' 
 
 This about ended the trial. There was quite enough proved 
 for a moderate dose of transportation. A quiet, oldish-looking 
 man got up now and came forward to the witness-box. I didn't 
 know who he was ; but Starlight nodded to him quite pleasant. 
 He had a short, close-trimmed beard, and was one of those 
 nothing-particular-looking old chaps. I'm blessed if I could 
 have bold what he was. He might have been a merchant, or a 
 squatter, or a head clerk, or a wine merchant, or a broker, or 
 Lived in the town, or lived in the country ; any of half-a-dozen 
 trades would suit him. The only thing that was out of the 
 common was his eyes. They had a sort of curious way of look- 
 ing at you, as if he wondered whether you was speaking true, 
 and yet seein' nothing and tellin' nothing. He regular took in 
 Starlight (he told me afterwards) by always talking about the 
 China Seas ; he'd been there, it seems ; he'd been everywhere ; 
 he'd last come from America ; he didn't say he'd gone there to 
 collar a clerk that had run off with two or three thousand 
 pounds, and to be ready to meet him as he stepped ashore. 
 
 Anyhow he'd watched Starlight in Canterbury when he was 
 riding and flashing about, and had put such a lot of things to- 
 gether that he took a passage in the same boat with hun to 
 Melbourne. Why didn't he arrest him in New Zealand? Be 
 cause he wasn't sure of his man. It was from something Star- 
 light let out on board ship. He told me himself afterwards that 
 he made sure of his being the man he wanted * so he steps into 
 the witness-box, very quiet and respectable -looking, with his 
 white waistcoat and silk coat — it was hot enough to fry beef- 
 steaks on the roof of the courthouse that day — and looks about 
 him. The Crown Prosecutor begins with him as civil as you 
 please. 
 
 'My name is Stephen Stillbrook. I am a sergeant of de- 
 tective police in the service of the Government of New South 
 Wales. From information received, I proceeded to Canterbury, 
 in New Zealand, about the month of September last. I saw 
 there the older prisoner, who was living at a first-class hotel in 
 Christchurch, He was moving in good society, and was appar- 
 ently possessed of ample means. He frequently gave expensive 
 entertainments, which were attended by the leading inhabitants 
 and high officials of the place. I myself obtained an introduc- 
 
xvm ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 127 
 
 tion to him, and partook of his hospitality on several occasions. 
 I attempted to draw him out in conversation about New South 
 Wales ; but he was cautious, and gave me to understand that 
 he had been engaged in large squatting transactions in another 
 colony. From his general bearing and from the character of 
 his associates, I came to the belief that he was not the individual 
 named in the warrant, and determined to return to Sydney. I 
 was informed that he had taken his passage to Melbourne in a 
 mail steamer. From something which I one day heard his half- 
 caste servant say, who, being intoxicated, was speaking care- 
 lessly, I determined to accompany tliem to Melbourne. My 
 suspicions were confirmed on the voyage. As we went ashore 
 at the pier at Sandridge I accosted him. I said, "I arrest you 
 on suspicion of having stolen a herd of cattle, the property of 
 Walter Hood, of Momberah." Prisoner was very cool and polite, 
 just as any other gentleman would be, and asked me if I did 
 not think I'd made a most ridiculous mistake. The other pass- 
 engers began to laugh, as if it was the best joke in the world. 
 Starlight never moved a muscle. I've seen a good many cool 
 hands in my time, but I never met any one like him. 1 had 
 given notice to one of the Melbourne police as he came aboard, 
 and he arrested the half-caste, known as Warrigal. I produced 
 a warrant, the one now before the court, which is signed by a 
 magistrate of the territory of New South Wales.' 
 
 The witnessing part was all over. It took the best part of 
 the day, and there we were all the time standing up in the dock, 
 with the court crammed with people staring at us. I don't say 
 that it felt as bad as it might have done nigh home. Most of 
 the Nomah people looked upon fellows stealing cattle or horses, 
 in small lots or big, just like most people look at boys stealing 
 fruit out of an orchard, or as they used to talk of smugglers on 
 the English coast, as I've heard father tell of. Any man might 
 take a turn at that sort of thing, now and then, and not be such 
 a bad chap after all. It was the duty of the police to catch him. 
 If they caught him, well and good, it was so much the worse for 
 him ; if they didn't, that was their look-out It wasn't any- 
 body else's business anyhow. And a man that wasn't caught, or 
 that got turned up at his trial, was about as good as the general 
 run of people ; and there was no reason for any one to look shy 
 at him. 
 
 After the witnesses had said all they knew our lawyer got up 
 and made a stunning speech. He made us out such first-rate 
 chaps that it looked as if we ought to get ofi* flying. He blew 
 up the squatters in a general way for taking all the country, and 
 not giving the poor man a chance — for neglecting their immense 
 herds of cattle and suffering them to roam all over the country, 
 putting temptation in the way of poor people, and causing con- 
 tusion and reckl&ssness of all kinds. Some of these cattle are 
 never seen from the time they are branded till they are mus- 
 tered, every two or three years apparently. They stray away 
 
128 ROBBERY UNDER ARMiJ oh^p 
 
 hundreds of miles — probably a thousand — who is to knowt 
 Possibly they are sold It was admitted by the prosecutor that 
 he had sold 10,000 head of cattle during the last six years, and 
 none had been rebranded to his knowledge. What means had 
 he of knowing whether these cattle that so much was said about 
 had not been legally sold before 1 It was a most monstrous 
 thing that men like his clients — men who were an honour to the 
 land they lived in— should be dragged up to the very centre of 
 the continent upon a paltry charge like this — a charge which 
 rested upon the flimsiest evidence it had ever been his good 
 fortune to demolish. 
 
 With regard to the so-called imported bull the case against 
 his clients was apparently stronger, but he placed no reliance 
 upon the statements of the witnesses, who averred that they 
 knew him so thoroughly that they could not be deceived in him. 
 He distrusted their evidence and believed the jury would dis- 
 trust it too. The brand was as different as possible from the 
 brand seen to have been on the beast originally. One short- 
 horn was very like another. He would not undertake to swear 
 positively in any such case, and he implored the jury, as men of 
 the world, as men of experience in all transactions relating to 
 stock (here some of the people in the court grinned), to dismiss 
 from their minds everything of the nature of prejudice, and 
 looking solely at the miserable, incomplete, unsatisfactory nature 
 of the evidence, to acquit the prisoners. 
 
 It sounded all very pleasant after everything before had been 
 so rough on our feelings, and the jury looked as if they'd more 
 than half made up their minds to let us off. 
 
 Then the judge put on his glasses and began to go all over 
 the evidence, very grave and steady like, and read bits out of 
 the notes which he'd taken very careful all the time. Judges 
 don't have such an easy time of it as some people thinks they 
 have. I've often wondered as they take so much trouble, and 
 works away so patient trying to find out the rights and wrongs 
 of things for people that they never saw before, and won't see 
 again. However, they try to do their best, all as I've everseen, 
 and they generally get somewhere near the right and justice of 
 things. So the judge began and read — went over the evidence 
 bit by bit, and laid it all out before the lury, so as they couldn't 
 but see it where it told against us, and, again, where it was a 
 bit in our favour. 
 
 As for the main body of the cattle, he made out that there 
 was strong grounds for thinking as we'd taken and sold them 
 at Adelaide, and had the money too. The making of a stock- 
 yard at the back of Momberah was not the thing honest men 
 would do. But neither of us prisoners had been seen there. 
 There was no identification of the actual cattle, branded ' HOD,' 
 alleged to have been stolen, nor could Mr. Hood swear positively 
 that they were his cattle, had never been sold, and were a por- 
 tion of his herd. It was in the nature of these cases that 
 
xviii ROBBERY UNDER ARM3 129 
 
 identification of live stock, roaming over the immense solitudes 
 of the interior, should be difficult, occasionally impossible. Yet 
 he trusted that the jury would give full weight to all the cir- 
 cumstances which went to show a continuous possession of the 
 animals alleged to be stolen. The persons of both prisoners had 
 been positively sworn to by several witnesses as having been 
 seen at the sale of the cattle referred to. They were both 
 remarkable-looking men, and such as if once seen would be 
 retained in the memory of the beholder. 
 
 But the most important piece of evidence (here the judge 
 stopped and took a pinch oi snuti^ was that aUbrded by the 
 short-horn bull, Fifteenth Duke of Cambridge — he had been 
 informed that was his name. That animal, in the tirst place, 
 was sworn to most positively by Mr. Hood, and claimed as his 
 property. Other credible witnesses testified also to his identity, 
 and corroborated the evidence of Mr. Hood in all respects : the 
 ownership and identity of the animal are thus established 
 beyond all doubt. 
 
 Then there was the auctioneer, Mr. Runnimall, who swore 
 that this animal had been, with other cattle, placed in his 
 hands for sale by the older prisoner. The bull is accordingly 
 sold publicly by nim, and in t!ie prisoner's presence. He sub- 
 sequently receives from the witness the price, about £270, for 
 which the bull was sold. The younger prisoner was there at 
 the same time, and witnessed the sale of the bull and other 
 cattle, giving such assistance as would lead to the conclusion 
 that he was concerned in the transaction. 
 
 He did not wish to reflect upon this or any other jury, but 
 he could not help recalling the fact that a jury in that town 
 once committed the unpardonable fault, the crime, he had 
 almost said, of refusing to lind a prisoner guilty against whom 
 well-confirmed eWdence had been brought. It had been his 
 advice to the Minister for Justice, so glaring was the miscarriage 
 of justice to which he referred, that the whole of the jurymen 
 who had sat upon that trial should be struck otF the roll. This 
 was accordingly done. 
 
 He, the judge, was perfectly convinced in his own mind that 
 no impropriety of this sort was likely to be committed by the 
 . intelligent, respectable jury whom he saw before him ; but it 
 was his duty to warn them that, in his opinion, they could not 
 I bring in any verdict but ' Guilty ' if they respected their oaths. 
 ', He should leave the case confidently in their hands, again im- 
 pressing upon them that they could only find one verdict if 
 they believed the eWdence. 
 
 The jury all went out. Then another case was called on, and 
 a fresh jury sworn in for to try it. We sat in the dock. The 
 judge told Starlight he might sit down, and we waited till 
 they came back. I really believe that waiting is the worst part 
 of the whole thing, the bitterest part of the punishment. I've 
 
 K 
 
130 ROBBEEY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 seen men when they were being tried for their lives — haven't 
 I done it, and gone through it myself ? — waiting there an 
 hour — two hours, half through the night, not kno-^ing whether 
 they was to be brought in guilty or not. Vv'hat a hell they must 
 have gone through in that time — doubt and dread, hope and 
 fear, wretchedness and despair, over and over and over again. 
 No wonder some of 'em can't stand it, but keeps twitching and 
 shifting and getting paler and turning faint when the jury 
 comes back, and they think they see one thing or the other 
 written in their faces. I've seen a strong man drop down like 
 a dead body when the judge opened his mouth to pass sentence 
 on him. I've seen 'em faint, too, when the foreman of the jury 
 said ' Xot guilty.' One chap, he was an innocent up-country 
 fellow, in for his first bit of duffing, like we was once, he 
 covered his face with his hands when he found he was let off, 
 and cried like a child. All sorts and kinds of different ways 
 men takes it. I was in court once when the judge asked a man 
 who'd just been found guilty if he'd anything to say why he 
 shouldn't pass sentence of death upon him. He'd killed a 
 woman, cut her throat, and a regular right down cruel murder 
 it was (only men '11 kiU women and one another, too, for some 
 causes, as long as the world lasts) ; and he just leaned over the 
 dock rails, as if he'd been going to get three months, and said 
 cool and quiet, ' Xo, your Honour ; not as I know of.' He'a 
 made up his mind to it from the first, you see, and that makes 
 all the difference. He knew he hadn't the ghost of a chance to 
 get out of it, and when his time came he faced it. I remember 
 seeing his worst enemy come into the court, and sit and look 
 at him then just to see how he took it, but he didn't make the 
 least sign. That man couldn't have told whether he seen him 
 or not. 
 
 Starlight and I wasn't likely to break down — not much — 
 whatever the jury did or the judge said. All the same, after 
 an hour had passed, and we still waiting there, it began to be a 
 sickening kind of feeling. The day had been all taken up with 
 the evidence and the rest of the trial ; all long, dragging hours 
 of a hot summer's day. The sun had been blajdng away all day 
 on the iron roof of the courthouse and the red dust of the 
 streets, that lay inches deep for a mile all round the town. 
 The flies buzzed all over the courthouse, and round and round, 
 while the lawyers talked and wrangled with each other ; and 
 still the trial went on. Witness after witness was called, and 
 cross-examined and bullied, and confused and contradicted 
 till he was afraid to say what he knew or what he didn't 
 know. I began to think it must be some kind of performance 
 that would go on for ever and never stop, and the day and it 
 never could end. 
 
 At last the sun came shining level with the lower window, 
 and we knew it was getting late. After a while the twilight 
 began to get dimmer and grayer. There isn't much out there 
 
xvm ROBBERY TJXDER ARMS 131 
 
 when the aim goes dowrL Then the judge ordered the lamps 
 to be lighted. 
 
 Just at that time the baiKif came forward. 
 
 'Your Honour, the jury has agreed.' I felt my teeth shut 
 hard ; but I made no move or sign. I looked over at Starlight. 
 He yawned. He did, as I'm alive. 
 
 ' I wish to heaven they'd make more haste,' he said quietly \ 
 ' his Honour and we are both being done out of our dinners.* 
 
 I said nothing. I was looking at the foreman's face. I 
 thought I knew the word he was going to say, and that word 
 was ' Guilty.' Sure enough I didn't hear anything more for a 
 bit. I don't mind owning that. Most men feel that way 
 the first time. There was a sound like rushing waters in my 
 ears, and the courthouse and the people all swam before my 
 eyes. 
 
 The first I heard was Starlight's voice again, just as cool and 
 leisurely as ever, I never heard any ditference in it, and I've 
 known him speak in a lot of different situations. If you shut 
 vour eyes you couldn't tell from the tone of his voice whether 
 he was fighting for his life or asking you to hand him the salt. 
 When he said the hardest and fiercest thing — and he could be 
 hard and tierce — he didn't raise his voice ; he only seemed to 
 speak more distinct Like. His eyes were worse than his voice 
 at such times. There weren't many men that liked to look back 
 at him, much less say anything. 
 
 Now he said, ' That means five years of Berrima, Dick, if 
 not seven. It's cooler than these infernal logs, that's one com- 
 fort.' 
 
 I said nothing. I couldn't joke. ^Sly throat was dry, and 
 
 I felt hot and cold by turns. I thought of the old hut by 
 
 the creek, and could see mother sitting rocking herself, and 
 
 crying out loud, and Aileen with a set duU look on her face as 
 
 I if she'd never speak or smile again. I thought of the days, 
 
 I months, years that were to pass under lock and key, with 
 
 irons and shame and solitude all for company. I wondered if 
 
 the place where they shut up mad people was like a gaol, and 
 
 1 why we were not sent there mst-ead. 
 
 I heard part of what the judge said, but not all — bits here 
 and there. The jury had brought in a most righteous verdict ; 
 just what he should have expected from the effect of the 
 evidence upon an intelligent, well - principled Nomah jury. 
 (We heard afterwards that they were six to six, and then agreed 
 to toss up how the verdict was to go.) 'The crime of cattle 
 and horse stealing had assumed gigantic proportions. Sheep, as 
 yet, appeared to be safe ; but then there were not very many 
 within a few hundred miles of Nomah. It appeared to him that 
 the prisoner knowTi as Starlight, though from old poUce records 
 his real name appeared to be ' 
 
 Here he drew himself up and faced the judge in defiance. 
 Then like lightning he seemed to change, and said — 
 
132 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 * Your HonouFj I submit that it can answer no good purpose 
 to disclose my alleged name. There are others — I do not speak 
 for my sell' 
 
 The judge stopped a bit ; then hesitated. Starlight bowed. 
 *I do not — a — know whether there is any necessity to make 
 public a name which many years since was not better known 
 than honoured. I say the — a — prisoner known as Starlight 
 has, from the evidence, t^ken the principal part in this 
 nefarious transaction, it is not the first ofi'ence, as I observe 
 from a paper I hold in my hand. The younger prisoner, 
 Marston, has very properly been found guilty of criminal com- 
 plicity with the same olfence. It may be that he has been 
 concerned in other offences against the law, but of that we 
 have no proof before this court. He has not been preWously 
 convicted. I do not offer advice to the elder criminal ; his own 
 heart and conscience, the promptings of which I assume to be 
 dulled, not obliterated, 1 feel convinced, have said more to him 
 in the way of warning, condemnation, and remorse than could 
 the most impressive rebuke, the most solemn exhortation from 
 a judicial bench. But to the younger man, to him whose 
 vigorous frame has but lately attained the full development of 
 early manhood, I feel compelled to appeal with all the weight 
 which age and experience may lend. I adjure him to accept 
 the warning which the sentence I am about to pass will convey 
 to him, to endure his confinement with submission and repent- 
 ance, and to lead during his remaining years, which may be 
 long and comparatively peaceful, the free and necessarily happy 
 life of an honest man. The prisoner Starlight is sentenced to 
 seven years' imprisonment ; the prisoner Richard Marston to 
 five years' imprisonment ; both in Berrima Gaol.' 
 
 I heard the door of the dock unclose with a snap. We were 
 taken out ; I hardly knew how. I walked like a man in his 
 sleep. ' Five years, Berrima Gaol ! Berrima Gaol ! ' kept 
 ringing in my ears. 
 
 The day was done, the stars were out, as we moved across 
 from the courthouse to the lock-up. The air was fresh and 
 cooL The sun had gone down ; so had the sun of our lives, 
 never to rise again. 
 
 Morning came. Why did it ever come again? I thought 
 What did we want but night ? — black as our hearts — dark as 
 our fate— dismal as the death which likely would come quick as 
 a living tomb, and the sooner the better. Mind you, I only 
 felt this way the firet time. All men do, I suppose, that haven't 
 been born in gaols and workhouses. Afterwards they take a 
 more everyday view of things. 
 
 ' You're young and soft, Dick,' Starlight said to me as we 
 were rumbling along in the coach next day, with hand and leg- 
 irons on, and a trooper opposite to us. ' Why don't I feel like 
 it ? My good fellow, I have felt it all before. But if you sear 
 your flesh or your horse's with a red-hot iron you'll find the 
 
xvui ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 138 
 
 flesh hard and callous ever after. My heart was seared once — 
 ay, twice — and deeply, too. I have no heart now, or if I 
 ever feel at r.U it's for a horse. I wonder how old Rainbow 
 gets on.' 
 
 ' You were sorry father let us come in the first time,' I said. 
 *How do you account for that, if you've no heart?' 
 
 ' Really 1 Well, listen, Richard. Did I ? If you guillotine 
 a man — cut off his head, as they do in France, with an axe that 
 falls like the monkey of a pile-driver — the limbs quiver and 
 stretch, and move almost naturally for a good while afterwards. 
 I've seen the perfoiTnance more than once. So I suppose the 
 internal arrangements immediately surrounding my heart must 
 have performed some kind of instinctive motion in your case 
 and Jim's. By the way, where the deuce has Jim been all this 
 time 1 Clever James ! ' 
 
 'Better ask Evans here if the police knows. It is not for 
 want of trying if they don't.' 
 
 ' By the Lord Harry, no ! ' said the trooper, a young man 
 who saw no reason not to be sociable. 'It's the most surprisin' 
 thing out where he's got to. They've been all round him, 
 reg'lar cordon-like, and he must have disappeared into the earth 
 or gone up in a balloon to get away.' 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 It took us a week's travelling or more to get to Berrima, 
 Sometimes we were all night in the coach as well as all day. 
 There were other passengers in the coach with us. Two or 
 three bushmen, a station overseer with his wife and daughter, a 
 Chinaman, ana a lunatic that had come from Nomah, too. I 
 think it's rough on the public to pack madmen and convicts in 
 irons in the same coach with them. But it saves the Grovern- 
 ment a good deal of money, and the people don't seem to care, 
 They stand it, anyhow. 
 
 We would have made a bolt of it if we'd had a chance, but 
 we never had, night nor day, not half a one. The police were 
 civil, but they never left us, and slept by us at night. That is. 
 one watched while the other slept. We began to sleep soundly 
 ourselves and to have a better appetite. Going through the 
 fresh air had something to do with it, I daresay. And then 
 there was no anxiety. We had played for a big stake and lost. 
 Now we had to pay and make the best of it. It was the tenth 
 day (there were no railways then to shorten the journey) when 
 we drove up to the big gate and looked at the nigh walls and 
 dark, heavy lines of Berrima Gaol, the largest, the most severe, 
 the most dreaded of all the prisons in New South Wales. It 
 had leaked out the day before, somehow, that the famous Star- 
 light and the other prisoner in the great Momberah cattle 
 robbery were to be brought in this particular day. There was 
 a fair-sized crowd gathered as we were helped down from the 
 coach. At the side of the crowd was a small mob of blacks 
 with their dogs, spears, 'possum rugs and all complete. They 
 and their gins and pickaninnies appeared to take great notice 
 of the whole thing. One tallish gin, darker than the others, 
 and with her hair tucked under an old bonnet, wrapped her 
 'possum cloak closely round her shoulders and pushed up close 
 to us. She looked hard at Starlight, who appeared not to sec 
 her. As she drew back some one stagger^ against her ; an 
 a^ngry scowl passed over her face, so savage and bitter that 1 
 felt quit-8 astonished I should have been astonished, I meaa. 
 
CHAP. XIX ROBBEEY UNDER ARMS 185 
 
 if I had not been able, by that very change, to know again the 
 restless eyes and grim set mouth of WarrigaL 
 
 It was only a look, and he was gone. The lock creaked,^ the 
 great iron door swung back, and we were swallowed up in a 
 tomb— a stone vault where men are none the less buried because 
 they have separate cells. They do not live, though they appear 
 to be alive ; they move, and sometimes speak, and appear to 
 hear words. Some have to be sent away and buried outside. 
 They have been dead a long time, but have not seemed to want 
 putting in the ground. That makes no change in them— not 
 much, I mean. If they sleep it's all right ; if they don't sleep 
 anything must be happiness after the life they have escaped. 
 ' Happy are the dead ' is written on all prison walls. 
 
 What I suffered in that first time no tongue can tell. I can't 
 bear now to think of it and put it down. The solitary part of 
 it was enough to drive any man mad that had been used to a 
 free life. Day after day, night after night, the same and the 
 same and the same over again. 
 
 Then the dark cells. I got into them for a bit. I wasn't always 
 as cool as I might be— more times that mad with myself that I 
 could have smashed my own skull against the wall, let alone 
 any one else's. There was one of the warders I took a dislike to 
 from the first, and he to me, I don't doubt. I thought he was 
 rough and surly. He thought I wanted to have my own way, 
 and he made it up to take it out of me, and run me every way 
 he could. We had a goodlsh spell of fighting over it, but he 
 gave in at last. Not but what I'd had a lot to bear, and took a 
 deal of punishment before he jacked up. I needn't have had it. 
 It was all my own obstinacy and a sort of dogged feeling that 
 made me feel I couldn't give in. I believe it done me good, 
 though. I do really think I should have gone mad else, 
 thinking of the dreadful long mouths and years that lay before 
 me without a chance of getting out. 
 
 Sometimes I'd take a low fit and refuse my food, and very 
 near give up li\'ing altogether. The least bit more, and I'd 
 have died outright. One day there was a party of ladies and 
 gentlemen came to be shown over the gaol. There was a lot of 
 us passing into the exercise yard. I happened to look up for a 
 minute, and saw one of the ladies looking steadily at us, and 
 oh ! what a pityin» look there was in her face. In a moment I 
 saw it was Miss Falkland, and, by the change that came into 
 her face, that she knew me again, altered as I was. I wondered 
 how she could have known me. I was a difierent-looking chap 
 from when she had seen me last. With a beastly yellow-gray 
 suit of prison clothes, his face scraped smooth every day, like 
 a fresh-killed pig, and the look of a free man gone out of his 
 face for ever— how any woman, gentle or simple, ever can know 
 a man in gaol beats me. Whether or no, she knew me. I 
 suppose she saw the likeness to Jim, and she told him, true 
 enough, she'd never forget him nor what he'd done for her. 
 
136 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 i just looked at her, and turned my head away. I felt as if 
 I'd make a fool of myself if I didn't. All the depth down that 
 I'd fallen since I was shearing there at Boree rushed into my 
 mind at once. I nearly fell down, I know. I was pretty weak 
 and low then ; I'd only just come out of the doctor's hands. 
 
 I was passing along with the rest of the mob. I heard her 
 voice quite clear and firm, but soft and sweet, too. How sweet 
 it sounded to me then ! 
 
 ' I wish to speak a few words to the third prisoner in the line 
 — the tall one. Can I do so, Captain \A^arton ? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! certainly, Miss Falkland,' said the old gentleman, who 
 had brought them all in to look at the wonderful neat garden, 
 and the baths, and the hospital, and the unnatural washed-up, 
 Bwept-up barracks that make the cleanest gaol feel worse than 
 the roughest hut. He was the visiting magistrate, and took a 
 deal of interest in the place, and believed he knew all the 
 
 fTisoners like a book. ' Oh ! certainly, my dear young lady. 
 s Richard Marston an acquaintance of yours ? ' 
 
 * He and his brother worked for my father at Boree,' she said, 
 quite stately. ' His brother saved my life.' 
 
 I was called back by the warder. Miss Falkland stepped out 
 before them all, and shook hands with me. Yes, she shook hands 
 with me, and the tears came into lier eyes as she did so. 
 
 If anything could hav*^ given a man's heart a turn the right 
 way that would have done it. I felt again as if some one cared 
 for me in the world, as if I had a soul worth saving. And 
 people may talk as they like, but when a man has the notion 
 that everybody has given him up as a bad job, and has dropped 
 troubling themselves about him, he gets worse and worse, and 
 meets the devil half-way. 
 
 She said — 
 
 * Richard Marston, I cannot tell how grieved I am to see you 
 here. Both papa and I were so sorry to hear all about those 
 Momberah cattle.' 
 
 I stammered out something or other, I hardly knew what. 
 She looked at me again with her great beautiful eyes like a 
 wondering child. 
 
 ' Is your brother here too ? ' 
 
 * No, Miss Falkland,' I said. * They've never caught Jim yet, 
 and, what's more, I don't think they will He jumped on a 
 bare-backed horse without saddle or bridle, and got clear.' 
 
 She looked as if she was going to smile, but she didn't. I 
 saw her eyes sparkle, though, and she said softly — 
 
 ' Poor Jim ! so he got away ; I am glad of that. What a 
 wonderful rider he was ! But I suppose he will be caught some 
 day. Oh, I do so wish I could say anything that would make 
 you repent of what you have done, and try and do better by 
 and by. Papa says you have a long life before you most likely, 
 and might do so much with it yet. You will try, for my sake : 
 won't you now ? ' 
 
XIX ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 137 
 
 ' m do what T can, miss,' I said ; ' and if I ever see Jim again 
 111 tell him of your kindness,' 
 
 'Thank you, and good-bye,' she said, and she held out her 
 hand again and took mina I walked away, but I couldn't help 
 holding my head higher, and feeling a difl'erent man, somehow. 
 
 I ain't much of a religious chap, wasn't then, and I am 
 farther off it now than ever, but I've heard a power of the 
 Bible and all that read in my time ; and when the parson read 
 out next Sunday about Jesns Christ dying for men, and 
 wanting to have their souls saved, I felt as if I could have a 
 show of understanding it better than I ever did before. If I'd 
 been a Catholic, like AiJeen and mother, I should have settled 
 wliat the Virgin ^lary was like when she was alive, and never 
 said a prayer to her without thinking of Miss Falkland, 
 
 While I was dying one week and getting over it another, 
 and going through all the misery every fellow has in his 
 tirst year of gaol. Starlight was just his old self all the time. 
 He took it quite easy, never gave any one trouble, and there 
 wasn't a soul in the place that wouldn't have done anything for 
 him. The visiting magistrate thought his a most interesting case, 
 and believed in his heart that he had been the means of turning 
 him from the error of his ways — he and the cliaplain between 
 them, anyhow. He even helped him to be allowed to be kept 
 a little separate from the other prisoners (lest they should con- 
 taminate him !), and in lots of ways made his life a bit easier 
 to him. 
 
 It was reported about that it was not the first time that he 
 had been in a gaol. That he'd * done time,' as they call it, in 
 another colony. He might or he might not. He never said. 
 And he wasn't the man, with all his soft ways, you'd Uke to ask 
 about such a thing. 
 
 By the look of it you wouldn't think he cared about it a bit. 
 He took it very easy, read half his time, and had no sign about 
 him that he wasn't perfectly satisfied. He intended when he 
 got out to lead a new life, the chaplain said, and be the means 
 of keeping other men right and straight. 
 
 One day we had a chance of a word together. He got the 
 soft side 01 the chaplain, who thought he wanted to convert me 
 and take me out or my sulky and obstinate state of mind. He 
 took good care that we were not overheard or watched, and 
 then said rather loud, for fear of accidents — 
 
 ' Well, Richard, how are you feeling f I am happy to say 
 that I have been led to think seriously of my former evil ways, 
 and I have made up my mind, besides, to use every effort in my 
 power to clear out of this infernal collection of tombstones 
 when the moon gets dark again, about the end of this month,' 
 
 ' How have you taken to become religious ? ' I said, ' Are 
 you quite sure that what you say can be depended upon ? And 
 when did you get the good news 1 ' 
 
 ' I have had many doubts in my mind for a long time,' he 
 
140 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 were for, of course ; to drive into the wall between the stones 
 and climb up by. With the rope we were to drop ourselves 
 over the wall the other side. It was thirty feet high— no fool 
 of a drop. More than one man had been picked up disabled at 
 the bottom of it. He had a short stout piece of iron that did 
 to hammer the spikes in ; and that had to be done very soft and 
 quiet, you may be sure. 
 
 It took a long time. I thought the night would be over and 
 the daylight come before it was all done ; it was so slow. I 
 could hear the tick-tack of his iron every time he knocked one 
 of the spikes in. Of course he went higher every time. They 
 were just far enough apart for a man to get his foot on from 
 one to another. As he went up he had one end of the coil of 
 the rope round his wrist. When he got to the top he was to 
 draw it up to fasten to the top spike, and lower himself down 
 by it to the ground on the other side. At last I felt him pull 
 hard on the rope. I held it, and put my root on the first spike. 
 I don't know that I should have found it so very easy in the 
 dark to get up by the spikes — it was almost blackfellows' work, 
 when they put their big toe into a notch cut in the smooth stem 
 of a gum tree that runs a hundred feet without a branch, and 
 climb up the outside of it — but Jim and I had often practised 
 this sort of climbing when we were boys, and were both pretty 
 good at it. As for Starlight, he had been to sea when he was 
 young, and could climb like a cat. 
 
 When I got to the top I could just see his head above the 
 wall. The rope was fastened well to the top spike, which was 
 driven almost to the head into the wall. Directly he saw me, 
 he began to lower himself down the rope, and was out of 
 sight in a minute. I wasn't long after him, you may be sure. 
 In my hurry I let the rope sKp through my hands so fast they 
 were sore for a week afterwards. But I didn't feel it then. I 
 should hardly have felt it if I had cut them in two, for as my 
 feet touched the ground in the darkness I heard the stamp of a 
 horse's hoof and the jingle of a bit — not much of a sound, but 
 it went through my heart like a knife, along with the thought 
 that I was a free man once more : that is, free in a manner of 
 speaking. I knew we couldn't be taken then, bar accidents, 
 and I felt ready to ride through a regiment of soldiers. 
 
 As I stood up a man caught my hand and gave it a squeeze 
 as if he'd have crushed my fingers in. I knew it was Jim. Of 
 course, I'd expected him to be there, but wasn't sure if he'd be 
 able to work it. We didn't speak, but st-arted to walk over to 
 where two horses were standing, with a man holding 'em. It 
 was pretty dark, but I could see Rainbow's star — just in his 
 forehead it was — the only white he had about him. Of course 
 it was Warrigal that was holding them. 
 
 * We must double-bank my horse,' whispers Jim, ' for a mile 
 or two, till we're clear of the place ; we didn't want to bring a 
 lot of horses about' 
 
XIX ROBBERY UXDER ARMS 141 
 
 He jumped up, and I mounted behind kirn. Starlight was 
 on Rainbow in a second. The half-caste disappeared, he was 
 going to keep dark for a few days and send us the news. Jim's 
 horse went oil as if he had only ten stone on his back instead 
 of pretty nigh five-and-tw-enty. And w^e were free ! Lord God : 
 to think that men can be such fools as ever to do anything of 
 their own free will and guiding that puts their libcity in danger 
 when there's such a world outside of a gaol wall — such a 
 heaven on earth as long as a man's young and strong, and 
 has all the feelings of a tree man, in a country like this. Would 
 I do the tirst crooked thing again if I had my life to live over 
 again, and knew a hundredth part of what I know now ? 
 Would I put my hand in the fire out of laziness or greed ? or 
 sit still and let a snake sting me, knowing I should be dead 
 in twelve hours 1 Any man's fool enough to do one that'll do 
 the other. Men and women don't know this in time, that's 
 the worst of it ; they won't believe half they're told by them 
 that do know and wish 'em well. They run on heedless and 
 obstinate, too proud to take adWce, till they do as we did. The 
 world's always been the same, I suppose, and will to the end. 
 Most of the books say so, anywp.y. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 What a different feel from prison air the fresh night breeze 
 had as we swept along a lonely outside track ! The stars were 
 out, though the sky was cloudy now and then, and the big 
 forest trees looked strange in the broken light. It was so long 
 since I'd seen any. I felt as if I was going to a new world. 
 None of us spoke for a bit. Jim pulled up at a small hut by the 
 roadside ; it looked like a farm, but there was not much show 
 of crops or anything about the place. There was a tumble- 
 down old barn, with a strong door to it, and a padlock ; it 
 seemed the only building that there was any care taken about. 
 A man opened the door of the hut and looked out. 
 
 'Look sharp,' says Jim. 'Is the horse all right and fitV 
 
 ' Fit enough to go for the Hawkesbury Guineas. I was up 
 and fed him three hours ago. He's ' 
 
 ' Bring him out, and be hanged to you,' says Jim ; ' we've no 
 time for chat.' 
 
 The man went straight to the barn, and after a minute or 
 two brought out a horse — the same I'd ridden from Gippsland, 
 saddled and bridled, and ready to jump out of his skin. Jim 
 leaned forward and put something into his hand, which pleased 
 him, for he held my rein and stirrup, and then said — 
 
 ' Good luck and a long reign to you,' as we rode away. 
 
 All this time Starlight had sat on his horse in the shade of a 
 tree a good bit away. When we started he rode alongside of 
 us. We were soon in a pretty fair hand-gallop, and we kept it 
 up. All our horses were good, and we bowled along as if we 
 were going to ride for a week without stopping. 
 
 What a ride it was ! It was a grand night, anyway I thought 
 so. I blessed the stars, I know. Mile after mile, and still the 
 horses seemed to go all the fresher the farther they went. I 
 felt I could ride on that way for ever. As the horses pulled and 
 snorted and snatched at their bridles I felt as happy as ever I 
 did in my life. Mile after mile it was all the same ; we could 
 hear Rainbow snorting from time to time and see his star move 
 as he tossed up his head. We had many a night ride after to- 
 gether, but that was the best. We had laid it out to make for 
 
CHAP. XX ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 143 
 
 a place we knew not so far from home. We dursn't go there 
 straight, of course, but nigh enough to make a dart to it when- 
 ever we had word that the coast was clear. 
 
 We knew directly we were missed the whole countryside 
 would be turned out looking for us, and that every troop>er 
 "within a hundred miles would be hoping for promotion in case 
 he was lucky enough to drop on either of the Marstons or the 
 notorious Starlight His name had been pretty well in every 
 one's mouth before, and would be a little more before they were 
 done with him. 
 
 It was too far to ride to the Hollow in a day, but Jim had 
 got a place ready for us to keep dark in for a bit, in case we got 
 clear otf. There's never any great trouble in us chaps finding a 
 home for a week or two, and somebody to help us on our way as 
 long as we've the notes to chuck about. All the worse in the 
 long-run. We rode hardish (some people would have called it a 
 hand-gallop) most of the way ; up hill and down, across the 
 rocky creeks, through thick timber. More than one river we 
 had to swim. It was mountain water, and Starlight cursed and 
 swore, and said he would catch his death of cold. Then we aU 
 laughed ; it was the first time we'd done that since we were out. 
 My heart was too full to talk, much less laugh, with the thought 
 of being out of that cursed prison and on my own horse again, 
 with the free bush breeze filling my breast, and the free forest 
 I'd lived in all my life once more around me. I felt like a king, 
 and as for what might come afterwards I had no more thought 
 than a schoolboy has of his next year's lessons at the beginning 
 of his holidays. It might come now. As I took the old horse 
 by the head and raced him down the mountain side, I felt 
 I was living again and might call myself a man once 
 more. 
 
 The sun was just rising, the morning was misty and drizzling ; 
 the long sour-grass, the branches of the scrubby trees, every- 
 thing we touched and saw was dripping with the night dew, as we 
 rode up a ' gap ' between two stitfish hills. We had been riding 
 all night from track to track, sometimes steering by guesswork. 
 Jim seemed to know the country in a general way, and he told 
 us father and he had been about there a good deaf lately, cattle- 
 dealing and so om For the last hour or so we had been on a 
 pretty fair beaten road, though there wasn't much traffic on it. 
 It was one of the old mail tracks onc€, but new coach lines had 
 knocked away all the traffic. Some of the old inns had been 
 good big houses, well kept and looked after then. Now lots of 
 them were empty, with broken windows and everything in ruins; 
 others were just good enough to let to people who would live in 
 them, and make a living by cultivating a bit and selling grog 
 on the sly. Where we pulled up was one of these places, and 
 the people were just what you might expect. 
 
 First of all there was the man of the house, Jonathan Barnes, 
 a tall, slouching, tiash-looking native ; he'd been a little in the 
 
144 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 horse-racing line, a little in the prize-fighting line — enough to 
 have his nose broken, and was fond of talking about ' pugs ' as 
 he'd known intimate-— a little in the farming and canymg line, 
 a little in every line that meant a good deal of gassing, drinking, 
 and idling, and mighty little hard work. He'd a decent, indus- 
 trious little wife, about forty times too good for him, and the 
 girls, Bella and Maddie, worked well, or else he'd have been 
 walking about the country with a swag on his back. They 
 kept him and the house too, like many another man, and he took 
 all the credit of it, and ordered them about as if he'd been the 
 best and straightest man in the land. If he made a few pounds 
 now and then he'd drop it on a horse-race before he'd had it a 
 week. They were glad enough to see us, anyhow, and made us 
 comfortaVjle, after a fashion. Jim had brought fresh clothes, 
 and both of us had stopped on the road and rigged ourselves 
 out, so that we didn't look so queer as men just out of the jug 
 mostly do, with their close-shaved faces, cropped heads, and 
 
 E risen clothes. Starlight had brought a false moustache with 
 im, which be stuck on, so that he looked as much like a swell 
 as ever. Warrigal had handed him a small parcel, which he 
 brought with him, just as we started ; and, with a ring on his 
 finger, some notes and gold in his pocket, he ate his breakfast, 
 and chatted away with the girls as if he'd only ridden out for a 
 day to have a look at the country. 
 
 Our horses were put in the stable and well looked to, you 
 may be sure. The man that straps a cross cove's horse don't 
 go short of his half-crown — two or three of them, maybe. We 
 made a first-rate breakfast of it ; what with the cold and the 
 wet and not being used to riding lately, we were pretty hungry, 
 and tired too. We intended to camp there that day, and be 
 off again as soon as it vras dark. 
 
 Of course we ran a bit of a risk, but not as bad as we should 
 by riding in broad daylight. The hills on the south were wild 
 and rangy enough, but there were all sorts of people about on 
 theii' business in the daytime ; and of course any of them would 
 know with one look that three men, all on well-bred horses, 
 riding right across country and not stopping to speak or make 
 free with any one, were likely to be ' on the cross ' — all the more 
 if the police were making particular inquiries about them. 
 We were all armed, too, no w. Jim had seen to that. If we were 
 caught, we intended to have a flutter for it. We were not 
 going back to Berrima if we knew it. 
 
 So we turned in, and slept as if we were never going to 
 wake again. We'd had a glass of grog or two, nothing to 
 hurt, though ; and the food and one thing and another made 
 us sleep like tops. Jim was to keep a good look-out, and we 
 didn't take off our clothes. Our horses were kept saddled, too, 
 with the bridles on their heads, and only the bits out of their 
 mouths — we could have managed without the bits at a pinch — 
 everything ready to be out of the house in one minute, and in 
 
XX ROBBEKY UNDER ARMS U5 
 
 saddle and o3* full-split the next. We were learned that trick 
 pretty well before things came to an end. 
 
 Besides that, Jonathan kept a good look-out, too, for strangers 
 of the wrong sort. It wasnt a bad place in that way. There 
 was a long stony track coming down to the house, and you 
 could see a horseman or a carriage of any kind nearly a mile 
 off. Then, in the old times, the timber had been cleared pretty 
 nigh all round the place, so there was no chance of any one 
 sneaking up unknown to people. There couldn't have been 
 a better harbour for our sort, and many a jolly spree we had 
 there afterwards. Many a queer sight that old table in the 
 little parlour saw ye-ars after, and the notes and gold and 
 watches and rings and things I've seen the girls handling would 
 have stunned you. But that was all to come. 
 
 Well, about an hour before dark Jim wakes us up, and we 
 both felt as right as the bank. It took a good deal to knock 
 either of us out of time in those days. I looked round for a bit 
 and then burst out laughing. 
 
 ' What's that alx>ut, Dick 1 ' says Jim, rather serious. 
 
 'Blest if I didn't think T was in the thundering old cell 
 again,' I said. 'I could have sworn I heard the bolt snap as 
 your foot sounded in tlie room.' 
 
 'Well, I hope we shan't, any of us, be shopped again for a 
 while,' says he, rather slow like. 'It's bad work, Fm afraid, 
 and worse to come ; but we're in it up to our neck and must 
 see it out. We'U have another feed and be off at sundown. 
 We've the devil's own ride before daylight.' 
 
 ' .''oivbody called ? ' says Starlight, sauntering in, washed and 
 dressed and comfortable-looking. ' You told them we vrere not 
 at home, Jim, I hope.' 
 
 Jim smiled in spite of himself, though he wasn't in a very 
 gay humour. Poor old Jim was looking ahead a bit, I expect, 
 and didn't see anything much to be proud of. 
 
 We had a scrumptious feed that night, beefsteaks and eggs, 
 fresh butter and milk, tilings we hadn't smelt for months. Then 
 the girls waited on us ; a good-looking pair they was too, full of 
 larks and fun of all kinds, and not very particular what sort of 
 jokes they laughed at. They knew well enough, of course, 
 where we'd come from, and what we laid by all day and travelled 
 at night for ; they thought none the worsfe of us for that, not 
 they. They'd been bred up where they'd heard all kinds of 
 rough talk ever since they was little kiddies, and you couldn't 
 well put them out. 
 
 They were a bit afraid of Starlight at first, though, because 
 they seen at once that he was a swell Jim they knew a little 
 •of ; he and father had called there a good deal the last season, 
 and had done a little in the stock line through Jonathan Barnes. 
 They could see I was something in the same line as Jim. So I 
 suppose they had made it up to have a bit of fun with us that 
 evening before wo started- They came down into the parlour 
 
146 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS coap. 
 
 where our tea was, dressed out in their best and looking very 
 grand, as I thought, particularly as we hadn't seen the sight of 
 so much as a woman's bonnet and shawl for months and 
 months. 
 
 ' Well, Mr. Marston,' says the eldest girl, Bella, to Jim, ' we 
 didn't expect you'd travel this way with friends so soon. Why 
 didn't you tell us, and we'd have had everything comfort- 
 able?' 
 
 'Wasn't sure about it,' says Jim, 'and when you ain't it's 
 safest to hold your tongue. There's a good many things we all 
 do that don't want talking about.' 
 
 ' I feel certain, Jim,' says Starlight, with his soft voice and 
 pleasant smile, which no woman as I ever saw could fight against 
 long, ' that any man's secret would be safe with Miss Bella. I 
 would trust her with my life freely — not that it's worth a great 
 deal.' 
 
 ' Oh ! Captain,' says poor Bella, and she began to blush quite 
 innocent like, ' you needn't fear ; there ain't a girl from Shoal- 
 haven to Albury that would let od which way you were heading, 
 if they were to offer her all the money in the country.' 
 
 * Not even a diamond necklace and earrings 1 Think of a 
 lovely pendant, a cross all brilliants, and a brooch to match, my 
 dear girl.' 
 
 ' I wouldn't " come it," unless I could get that lovely horse of 
 yours,' says the youngest one, Maddie ; ' but I'd do anything in 
 the world to have him. He's the greatest darling I ever saw. 
 Wouldn't he look stunning with a side-saddle? I've a great 
 mind to "duff" him myself one of these days.' 
 
 ' You shall have a ride on Rainbow next time we come,' says 
 Starlight. 'I've sworn never to give him away or sell him, that 
 is as long as I'm alive ; but I'll tell you what I'll do — I'll leave 
 him to you in my will.' 
 
 ' How do you mean 1 ' says she, quite excited like. 
 
 ' Why, if I drop one of these fine days — and it's on the cards 
 any time — you shall have Rainbow ; but, mind now, you're toj 
 promise me ' — here he looked very grave — ' that you'll neither! 
 sell him, nor lend him, nor give him away as long as you live.' 
 
 ' Oh 1 you don't mean it,' says the girl, jumping up and clap-: 
 ping her hands ; ' I'd sooner have liim than anything I ever 
 saw in the world. Oh ! 1 11 take such care of him. I'll feed him )^ 
 and rub him over myself ; only I forgot, I'm not to have him 1^^. 
 before you're dead. It's rather rough on you, isn't it ? ' ; ,^ 
 
 ' Not a bit,' says Starlight ; ' we must all go when our time 
 comes. If anything happens to me soon he'll be young enoughf t- 
 to carry you for years yet. And you'll win all the ladies' hackney' 
 prizes at the shows.' 
 
 ' Oh ! I couldn't take him.' 
 
 ' But you must now. I've promised him to you, and though 
 am a — well — an indifferent character, I never go back on m; 
 word.' 
 
 I 
 
 t 
 
XX ROBBERY UXDER -ARMS U7 
 
 ' Haven't you anything to give me, Captain 1 ' says Bella ; 
 ' you're in such a generous mind.' 
 
 ' I must bring you something/ says he, * next time we call. 
 What shall it be 1 NoVs the time to ask. I'm like the fellow 
 in the Arabian Nights^ the slave of the ring — youi- ring.' 
 Here he took the girl's hand, and pretending to look at a ring 
 she wore took it up and kissed it. It wasn't a very ugly one 
 neither. ' What will you have, Bella ? ' 
 
 * I'd like a watch and chain,' she said, pretending to look a 
 little offended. ' I suppose I may as well ask for a good thing 
 at once.' 
 
 Starlight pulled out a pocket-book, and, quite solemn and 
 regular, made a note of it. 
 
 'It's yours,' he said, ' within a month. If I cannot conveni- 
 ently call and present it in person, I'll send it by a sure hand, a.s 
 they used to say ; and now, Jim, boot and saddle.' 
 
 The horses were out by this time ; the groom was walking 
 Rainbow up and down ; he'd put a regular French-polish on his 
 coat, and tlie old hoise was arching his neck and chawing his 
 bit as if he thought he was going to start for tlic Bargo Town 
 Plate. Jonathan himself was holding our two horses, but look- 
 ing at him. 
 
 '!My word ! ' he said, 'that's a real picture of a horse; he's 
 
 too good for a— well — these roads ; he ought to be in Sydnev 
 
 carrying some swell about and never knowing what a day^ 
 
 haraship feels like. Isn't he a regular out-and-outer to look at? 
 
 And they tell me his looks is about the worst of him. Well — 
 
 here's luck ! ' Starlight had called for drinks all round before 
 
 ; we started. ' Here's luck to roads and coaches, and them as 
 
 I lives by 'em. They'll miss the old coaching system some day — 
 
 mark my word. I don't hold with these railways they're talkin' 
 
 t about — all steam and hurry-scurry ; it starves the country.' 
 
 i 'Quite right, Jonathan,' says Starlight, throwing his leg over 
 
 i Rainbow, and chucking the old groom a sovereign. 'The times 
 
 I have never been half as good as in the old coaching days, before 
 
 we ever smelt a funnel in New South Wales. But there's a 
 
 coach or two left yet, isn't there ? and sometunes they're worth 
 
 attending to.' 
 
 He bowed and smiled to the girls, and Rainbow sailed off 
 
 with his beautiful easy, springy stride. He always put me in 
 
 mind of the deer I once saw at Mulgoa, near Penrith ; I'd never 
 
 seen any before, ^ly word ! how one of them sailed over a 
 
 'farmer's wheat paddock fence. He'd been in there all night, 
 
 ; and when he saw us coming he just up and made for the fence, 
 
 ■ and flew it like a bird. I never saw any horse have the same 
 
 action, only llainbow. You couldn't tire him, and he was just 
 
 the same the end of the day as the beginning. If he hadn't 
 
 fallen into Starlight's hands as a colt he'd have been a second- 
 
 5 class racehorse, and wore out his life among touts and ringmen. 
 
 He was better where he was. Off we went ; what a ride we 
 
148 EOBBEEY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 had that night! Just as well we'd fed and rested before we 
 started, else we should never have held out. All that night lon^- 
 we had to go, and keep going. A deal of the road was rough- 
 near the Shoalhaven country, across awful deep gullies with a ' 
 regular climb-up the other side, like the side of a house. Through 
 dismal ironbark forests that looked as black by night as if all 
 the tree-trunks were cast-iron and the leaves gun-metal. The 
 night wasn't as dark as it might have been, but now and again 
 there was a storm, and the whole sky turned as black as a wolf 's 
 throat, as father used to say. We got a few knocks and scrapes 
 against the trees, but, partly through the horses being pretty 
 clever in their kind of way, and having sharpish eyesight of 
 our own, we pulled through. It's no use talking, sometimes I 
 thought Jim must lose his way. Starlight told us he'd made up 
 his mind that we were going round and round, and would fetch 
 up about where we'd started from, and find the Moss Vale police 
 waiting there for us. 
 
 'All right. Captain,' says Jim; * don't you flurry yourself. 
 I've been along this track pretty often this last few months, anr 
 I can steer by the stars. Look at the Southern Cross there , 
 you keep him somewhere on the right shoulder, and you'll puJ 
 up not so very far off that black range above old Rocky Flat.' , 
 
 ' You're not going to be so mad as to call at your own place, I 
 Jim, are you 1 ' says he. ' Goring's sure to have a greyhound or 
 two ready to slip in case the hare makes for her old form.' 
 
 ' Trust old dad for that,' says Jim ; ' he knows Dick and yoi 
 are on the grass again. He'll meet us before we get to the plac- 
 and have fresh horses. I'll bet he's got a chap or two that h _ 
 can trust to smell out the traps if they are close handy the old 
 spot. They'll be mighty clever if they get on the blind side of 
 father.' 
 
 'Well, we must chance it, I suppose,' I said ; 'butwe were^ 
 sold once, and I've not much fancy for going back again.' 
 
 ' They're all looking for you the other way this blessed minute 
 I'll go bail,' says Jim. ' Most of the coves that bolt from Ber- 
 rima takes down the southern road to get across the border into 
 Port Phillip as soon as they can work it. They always fancy they 
 are safer there.' 
 
 ' So they are in some ways ; I wouldn't mind if we were back 
 there again,' I said. ' There's worse places than Melbourne ; bu 
 once we get to the Hollow, and that'll be some time to-day, we 
 may take it easy and spell for a week or two. How they^ 
 wonder what the deuce has become of us.' 
 
 The night was long, and that cold that Jim's beard was froze 
 as stiff as a board ; but I sat on my horse, I declare to heaven, 
 and never felt anything but pleasure and comfort to think I 
 was loose again. You've seen a dog that's been chained up. 
 Well, when he's let loose, don't he go chevying and racing about 
 over everything and into everything that's next or anigh him 1 
 Hell jump into water or over a fence, and turn aside for 
 
XX ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 149 
 
 nothing. He's mad with joy and the feeling of being off the 
 chain ; he can't hardly keep from barking till he's hoarse, and 
 rushing through and over everything till he's winded and done 
 up. Then he Hes down with his tongue out and considers it all 
 over. 
 
 Well a man's just like that when he's been on the chain. 
 He mayn't jump about so mucli, though I've seen foreign fellows 
 do that when their collar was unbuckled ; but he feels the very 
 same things in his heart as that dog does, you take my word for 
 it. 
 
 So, as I said, though I was sitting on a horse all that long 
 cold winter's night through, and had to mind my eye a bit for 
 the road and the rocks and the hanging branches, I felt my 
 heart swell that much and my courage rise that I didn't care 
 whether the night was going to turn into a snowstorm like we'd 
 been in Kiandra way, or whether we'd have a dozen rivers to 
 swim, like the head-waters of the M'Alister, in Gippsland, as 
 nearly drowned the pair of us. There I sat in my saadle like a 
 man in a dream, lettin' my horse follow Jim's up hill and down 
 dale, and half the time lettin' go hia head ana givin' him his 
 own road. Everything, too, I seemed to notice and to be 
 pleased with somehow. Sometimes it was a rock wallaby out 
 on the feed that we'd come close on before we saw one another, 
 and it would jump away almost under the horse's neck, takin^ 
 two or three awful long springs and lighting square and leve 
 among the rocks after a drop-leap of a dozen feet, like a cat 
 jumping out of a window. But the cat's got four legs to balance 
 on and the kangaroo only two. How they manage it and 
 measure the distance so well, God only knows. Then an old 
 'possum would sing out, or a black-furred dying squirrel — 
 pongos, the blacks call 'em — would come sailing down from the 
 top of an ironbark tree, with all his stern sails spread, as the 
 sailors say, and into the branches of another, looking as big as 
 an eagle-hawk. And then we'd come round the corner of a 
 little creek flat and be into the middle of a mob of wild horses 
 that had come down from the mountain to feed at night. How 
 they'd scurry off through the scrub and up tlie range, where it 
 was like the side of a house, and that full of sla,te-bars all upon 
 edge that you could smell the hoofs of the brumbies as the sharp 
 stones rasped and tore and struck sparks out of them like you 
 do the parings in a blacksmith's shop. 
 
 Then, just as I thought daybreak was near, a great mojjoke 
 flits close over our heads without any rustling or noise, like the 
 ghost of a bird, and begins to hoot in a big, bare, hollow tree 
 just ahead of us. Hoo-hoo ! hoo-hoo ! The last time I heard it, 
 it made me shiver a bit. Now I didn't care. I was a desperate 
 man that had done bad things, and was likely to do worse. But 
 I was free of the forest again, and had a good horse under me : 
 80 I laughed at the bird and rode on. 
 
CHAPTEK XXI 
 
 Daylight broke when we were close up to the Black Range, 
 safe enough, a little off the line but nothing to signify. Then 
 we hit off the track that led over the Gap and down into a little 
 flat on a creek that ran the same way as ours did. 
 
 Jim had managed for father and Warrigal to meet us some- 
 where near here with fresh horses. There was an old shepherd's 
 hut that stood by itself almost covered with marsh-mallows and 
 nettles. As we came down the steep track a dog came up 
 snuffing and searching about the grass and stones as if he'd lost 
 something. It was Crib. 
 
 ' Now we're getting home, Jim,' says Starlight. ' It's quite a 
 treat to see the old scamp again. Well, old man,' he says to the 
 dog, ' how's all getting on at the Hollow ? ' The dog came right 
 up to Rainbow and rubbed against his fetlock, and jumped up 
 two or three times to see if he could touch his rider. He was 
 almost going to bark, he seemed that glad to see him and 
 us. 
 
 Dad was sitting on a log by the hut smoking, just the same 
 as he was before he left us last time. He was holding two fresh 
 horses, and we were not sorry to see them. Horses are horses, 
 and there wasn't much left in our two. We must have ridden a 
 good eighty miles that night, and it was as bad as a hundred by 
 daylight. 
 
 Father came a step towards us as we jumped off. By 
 George, I was that stiff with the long ride and the cold that 1 
 nearly fell down. He'd got a bit of a fire, so we lit our pipes 
 and had a comfortable smoke. 
 
 * Well, Dick, you're back agin, I see,' he says, pretty pleasant 
 for him. ' Glad to see you. Captain, once more. It's been lone- 
 some work — nobody but me and Jim and Warrigal, that's like a 
 bear with a sore head half his time. I'd a mind to roll into him 
 once or twice, and I should too only for his being your nroperty 
 like.' 
 
 * Thank you, Ben, 111 knock his head off myself as soon as we 
 get settled a bit, Warrigai's not a bad boy, but a good deal like 
 & Rocky Mountain mule ; he's no good unless he's knocked down 
 
:hap. XXI ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 151 
 
 about once a month or so, only he doesn't like any one but me to 
 do it.' 
 
 ' You 11 see him about a mUe on,' says father. * He told me 
 he'd be behind the big rock where the tree grows — on the left of 
 the road- He said he'd get you a fresh horse, so as he could 
 take Rainbow back to the Hollow the long way round.' 
 
 Sure enough after we'd just got well on the road again War- 
 rigal comes quietly out from behind a big granite boulder and 
 shows himself. He was riding BUbah, and leading a well-bred, 
 good-looking chestnut. He was one of the young ones out of 
 the Hollow. He'd broken him and got him quiet. I remembered 
 when I was there first spotting him as a yearling. I knew the 
 blaze down his face and his three white legs. 
 
 Warrigal jumps otf Bilbah and throws down the bridle. 
 Then he leads the chestnut up to where Starlight was standing 
 smoking, and throws himself down at his feet, bursting out 
 crying like a child. He was just like a dog that had found his 
 master again. He kept looking up at Starlight just like a dog 
 does, and smiling and going on just as if he never expected to 
 see such a ^ood thing again as long as he livedL 
 
 * Well, \\ arrigal,' says Starlight, very careless like, ' so you've 
 brought me a horse, I see. You've been a very good boy. Take 
 Rainbow round the long way into the Hollow. Look after him, 
 whatever you do, or I'll murder you. Not that he's done, or 
 anything near it ; but iiad enough for one ride, poor old man. 
 Otf with you ! ' He changed the saddle, and Warrigal hopped 
 on to Bilbah, and led oti" Rainbow, who tossed his head and 
 trotted away as if he'd lots to spare, and hadn't had twelve 
 hours under saddle ; best part without a halt or a bait. I've 
 seen a few good 'uns in my time, but I never saw the horse that 
 was a patch on Rainbow, take him all round. 
 
 We pushed on again, then, for ten miles, and somewhere 
 about eight o'clock we pulled up at home — at home. Aileen 
 knew we were coming, and ran out to meet us. She threw her 
 arms round me, and kissed and cried over me for ever so long 
 before she took any notice of Starlight, who'd got down and was 
 looking another way. ' Oh ! my boy, my boy," she said, ' I never 
 thought to see you again for years. How thin you've got and 
 pale, and strange looking. You're not like your old self at all. 
 But you're in the bush again now, by God's blessing. We must 
 hide you better next time. I declare I begin to feel quite wicked, 
 and as if I could fight the police myself.' 
 
 'Well spoken. Miss Marston,' said Starlight, just lifting his 
 hat and making a bit of a bow like, just as if she was a real 
 lady ; but he was the same to all women. He treated them all 
 alike with the same respect of manner as if they were duchesses ; 
 young or old, gentle or simple — it made no odds to him. ' T^'e 
 must have your assistance if we're to do any good. Though 
 whether it wouldn't be more prudent on your part to cut us all 
 dead, beginning with your father, I shouldn't like to say.' 
 
152 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohaf 
 
 Aileen looked at him, surprised and angry like for a second 
 Then she says — 
 
 ' Captain Starlight, it's too late now ; but words can never 
 tell how I hate and despise the whole thing. My love for Dick 
 
 got the better of my reason for a bit, but I could Why, 
 
 how pale you look ! ' 
 
 He was growing pale, and no mistake. He had been ill for a 
 bit before he left Berrima, though he wouldn't give in, and the 
 ride was rather too much for him, I suppose. Anyhow, down 
 he tumbles in a dead faint, Aileen rushed over and lifted up his 
 head. I got some water and dabbed it over him. Aiter a bit he 
 came to. He raises himself on his elbows and looks at Aileen. 
 Then he smiles quietly and says — 
 
 ' I'm quite ashamed of myself. I'm growing as delicate as a 
 young lady. I hope I haven't given you much trouble.' 
 
 When he got up and walked to the verandah he quite 
 staggered, showing he was that weak as he could hardly walk 
 without help. 
 
 'I shall be all right,' he said, 'after a week's riding 
 again.' 
 
 ' And where are you going when you leave this place ? ' she 
 asked. SSurely you and my brothers never can live in New 
 South Wales after all that has passed.' 
 
 ' We must try, at all events, jliss Marston,' Starlight answered, 
 raising up his head and looking proud. 'You will hear some- 
 thing of us before long.' 
 
 We made out that there was no great chance of our being run 
 into at the old place. Father went on first with Crib. He was 
 sure to give warning in some way, best known to father him- 
 self, if there was any one about that wasn't the right sort. So 
 we went up and went in. 
 
 ^ [other was inside. I thought it was queer that she didn't 
 come outside. She was always quick enough about that when we 
 came home before, day or night. When I went in I could see, 
 when she got up from her chair, that she was weak, and looked 
 as if she'd been ill. She looked ever so much older, and her 
 hair was a lot grayer than it used to be. 
 
 She held out her arms and clung round my neck as if I'd 
 been raised from the dead. So I ^^as in a kind of a way. But 
 she didn't say much, or ask wha,t I was going to do next. Poor 
 soul ! she knew it couldn't be much good anyway ; and that if 
 we were hunted before, we'd be worse hunted now. Those that 
 hadn't heard of our little game with the Momberah cattle would 
 hear of our getting out of Berrima Gaol, which wasn't done 
 every day. 
 
 We hadn't a deal of time to spare, because we meant to start 
 off for the Hollow that afternoon, and get there some time in 
 the night, even if it was late. Jim and dad knew the way in 
 almost blindfold. Once we got there we could sleep for a week 
 if we liked, and take it easy all roads. So father told mother 
 
XXI 
 
 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 168 
 
 and Aileen straight that we'd come for a good comfortable meal 
 and a rest, and we mnst be otTagain. 
 
 ' Oh ! father, can't Dick and Jim stop for a day 1 ' cries out 
 Aileen- ' It does seem so hard when we haven't seen Dick for 
 such a while ; and he shut up too all the time.' 
 
 ' D'ye want to have us all took the same as last time ?' growls 
 father. ' Women's never contented as I can see. For two pins 
 I wouldn't have brought them this way at alL I don't want to 
 be making roads from this old crib to the Hollow, only I thought 
 you'd like one look at Dick.' 
 
 ' We must do what's best, of course,' said poor Aileen ; ' but 
 it's hard— very hard on us. It's mother I'm thinking of, you 
 know. If you knew how she always wakes up in the night, and 
 calls for Dick, and cries when she wakes up, you'd try to com 
 fort her a bit more, father.' 
 
 ' Comfort her ! ' says dad ; ' why, what can I do 1 Don't I tell 
 you if we stay about here we're shopped as safe as^ anything 
 ever was ? Will that comfort her, or you either 1 We're safe to- 
 day because I've got telegraphs on the outside that the police 
 can't pass without ringing the bell— in a way of speaking. But 
 you see to-morrow there'll be more than one lot here, and I want 
 to be clean away before they come.' 
 
 'You know best,' says Aileen; 'buc suppose they come here 
 to-morrow morning at daylight, as they did last time, and bring 
 a black tracker with them, won't he be able to follow up your 
 track when you go away to-night ? ' 
 
 ' No, he won'i ; for this reason, we shall all ride different 
 ways as soon as we leave here. A good while before we get 
 near the place where we all meet we shall find Warrigal on the 
 look-out. He can take the Captain in by another track, and 
 there'll be only Jim and I and the old dog, the only three 
 persons that'll go in the near way.' 
 
 ' And when shall we see — see — any of you again 1 ' 
 
 * Somewheres about a month, I suppose, if we've luck: There's 
 a deal belongs to that. Y'ou'd better go and see what there is 
 for us to eat. We've a long way and a rough way to go before 
 we get to the Hollow.' 
 
 Aileen was off at this, and then she set to work and laid a 
 clean tablecloth in the sitting-room and set us down our meal- 
 breakfast, or whatever it was. It wasn't so bad — corned beef, 
 first-rate potatoes, fresh damper, milk, butter, eggs. Tea, of 
 course, it's the great drink in the bush ; and although some 
 doctors say it's no good, what would bushmen do without it ? 
 
 We had no intention of stopping the whole night, though we 
 were tempted to do so— to have one night's rest in the old place 
 where we used to sleep so sound before. It was no good think- 
 ing of anything of that kind, anyhow, for a good while to coma 
 What we'd got to do was to look out sharp and not be caught 
 simple again like we was both last time. 
 
 After we had our tea we sat outside the verandah, and tried 
 
154 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 to make the best of it. Jim stayed inside with mother for a 
 good while ; she didn't leave her chair much now, and sat 
 knitting by the hour together. There was a great change come 
 over her lately. She didn't seem to be afraid of our getting 
 caught as she used to be, nor half as glad or sorry about any- 
 thing. It seemed like as if she'd made up her mind that every- 
 thing was as bad as it could be, and past mending. So it was : 
 she was right enough there. The only one who was in real good 
 heart and spirits was Starlight. He'd come round again, and 
 talked and rattled away, and made Aileen and Jim and me laugh, 
 in spite of everything. He said we had all fine times before us 
 now for a year or two, any way. That was a good long time. 
 After that anything might happem What it would be he neither 
 knew nor cared- Life was made up of short bits ; sometimes it 
 was hard luck ; sometimes everything went jolly and well. 
 We'd got our liiDerty again, our horses, and a place to go to, 
 where all the police in the country would never find us. He was 
 going in for a short life and a merry one. He, for one, was 
 tired of small adventures, and he was determined to make the 
 name of Starlight a little more famous before very long. If 
 Dick and Jim would take his adWce — the advice of a desperate, 
 ill-fated outcast, but stUl staunch to his friends — they would 
 clear out, and leave him to sink or swim alone, or with such 
 associates as he might pick up, whose destination would be no 
 great matter whatever befell them. They could go into hiding 
 for a while — make for Queensland and then go into the northern 
 territory. There was new country enough there to hide all the 
 fellows that were ' wanted ' in New South Wales. 
 
 ' But why don't you take your own ad\'ice 1 ' said Aileen. 
 looking over at Starlight as he sat there quite careless and 
 comfortable-looking, as if he'd no call to trouble his head about 
 anything. 'Isn't your life worth mending or saving? Why 
 seep on this reckless miserable career which you yourseli 
 expect to end ill V 
 
 'If you ask me, Miss Marston,' he said, 'whether my life — 
 what is left of it — is worth sa\dng, I must distinctly answer that 
 it is not. It is like the last coin or two in the gambler's purse, 
 not worth troubling one's head about. It must be flung on the 
 board with the rest. It might land a reasonable stake. But as 
 to economising and arranging details that would surely be the 
 greatest folly of all.' 
 
 I heard Aileen sigh to herselt She said nothing for a while ; 
 and then old Crib began to growL He got up and walked along 
 the track that led up the hilL Father stood up, too, and listened. 
 We all did except Starlight, who appeared to think it was too 
 much trouble, and never moved or seemed to notice. 
 
 Presently the dog came walking slowly back, and coiled 
 himself up again close to Starlight, as if he had made up his 
 mind it didn't matter. We could hear a horse coming along at 
 a pretty good bat over the hard, rocky, gravelly road We 
 
XXI ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 166 
 
 could tell it was a single horse, and more than that, a barefooted 
 one, coming at a hand-gallop up hill and down dale in a careless 
 kind of manner. This wasn't Kkely to be a police trooper. One 
 man wouldn't come b^ himself to a place like ours at night ; 
 and no trooper, if he did come, would clatter along a hard track, 
 making row enough to be heard more than a mile oif on a quiet 
 night. 
 
 ' It's ail right,' says father. * The old dog knowed him ; it's 
 Billy the Boy. There's something up.' 
 
 Just as he spoke we saw a horseman come in sight ; and he 
 rattled down the stony track as hard as he could lick. He 
 pulled up just opposite the house, close by where we were 
 standing. It was a boy about fifteen, dressed in a ragged pair 
 of moleskin trousers, a good deal too large for him, but kept 
 straight by a leather strap round the waist. An old cabbage- 
 tree hat and a blue serge shirt made up the rest of his rig. 
 Boots he had on, but they didn't seem to be fellows, and one 
 rusty spur. His hair was like a hay-coloured mop, half-hanging 
 over his eyes, which looked sharp enough to .see through a gum 
 tree and out at the other side. 
 
 He jumped down and stood before us, while his horse's flanks 
 heavea up and down like a pair of bellows, 
 
 ' Well, what's up ? ' says father. 
 
 ' My word, governor, you was all in great luck as I come 
 home last night, after bein' away with them cattle to pound. 
 Bobby, he don't know a p'leeceman from a wood-an'-water joey ; 
 he'd never have dropped they was comin' here unless they'd 
 pasted up a notice on the door.' 
 
 ' How did you find out, Billy ? ' says father, ' and whenll they 
 be here ? ' 
 
 ' Fust thing in the morning,' says the voung wit, grinning all 
 over his face. ' Won't they be jolly well sold when they rides 
 up and plants by the yard, same as they did last time, when 
 they took Dick.' 
 
 'Which ones was they?' asks father, fillin' his pipe quite 
 business-like, just as if he'd got days to spare. 
 
 * Them two fellers from Bargo ; one of 'em's a new chum- 
 got his hair cut short, just like Dick's. My word, I thought 
 he'd been waggin' it from some o' them Gov'ment institoosh'ns. 
 I did raly, Dick, old man.* 
 
 ' You're precious free and easy, my young friend,' says Star- 
 light, walking over. ' I rather like you. You have a keen 
 sense of humour, evidently ; but can't you say how you found 
 out that the men were her Majesty's police officers in pursuit 
 of us?' 
 
 'Y'ou're Cap'n Starlight, I suppose,' says the youngster, 
 looking straight and square at him, and not a bit put out. 
 ' Well, I've been pretty quick coming ; thirty mile inside of 
 three hours, I'll be bound. I heard them talking about you. It 
 was Starlight this and Starlight that aU the time I was going 
 
i§6 ROBBERY UNDER ARMvS ohap. 
 
 in and out of the room, pretending to look for something, and 
 mother scolding me.' 
 
 ' Had they their uniform on ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' No fear. They thought we didn't tumble, I expect ; but I 
 seen their horses hung up outside, both shod all round ; bits 
 and irons bright. Stabled horses, too, I could swea,r. Then the 
 youngest chap — him with the old felt hat — walked like this.' 
 
 Here he squared his shoulders, put his hands by his side, and 
 marched up and down, looking for all the world like one of them 
 chaps that played at soldiering in Bargo. 
 
 'There's no hiding the military air, you think, Billy 1' said 
 Starlight 'That fellow was a recruit, and had been drilled 
 lately. 
 
 'I d'no. Mother got 'em to stay, and began to talk quite 
 innocent-like of the bad characters there was in the country. 
 Ha ! ha ! It was as good as a play. Then they began to talk 
 almost right out about Sergeant Goring having been away on 
 a wrong scent, and how wild he was, and how he would be after 
 Starlight's mob to-morrow morning at daylight, and some 
 pleece was to meet him near Rocky Flat. They didn't say 
 they was the p'leece ; that was about four o'clock, and getting 
 dark.' 
 
 ' How did you get the horse 1 ' says Jim. * He's not one of 
 yours, is he ? ' 
 
 ' Not he,' says the boy ; ' I wish I had him or the likes of 
 him. He belongs to old Driver. I was just workin' it how I'd 
 get out and catch our old moke without these chaps being fly 
 as I was going to talligrarph, when mother says to me — 
 
 * " Have you fetched in the black cow ? " 
 
 ' We ain't got no black cow, but I knowed what she meant. 
 I says — 
 
 '"No, I couldn't find her." 
 
 ' "You c itch old Johnny Smoker and look for her till you do 
 find her, if it's ten o'clock to-night," says mother, very fierce. 
 "Your father'll give you a fine larrupiD' if he comes home and 
 there's that cow lost." 
 
 ' So off I goes and mans old Johnny, and clears out straight 
 for here. When I came to Driver's I runs his horses up into a 
 yard nigh the angle of his outside paddock and collars this little 
 OSS, and lets old Johnny go in hobbles. My word, this cove 
 can scratch ! ' 
 
 ' So it seems,' says Starlight ; ' here's a sovereign for you, 
 youngster. Keep your ears and eyes open ; you'll always find 
 that good information brings a good price. I'd advise you to 
 keep away from Mr. Marston, sen., and people of his sort, and 
 stick to your work, if I thought there was the least earthly 
 chance of your doing so ; but I see plainly that you're not cut 
 out for the industrious, steady-going line,' 
 
 ' Not if I know it,* said the boy ; ' I want to see life before I 
 die. I'm not going to keep on milling and slaving day after day 
 
zxi ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 167 
 
 all the year rouncL 111 cut it next year as sure as a gun. I 
 say, won't you let me ride a bit of the way with ye ? ' 
 
 'Not a yard,' says father, who was pretty cranky by this 
 time ; ' you go home again and put that horse -where you got 
 him. We don't want old Driver tracking and swearing after 
 us because you ride his horses ; and keep off the road as you go 
 back.' 
 
 Billy the Boy nodded his head, and jumping into his saddle, 
 rode otf again at much about the same pace he'd come at. He 
 was a regular reckless young devil, as bold as a two-year-old 
 colt in a branding-yard, that's ready to jump at anything and 
 knock his brains out against a stockyard post, just because he's 
 never known any real regular hurt or danger, and can't realise 
 it. He was terrible cruel to horses, and would ruin a horse in 
 less time than any man or boy I ever seen, I always thought 
 from the first that he'd come to a bad end. Howsoever, he was 
 a wonderful chap to track and ride ; none could beat him at 
 that ; he was nearly as good as "Warrigal in the bush. He was 
 as cunning as a pet dingo, and would look as stupid before any 
 one he didn't know, or thought was too resnectable, as if he was 
 half an idiot. But no one ever stirred v.-itnin twenty or thirty 
 miles of where he lived without our hearing about it. Father 
 fished him out, having paid him pretty well for some small ser- 
 vice, and ever after that he said he could sleep in peace. 
 
 We had the horses up, ready saddled and fed, by sundown, 
 and as soon as the moon rose we made a start of it. I had time 
 for a bit of a talk with Aileen about the Storefields, though I 
 couldn't bring myself to say their names at first. I was right 
 in thinking that Gracey had seen me led away a prisoner by the 
 police. She came into the hut afterwards with Aileen, as soon 
 as mother was better, and the two girls sat down beside one 
 another and cried their eyes out, Aileen said. 
 
 George Storefield had been very good, and told Aileen that, 
 whatever happened us or the old man, it would make no differ- 
 ence to him or to liis feelings towards her. She thanked him, 
 but said she could never consent to let him disgrace himself by 
 marrying into a family like ours. He had come over every now 
 and then, and had seen they wanted for nothing when father 
 and Jim were away ; but she always felt her heart growing 
 colder towards him and his prosperity while we were so low 
 down in every way. As for Gracey, she (Aileen) believed that 
 she was in love with me in a quiet, steady way of her own, with- 
 out showing it much, but that sJie would be true to me, if I 
 asked her, to the end of the world, and she was sure that she 
 could never marry any one else as long a5 I lived. She was that 
 sort of girl So didn't I think I ought to do everything I could 
 to get a better character, and try and be good enough for such 
 a girl 1 She knew girls pretty well. She didn't think there was 
 such another girl in the whole colony, and so on. 
 
 And when we went away where were we going to hide ? I 
 
168 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS cbap. xxi 
 
 could not say about particular distances, but 1 told her generally 
 that we'd keep out of harm's way, and be careful not to bo 
 caught. We might see her and mother now and then, and by 
 bush-telegraphs and other people we could trust should be able 
 to send news about ourselves. 
 
 ' What's the Captain going to do ? ' she said suddenly. * He 
 doesn't look able to bear up against hardship like the rest of 
 you. What beautiful small hands he has, and his eyes are like 
 sleeping fires.' 
 
 ' Oh, he's a good deal stronger than he looks,' I said ; ' he's 
 the smartest of the lot of us, except it is dad, and I've heard 
 the old man say he must knock under to him. But don't you 
 bother your head about him ; he's quite able to take care of 
 himself, and the less a girl like you thinks about a man like him 
 the better for her.' 
 
 ' Oh, nonsense,' she said, at the same time looking down in a 
 haJi-conf used sort of way. ' I'm not likely to think about him 
 or any one else just now ; but it seems such a dreadful thing to 
 think a man like him, so clever and daring, and so handsome 
 and gentle in his ways, should be obliged to lead such a life, 
 hunted from place to place like — like ' 
 
 ' Like a bush-ranger, Ailie,' I said, * for that'll be the long and 
 short of it. You may as well know it now, we're going to " turn 
 out."' 
 
 'You don't say that, Dick,' she said. 'Oh! surely you will 
 never be so mad. Do you want to kill mother and me right 
 out 1 If you do, why not take a knife or an axe and do it at 
 once ? Her you've been killing all along. As for me, I feel so 
 miserable and degraded and despairing at times that but for her 
 I could go and drown myself in the creek when I think of what 
 the family is coming to.' 
 
 ' What's the use of going on like that, Aileen ? ' I said roughly. 
 ' If we're caught now, whatever we do, great or small, we're safe 
 for years and years in gaoL Mayn't we as well be hung for a 
 sheep as a lamb? What odds can it make? We'll only have 
 bolder work than duffing cattle and faking horse-brands like 
 a lot of miserable crawlers that are not game for anything 
 more sporting.' 
 
 ' I hear, I hear,' says sister, sitting down and putting her head 
 in her hands. 'Surely the devil has power for a season to 
 possess himself of the souls of men, and do with them what he 
 will. I know how obstinate you are, Dick. Pray God you may 
 not have poor Jim's blood to answer for as well as your own 
 before all is done. Good-bye. I can't say God bless you, know- 
 ing what I do ; but may He turn your heart from all wicked 
 ways, and keep you from worse and deadlier evil than you have 
 committed ! Good -night. Why, oh why, didn't we all die when 
 we were little children ' ' 
 
CHAPTER XXn 
 
 I BROUGHT it out sudden-like to Aileen before I could stop my- 
 self, but it was all true. How we were to make the first start 
 we couldn't agree ; but we were bound to make another big 
 touch, and this time the police would be after us for something 
 worth while. Anyhow, we could take it easy at the Hollow for 
 a bit, and settle all the ins and outs without hurrying ourselves. 
 
 Our dart now was to get to the Hollow that night some time, 
 and not to leave much of a track either. Nobody had found 
 out the place yet, and wasn't going to if we knew. It was too 
 useful a hiding-place to give away without trouble, and we 
 swore to take all sorts of good care to keep it secret, if it was 
 to be done by the art of man. 
 
 We went up Nulla Mountain the same way as we remembered 
 doing when Jim and I rode to meet father that time he had the 
 lot 01 weaners. We kept wide and didn't follow on after one an- 
 other so as to make a marked trail. It was a long, dark, dreary 
 ride. We had to look sharp so as not to get dragged off by a 
 breast-high bough in the thick country. There was no fetching 
 a doctor if any one was hurt. Father rode ahead. He knew 
 the ins and outs of the road better than any of us, though Jim, 
 who had lived most of his time in the Hollow after he got away 
 from the police, was getting to know it pretty well. We were 
 obliged to go slow mostly — for a good deal of the track lay 
 along the bed of a creek, full of boulders and rocks, that we had 
 to cross ever so many times in a mile. The sharp-edged rocks, 
 too, overhung low enough to knock your brains out if you didn't 
 mind. 
 
 It was far into the night when we got to the old yard. Tijere 
 it stood, just as I recollect seeing it the time Jim and I and 
 father branded the weaners. It had only been used once or 
 twice since. It was patched up a bit in places, but nobody 
 seemed to have gone next or nigh it for a long time. The grass 
 had grown up round the sliprails ; it was as strange and for- 
 saken-looking as if it belonged to a deserted station. 
 
 As we rode up a man comes out from an angle of the fence 
 and gives a whistle. We knew, almost without looking, that it 
 
160 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 was Warrigal, He'd come there to meet Sta,rlight and take 
 him round some other way. Every track and short cut there 
 was in the mountains was as easy to him as the road to George 
 Storefield's was to us. Nulla Mountain was full of curious 
 gullies and caves and places that the devil himself could hardly 
 have run a man to ground in, unless he'd lived near it ail his 
 life as Warrigal had. He wasn't very free lq showing them to 
 us, but he'd have made a bridge of his own body any time to 
 let Starlight go safe. So when they rode away together we 
 knew he was safe whoever might be after us, and that we should 
 see him in the Hollow some time next day. 
 
 We went on for a mile or two farther ; then we got ofT, and 
 turned our horses loose. The rest of the way we had to do on 
 foot. My horse and Jim's had got regularly broke into Rocky 
 Flat, and we knew that they'd go home as sure as possible, not 
 quite straight, but keeping somewhere in the right direction. 
 As for father he always used to keep a horse or two, trained to 
 go home when he'd done with him. The pony he rode to-night 
 would just trot off, and never put his nose to the ground almost 
 till he got wind of home. 
 
 We humped our saddles and swags ourselves ; a stiffish load 
 too, but the night was cool, and we did our best. It was no use 
 growling. It had to be done, and the sooner the better. It 
 seemed a long time — following father step by step — before we 
 came to the place where I thought the cattle were going to be 
 driven over the precipice. Here we pulled up for a bit and bad 
 a smoke. It was a queer time and a queer look-out. 
 
 Three o'clock in the morning — the stars in the sky, and it so 
 clear that we could see Nulla Mountain rising up against it a 
 big black lump, without sign of tree or rock ; underneath the 
 valley, one sea of mist, and we just agoing to drop into it ; on 
 the other side of the Hollow, the clear hill we called the Sugar- 
 loaf. Everything seemed dead, silent, and solitary, and a 
 rummier start than all, here were we — three desperate men, 
 driven to make ourselves a home in this lonesome, God-forsaken 
 place ! I wasn't very fanciful by that time, but if the devil had 
 risen up to make a fourth amongst us I shouldn't have been 
 surprised. The place, the time, and the men seemed regularly 
 cut out for him and his mob. 
 
 We smoked our pipes out, and said nothing to each other, 
 good or bad. Then father makes a start, and we follows him : 
 took a goodish while, but we got down all right, and headed for 
 the cave. When we got there our troubles were over for a 
 while, Jim struck a match and had a fire going in no time ; 
 there was plenty of dry wood, of course. Then father rolls a 
 keg out of a hole in the wall ; first-rate dark brandy it was, and 
 we felt a sight better for a good stiff nip all round. Vf hen a 
 man's cold and tired, and hungry, and do^vll on his luck as well, 
 a good caulker of grog don't do him no harm to speak of. It 
 strings him up and puts him straight. If he's anything of a 
 
xxn ROBBEEY UNDER ARMS 161 
 
 man he cau stand it, and feel all the better for it ; but it's a 
 precious sight too easy a lesson to learn, and there's them that 
 can't stop, once they begin, till they've smothered what brains 
 Gk)d Almighty put inside their skulls^ just as if they was to 
 bore a hole and put gunpowder in. No ! they wouldn't stop if 
 they were sure of going to heaven straight, or to hell next 
 minute if they put the last glass to their Ups. I've heard men 
 say it, and knew they meant it. Not the worst sort of men, either. 
 
 We were none of us like vhat. Not then, anyhow. We could 
 take or leave it, and though dad could do with his share when 
 it was going, he always knew what he was about, and could put 
 the peg in any time. So we had one strongish tot while the tea 
 was boiling. There was a bag of ship biscuit ; we fried some 
 hung beef, and made a jolly good supper. We were that tired 
 we (Edn't care to talk much, so we made up the fire last thing 
 and rolled ourselves in our blankets ; I didn't wake till the sun 
 had been up an hour or more. 
 
 I woke first ; Jim was fast asleep, but dad had been up a 
 goodish while and got things ready for breakfast. It was a fine, 
 clear morning ; everything looked beautiful, 'specially to me that 
 had been locked up away from this sort of tiling so long. The 
 grass was thick and green round the cave, and right up to the 
 big sandstone slabs of the floor, looking as if it had never been 
 eat down very close. No more it had. It would never have 
 paid to have overstocked the Hollow. What cattle and horses 
 they kept there had a fine time of it, and were always in grand 
 condition. 
 
 Opposite where we were the valley was narrow. I could see 
 the sandstone precipices that walled us in, a sort of yellowish, 
 white colour, all lighted up with the rays of the morning; sun, 
 looking like gold towers against the heavy green forest tmiber 
 at the foot of them. Birds were calling and whistling, and 
 there was a little spring that fell drip, drip over a rough rock 
 basin all covered with ferns, A little mob of horses had fed 
 
 Eretty close up to the camp, and would walk up to look curious- 
 ke, and then trot off with their heads and tails up. It was a 
 pretty enough sight that met my eyes on waking. It made me 
 reel a sort of false happiness for a time, to think we had such a 
 place to camp in on tne quiet, and call our own, in a manner of 
 speaking. 
 
 Jim soon woke up and stretched himself. Then father 
 began, quite cheerful like — 
 
 ' Well, boys, what d'ye think of the Hollow again 1 It*s not 
 a bad earth for the old dog-fox and his cubs when the hounds 
 have run him close. They can't dig him out here, or smoke him 
 out either. We've no call to do anything but rest ourselves for 
 a week or two, anyhow ; then we must settle on something and 
 buckle to it more business-like. We've been too helter-skelter 
 lately, Jim and L We was beginning to run risks, got nearly 
 dropped on more nor once.' 
 
 M 
 
162 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ciiAP. 
 
 There's no mistake, it's a grand thing to wake np and know 
 
 you've got nothing to do for a bit but to take it easy and enjoy 
 yourself. No matter how light your work may be, if it's regu- 
 lar and has to be done every day, the harness '11 gall somewhere ; 
 you get tired in time and sick of the whole thing. 
 
 Jim and I knew well that, bar accidents, we were as safe in 
 the Hollow as we used to be in our beds when we were boys. 
 We'd searched it through and through last time, till we'd come 
 to believe that only three or four people, and those sometimes 
 not for years at a time, had ever been inside of it. There were 
 no tracks of more. 
 
 We could see how the first gang le\^ed ; they were different. 
 Every now and then they had a big drink — ' a mad carouse,' as 
 the books say — when they must have done wild, strange things, 
 something like the Spanish Main buccaneers we'd read about. 
 They'd brought captives with them, too. We saw graves, half- 
 a-dozen together, in one place. They didn't belong to the band. 
 
 We had a quiet, comfortable meal, and a smoke afterwards. 
 Then Jim and I took a long walk through the Hollow, so as to 
 tell one another what was in our minds, which we hadn't a 
 chance to do before. Before we'd gone far Jim pulls a letter 
 out of his pocket and gives it to me. 
 
 ' It was no use sending it to you, old man, while you was in 
 the jug,' he says ; 'it was quite bawi enough without this, so I 
 thought I'd keep it till we were settled a bit Like. Now we're 
 going to set up in business on our own account you'd best look 
 over your maiL' 
 
 I knew the writing well, though I hadn't seen it lately. It 
 was from her — from Kate ^^lorrison that was. It began — not 
 the way most women write, like her^ though — 
 
 So this \b the end of your high and mighty doings, Richard Marston, 
 passing yourself and Jim off as squatters. I don't blame him — [no, oi 
 course not, nobody ever blamed Jim, or would, I suppose, if he'd burned 
 down Government House and stuck up his Excellency as he was coming 
 out of church] — but when I saw in the papers that you had been arrested 
 for cattle-stealing I knew for the first time how completely Jeanie and I 
 had been duped. 
 
 I won't pretend that i didn't think of the money you were said to hare, 
 and how pleasant it would be to spend some of it after the miserable, 
 scrambling, skimping life we had lately been used to. But I loved you, 
 Dick Marston, for yoursdf^ with a deep and passionate love which yon 
 will never know now, which you would scorn and treat lightly, perhaps, 
 if you did know. You may yet find out what you have lost, if ever you 
 get out of that frightful gaol. 
 
 I was not such a silly fool as to pine and fret over our romance so 
 cruelly disturbed, though Jeanie was ; it nearly broke her heart. No, 
 Richard, my nature is not of that make. I generally get even with 
 people who wrong me. I send you a photo, giving a fair idea of myself 
 and my httsbaTid, Mr. Mullocksom I accepted his offer soon after I saw 
 your adventures, and those of your friend Starlight, in every newspaper 
 in the colonies. T did not hold myself bound to live empU for your sake. 
 
-xn ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 168 
 
 •o did wKat most women do, thoxf h they ja«t«aid to act from other motives, 
 I disposed of mrsftlf to the best ad7»atag*e. 
 
 Mr. Mullockson has plenty of money, which is n^/irly everything in 
 thia world, so that 1 am comfortable and well oflf^ aa far aa that goea. If 
 I am not happy that is year fault — your fanlt, I say, because I am not 
 able to tear your false image and false self from my thoughts. Whatever 
 happens to me in the future you may consider yourself to blame for. I 
 should have been a happy and fairly good woman, as far as women go, if 
 you had been true, or rather if everything about you had not been utterly 
 false and despicable. 
 
 You think it fortunate eStex reading this, I daresay, that we are 
 separated for ever, but v^e may me4t again, Richard Marston. TTi^n you 
 may have reason to curse the day, aa I do most heartily, when you first 
 set eyes on Kate Mullockson. 
 
 Not a pleasant letter, by no manner of means. 1 was glad I 
 didn't get it while I was eating my heart out under the stiding 
 low roof of the cell at Nomah, or when I was bearing my load 
 at Berrima. A few pounds more when the weight was all I 
 could bear and live would have crushed the heart out of me. I 
 didn't want anything to cross me when I was looking at mother 
 and Aileen ana thinking how, between as, we'd done everything 
 our worst enemy could have wdshed us to do. But here, when 
 there was plenty of time to think over old days and plan for 
 the future, I coiild bear the savage, spiteful sound of the whole 
 letter and laugh at the way she had got out of her troubles by 
 taking up with a rough old fellow whose cheque-book was the 
 only decent thing about him. I wasn't sorry to be rid of her 
 either. Since I'd seen Gracey Storefield again every other 
 woman seemed disagreeable to me. I tore up the letter and 
 threw it away, hoping I had done for ever with a woman that 
 no man living would ever have been the better for. 
 
 ' Glad you take it so quiet,' Jim savs, after holding his 
 tongue longer than he did mostly. ' She s a bad, cold-hearted 
 lade, thougn she is Jeanie's sister. If I thought my girl was 
 like her, she'd never have another thought from me, but she 
 isn't, and never was. The worse luck Fve had the closer she's 
 stuck to me, like a little brick as she is. I'd give aD I ever had 
 in the world if I could go to her and say, "Here I am, Jim 
 Marston, without a penny in the world, but I can look every 
 man in the face, and well work our way along the road of life 
 cheerful and lo^dng together." But / canH say it, Dick, that's 
 the devil of it, and it makes me so wild sometimes that I could 
 knock my brains out against the first ironbark tree I come 
 across.' 
 
 I didn't say anything, but I took hold of Jim's hand and 
 shook it. We looked in each other's ejes for a minute ; there 
 was no call to say anything. We always understood one 
 another, Jim and L 
 
 As wo were safe to stop in the Hollow for long spells at a 
 time we to<^ a good look ovw it, as far as we couM do on foot 
 
164 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 We found a rum sort- of place at the end of a long gully that 
 went easterly from the main fiat. In one way you'd think the 
 whole valley had been an arm of the sea some time or other. 
 It was a bit like Sydney Ha.bour in shape, with one principal 
 valley and no end of small co^ =ir and gullies running off from it, 
 and winding about in all directions. Even the sandstone walls, 
 by which the whole affair, great and small, was hemmed in, 
 were just like the cliff about South Head ; there were lines, too, 
 on the face of them, Jim and I made out, just like where the 
 waves had washed marks and levels on the sea-rock. We didn't 
 trouble ourselves much about that part of it. Whatever might 
 have been there once, it grew stunning fine grass now, and 
 there was beautiful clear fresh water in aU the creeks that ran 
 through it. 
 
 Well, we rambled up the long, crooked gully that I was 
 talking about till about half-way up it got that narrow that it 
 seemed stopped by a big rock that had tumbled down from the 
 top and blocKed the path. It was pretty well grown over with 
 wild raspberries and climbers. 
 
 * No use going farther,' says Jim : * there's nothing to see.' 
 
 * I don't know that. Been a track here some time. Let's get 
 round and see.' 
 
 When we got round the rock the track was plain again : it 
 had been weU worn once, though neither foot nor hoof much nad 
 been along it for many a year. It takes a good while to wear 
 out a track in a dry country. 
 
 The gully widened out bit by bit, till at last we came to a 
 little round green flat, right under the rock walls which rose up 
 a couple of thousand feet above it on two sides. On the flat 
 was an old hut — very old it seemed to be, but not in bad trim 
 for all that. The roof was of shingles, split, thick, and wedge 
 shaped ; the walls of heavy ironbark slabs, and there was a 
 stone chimney. 
 
 Outside had been a garden ; a few rose trees were standing 
 yet, ragged and stunted. The wallabies had trimmed them 
 pretty well, but we knew what they were. Been a corn-patch 
 too — the marks where it had been noed up were there, same as 
 they used to do in old times when there were more hoes than 
 ploughs and more convicts than horses and working bullocks in 
 the countrv. 
 
 * WeU, this is a rum start,' says Jim, as we sat down on a log 
 outside that looked as if it had been used for a seat before. 
 'Who the deuce ever built this gunyah and lived in it by 
 himself for years and years? You can see it was no two or 
 three months' time he done here. There's the spring coming 
 out of the rock he dipped his water from. The track's reg'lar 
 worn smooth over the stones leading to it. There was a fence 
 round this garden, some of the rails lying there rotten enough, 
 but it takes time for sound hard wood to rot. He'd a stool and 
 table too, not bad ones either, this Robinson Crusoe cove. No 
 
xxn ROBBERY UNDER ARMS IOC 
 
 end of mana villas either. I wonder whether he come here 
 before them first — Grovernment men — chaps we heard of. 
 Likely he did and died here too. He might have chummed in 
 with them, of course, or he might not. Perhaps Starlight 
 knows something about him, or WarrigaL Well ask them.' 
 
 We fossicked about for a while to see if the man who lived 
 so long by himself in this lonely place had left anything behind 
 him to help us make out what sort he was. We didn't find 
 much. There was writing on the walls here and there, and 
 things cut on the fireplace jxjsts, Jim couldn't make head or 
 tail of them, nor me either. 
 
 ' The old cove may have left something worth having behind 
 him,' he said, after staring at the colcf hearth ever so long. 
 'Men like him often leave gold pieces and jewels and things 
 behind them, locked up in brass-bound boxes ; leastways the 
 story-books say so. I've half a mind to root up the old hearth- 
 atone ; it's a thundering heavy one, ain't it ? I wonder how he 
 got it here all by himself,' 
 
 ' It IS pretty heavy,' I said. * For all we know he may have 
 had help to bring it in. We've no time now to see into it ; we'd 
 better make tracks and see if Starlight has made back. We 
 shall have to shape after a bit, and we may as well see how he 
 stands affected.' 
 
 * He'll be back safe enough. There's no pull in being outside 
 now with all the world che^'7ing after you and only half rations 
 of food and sleep.' 
 
 Jim was right. As we got up to the cave we saw Starlight 
 talking to the old man and Warrigal letting go the horse. 
 They a taken their time to come in, but Warrigal knew some 
 hole or other where they'd hid before very likely, so they could 
 take it easier than we did the night we left Rocky Creek. 
 
 ' Well, boys ! ' says Starlight, coming forward quite heartily, 
 ' glad to see you again ; been taking a walk and engaging 
 yourselves this fine weather ? Rather nice country residence of 
 ours, isn't it ? Wonder how long we shall remain in possession ! 
 What a charm there is in home 1 Xo place like home, is there, 
 governor ? ' 
 
 Dad didn't smile, he verv seldom did that, but I always 
 thought he never looked so glum at Starlight as he did at most 
 people. 
 
 'The place is well enough,' he growled, *if we don't smother 
 it all by letting our tracks be followed up. We've been dashed 
 lucky so far, but itll take us all we know to come in and out, if 
 we've any roadwork on hand, and no one the wiser.' 
 
 'It can be managed well enough,' says Starlight, 'Is that 
 dinner ever going to be ready ? Jim, make the tea, there's a 
 good fellow ; I'm absolutely 6tar^'ing. The main thing is never 
 to be seen together except on great occasions. Two men, or 
 three at the outside, can stick up any coach or travellers that 
 are worth while. We can get home one by one without half 
 
186 EOBBESY UXDEE ARMS chap, xxii 
 
 the risk there would be if we were all together. Hand me the 
 corned beef, if you please. Dick. "We must hold a council of 
 war by and by.' 
 
 We were smoking our pipes and lying about on the dry floor 
 of the cave, with the sun coming in just enough to make it 
 pleasant, when 1 started the ball 
 
 ' We may as well have it out now what lay we're going upon 
 and whether we're all agreed in our minds to turn out, and do 
 the thing in the regular good old-fashioned Sydney-side style. 
 It's risky, of course, and we're sure to have a smart brush or 
 two : but I'm not going to be jugged again, not if I know it, 
 and 1 don't see but what bush-ranging — yes, huzk-rajiging^ it's no 
 use saying one thing and meaning another — ain't as safe a 
 game, let alone the profits of it, as mooching about cattle- 
 duSng and being l&gg^ in the long-run all the same.' 
 
CHAPTER xxrn 
 
 * Because it'g too late,' growled father ; ' too late by years. It's 
 gink or swim with all of ua. If we work together we may make 
 ten thousand pounds or more in the next four or live years, 
 enough to clear out with altogether if we've luck. If any of us 
 goea snivelling in now and giving himself up, they'd know there's 
 something crooked with the lot of us, and they'll run us down 
 somehow. lU see 'em all in the pit of h — 1 before I give in, and 
 if Jim does, he o][)ens the door and sells the j>as3 on us. You 
 can both do what you like.' And here the old man walked 
 bang away and left us. 
 
 ' No use, Dick,' says Jim. ' If he won't it's no use my giving 
 in. I can't stand being thought a coward. Besides, if you were 
 nabbed afterwards people might say it was through ma I'd 
 sooner be killed and buried a dozen times over than that. It's 
 no use talking — it isn't to be — we had better make up our 
 minds once for all, and then let the matter drf»p.' 
 
 Poor old Jim. He haul gone into it innootut from the very 
 firsts He was regular led in because he didn't like to desert his 
 own flesh and blood, even if it was wrong. Bit by bit he had 
 gone on, not liking or caring for the thing one bit, but follow- 
 ing the lead of others, tiU he reached his present pitch. How 
 many men, and women too, there are in the world who seem 
 t;om to follow the lead of others for good or e^'il ! They get 
 drawn in somehow, and end by paying the same penalty aa 
 those that meant nothing else from the start. 
 
 The tinish of the whole thing was this, that we made up our 
 minds to turn out in the bush-ranging Une, It might seem 
 fooUsh enough to ouisidera, but when you come to think of it 
 we couldn't better ourselves much. We could do no worse than 
 we had done, nor ran any greater risk to speak ol We were 
 
 • long sentence men ' as it was, sure of years and years in prison ; 
 and, besides, we were certain of something extra for breaidng 
 gaol Jim and Warrigal were ' wanted.' and might be arrested 
 by any chance trooper who could recollect their description in 
 the Folia Gaz^tU, Father might be arretted on suspicion and 
 remanded again and again until they could get some evidence 
 
166 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap, xxii 
 
 the risk there ^ould be if we were all together. Hand me the 
 corned beef, if you please, Dick. We must hold a council of 
 war by and by.' 
 
 We were smoking our pipes and lying about on the dry floor 
 of the cave, with the sun coming in just enough to make it 
 pleasant, when 1 started the balL 
 
 ' We may as well have it out now what lay we*re going upon 
 and whether we're all agreed in our minds to turn out, and do 
 the thing in the regular good old-fashioned Sydney-side style. 
 It's risky, of course, and we're sure to have a smart brush or 
 two : but I'm not going to be jugged again, not if I know it, 
 and I don't see but what bush-ranging — yes, hush-rwtiging^ it's no 
 use saying one thing and meaning another — ain't as safe a 
 game, let alone the profits of it, as mooching about cattle- 
 duffing and being lagged in the long-run all the same.' 
 
CHAPTER XXm 
 
 * Beoausb it's too late/ growled father ; ' too late by years. It's 
 gink or swim with all oi us. If we work together we may make 
 ten thousand pounds or more in the next four or tive years, 
 enough to clear out with altogether if we've luck. If any of us 
 goes snivelling in now and giving himself up, they'd know there's 
 something crooked with the lot of us, and they'll run us down 
 somehow. I'll see 'em all in the pit of h — 1 before I give in, and 
 if Jim does, he opens the door and sells the pass on us. You 
 can both do what you like.' And here the old man walked 
 bang away and left us. 
 
 ' No use, Dick ' says Jim. ' If he won't it's no use my giving 
 in. I can't stand being thought a coward. Besides, if you were 
 nabbed afterwards people might say it was through me. I'd 
 sooner be killed and buried a dozen times over than tliat. It's 
 no use talking — it isn't to be — we had better make up our 
 minds once for all, and then let the matter drop.' 
 
 Poor old Jim. He had gone into it innoceut from the very 
 first. He was regular led in because he didn't like to desert his 
 own flesh and blood, even if it was wrong. Bit by bit he had 
 gone on, not liking or caring for the tiling one bit, but follow- 
 ing the lead of others, till he reached his present pitch. How 
 many men, and women too, there are in the world who seem 
 born to follow the lead of others for good or evil ! They get 
 drawn in somehow, and end by paying the same penalty as 
 those that meant nothing else from the start. 
 
 The finish of the whole thing was this, that we made up our 
 minds to turn out in the bush-ranging line. It might seem 
 foolish enough to outsiders, but when you come to think of it 
 we couldn't better ourselves much. We could do no worse than 
 we had done, nor run any greater risk to speak of. We were 
 
 • long sentence men ' as it was, sure of years and years in prison ; 
 and, besides, we were certain of something extra for breaking 
 gaoL Jim and Warrigal were ' wanted,' and might be arrested 
 by any chance trooper who could recollect their description in 
 the Police Gazette. Father might be arrested on suspicion and 
 remanded again and again until they could get some evidence 
 
168 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 against him for lots of things that he'd been in besides the 
 Momberah cattle. When it was all boiled down it came to this, 
 that ^ye could make more money in one night by sticking up a 
 coach or a bank than in any other way in a year. That when 
 we had done it, we were no worse oflf than we were now, as far 
 as being outlaws, and there was a chance — not a very grand one, 
 but still a chance—that we might find a way to clear out of 
 New South Wales altogether. 
 
 So we settled it at that. We had plenty of good horses — 
 what with the young ones coming on, that Warrigal could 
 break, and what we had already. There was no fear of running 
 short of horse-fiesh. Firearms we had enough for a dozen men. 
 They were easy enough to come by. We knew that by every 
 mail-coach that travelled on the Southern or Western line there 
 was always a pretty fair sprinkling of notes sent in the letters, 
 besides what the passengers might carry with them, watches, 
 rings, and other valuables. It wasn't the habit of people to 
 carry arms, and if they did, there isn't one in ten that uses 'em. 
 It's all very well to talk over a dinner-table, but any one who's 
 been stuck up himself knows that there's not much chance of 
 doing much in the resisting line. 
 
 Suppose you're in a coach, or riding s.long a road. Well, 
 you're expected and waited for, and the road party knows the 
 very moment you'll turn up. They see you a-coming. You 
 don't see them till it's too late. There's a log or something 
 across the road, if it's a coach, or else the driver's walking his 
 horses up a steepish hill. Just at the worst pinch or at a turn, 
 some one sings out ' Bail up.' The coachman sees a strange 
 man in front, or close alongside of him, with a revolver pointed 
 straight at him. He naturally don't like to be shot, and he pulls 
 up. There's another man covering the passengers in the body 
 of the coach, and he says if any man stirs or lifts a finger he'll 
 give him no second chance. Just behind, on the other side, 
 there's another man — perhaps two. Well, what's any one, if he's 
 ever so game, to do? If he tries to draw a weapon, or move 
 ever so Uttle, he's rapped at that second. He can only shoot 
 one man, even if his aim is good, which it's not likely to be. 
 What is more, the other passengers don't thank him — quite the 
 contrary — for drawing the fire on them. I have known men 
 take away a fellow's revolver lest he should get them all into 
 trouble. That was a queer start, wasn't it ? Actually prevent- 
 ing a man from resisting. They were quite right, though ; he 
 could only have done mischief and made it harder for himself 
 and every one else. If the passengers were armed, and all 
 steady and game to stand a flutter, something might be done, 
 but you don't get a coach-load like that very often- So it's 
 found better in a general way to give up what they have quietly 
 and make no fuss about it. I've knov-m cases where a single 
 bush-ranger was rushed by a couple of determined men, but that 
 was because the chap was careless, and they wcse very active 
 
xxiii EOBBEEY UNDER ARMS 163 
 
 and smart. He let them stand too near him. They had him, 
 simple enough, and he was hanged for his carelessness ;^ but 
 when there's three or four men, all armed and steady, it's no 
 use trying the rush dodge with them. 
 
 Of course there were other things to think about : what we 
 were to do with the trinkets and bank-notes and things when 
 we got them— how to pass them, and so om There was no great 
 bother about that. Besides Jonathan Barnes and chaps of his 
 sort, dad knew a few 'fences' that had worked for him before. 
 Of course we had to suffer a bit in value. These sort of men 
 make you pav through the nose for everything they do for you. 
 But we could stand that out of our prolits, and we could stick 
 to whatever was easy to pass and some of the smaller things 
 that were light to carry about. Men that make £300 or £400 of 
 . night can afford to pay for accommodation. 
 
 The big houses in the bush, too. Nothing's easier than to 
 stick up one of them— lots of valuable things, besides money, 
 often kept there, and it's ten to one against any one being on 
 the look-out when the boys come. A man hears they're in the 
 neighbourhood, and keeps a watch for a week or two. But 
 he can't be always waiting at home all day long with double- 
 barrelled guns, and all his young fellows and the overseer that 
 ought to be at their work among their cattle or sheep on the 
 run idling their time away. No, he soon gets sick of that, and 
 either sends his family away to town till the danger's past, or 
 he ' chances it,' as people do about a good many things in the 
 country. Then some fine day, about eleven or twelve o'clock, or 
 just before tea, or before they've gone to bed, the dogs bark, 
 and three or four chaps seem to have got into the place without 
 •iiivbody noticing 'em, the master of the house finds all the 
 revolvers looking his way, and the thing's done. The house is 
 cleared out of everything valuable, though nobody's harmed or 
 frightened — in a general way, tliat is — a couple of the best 
 horses are taken out of th^ stable, and the next morning there's 
 another flaring article in the local paper. A good many men 
 tried all they knew to be prepared and have a show for it ; but 
 there was only one that managed to come out right. 
 
 We didn't mean to turn out all in a minute. We'd had a 
 rough time of it lately, and we wanted to wait and take it easy 
 in the Hollow and close about for a month or so before we 
 began busiuess. 
 
 Starlight and I wanted to let our beards grow. People 
 without any hair on their faces are hardly ever seen in the 
 country now, except they've been in gaol lately, and of course 
 we should have been marked men. 
 
 We saw no reason why we shotddn't take it easy. Starlight 
 was none too strong, though he wouldn't own it ; he wouldn't 
 have fainted as he did if he had. He wanted good keep and 
 rest for a month, and so did L Now that it was all over I felt 
 different from wliat I used to do, only half the man I once wajs. 
 
170 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS oha*. 
 
 If we stayed in the Hollow for a month the police might think 
 we'd gone straight out of the country and slack off a bit Any- 
 how, as long as they didn't hit the trail off to the entrance, we 
 couldn't be in a safer place, and though there didn't seem much 
 to do we thought we'd manage to hang it out somehow. One 
 day we were riding all together in the afternoon, when we hap- 
 pened to come near the gully where Jim and I had gone up and 
 seen the Hermit's Hut, as we had christened it. Often we had 
 talked about it since ; wondered about the man who had lived 
 in it, and what his life had been. 
 
 This time we'd had aU the horses in and were doing a bit of 
 colt-breaking. Warrigal and Jim were both on voung horses 
 that had only been ridden once before, and we had come out to 
 g^ve them a hand. 
 
 *Do you know anything about that hut in the gidly?' I 
 asked Starlight. 
 
 ' Oh yes, all there is to know about it ; and that's not much. 
 Warrigal told me that, while the first gang that discovered this 
 desirable country residence were in possession, a stranger acci- 
 dentally found out the way in. At first they were for putting 
 him to death, but on his explaining that he only wanted a 
 solitary home, and should neither trouble nor betray them, they 
 agreed to let him stay. He was " a big one gentleman," War- 
 rigal said ; but he built the hut himself, with occasional help 
 from the men. He was liberal with his gold, of which he had a 
 small store, while it lasted. He lived here many years, and was 
 buried under a big peach tree that he had planted himself.' 
 
 'A queer start, to come and live and die here ; and about the 
 strangest place to pick for a home I ever saw.' 
 
 * There's a good many strange people in the colony, Dick, my 
 boy,' says Starlight, * and the longer you live the more you'll 
 find of them. Some day, when we've got quiet horses, we'll 
 come up and have a regular overhauling of the spot. It's years 
 since I've been there.' 
 
 ' Suppose he turned out some big swell from the old country 1 
 Dad says there used to be a few in the old days, in the colony. 
 He might have left papers and things behind him that might 
 turn to good account.' 
 
 ' Whatever he did leave was hidden away. Warrigal says he 
 was a little chap when he died, but he says he remembers men 
 making a great coroboree over him when he died, and they 
 could find nothing. They always thought he had money, and 
 he showed them one or two small lumps of gold, and what he said 
 was gold-dust washed out from the creek bed.' 
 
 As we had no call to work now, we went in for a bit of sport 
 every day. Lord ! how long it seemed since Jim and I had put 
 the guns on our shoulders and walked out in the beautiful fresh 
 part of the morning to have a day's shooting. It made us feel 
 like boys again. When I said so the tears came into Jim's eyes 
 and he turned his head away. Father came one day ; he and 
 
AiJ ROBBERY UKDER ARMS 171 
 
 old Crib were a stunning pair for pot shooting, and he was a 
 dead game shot, though we could be at him with the rifle and 
 revolver. 
 
 There was a pretty fair show of game too. The lowan (Mallee 
 hen, they're mostly called) and talegalla (brush turkey) were 
 thick eno'^gh in some of the scrubby comers. Warrigal used to 
 get the lowan eggs — beautiful pink thin- shelled ones they are, 
 first-rate to eat, and one of 'em a man's breakfast. Then there 
 were pigeons, wild ducks, quail, snipe now and then, besides 
 wallaby and other kangaroos. There was no fear of starving, 
 even if we hadn't a tidy herd of cattle to come upx^n. 
 
 The fishing wasn't had either. The creeks ran towards the 
 north-west watershed and were full of codfish, bream, and perch. 
 Even the Jewfish wasn't bad with their skins otf. They all 
 tasted pretty good, I teU you, after a quick broil, let alone the 
 fun of catching them. Warrigal used to make nets out of 
 cooramin bark, and put little weirs across the shallow places, so 
 as we could go in and drive the fish in. Many a fine cod we 
 'ook that way. He knew all the blacks' ways as well as a good 
 many of ours. The worst of him was that except in hunting, 
 wishing, and riding he'd picked up the wrong ena of the habits 
 of both sidf^s. Father used to set snares for the brush kangaroo 
 and the bandicoots, like he'd been used to do for the hares in 
 I he old country. We could always manage to have some kind 
 of game hanging up. It kept us amused too. 
 
 But I don't know whatever we should have done, that month 
 ve stayed there, at the first — we were never so long idle again 
 — without the horses. We used to muster them twice a week, 
 run 'em up into the big receiving yard, and have a regular good 
 look over em till we knew every one of 'em like a book. 
 
 Some of 'em was worth looking at, my word ! ' D'ye see 
 that big upstanding three-year-old dark bay filly, with a 
 crooked streak down her face,' Starlight would say, * and no 
 brand but your father's on. Do you know her name ? That's 
 young Termagjint, a daughter of Mr. Rouncival's racing mare of 
 the same name that was stolen a week before she was bom, and 
 her dam wa.? never seen ahve again. Pity to kill a mare like 
 that, wasn't it t Her sire was Repeater, the horse that ran the 
 two three-mile heats with Mack worth, in grand time, too.' 
 Then, again, ' That chestnut colt with the white legs would be 
 worth five hundred aU out if we could sell him with his right 
 name and breeding, instead of having to do without a pedigree. 
 We shall be lucky if we get a hundred clear for him. The black 
 filly with the star — yes, she's thoroughbred too, and couldn't 
 have been bought for money. Only a month old and un- 
 branded, of course, when your father and Warrigal managed to 
 bone the old mare. Mr. Gibson offered £50 reward, or £100 
 on conviction. Wasn't he wild ! Tliat big bay horse. Warrior, 
 was in training for a steeplechase when I took him out of ^Ir, 
 King'i stable. I rode bim 120 miles before twelve next day 
 
172 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ' chap. 
 
 Those two browns are Mr. White's famous buggy horses. He 
 thought no man could get the better of him. JBut your old 
 father was too clever. I believe he could shake the devil's own 
 four-in-hand — (coal black, with manes and tails touching the 
 ground, and eyes of fire, some German fellow says they are) — 
 and the Prince of Darkness never be the wiser. The pull of it 
 is that once they're in here they're never heard of again till it's 
 time to shift them to another colony, or clear them ov> and let 
 the buyer take his chance.' 
 
 * You've some plums here,' I said. *Even the cattle look 
 pretty well bred.' 
 
 * Always go for pedigree stock, Fifteenth Duke notwithstand- 
 ing. They take no more keep than rough ones, and they're 
 always saleable. That red short-horn heifer belongs to the 
 Butterfly Red Rose tribe ; she was carried thirty miles in front 
 of a man's saddle the day she was calved. We suckled her on 
 an old brindle cow ; she doesn't look the worse for it. Isn't she 
 a beauty ? We ought to go in for an annual sale here. How 
 do vou think it would pay ? ' 
 
 All this was pleasant enough, but it couldn't last for ever. 
 After the first week's rest, which was real pleasure and enioy- 
 ment, we began to find the life too dull and dozy. We'd had 
 quite enough of a quiet life, and began to long for a bit of work 
 and danger again. Chaps that have got something on their minds 
 can't stand idleness, it plays the bear with them. I've always 
 found they get thinking and thinking till they get a low fit like, 
 and then if there's any grog handy they try to screw themselves 
 up with that. It gives them a lift for a time, but afterwards 
 they have to pay for it over and over again. That's where the 
 drinking habit comes in — they can't help it — they must drink. 
 If you'll take the trouble to watch men (and women too) 
 that have been 'in trouble' you'll find that nineteen out of 
 every twenty drink like fishes when they get the chanca It 
 ain't the love of the liquor, as teetotalers and those kind of 
 goody people always are ramming down your throat — it's the 
 love of nothing. ^Kut it's the fear of their own thoughts — the 
 dreadful misery — the anxiety about what's to come, that's 
 always hanging like a black cloud over their heads. That's 
 what they can't stand ; and liquor, for a bit, mind you — say a 
 few hours or so — takes all that kind of feeling clean away. Of 
 course it returns, harder than before, but that says nothing. It 
 mn be driven away, AU the heavy-heartedness which a man 
 feels, but never puts into words, flies away with the first or 
 second glass of grog. If a man was suflfering pains of any kind; 
 or was being stretched on the rack (I never knew what a rack 
 was till I'd time for reading in gaol, except a horse-rack! or 
 was being flogged, and a glass of anything he could swallow 
 would make hun think he was on a feather bed enjoying a 
 pleasant doze, wouldn't he swig it off, do you think ? And 
 suppose there are times when a man feels as ii hell couldn't be 
 
xxra ROBBERY UXDER ARMS 178 
 
 much worse than what he's feeling all the long day through— 
 and I tell you there are — I, who have often stood it hour after 
 hour — won't he drink then 1 And why shouldn't he ? 
 
 We began to find that towards the end of the day we all of 
 us found the way to father's brandy keg — that by nightfall the 
 whole lot of us had quite as much as we could stagger under. 
 I don't say we regularly went in for drinking ; but we began to 
 want it by twelve o'clock every day, and to keep things going 
 after that till bedtime. In the morning we felt nervous ana 
 miserable ; on the whole we weren't very gay till the sun was 
 over the foreyard. 
 
 Anyhow, we made it up to clear out and have the first go-in 
 for a touch on the southern line the next week as ever was. 
 Father was as eager for it as anybody. He couldn't content 
 himself with this sort of Robinson Crusoe life any longer, and 
 said he must have a run and a bit of work of some sort or he'd 
 go mad. This was on the Saturday night. Well, on Sunday 
 we sent Warrigal out to meet one of our telegraphs at a place 
 about twenty miles off, and to bring us any information he 
 could pick up and a newspaper. He came back about sundown 
 that evening, and told us that the police had been all over the 
 country after us, and that Government had offered £200 reward 
 for our apprehension — mine and Starlight's — with £50 each for 
 Warrigal and Jim. They had an idea we'd aU shipped for 
 America. He sent us a newspaper. There was some news ; 
 that is, news worth talking about. Here was what was printed 
 in large letters on the outside : — 
 
 WONDERFUL DISCOVERY OF GOLD AT THE TURON. 
 
 "We have much pleasure in informing our numerous constituents that 
 gold, similar in character and value to that of San Francisco, has been 
 discovered on the Turon River by those energetic and experienced prac- 
 tical miners, Messrs. Hargraves and party. The method of cradling ia 
 the same, the appliances required are simple and inexpensive, and the 
 proportional yield of gold highly reassuring. It is impossible to fore- 
 cast the results of this most momentous discovery. It will revolutionise 
 the new world. It will liberate the old. It ynXl precipitate Australia 
 into a nation. 
 
 Meanwhile numberless inconveniences, even privations, will arise — to 
 be endured unflinchingly — to be borne in silence. But courage, England, 
 we have hitherto achieved victory. 
 
 This news about the gold breaking out in such a place as 
 the Turon made a great difference in our notions. We hardly 
 knew what to think at first. The whole country seemed upside 
 down. Warrigal used to sneak out from time to time, and come 
 back open-mouthed, bringing us all sorts of news. Everybody, 
 he said!, was coming up from Sydney. There would be nobody 
 left there but the Governor. What a queer start — the Governor 
 sitting lonely in a silent Gk>vemment House, in the middle of a 
 
174 ROBBEEY UNDEE ARMS ohav 
 
 deserted city I We found out tiiat it was true aft-er we'd made 
 one or two snort rides out ourselves. Afterwards the police had 
 a deal too much to do to think of us. We didn't run half the 
 chance of being dropped on to that we used to da The whole 
 country was full of absconders and deserters, servants, shep- 
 herds, shopmen, soldiers^ and sailors — ^all running away from 
 their work, and making in a blind sort of way for the diggingu, 
 like a lot of caterpillars on the march. 
 
 We had more than half a notion about going there ourselves, 
 but we turned it over in our minds, and thought it wouldn't do. 
 We should be sure to be spotted anywhere in New South 
 Wales. All the police stations had our d^criptiona posted up, 
 with a reward in big letters on the door. Even ir we were 
 pretty lucky at the start we should always be expecting them 
 to drop on us. As it was, we should have twenty times the 
 chance among the coaches, that were sure to be loaded full up 
 with men that all carried cash, more or less ; you couldn^ 
 travel then in the <x>untry without it We had twice the pull 
 now, because so many strangers, that couldn't possibly be 
 known to the police, were strangling over all the roads. There 
 was no end of bustle and rush m every line of work and labour. 
 Money was that plentiful that everybody seemed to be full of 
 it. Grold began to be sent down in big lots, by the Escort, as it 
 was called — sometimes ten thousand ounces at a time. That 
 was money if you liked — forty thousand pounds ! — enough to 
 make one's mouth water — to make one think dad's prophecy 
 about the ten thousand pounds wasn't so far out after alL 
 
 Just at the start most people had a kind of notion that the 
 gold would only last a short time, and that things would be 
 worse than before. But it lasted a deal longer than any of us 
 expected. It was 1850 that I'm talking about. It's getting 
 on for 1860 now, and there seems more of it about than ever 
 there was. 
 
 Most of our lives we'd been used to the southern road, and 
 we kept to it stilL It wasn't right in the line of the gold 
 diggings, but it wasn't so far off It was a queer start when 
 the news got round about to the oth^r colonies, after that to 
 England, and I suppose aU the other old world places, but they 
 must have come by ship-loads, the road was that fuU of new 
 chums — we could tell 'em easy by their dress, their fresh faces, 
 their way of talk, their thick sticks, and new guns and pistols. 
 Some of them you'd see dragging a hand-cart with another chap, 
 and they having all their goods, tools, and clothe on it. Then 
 there'd oe a dozen men, with a horse ajid cart, and all their 
 swags in it If the horse jibbed at all, or stuck in the deep 
 ruts — and wasn't it a wet season ? — they'd give a shout and a 
 rush, and tear out cart and horse and everything else. They 
 told us that there were rows of ships in Sydney Harbour with- 
 out a soul to take care of them ; that the soldiers were running 
 away to the diggings just a« much as the sailors ; clergymen 
 
xxm ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 175 
 
 and doctors, old hands and new chums, merchants and lawyers. 
 They all seemed as if they couldn't keep away from the diggings 
 that first year for their lives. 
 
 All stock went up double and treble what they were befora 
 Cattle and sheep we didn't mind about. We could do without 
 them now. But the horse market rose wonderfully, and that 
 made a deal of odds to us, you may be sure. 
 
 It was this way. Every man that had a few pounds wanted 
 a horse to ride or drive ; every miner wanted a wash-dirt cart 
 and a horse to draw it. The farmer wanted working horses, 
 for wasn't hay sixty or seventy pounds a ton, and com what 
 you liked to ask for it? Every kind of harness horse was 
 worth forty, fifty, a hundred pounds apiece, and only to ask 
 it ; some of 'em weedy and bad enough, Heaven knows. So 
 between the horse trade and the road trade we could see a 
 fortune sticking out, re^dy for us to catch hold of whenever 
 we were ready to collar. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 OuB nrst try-on in the coach line was with the Goulbnm 
 mail We knew the road pretty well, and picked out a place 
 where they had to go slow and couldn't get oflf the road on 
 either side. There's always places like that in a coach road 
 near the coast, if you look sharp and lay it out beforehand. 
 This wasn't on the track to the diggings, but we meant to leave 
 that alone till we got our hand in a bit. There was a lot of 
 money flying about the country in a general way where there 
 was no sign of gold All the storekeepers began to get up 
 fresh goods, and to send money in notes and cheques to pay for 
 them. The price of stock kept dealers and fat cattle buyers 
 moving, who had their pockets full of notes as often as not. 
 
 Just as you got nearly through Bargo Brush on the old road 
 there was a stiffish hill that the coach passengers mostly walked 
 up, to save the horses— fenced in, too, with a nearly new three- 
 rail fence, all ironbark, and not the sort of thing that you 
 could ride or drive over handy. We thought this would be as 
 good a place as we could pick, so we laid out the whole thing aa 
 careful a^ we could beforehand. 
 
 The three of us started out from the Hollow as soon as we 
 could see in the morning ; a Friday it was, I remember it pretty 
 ^ell_good reason I had, too. Father and Warrigal went up 
 the night before with the horses we were to ride. They camped 
 about twenty miles on the line we were going, at a place where 
 there was good feed and water, but well out of the way and on 
 a lonely road There had been an old sheep station there and 
 a hut, but the old man had been murdered by the hut-keeper 
 for some money he had saved, and a story got up that it was 
 haunted by \ns ghost It was known as the ' Murdering Hut," 
 and no shepherd would ever live there after, so it was deserted. 
 We weren't afraid of shepherds alive or dead, so it came in 
 handy for us, as there was water and feed in an old lambing 
 paddock. Besides, the road to it was nearly aU a lot of rock 
 and scrub from the Hollow, that made it an unlikely place to 
 be tracked from. 
 
 Our dodge was to take three quiet horses from the Hollow 
 
Txrr ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 177 
 
 and ride them there, first thing • then pick up our own three — 
 Rainbo-w and two other out-ana-outers — and ride bang across 
 the southern road. When things were over we were to start 
 straight back to the Hollow. We reckoned to be safe there 
 before the police had time to know which way we'd made. 
 
 It all fitted in first-rate. We cracked on for the Hollow in 
 the morning early, and found dad and Warrigal all ready for 
 us. The horses were in great buckle, and carried us over to 
 Bargo easy enough before dark. We camp>ed about a mile away 
 from the road, in as thick a place as we could find, where we 
 made ourselves as snug as things would allow. We had brought 
 some grub with us and a bottle of grog, half of which we finished 
 before we started out to spend the evening. We hobbled the 
 horses out and let them have an hour's picking. They were 
 likely to want all they could get before they saw the Hollow 
 ) again. 
 
 It was near twelve o'clock when we mounted. Starlight 
 said — 
 
 'By Jove, boys, it's a pity we didn't belong to a troop of 
 : irregular horse instead of this rotten colonial Dick Turpin busi- 
 ness, that one can't help being ashamed of. They would have 
 I been delighted to have i-ecruited the three of us, as we ride, and 
 j our horses are worth best part of ten thousand rupees. What a 
 I tent-pegger Rainbow would have made, eh, old boy 1 ' he said, 
 patting the horse's neck. ' But Fate won't have it, and it's no 
 use whining.' 
 
 The coach was to pass half- an -hour after midnight. An 
 awful long time to wait, it seemed. We finished the bottle of 
 brandy, 1 know. I thought they never would come, when all of 
 a sudden we saw the lamp. 
 
 Up the hill they came slow enough. About half-way up they 
 stopped, and most of the passengers got out and walked up after 
 her. As they came closer to us we could hear them lauerhing 
 and talking and skylarking, like a lot of boys. They didn't 
 think who was listening. ' \ ou won't be so jolly in a minute or 
 two,' I thinks to myself. 
 
 They were near the top when Starlierht sings out, ' Stand ! 
 Bail up ! ' and the three of us, all masked, showed ourselves. 
 You never saw a man look so scared as the passenger on the 
 box -seat, a stout, jolly commercial, who'd been giving the 
 coachman Havana cigars, and yarning and nipping with him at 
 every house they i)assed. Bill Webster, the driver, pulls up all 
 standing when he sees what was in Starlight's hand, and holds 
 the reins so loose for a minute I thought they'd drop out of his 
 hands. I went up to the coach. There was no one m.side — only 
 an old woman and a young one. They seemed struck all of a 
 heap, and couldn't hardly speak for fright. 
 
 The best of the joke was that the passengers started running 
 up full split to warm themselves, and came bump against the 
 coach before they found out what was np. One of them had 
 
 N 
 
178 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap 
 
 just opened out for a bit of blovring. * Billy, old man,' he says, 
 * I'll report you to the Company if you crawl along this way,' 
 when he catches sight of me and Starlight, standing still and 
 silent, with our revolvers pointing his way. By Greorge ! I 
 could hardly help laughing. His jaw dropped, and he couldn't 
 get a word out His throat seem^ quite dry. 
 
 *Now, gentlemen,' says Starlight, quite cool and cheerful- 
 like, 'you understand her Majesty's mail is stuck up, to use a 
 vulgar expression, and tliere's no use resisting. I must ask you 
 to stand in a row there by the fence, and hand out all the loose 
 cash, watches, or rings you may have about you. Don't move ; 
 don't, I say, sir, or I must fire.' (This was to a fidgety, nervous 
 man who couldn't keep quiet.) ' Now, Number One, fetch down 
 the mail bags ; Number Two, close up here.' 
 
 Here Jim walked up, revolver in hand, and Starlight begins 
 at the first man, very stem — 
 
 ' Hand out your cash ; keep back nothing, if you value your 
 life.^ 
 
 You never saw a man in such a funk. He was a storekeeper, 
 we found afterwards. He nearly dropped on his knees. Then 
 he handed Starlight a bundle of notes, a gold watch, and took a 
 handsome diamond ring from his finger. This Starlight put 
 into his pocket. He handed the notes and watch to Jim, who 
 had a leather bag ready for them. The man sank down on the 
 ground ; he had fainted. 
 
 He was left to pick himself up. No. 2 was told to shell cut. 
 They all had something. Some had sovereigns, some had notes 
 and small cheques, which are as good in a country place. The 
 squatters draw too many to know the numbers of half that are 
 out, so there's no great chance of their being stopped. There 
 were eighteen male passengers, besides the chap on the box- 
 seat. We made him come down. By the time we d got through 
 them all it was best part of an hour. 
 
 I pulled the mail bags through the fence and put them under 
 a tree. Then Starlight went to the coach where the two women 
 were. He took ofi" his hat and bowed. 
 
 ' Unpleasant necessity, madam, most painful to my feelings 
 altogether, I assure you. I must really ask you — an — is the 
 young lady your daughter, madam ? ' 
 
 ' Not at all,' says the oldest, stout, middle-aged woman ; ' I 
 never set eyes on her before.' 
 
 'Indeed, madam,' says Starlight, bowing again j 'excuse my 
 curiosity, I am desolated, I assure you, but may I trouble you 
 for your watches and purses ? ' 
 
 ' As you're a gentleman,' said the fat lady, ' I fully expected 
 you'd have let us off. I'm Mrs. Buxter, of Bobbrawobbra.' 
 
 ' Indeed ! I have no words to express my regret,' says Star- 
 light ; ' but, my dear lady, hard necessity comx)eLs me. Thanks, 
 very much,' he said to the young girl 
 
 She handed over a small old Geneva watch and a little purse. 
 
xuv ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 179 
 
 The plump lady had a gold watch with a chain and purse to 
 matca 
 
 ' Is that all / ' savs he, trying to speak stern. 
 
 'It's my very all,' says the girl, 'five pounds. Mother gave 
 me her watch, and I shall have no money to take me to Bowning, 
 where I am going to a situation.' 
 
 Her lips shook and trembled and the tears came into her 
 eyes. 
 
 Starlight carefully handed Mrs. Buxtor's watch and purse to 
 Jim. I saw him turn round and open the other purse, and he 
 put something in, if I didn't mistake. Then he looked in again. 
 
 * I'm afraid I'm rather impertinent,' says he, ' but your face, 
 Miss — ah — Elmsdale, thanks — reminds me of some one in 
 another world — the one I once lived in. Allow me to enjoy the 
 souvenir and to return your effects. No thanks ; that smile is 
 ample payment. Ladies, I wish vou a pleasant journey.' 
 
 He bowed. Mrs. Buxter dia not smile, but looked cross 
 enough at the voung lady, who, poor thing, seemed pretty full 
 up and inclinea to cry at the surprise. 
 
 * Now then, all alx)ard,' sings out Starlight ; ' get in, gentle- 
 men, our business matters are concluded for the night. Better 
 luck next time. William, you had better drive on. Send back 
 from the next stage, and you will find the mail bags under that 
 tree. They shall not be injured more than can be helped. 
 Good-night ! ' 
 
 The driver gathered up his reins and shouted to his team, 
 that was pretty fresh after their spell, and went oS" like a shot. 
 We sat down by the roadside with one of the coach lamps that 
 we had boned and went through all the letters, putting them 
 back after we'd opened them, and popping all notes, cheques, 
 and bills into Jim's leather sack. We aid not waste more time 
 over our letter-sorting than we could help, you bet ; but we 
 were pretty well paid for it — better than tne post-ollice clerks 
 are, by all accounts. We left all the mail bags in a heap under 
 the tree, as Starlight had told the driver ; and then, mounting 
 our horses, rode as hai-d as we could lick to where dad and 
 Warrigal were camp)ed. 
 
 When we overhauled the leather sack into which Jim had 
 stowed all the notes and cheques we found that we'd done 
 better than we expected, though we could see from the first it 
 wasn't going to be a bad night s work. We had £370 in notes 
 and gold, a biggish bag of silver, a lot of cheques — some of 
 which would be sure to be paid — seven gold watches and a lot 
 of silver ones, some pretty good. Mrs. Buxter's watch was a 
 real beauty, with a stunning chain. Starlight said he should 
 like to keep it himself, and then I knew Bella Barnes was in for 
 a present. Starlight was one of those chaps that never forgot 
 any kind of promise he'd once made. Once he said a thing it 
 would be done as sure as death — if he was alive to do it ; and 
 many a time I've known him take the greatest lot of trouble, 
 
180 ROBBEBY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 no matter how pushed he might be, to carry out something 
 which another man would have never troubled hia head 
 about. 
 
 We got safe to the Murdering Hut, and a precious hard ride 
 it was. and tried our horses welL for, mind you, they'd been 
 under saddle best part of twenty-tour hours when we got back, 
 and had done a good deal over a hundred miles. We made a 
 short halt while the tea was boiling, then we all separated for 
 fear a black tracker might have been loosed on our trail, and 
 knowing well what bloodhounds they are sometimes. 
 
 Warrigal and Starlight went off together as usual ; they were 
 pretty safe to be out of harm's way. Father made off on a line 
 of his own. We took the two horses we'd ridden out of the 
 Hollow, and made for that place the shortest way we knew. 
 We could afford to hit out — horse-flesh was cheap to us — but not 
 to go slow. Time was more than money to us now — it was 
 blood, or next thing to it. 
 
 ' I'll go anywhere you like,' says Jim, stretching himself. ' It 
 makes no odds to me now where we go. What do you think of 
 it, dad ? ' 
 
 ' I think you've no call to leave here for another month any- 
 how ; but aa I suppose some folks 11 play the fool some road or 
 other you may as well go there as anywhere else. If you must 
 go you'd better take some of these young horses vnth you and 
 sell them while prices keep up.' 
 
 * Capital idea,' says Starlight ; * I was wondering how we'd 
 get those colts off. You've the best head amongst us, governor. 
 Well start out to-day and muster the horses, and we can take 
 Warrigal with us as far as Jonathan Barnes's place.' 
 
 We didn't lose time once we'd made up our minds to any- 
 thing. So that night all the horses were in and drafted ready 
 — twenty-five upstanding colts, well bred, and in good condi- 
 tion. We expected they'd fetch a lot of money. Thev were all 
 quiet, too, and well broken in by Warrigal, who used to get so 
 much a head extra for this sort of work, and liked it. He could 
 do more with a horse than any man I ever saw. They never 
 seemed to play up with him as young horses do with other 
 people. Jim and I could ride 'em easy enough when they was 
 tackled, but for handling and catching and getting round them 
 we couldn't hold a candle to Warrigal. 
 
 The next thing was to settle how to work it when we got to 
 the diggings. We knew the auctioneers there and everywhere 
 else would sell a lot of likely stock and ask no questions ; but 
 there had been such a lot of horse-stealing since the diggings 
 broke out that a law had been passed on purpose to check it. 
 In this way : If any auctioneer sold a stolen horse and the 
 owner claimed it before six months the auctioneer was held 
 liable. He had to return the horse and stand the loss. But 
 they found a way to make themselves right. Men generally do 
 if a laVa over sharp ; they get round it somehow or other. So 
 
sxiv ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 181 
 
 the auctioneers made it up among themselves to charge ten per 
 cent on the price of all horses that they sold, and make the 
 buyer pay it. For every ten horses they sold they could afford 
 to return one. The proof of an animal being stolen didn't turn 
 up above once in fifty or a hundred times, so they could well 
 afford the expense when it did. 
 
 It wasn't an easy thing to drive horses out of the HoUow, 
 'specially those that had been bred or reared there. But they 
 were up to aU that kind of thing, dad and Starlight, First 
 there was a yard at the lower end of the gully that lea up where 
 we'd first seen Starlight come down, and a hne of fence across 
 the mountain walls on both sides, so that stock once in there 
 couldn't turn back. Then they picked out a couple or three old 
 mares that had been years ana years in the Hollow, and been 
 used to be taken up this track and knew their way back again. 
 One they led up ; dad went first with her, and another followed ; 
 then the colts took the track after them, as stock will. In half-an- 
 hour we had them all up at the top, on the tableland, and ready 
 to be driven anywhere. The first day we meant to get most of 
 the way to Jonathan Barnes's place, and to stop there, and have 
 a bit of a spell the second- We should want to spell the horses 
 and make em up a bit, as it was a longish drive over rough 
 country to get there. Besides, we wanted all the information 
 we could get about the diggings and other matters, and we 
 knew Jonathan was just that open-mouthed, blatherskitin' sort 
 of chap that would talk to everybody he saw, and hear mostly 
 all that was going on. 
 
 A long, hard day was that first one. The colts tried to make 
 back every now and then, or something would start them, and 
 they'd make a regular stampede for four or five miles as hard as 
 they could lay leg to ground. It wasn't' easy to live with 'em 
 across broken country, well-bred 'uns Like them, as fast as race- 
 horses for a short distance ; but there were as good behind 'em, 
 and Warrigal was pretty nearly always near the lead, doubling 
 and twisting and wheeling 'em the first bit of open ground 
 there was. He was Al through timber, and no mistake. Wo 
 got to a place father knew, where there was a yard, a little 
 before darK ; but we took care to watch them all night for fear 
 of accidents. It wouldn't do to let 'em out of our sight about 
 there. We should never have set eyes on 'em again, and we 
 knew a trick worth two of that. 
 
 Next day, pretty early, we got to Barnes's, where we thought 
 we should be welcome. It was aU right The old man laughed 
 all over his face when he saw us, and the girls couldn't do 
 enough for us when they heard we'd had scarce a morsel to eat 
 or drink that day. 
 
 * Why, you're looking first-rat^. Captain ! ' says Bella. ' Dick, 
 I hardly knowed ye — the mountain oir st»ems to agree with you. 
 Maddie and I thought you was nerer going to look in no more. 
 Thought you'd clean forgot u*— didjx t we, ilad ? Why, Dick, 
 
182 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS OHAt. 
 
 what a grand beard you've grown ! I never thought ycu was 
 so handsome before 1 ' 
 
 'I promised you a trifling present when I was here last, 
 didn't I, BeUa?' says Starlight. * There.' He handed her a 
 small parcel carefully tied up. ' It will serve to remind you of 
 a friend.' 
 
 * Oh, what a lovely, splendid duck of a watch ! ' says the girL 
 tearing open the parcel * And what a love of a chain ! ana 
 lots of charms, too. Where, in all the world, did you get this ? 
 I suppose you didn't buy it in George Street.' 
 
 ' it was bought in George Street,' says he ; ' and here's the 
 receipt ; you needn't be afraid of wearing it to church or any- 
 where else. Here's Mr. Flavelle's name, all straight and square. 
 It's quite new, as you can see.' 
 
 Jim and I stared. Dad was outside, seeing the horses fed, 
 with Warrigal. We made sure at first it was Mrs. Buxter's 
 watch and chain ; but he knew better than to give the girl 
 anything that she could be brought into trouble for wearing, if 
 it was identified on her ; so he'd sent the cash down to Sydney, 
 and got the watch sent up to him by one of father's pals. It 
 was as right as the bank, and nobody could touch it or her 
 either. That was Starlight all over : he never seemed to care 
 much for himself. As to anything he told a woman, she'd no 
 call to trouble herself about whether it would be done or not. 
 ^ * It'll be my turn next,' says Maddie. ' I can't afford to wait 
 till — till — the Captain leaves me that beauty horse of his. It's 
 too long. I might be married before that, and my old man cut 
 up rough. Jim Marston, what are you going to give me ? I 
 haven't got any earrings worth looking at, except these gold 
 hoops that everybody'' knows.' 
 
 *A11 right,' says Jim. 'I'll give you and Bell a pair each, if 
 you're good girls, when we sell the horses, unless we're nailed 
 at the Turon. What sort of a shop is it? Are they getting 
 much gold ? ' 
 
 ' Digging it out like potatoes,' says Bella ; * so a young chap 
 told us that come this way last week. My word ! ciidn't he go 
 on about the coach being stuck up. Mad and I nearly choked 
 ourselves laughing. We made him tell it over twice. He said 
 a friend of his was in it — in the coach, that is — and we could 
 have told him friends of ours was in it too, couldn't we ? ' 
 
 • And what did he think of it all ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, he was a new chum : hadn't been a year out. Not a 
 bad cut of a young feller. He was awful shook on Mad : but 
 she wouldn't look at him. He said if it was in England the 
 whole countryside would rise up and hunt such scoundrels 
 down like mad dogs ; but in a colony like this people didn't 
 seem to know right from wrong.' 
 
 ' Did he, inde^ 1 ' says Starlight. * Ingenuous youth ! When 
 he lives a little longer he'll find that people in England, and, 
 indeed, everywhere else, are very much like they are here. 
 
xxrv ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 183 
 
 Theyll wink at a little robbery, or take a hand themselves if 
 it's made worth their while. And what became of your Eng- 
 lish friend?' 
 
 ' Oh ! he said he was going on to Port Phillip. There's a big 
 diggings broke out there too, he says ; and he has some friends 
 there, and he thinks he'll like that side better.' 
 
 * I think we'd better cut the Sydney " side," too,' says Star- 
 light. ' What do you say, Maddie ? We'll be able to mix up 
 with these new chum Englishmen and Americans that are 
 coming here in swarms, and puzzle Sergeant Groring and his 
 troopers more than ever.' 
 
 ' Oh ! come, now ! that would be mean,' savs Maddie. ' I 
 wouldn't be drove away from my own part of the country, if I 
 was a man, by anybody. I'd stay and tight it out. Goring was 
 here the other day, and tried to pick out something from father 
 and us about the lot of you.' 
 
 ' Ha ! ' says Starlight, his face growing dark, and different- 
 looking about the eyes from what I'd ever seen him, ' did he ? 
 He'd better beware. He may follow up my trail oncfe too often. 
 And what did you tell him ? ' 
 
 ' We told him a lot of things,' says the girl ; * but I am 
 afeared they was none of 'em true. He didn't get much out of 
 us, nor wouldn't if he was to come once a week.' 
 
 ' I expect not,' says Jim ; ' you girls are smart enough. 
 There's no man in the police or out of it that'll take much 
 change out of you. I'm most afraid of your father, though, 
 letting the cat out of the bag ; he's such an old dutier to blow.' 
 
 ' He was nearly telling the sergeant he'd seen a better horse 
 lately here than his famous chestnut Marlborough, only Bella 
 trod on his toe, and told him the cows was in the wheat. Of 
 course Goring would have dropped it was Kainbow, or some 
 well-bred horse you chaps have been shaking lately.' 
 
 'You're a regular pearl of discretion, my dear,' says Star- 
 light, ' and it's a pity, like some other folks, you haven't a better 
 field for the exercise of your talents. However, that's very 
 often the way in this world, as you'll perhaps find out when 
 you're old and ugly, and the knowledge can't do you any good. 
 Tell us all you he^rd about the coach accident.' 
 
 ' My word ! it was the greatest lark out,' says Maddie. She'd 
 twice the fun in her the other had, and was that good-tempered 
 nothing seemed to put her out. * Everybody as come here 
 seemed to have nothing else to talk about. Those that was 
 going to the diggings, too, took it much easier than those that 
 Wc.3 coming away.' 
 
 ' How was that 1 ' 
 
 ' Well, the chaps that come away mostly have some gold. 
 They showed us some pretty fair lumps and nuggets, I can tell 
 you. They seemed awfully gallied about being stuck up and 
 robbed of it, and they'd heard yams of men being tied to trees 
 in the bush and left there to die.' 
 
iS4 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 'Tell them for me, my fair Madeline, that Starlight and 
 Company don't deal with single diggers^ ours is a wholesale 
 business — eh, Dick 1 We leave the retail robbery to meaner 
 villains.' 
 
 We had the horses that quiet by this time that we could drive 
 them the rest of the way to the Turon by ourselves. We didn't 
 want to be too big a mob at Barnes's house. Any one might 
 come in accidental, and it might get spread about. So after 
 supper Warrigal was sent back ; we didn't want his help any 
 more, and he might draw attention. The way we were to take 
 in the horses, and sell them, was all put up. 
 
 Jim and I were to drive them the rest of the way across the 
 ranges to the Turon. Barnes was to put us on a track he knew 
 that would take us in all right, and yet keep away from the 
 regular highway. Starlight was to stay another day at Barnes's, 
 keeping very quiet, and making believe, if any one came, to be 
 a gentleman from Port Phillip that wasn't very well He'd 
 come in and see the horses sold, but gammon to be a stranger, 
 and never set eyes on us before. 
 
 ' My word ! ' said Barnes, who just came in at the time, 
 ' you've made talk enough for all the countryside with that mail 
 coach racket of yours. Every man, woman, and child that looks 
 in here's sure to say, " Did you hear about the Goulburn mail 
 being stuck up 1 " " Well, I did hear something," I says, and 
 out it all comes. They wonder first whether the bush-rangers 
 will be caught ; where they're gone to that the police can't get 
 'em ; how it was that one of 'em was so kind to the young lady 
 as to give her new watch back, and whether Captain Starlight 
 was as handsome as people say, and if Mrs. Buxter will ever get 
 her watch back with the big reward the Government offered. 
 More than that, whether they'll stick up more coaches or fly the 
 country.' 
 
 ' I'd like to have been there and see how Bill Webster looked, 
 says Maddie. 'He was here one day since, and kept gassin 
 about it all as if he wouldn't let none of you do only what he 
 liked. I didn't think he was that game, and told him so. He 
 said I'd better take a seat some day and see how I liked it. I 
 asked him wasn't they all very good-looking chaps, and he said 
 Starlight was genteel - lookin', but there was one great, big, 
 rough-lookin' feller — that was you, Jim — as was ugly enough to 
 turn a cask of beer sour.' 
 
 * I'll give him a hammerin' for that yet,' grumbles old Jim. 
 ' My word, he was that shaky and blue-lookm' he didn't know 
 whether I was white or black.' 
 
 We had a great spree that night in a quiet way, and got all 
 the fun as was to be had under the circumstances- Barnes came 
 out with some pretty good wine which Starlight shouted for 
 all round. The old woman cooked us a stunning good dinner, 
 which we made the girls sit down to and some cousins of theirs 
 that lived close by. We were merry enough b<=^fore the evening 
 
ixiv ROBBERY UNDER ARAIS 185 
 
 was out. Bella Barnes played the piano middling, and Maddie 
 could sing first-rate, and all of them could dance. The last thing 
 I recollect was Starlight showing Maddie what he called a 
 minuet step, and Jonathan and the old woman sitting on the 
 3ofa as grave as owls. 
 
 Anyhow, we all enjoyed ourselves. It was a grand change 
 after being so long alone. The girla romped and laughed and 
 pretended to be offended every now and then, but we had a 
 regular good lark of it, and didn't feel any the worse at daylight 
 next morning. 
 
 Jim and I were away before sunrise, and after we'd once got 
 on the road that Jonathan showed us we got on well enough. 
 We were dressed just Uke common bushmen. There were plenty 
 on the road iust then brining cattle and horses to the diggings. 
 It was well known that high prices were going there ana that 
 everybody paid in cash. ?no credit was given, of course. 
 
 We had on blue serge shirts, moleskin trousers, and roughish 
 leather gaiters that came up to the knee, with ponchos strapped 
 on in front ; inside them was a spare shirt or two • we had 
 oldish felt hats, as if we'd come a good way. Our saddles and 
 bridles were rusty-looking and worn ; the horses were the only 
 things that were a little too good, and might bring the police 
 to suspect us. We had to think of a yarn about them. We 
 looked just the same as a hundred other long-legged six-foot 
 natives with our beards and hair pretty wild — neither better 
 nor worsa 
 
 As soon as Starlight cr.me on to the Turon he was to rig him- 
 self out as a regular swell, and gammon he'd just come out from 
 England to look at the goldtields. He could do that part 
 wonderfully well We would have backed him to take in the 
 devil himself, if he saw him, let alone goldfields police, if Ser- 
 geant Goring wasn't about. 
 
 The second day Jim and I were driving quietly and easy on 
 the road, the colts trotting along as steady as old stock horses, 
 and feeding a bit every now and then. We knew we were 
 getting near the Turon, so many tracks came in from all parts, 
 and all went one way. All of a sudden we heard a low rumbling, 
 roaring noise, something like the tide coming in on the sea- 
 shore. 
 
 ' I say, Jim, old man, we haven't made any mistake — crossed 
 over the main range and got back to the coast, have 
 
 we r 
 
 ' Not likely,' he said ; * but what the deuce is thac row ? I 
 can't reckon it up for the life of me.' 
 
 I studied and studied. On it went grinding and rattling like 
 all the round pebbles in the world rolling on a beach with a 
 tidy surf on. I tumble at last. 
 
 ' Remember that thing with the two rockers we saw at the 
 Hermit's Hut in the Hollow t ' I said to Jim. * We couldn't make 
 out T^i;at it was. I know now ; it was a gold cradle, and thoro'3 
 
186 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 hundreds and thousands rocking there at the Turon. That's 
 what's the matter.' 
 
 * We're going to see some life, it strikes me,' says he. * Well 
 know it all directly. But the first thing we've got to do is to 
 shut these young 'uns up safe in the sale-yard. Then we can 
 knock round this town in comfort.' 
 
 We went outside of a rocky point, and sure enough here was 
 the first Australian gold-diggings in full blast. What a sight it 
 was, to be sure ! Jim and I sat in cur saddles while the horses 
 went to work on the green grass of the flat, and stared as if 
 we'd seen a bit of another world. So it was another world to 
 us, straight away from the sad-voiced soUtudes of the bush. 
 
 Barring Sydney or Melbourne, we'd never seen so many men 
 in a crowd before ; and how difierent they looked from the crawl- 
 ing people of a town ! A green-banked rapid river ran before 
 us, through a deep narrow valley. The bright green flats looked 
 so strange with the yellow water rippling and rushing between 
 them. Upon that small flat, and by the bank, and in the river 
 itself, nearly 20,000 men were at work, harder and more silently 
 than any crowd we'd ever seen before. Most of 'em were 
 digging, winding up greenhide buckets filled with gravel from 
 shafts, which were sunk so thickly all over the place that you 
 could not pass between without jostling some one. Others 
 were dri\Tjag carts heavily laden with the same stuff towards 
 the river, in which hundreds of men were standing up to their 
 waists washing the gold out of tin pans, iron buckets, and every 
 kind of vessel or utensiL By far tne greater number of miners 
 used things like child's cradles, rocking them to and fro while a 
 constant stream of yellow water passed through. Very little 
 talk went on ; every man looked feverishly anxious to get the 
 greatest quantity of work done by sundown. 
 
 Foot police and mounted troopers passed through the crowd 
 every now and then, but there was apparently no use or no 
 need for them ; that time was to come. Now and then some 
 one would come walking up, carrying a knapsack, not a swag, 
 and showing by his round, rosy face that he hadn't seen a sum- 
 mer's sun in Australia. We saw a trooper riding towards us, 
 and knowing it was best to take the bull by the horns, I pushed 
 over to him, and asked if he could direct us to where Mr. Steven- 
 son's, the auctioneer's, yard was. 
 
 * Whose horses are these?' he said, looking at the brands, 
 'B.M., isn't it?' 
 
 * Bernard Muldoon, Lower Macquarie ' I answered. * There's 
 a friend of his, a new chum, in charge ; ne'll be here to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Go on down Main Street [the first street in a diggings is 
 always caDed Main Street] as you're going,' he said carelessly, 
 giving us all a parting look through, ' and take the first lane to 
 the right. It takes you to the yard. It's sale-day to-morrow ; 
 you're in luck.' 
 
 It was rather sharp work getting the colts through men 
 
Xiiv ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 187 
 
 women, and children, c<irts, cradles, shafts, and tin dishes ; but 
 they were a trifle tired and tender-footed, so in less than twenty 
 minutes they were all inside of a high yard, where they coula 
 scarcely see over the cap, with a row of loose boxes and stalls 
 behind We put 'em into Joe Stevenson's hands to sell — that 
 was what every one called the auctioneer — and walked down the 
 long street. 
 
 My word, we were stunned, and no mistake about it. There 
 was nothing to see but a rocky river and a flat, deep down 
 between hills like we'd seen scores and scores of times all our 
 lives and thought nothing of, and here they were digging gold 
 out of it in all directions, just like jxjtatoes, as Maddie Barnes 
 said. Some of the lumps we saw — nuggets they called 'em — 
 was near as big as new potatoes, without a word of a lie in it. 
 I couldn't hardly believe it ; but I saw them passing the little 
 washleather bags of gold dust and lumps of dirty yellow gravel, 
 but heavier, from one to the other just as if they were nothing 
 — nearly £4 an ounce they said it was all worth, or a trifle 
 under. It licked me to think it had been hid away all the time, 
 and not even the blacks found it out. I believe our blacks are 
 the stupidest, laziest beggars in the whole world. That old man 
 who lived and died in the Hollow, though — he must have known 
 about it ; and the queer-looking thing with the rockers we saw 
 near his hut, that wels the tirst crsulle ever was made in 
 Australia. 
 
 The big man of the goldfield seemed to be the Commissioner. 
 We saw him come riding down the street with a couple of 
 troopers after his heels, looking as if all the place, and the gold 
 too, belonged to him. He had to settle all the rows and dis- 
 putes that came up over the gold, and the boundaries of the 
 claims, as they called the twenty-foot paddocks they all washed 
 in, and a nice time he must have had of it ! However, he was 
 prettv smart and quick about it. The diggers used to crowd 
 round and kick up a bit of a row sometimes when two lot« of 
 men were fighting for the same claim and gold coming up close 
 by ; but what he said was law, and no mistake. When he gave 
 it out they had to take it and be content. Then he used to ride 
 away and not trouble his head any more about it ; and after a 
 bit of barneyiiig it all seemed to come right. Men liked to be 
 talked to straight, and no shilly-shally. 
 
 What I didn't like so much was the hunting about of the poor 
 depls that had not got what they called a licence — a printed 
 thing giving 'em leave for to dig gold on the Crown lands. This 
 used to cost a pound or thirty shillings a month — I forget rightly 
 which — and, of course, some of the chaps hadn't the money to 
 get it with — spent what they had, been unlucky, or run away 
 from somewhere, and come up as bare of everything to get it 
 out of the ground- 
 
 You'd see the troopers asking everybody for their licences, 
 and those that hadn't them would be marched up to the police 
 
188 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS oa^. 
 
 c&mp and chained to a big log, sometimes for days and days. 
 The Grovemment hadn't time to get up a lock-up, with cells and 
 all the rest of it, so they had to do the chain business. Some of 
 these men had seen better days, and felt it ; the other diggers 
 didn't like it either, and growled a good deal among themselves 
 We could see it would make bad blood some day ; but there wa, 
 such a lot of gold being got just then that people didn't bother 
 their heads about anything more than they could help — plenty 
 of gold, plenty of money, people bringing up more things every 
 day from the towns for the use of the diggers. You could get 
 pretty near anything you wanted by paying for it. Hard work 
 from daylight to dark, with every now and then a big find to 
 sweeten it, when a man could see as much money lying at his 
 foot, or in his hand, as a year's work — no, nor five — hadn't made 
 for him before. No wonder people were not in a hurry to call 
 out for change in a place like the Turon in the year 1850 ! 
 
 The first night put the stuns on us. Long rows of tents, with 
 big roaring log fires in front hot enough to roast you if you went 
 too near ; mobs of men talking, singing, chafiing, dealing — all as 
 jolly as a lot of schoolboys. There was grog, too, going, as there 
 IS everywhere. No publics were allow^ at first, so, of course, 
 it was sold on the sly. 
 
 It's no use trying to make men do without grog, or the means 
 of getting it ; it never works. I don't hold with every shanty 
 being licensed and its being under a man's nose all day long ; 
 but if he has the money to pay for it, and wants to have an 
 extra glass of grog or two with his friends, or because he has 
 other reasons, he ought to be able to get it without hardships 
 being put in his way. 
 
 The Grovernment was afraid of there being tremendous fights 
 and riots at the diggings, because there was all sorts of people 
 there, English and French, Spaniards and Italians, natives and 
 Americans, Greeks and Germans, Swedes and negroes, every 
 sort and kind of man from every country in the world seemed 
 to come after a bit. But they needn't have been frightened at 
 the diggers. As far as we saw they were the sensiblest lot of 
 working men we ever laid eyes on ; not at all inclined to make 
 a row for nothing — quite the other way. But the shutting off of 
 public-houses led to sly grog tents, where they made thedigger pay 
 a pound a bottle for his grog, and didn't keep it very good either. 
 
 When the police found a sly grog tent they made short 
 work of it, I will say. Jim and 1 were close by, and saw theiu 
 at the fuiL Somebody had informed on the man, or they hac 
 some other reason : so they rode down, about a dozen troopers, 
 with the Commissioner at their head. He went in and found 
 two casks of brandy and one of mm. besides a lot of bottled 
 stuff. They didn't want that for their own use, he believed. 
 
 First he had the heads knocked in of the hogsheads ; then all 
 the bottled wine and spirits were unpacked and stowed in a 
 cart, while the straw wa^s put back in the tent. Then the men 
 
xxiT ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 189 
 
 and women vrere ordered to come outside, and a trooper set fire 
 to the straw. In five minutes the tent and everything in it was 
 a mass of flame. 
 
 There was a big crowd gathered round outside. They began 
 to groan when the trooper lit the straw, but they did nothing, 
 and went quietly home after a bit. We had the horses to see 
 after next day. Just before the sale began, at twelve o'clock, 
 and a goodish crowd had turned up, Starlight rides quietly up, 
 the finest picture of a new chum you ever set eyes on. Jim and 
 T could hardly keep from bursting out laughing. 
 
 He had brought up a quiet cobby sort of stock horse from the 
 Hollow, plain enough, but a wonder to go, particularly over 
 broken country. Or course, it didn't do to bring Rainbow out 
 for such work as this. For a wonder, he had a short tail. Well, 
 he'd squared this cob's tail and hogged his mane so that he 
 looked like another animah He was pretty fat, too. 
 
 He was dressed up to the nines himself, and if we didn't ex- 
 pect him we wouldn t have known him from a crow. First of 
 all, he had a thick rough suit of tweed clothing on, all the same 
 colour, with a round felt hat. He had a bran new saddle and 
 bridle, that hadn't got the yellow rubbed off them yet. He had 
 an English hunting whip in his hand, and brown dogskin gloves. 
 He had tan leather gaiters that buttoned up to his knees. He'd 
 shaved his beard all but his moustache and a pair of short 
 whiskers. 
 
 He had an eyeglass in his eye, which he let drop every now 
 and then, putting it up when he wanted to look at anybody. 
 
 When he rode up to the yard everybody stared at him, and 
 one or two of the aiggers laughed and began to call out ' Joe.' 
 Jim and I thought how sold some of them would have been if 
 he turned on them and they'd found out who it was. However, 
 he pushed up to the auctioneer, without looking out right or 
 left, and drawled — 
 
 ' May I — er — ask if you are Mr. — er — Joseph Stevenson ? ' 
 
 'I'm Joe Stevenson,' says the auctioneer. 'What can I do 
 for you 1 ' 
 
 ' Oh ! — a — here is a letter from my friend, Mr. Bernard Mul- 
 doon, of the Lower Macquarie — er — requesting you to sell these 
 horses faw him ; and — er — hand over the pwoceeds to — er — me 
 — Mr. Augustus Gwanby — aw ! ' 
 
 Stevenson read the letter, nodded his head, said, ' All right ; 
 111 attend to it,' and went on with the sale. 
 
 It didn't take long to sell our colts. There were some 
 draught stock to come afterwards, and Joe had a day's work 
 before him. But ours sold welL "Thel^ had not been anything 
 like this for size, quality, and conditioEL The Commissioner 
 sent down and bought one. The Inspector of Police was there, 
 and bought one recommended by Starlight. They fetched high 
 prices, from fifty to eighty-five guineas, and they eame to a 
 fairish figure the lot. 
 
190 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. xxit 
 
 When the last horse was sold, Starlight says, ' I feel personally 
 obliged to you, Mr. — aw — Stevenson — faw the highly satisfac- 
 tory manner in which you have conducted the sale, and I 
 shall inform my friend, Mr. Muldoon, of the way you have 
 sold his stock.' 
 
 * Much obliged, sir,' says Joe, touching his hat. ' Come inside 
 and I'll give you the cheque.' 
 
 * Quite unnecessary now,' says Starlight ; ' but as I'm acting 
 for a friend, it may be as well.' 
 
 We saw him pocket the cheque, and ride slowly over to the 
 bank, which was half -tent, half -bark hut. 
 
 We didn't think it safe to stay on the Turon an hour longer 
 than we were forced to do. We had seen the diggings, and got 
 a good notion of what the whole thing was like ; sold the horses 
 and got the money, that was the principal thing. Nothing for 
 it now but to get back to the Hollow. Something would be 
 sure to be said about the horses being sold, and when it came 
 out that they were not Muldoon's there would be a great flare- 
 up. Still they could not prove that the horses were stolen. 
 There wasn't a wrong brand or a faked one in the lot. And no 
 one could swear to a single head of them, though the whole lot 
 were come by on the cross, and father could have told who 
 owned every one among them. That was curious, wasn't it 1 
 
 We put in a night at Jonathan Barnes's on our way back. 
 Maddie got the earrings, and Bella the making of a new riding 
 habit, which she had been wanting and talking about for a 
 good while. Starlight dressed up, and did the new chum young 
 Englishman, eyeglass and all, over again, and repeated the 
 conversation he had with the Inspector of Police about his 
 friend Mr. Muldoon's illness, and the colts he recommended. 
 It was grand, and the girls laughed till they cried again. Well, 
 those were merry days ; we did have a bit of fun sometimes, 
 and if the de\al was dogging us he kept a good wav out of sight. 
 It's his way at the start when fellows take tne downward 
 track. 
 
 We got back safe enough, and father opened his eyes when 
 he saw the roll of notes Starlight counted over as the price of 
 the colts. * Horse-breeding's our best game,' says the old man, 
 ' if they're going to pay such prices as this. I've half a mind to 
 start and taks a lot over to Port Phillip.' 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 Our next chance came through father. He was the intelli- 
 gence man, and ha,d all the news sent to him — roundabout it 
 might be, but it always came, and was generally true ; and the 
 old man never troubled anybody twice that he couldn't believe 
 in, great things or small. Well, word was passed about a 
 branch bank at a place called Ballabri, where a goodish bit of 
 gold was sent to wait the monthly escort. There was only the 
 manager and one clerk there now, the other cove having gone 
 away on sick leave. Towards the end of the month the bank 
 gold was heaviest and the most notes in the safe. The smartest 
 way would be to go into the bank just before shutting-up time 
 — three o'clock, about — and hand a cheque over the counter. 
 While the clerk was looking at it, out with a revolver and cover 
 him. The rest was easy enough. A couple more walked in 
 after, and while one jumped over the counter and bailed up the 
 manager the other shut the door. Nothing strange about that. 
 The door was always shut at three o'clock sharp. Nobody in 
 town would drop to what might be going on inside till the 
 whole thing was over, and the swag ready to be popped into a 
 light trap and cleared off with. 
 
 That was the idea. We had plenty of time to think it over 
 and settle it all, bit by bit, beforehand. 
 
 So one morning we started early and took the job in hand. 
 Every little thing was looked through and talked over a week 
 before. Father got Mr. White's buggy-horses ready and took 
 Warrigal with him to a place where a man met him with a 
 light four-wheeled Yankee trap and harness. Dad was dressed 
 up to look like a back-country squatter. Lots of 'em were 
 quite as rough-looking as he was, though they drive as good 
 horses as any gentleman in the land. Warrigal was togged out 
 something lik:e a groom, with a bit of the station-hand about 
 him. Their saddles and bridles they kept with 'em in the trap ; 
 they didn't know when they might want them. They had on 
 their revolvers underneath their coats. We were to go round 
 by another road and meet at the township. 
 
 Well, everything turned out first-rate. When we crot to 
 
192 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 Ballabri there was father walking his horses up and down. 
 They wanted cooling, my word. They'd come pretty smart all 
 the way, but they were middlin' soft, being in great grass con- 
 dition and not having done any work to speak of for a goodish 
 while, and being a bit above themselves in a manner of 
 speaking. We couldn't help laughing to see how solemn and 
 respectable dad looked. 
 
 'My word,' said Jim, * if he ain't the dead image of old Mr, 
 Carter, of Brahway, where we shore three years back. JusL 
 such another hard-faced, cranky-looking old chap, ain't he, 
 Dick ? I'm that proud of him I'd do anything he asked me 
 now, blest if I wouldn't ! ' 
 
 'Your father's a remarkable man,' says Starlight, quite 
 serious ; ' must have made his way in life if he hadn't shown 
 such a dislike to anything on the square. If he'd started a 
 public-house and a pound about the time he turned his mind to 
 cattle-duffing as one of the fine arts, he'd have had a bank 
 account by this time that would have kept him as honest as a 
 judge. But it's the old story. I say, where are the police 
 quarters ? It's only manners to give them a call.' 
 
 We rode over to the barracks. They weren't much. A four- 
 roomed cottage, a log lock-up with two cells, a four-stalled 
 stable, and a horse-yard. Ballabri was a small township with 
 a few big stations, a good many farms about it, and rather 
 more public-houses than any other sort of buildings in it. A 
 writing chap said once, 'A large well-filled graveyard, a small 
 church mostly locked up, six public-houses, gave the principal 
 features of Ballabri township. The remaining ones appear to 
 be sand, bones, and broken bottles, with a sprinkling of in- 
 ebriates and black fellows.' With all that there was a lot of 
 business done there in a year by the stores and inns, particularly 
 since the diggings. Whatever becomes of the money made in 
 such places? Where does it all go to? Nobody troubles their 
 heads about that. 
 
 A goodish lot of the first people was huddled away in the 
 graveyard under the sand ridges. Many an old shepherd had 
 hobbled into the Travellers' Best with a big cheque for a fort- 
 night's spree, and had stopped behind in the graveyard, too, 
 for company. It was always a wonderful place for steadying 
 lushingtons, was Ballabri. 
 
 Anyhow we rode over to the barracks because we knew the 
 senior constable was away. We'd got up a sham horse-stealing 
 case the day before, through some chaps there that we knew. 
 This drawed him on about fifty mile. The constable left behind 
 was a youngish chap, and we intended to have a bit of fun with 
 him. So we went up to the garden-gat« and called out for the 
 officer in charge of police quite grand. 
 
 ' Here I am,' says he, coming out, buttoning up his uniform 
 coat. ' Is anything the matter ? ' 
 
 * Oh I not much,' says I ; * bnt there's a man sick at the 
 
JCK7 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 198 
 
 Sportsman's Arms. He's down with the typhus fever or some- 
 thing. He's a mate of ours, and we've come from Mr. Grant's 
 station. He wants a doctor fetched.' 
 
 ' Wait a minute till I get my revolver,' says he, buttoning up 
 his waistcoat. He was just fresh from the depdt ; plucky 
 enough, but not up to half the ways of the bush. 
 
 ' You'll do very well as you are,' says Starlight, bringing out 
 his pretty sharp, and pointing it full at his head. ' 1 ou stay 
 there till I give you leave.' 
 
 He stood there quite stunned, while Jim and I jumped off 
 and muzzled him. He hadn't a chance, of course, with one of 
 us on each side, and Starlight threatening to shoot him if he 
 raised a finger. 
 
 'Let's put him in the logs,' says Jim. 'My word ! just for a 
 lark ; turn for turn. Fair play, young fellow. You're l^eing 
 " run in " yourself now. Don't make a row, and no one'll hurt 
 
 you.' 
 
 The keys were hanging up inside, so we pushed him into the 
 farthest cell and locked both doors. There were no windows, 
 and the lock-up, like most bush ones, was built of heavy logs, 
 just roughly squared, -with the ceiling the same sort, so there 
 wasn't much chance of his making himself heard. If any noise 
 did come out the town people would only think it was a 
 drunken man, and take no notice. 
 
 We lost no time then, and Starlight rode up to the bank 
 first. It was about ten minutes to three o'clock. Jim and 
 I popped our horses into the police stables, and put on a 
 couple of their waterproof capes. The day was a little showery. 
 Most of the people we heard afterwards took us for troopers 
 from some other station on the track of bush-rangers, and not 
 in regular uniform. It wasn't a bad joke, though, and the 
 police got well chaffed about it. 
 
 We dodged down very careless like to the bank, and went in 
 a minute or two after Starlight. He was waiting patiently 
 with the cheque in his hand till some old woman got her money. 
 She counted it, shillings, pence, and all, and then went out. 
 The next moment Starlight pushed his cheque over. The clerk 
 looks at it for a moment, and quick-like says, ' How will you 
 have it r 
 
 'This way,' Starlight answered, pointing his revolver at his 
 head, ' and don't you stir or I'll shoot you before you can raise 
 your hand.' 
 
 The manager's room was a small den at one side. They don't 
 allow much room in country banks unless they make up their 
 mind to go in for a regular swell building. I jumped round 
 and took charge of the young man. Jim shut and locked the 
 front door while Starlight knocked at the manager's room. He 
 came out in a hurry, expecting to see one of the bank customers. 
 When he saw Starlight's revolver, his face changed quick 
 enough, but he made a rush to his drawer where he kept liis 
 
 
 
194 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap, 
 
 revolver, and tried to make a fight of it, only we were too 
 quick for him. Starlight put the muzzle of his pistol to his 
 forehead and swore he'd blow out his brains there and then if 
 he didn't stop quiet. We had to use the same words over and 
 over again. Jim used to grin sometimes. They generally did 
 the business, though, so of course he was quite helpless. We 
 hadn't to threaten him to find the key of the safe, because it 
 was unlocked and the key in it. He was just locking up his 
 gold and the day's cash as we came in. 
 
 We tied him and the young fellow fast, legs and arms, and 
 laid them down on the floor while we went through the place. 
 There was a good lot of gold in the safe all weighed and labelled 
 ready for the escort, which called there once a month. Bundles 
 of notes, too ; bags of sovereigns, silver, and copper. The last 
 we didn't take. But all the rest we bundled up or put into 
 handy boxes and bags we found there. Father had come up by 
 this time as close as he could to the back -yard. We carried 
 everything out and put them into his express - waggon ; he 
 shoved a rug over them and drove ofl', quite easy and com- 
 fortable. We locked the back door of the bank and chucked 
 away the key, first telling the manager not to make a row for 
 ten minutes or we might have to come back again. He was a 
 plucky fellow, and we hadn't been rough with him. He had 
 sense enough to see that he was overmatched, and not to fight 
 when it was no good. I've known bankers to make a regular 
 good fight of it, and sometimes come off best when their places 
 was stuck up ; but not when they were bested from the very 
 start, like this one. No man could have had a show, if he was 
 two or three men in one, at the Ballabri money-shop. We 
 walked slap down to the hotel — then it was near the bank — and 
 called for drinks. There weren't many people in the streets at 
 that time in the afternoon, and the few that did notice us didn't 
 think we were any one in particular. Since the diggings broke 
 out all sorts of travellers a little out of the common were 
 wandering all about the country — speculators in mines, 
 strangers, new chums of all kinds ; even the cattle-drovers and 
 stockmen, having their pockets full of money, began to put on 
 more side and dress in a flash way. The bush people didn t take 
 half the notice of strangers they would have done a couple of 
 years before. 
 
 So we had our drinks, and shouted for the landlord and the 
 people in the bar ; walked up to the police station, took out our 
 horses, and rode quickly off, while father was nearly five miles 
 away on a cross-road, making Mr. White's trotters do their best 
 time, and with seven or eight thousand pounds' worth of gold 
 and cash under the driving seat. That, I often think, was about 
 the smartest trick we ever did. It makes me laugh when I 
 remember how savage the senior constable was when he came 
 home, found his sub in a cell, the manager and his clerk just 
 untied, the bank robbed of nearly everything, and us gone 
 
XXV ROBBERY UXDER ARMS IM 
 
 hours ago, with about as much chance of catching ua as a mob 
 of wild cAttle that got out of the yard the night before. 
 
 Just about dark father made the place where the man met 
 him with the trap before. Fresh horses was put in and the 
 man drove slap away another road. He and Warrigal mounted 
 the two brown horses and took the stuff in saddle-bags, which 
 they d brought with 'em. They were back at the Hollow by 
 daylight, and we got there about an hour afterwards. We only 
 rode sharp for the first twenty miles or so, and took it easier 
 afterwards. 
 
 if sticking up the Goulbum mail made a noise in the country, 
 you may depend the Ballabri bank robbery made ten times as 
 much. Every little newspaper and all the big ones, from one 
 end of the colony to the other, were full of it. The robbery of 
 a bank in broad daylight, almost in the middle of the day, close 
 to a police station, and with people going up and down the 
 streets, seemed too out-and-out cheeky to be believed. What 
 was the country coming to? 'It was the fault of the gold that 
 unsettled young fellows' minds,' some said, ' and took them away 
 from honest industry.' Our minds had been unsettled long 
 before the gold, worse luck. Some shouted for more police 
 protection ; some for vigilance committees ; all bush-rangers 
 and horse-thieves to be strung up to the next tree. The whole 
 countryside was in an uproar, except the people at the diggings, 
 who had most of them been in other places, and knew that, 
 compared with them, Australia was one of the safest countries 
 any man could live or travel in. A good deal of fun was made 
 out of our locking up the constable in his own cell I believe 
 he got blown up, too, and nearly dismissed by his inspector for 
 not having his revolver on him and ready for use. But young 
 men that were any good were hard to get for the police just 
 then, and his fault was passed over. It's a great wonder to me 
 more banks were not robbed when you think of it A couple 
 of young fellows are sent to a country place ; there's no decent 
 buildings, or anything reasonable for them to live in, and 
 they're expected to take care of four or five thousand pounds 
 and a lot of gold, as if it was so many bags of potatoes. If 
 there's police, they're half their time away. The young fellows 
 can't be all their time in the house, and two or three determined 
 men, whether they're bush-rangers or not, that like to black 
 their faces, and walk in at any time that they're not expected, 
 can sack the whole thing, and no trouble to them. I call it 
 putting temptation in people's way, and some of the blame 
 ought to go on the right shoulders. As I said before, the little 
 aflair made a great stir, and all the police in the country were 
 round Ballabri for a bit, tracking and tracking till all hours, 
 night and day ; but they couldn't ti.nd out what had become of 
 the wheel-marks, nor where our horse tracks led to. The man 
 that owned the express waggon drove it into a scrubby bit of 
 country and left it there ;. he knew too much to take it homa 
 
198 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 Then he brought away the wheels one by one on horseback, 
 and carted the body in a long time after with a load of wool, 
 just before a heavy rain set in and washed out every track as 
 clean as a whistle. 
 
 Nothing in that year could keep people's thoughts long away 
 from the diggings, which was just as well for us. Everything 
 but the gold was forgotten after a week. If the harbour had 
 dried up or Sydney town been buried by an earthquake, nobody 
 would have bothered themselves about such trifles so long as 
 the gold kept turning up hand over hand the way it did. There 
 seemed no end to it. >(ew diggings jumped up every day, and 
 now another big rush broke out in Port Phillip that sent every 
 one wilder than ever. 
 
 Starlight and us two often used to have a quiet talk about 
 Melbourne. We all liked that side of the country ; there 
 seemed an easier chance of getting straight away from there 
 than any part of New South Wales, where so many people 
 knew us and everybody was on the look-out. 
 
 All kinds of things passed through our minds, but the notion 
 we liked best was taking one of the gold ships bodily and sail- 
 ing her away to a foreign port, where her name could be 
 chansred, and she never heard of again, if all went well. That 
 woulS be a big touch and no mistake. Starlight, who had been 
 at sea, and was always ready for anything out of the way and 
 uncommon, the more dangerous the better, thought it might be 
 done without any great risk or bother. 
 
 ' A ship in harbour,' he said, ' is something like the Ballabri 
 bank. N o one expects anything to happen in harbour, conse- 
 quently there's no watch kept or any look-out that's worth 
 much. Any sudden dash with a few good men and she'd be oti 
 and out to sea before any one could say " knife." ' 
 
 Father didn't like this kind of talk. He was quite satisfied 
 where we were. We were safe there, he said ; and, as long as 
 we kept our heads, no one need ever be the wiser how it was we 
 always seemed to go through the ground and no one could follow 
 us up. What did we fret after ? Hadn't we everything we 
 wanted in the world — plenty of good grub, the best of liquor, 
 and the pick of the countryside for horses, besides living among 
 our own friends and in the country we were born in, and that 
 had the best right to keep us. If we once got among strangers 
 and in another colony we should be ' given away ' by some one 
 or other, and be sure to come to grief in the long-run. 
 
 Well, we couldn't go and cut out this ship all at once, but 
 Jim and I didn't leave go of the notion, and we had many a 
 yam with Starhght about it when we were by ourselves. 
 
 What made us more set upon clearing out of the country was 
 that we were getting a good bit of money together, and of 
 course w© hadn't much chance of spending it. Every place 
 where we'd been seen v/as that well watched there was no get- 
 ting nigh it, and every now and then a strong mob of poUce, 
 
xxY ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 197 
 
 ordered down by telegraph, would muster at some particular 
 spot where they thought there was a chance of surrounding us. 
 However, that dodge wouldn't work. They couldn't surround 
 the Hollow. It was too big, and the gullies between the rocks 
 too deep. You could s©e across a place sometimes that you had 
 to ride miles round to get over. Besides, no one knew there 
 was such a place, leastways that we were there, any more than 
 if we had been in New 2^1and. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 After the Ballabri afifair we had to keep close for weeks and 
 weeks. The wholeplace seemed to be alive with police. We heard 
 of them being on Nulla Mountain and close enough to the Hollow 
 now and then. But Warrigal and father had places among the 
 rocks where they could sit up and see everything for miles 
 round. Dad had taken care to get a good glass, too, and he 
 could sweep the country round about almost down to Rocky 
 Flat. Warrigal'a eyes were sharp enough without a glass, and 
 he often used to tell us he seen things — men, cattle, and horsea 
 — that we couldn't make out a bit in the world. We amused 
 ourselves for a while the best way we could by horse-breaking, 
 shooting, and what not ; but we began to get awful tired of it, 
 and ready for anything, no matter what, that would make some 
 Bort of change. 
 
 One day father told us a bit of news that made a stir in the 
 camp, and nearly v/ould have Jim and me clear out altogether 
 if we'd had any place to go to. For some time past, it seems, 
 dad had been grumbling about being left to himself so much, 
 and, except this last fakement, not having anything to do with 
 the road work. ' It's ail devilish fine for you and your brother 
 and the Captain there to go flashin' about the country and 
 sporting your figure on horseback, while I'm left alone to do 
 the housekeepin' in the Hollow. I'm not going to be wood-and- 
 water Joey. I can tell ye, not for you nor no other men. So 
 I've made it right with a couple of chaps as Tve knoVd these 
 years past, and we can do a touch now and then, as well as you 
 grand gentlemen, on the " high toby," as they call it where I 
 came from.' 
 
 'I didn't think you were such an old fool, Ben,' said Starlight ; 
 ' but keeping this place here a dead secret is our sheet-anchor. 
 Lose that, and we'll be run into in a week. If you let it 
 out to any fellow you come across, you will soon know all 
 about it.' 
 
 ' Fve known Dan Moran and Pat Burke nigh as long as Pve 
 known you, for the matter of that,' says father. * They're safe 
 enough, and they^re not to come here or know where I hang out 
 
OH^p. XXVI ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 199 
 
 neither. We've other places to meet, and what we do 11 be 
 clean done, I'll go bail' 
 
 ' It doesn't matter two straws to me, as I've told you many a 
 time,' said Starlight, lighting a cigar (he always kept a good 
 supply of them). 'But you see if Dick and Jim, now, don't 
 suifer for it before long.' 
 
 *It was I as told you about the place, wasn't it?' growls 
 father ; ' don't you suppose I know how to put a man right ? I 
 look to have my turn at steering this here ship, or else the crew 
 better go ashore for good.' 
 
 Father had begun to drink harder now than he used ; that 
 was partly the reason. And when he'd got his liquor aboard he 
 was that savage and obstinate there was no doing anything 
 with him. We couldn't well part. We couldn't allbrd to do 
 without each other. So we had to patch it up the best way we 
 could, and let him have his own way. But we none of us liked 
 the new-fangled way, and made sure bad would come of it. 
 
 We all knew the two men, and didn't half like tliem. They 
 were the head men of a gang that mostly went in for horse- 
 stealing, and only did a bit oi regular bush-ranging when they 
 was sure of getting clear off. They'd never shown out the fight- 
 ing way yet, though they were ready enough for it if it couldn't 
 be helpecL 
 
 Moran was a dark, thin, wiry-looking native chap, with a big 
 beard, and a nasty beiidy black eye like a snake's. He was a 
 wonderful man outside of a horse, and as active as a cat, besides 
 being a deal stronger than any one would have taken him to be. 
 He had a drawling way of talking, and was one of those fellows 
 that liked a bit of cruelty when he had the chance. I believe 
 he'd rather shoot any one than not, and when he was worked up 
 he was more like a aevil than a man, Pat Burke was a broad- 
 shouldered, fair-complexioned fellow, most like an Englishman, 
 though he was a native too. He'd had a small station once, ana 
 might have done well (I was going to say) if he'd had sense 
 enough to go straight. What rot it all is ! Couldn't we all 
 have done well, if the devils of idleness and easy-earned money 
 and false pride had let us alone ? 
 
 Father said his bargain with these chaps was that he should 
 send down to them when anything was up that more men was 
 wanted for, and they was always to meet him at a certain place. 
 He said they'd be satisfied with a share of whatever the amount 
 was, and that they'd never want to be shown the Hollow or to 
 come anigh it. They had homes and places of their own, and 
 didn't want to be known more than could be helped. Besides 
 this, if anything turned up that was real first chop, they could 
 always find two or three more young fellows that would stand 
 a flutter, and disappear when the job was done. This was worth 
 thinking over, he said, because there weren't quite enough of us 
 for some things, and we could keep these other chaps employed 
 ftt outside work. 
 
200 ROBBERY mn)ER ARMS chap. 
 
 There was something in this, of course, and dad was generally 
 near the mark, there or thereabouts, so we let things drift. One 
 thing was that these chaps could often lay their hands upon a 
 goodish lot of horses or cattle ; and if they delivered them to 
 any two of us twenty miles from the Hollow, they could be 
 popped in there, and neither they or any one else the wiser. 
 You see father didn't mind taking a hand in the bush-ranging 
 racket, but his heart was with the cattle and horse-duffing that 
 he'd been used to so long, and he couldn't quite give it up. It's 
 my belief he'd have sooner made a ten-pound note by an un- 
 branded colt or a mob of fat cattle than five times as much in 
 any other way. Every man to his taste, they say. 
 
 Well, between this new fad of the old man's and our having 
 a notion that we had better keep quiet for a spell and let 
 things settle down a bit, we had a long steady talk, and the end 
 of it was that we made up our minds to go and put in a month 
 or two at the diggings. 
 
 We took a horse apiece that weren't much account, so we 
 could either sell them or lose them, it did not make much odds 
 which, and made a start for Jonathan Barnes's place. We got 
 word from him every now and then, and knew that the police 
 had never found out that we had been there, going or coming. 
 Jonathan was a blowing, blatherskiting fool ; but his very 
 foolishness in that way made them think he knew nothing at 
 all. He had just sense enough not to talk about us, and they 
 never thought about asking him. So we thought we'd have a 
 bit of fun there before we settled down for work at the Turon. 
 We took old saddles and bridles, and had a middling -sized 
 swag in front, just as if we'd come a long way. We dressed 
 pretty rough too ; we had longish hair and beards, and (except 
 Starlight) might have been easy taken for down-the-river stock- 
 men or drovers. 
 
 When we got to Barnes's place he and the old woman seemed 
 ever so glad to see us. Bella and Maddie rushed out, making a 
 great row, and chattering both at a time. 
 
 'Why, we thought you were lost, or shot, or something,'* 
 Bella says. 'You might have sent us a letter, or a message, 
 only I suppose you didn't think it worth whUe.' 
 
 'What a bad state the country's getting in,' says Maddie. 
 * Think of them bush-rangers sticking up the bank at Ballabri, 
 and locking up the constable in his Own cell. Ha ! ha ! The 
 police magistrate was here to-night. You should have heard 
 Bella talking so nice and proper to him about it.' 
 
 ' Yes, and you said they'd all be caught and hanged,' said 
 Bella ; ' that it was settin' such a bad example to the young 
 men of the colony. My word ! it was as good as a play. Mad 
 was so full of her fun, and when the P.M. said they'd be sure to 
 be caught in the long-run, Maddie said they'd have to import 
 some thoroughbred police to catch 'em, for our Sydney-side 
 ones didn't seem to have pace enough. This miide the old 
 
XXVI ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 201 
 
 gentleman stare, and he looked at Maddie as if she was out of 
 her mind. Didn't he, ilad ? ' 
 
 ' I do think it's disgraceful of Goring and his lot not to have 
 run them in before,' says Starlight, ' but it wouldn't do for us 
 to interfere.' 
 
 'Ah ! but Sir Ferdinand Morringer's come up now,' says 
 Maddie. ' Hell begin to knock saucepans out of all the boys 
 between here and Weddin Mountain. He was here, too, and 
 asked us a lot of questions about people who were " wanted " in 
 these parts.' 
 
 'He fell in love with Maddie, too,' says Bella, 'and gave her 
 one of the charms of his watch chain — such a pretty one, too. 
 He's going to catch Starlight's mob, as he calls them. Maddie 
 says she'll send him word if ever she knows of their being 
 about 
 
 ' \\'ell done, Maddie ! ' says Jim ; 'so you may, iust an hour 
 or two after we're started. There won't be much likelihood of 
 his overhauling us then. He won't be the first man that's been 
 fooled by a woman, will he f ' 
 
 selves talk, but fair play is bonny play. Suppose you tell us 
 what you've been about all this time. I think tea's ready.' 
 
 We had our innings in the talking line ; Jim and Sladdie 
 made noise enough for half-a-dozen. Starlight let himself be 
 talked to, and didn't say much himself ; but I could see even he, 
 that had seen a lot of high life in his time, was pleased enough 
 with the nonsense of a couple of good-looking girls like these — 
 regular bush -bred fillies as they were — after being shut up in 
 the Hollow for a month or two. 
 
 Before we'd done a couple of travellers rode up. Jonathan's 
 place was getting a deal more custom now — it lay near about 
 the straight line for the Turon, and came to be kno^Ti as a 
 pretty comfortable shop. Jonathan came in with them, and 
 gave us a wink as much as to say, ' It's all right.' 
 
 ' These gentlemen's just come up from Sydney,' he said, ' not 
 long from England, and wants to see the diggings. I told 'em 
 you might be going that way, and could show 'em the road.' 
 
 ' Very happy,' says Starlight. ' I am from Port Phillip last 
 myself, and think of going back by Honolulu after I've made 
 the round of the colonies. My good friends and travelling com- 
 panions are on their way for the Darling. V/e can all travel 
 together.' 
 
 ' What a fortunato thing wo came here, Clifford, eh ? ' says 
 one young fellow, putting up his eyeglass. ' You wanted to 
 push on. Now we shall have company, and not lose our way 
 in this beastlv "bush," as they call it.' 
 
 ' Well, it does look like luck,' says the other man. ' I was 
 beginning to think the confounded place was getting farther off 
 
202 ROBBEEY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 every day. Can you show us our rooms, if you please t I sup- 
 pose we couldn't have a bath ? ' 
 
 'Oh yes, you can,' said Maddie ; 'there's the creek at the 
 bottom of the garden, only there's snakes now and then at 
 night. I'll get you towels,' 
 
 ' In that case I think I shall prefer to wait till the morning,' 
 says the tall man. 'It will be something to look forward to.' 
 
 We were afraid the strangers would have spoiled our fun for 
 the evening, but they didn't ; we made out afterwards that the 
 tall one was a lord. They were just like anybody else, and 
 when we got the piano to work aft«r tea they made themselves 
 pleasant enough, and Starlight sang a song or two — he could 
 sing, and no mistake, when he lik^ — and then one of them 
 played a waltz, and the girls danced together, and Starlight had 
 some champagne in, said it was his birthday, and he'd just 
 thought of it, and they got quite friendly and joUy before we 
 turned in. 
 
 Next day we made a start, promising the girls a nugget each 
 for a ring out of the first gold we got, and they promised to 
 write to us and tell us if they heard any news. They knew 
 what to say, and we shouldn't be caught simple if they could 
 help it. Jim took care, though, to keep well otf the road, and 
 take all the short cuts he knew. We weren't quite safe till we 
 was in the thick of the mining crowd. That's the best place for 
 a man, or woman either, to hide that wants to drop out of 
 sight and never be seen again. Many a time I've known a 
 man, called Jack or Tom among the diggers, and never thought 
 of as anything else, working like them, drinking and taking 
 his pleasure and dressing like them, till he made his pile or 
 died, or something, and then it turned out he was the Honour- 
 able Mr. So-and-So, Captain This, or Major That ; perhaps the 
 Reverend Somebody — though that didn't happen often. 
 
 We were all the more contented, though, when we heard the 
 row of the cradles and the clang and bang of the stampers in 
 the quartz-crushing batteries again, and saw the big crowd 
 moving up and down like a hill of ants, the same as when we'd 
 left Turon last. As soon as we got into the main street we 
 parted. Jim and I touched our hats and said good-bye to Star- 
 light and the other two, who went away to the crack hot€l. 
 "W e went and made a camp down by the creek, so that we might 
 turn to and peg out a claim, or buy out a couple of shares, first 
 thing in the morning. 
 
 Except the Hollow it was the safest place in the whole 
 country just now, as we could hear that every week fresh people 
 were pouring in fiom all the other colonies, and every part of 
 the world. The police on the diggings had their own work 
 pretty well cut out for them, what with old hands from Van 
 Diemen's Land, Californians — and, you may bet, roughs and 
 rascals from every place under the sun. Besides, we wanted to 
 see for ourselves how the thing was done, and pick up a few 
 
XXVI ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 208 
 
 wrinkles that might come in handy atterwards. Our dodge was 
 to take a few notes with us, and buy into a claim — one here, 
 one there — not to keep together for fear of consequences. If 
 we worked and kept steady at it, in a place where there were 
 thousands of strangers of all kinds, it would take the devil 
 himself to pick us out of such a queer, bubbling, noisy, mixed- 
 up pot of heli-broth. 
 
 Things couldn't have dropped in more lucky for us than they 
 did. In this way. Starlight was asked by the two swells to join 
 them, because they wanted to do a bit oi digging, lust for the 
 fun of it ; and he made out he'd just come from Melbourne, and 
 hadn't been six months longer m the country than they had. 
 Of course he was sunburnt a bit. He got that in India, he 
 said. My word ! they played just into his hand, and he did the 
 new-chum swell all to pieces, and so that natural no one could 
 have picked him out from them. He dressed like them, talked 
 like them, and never let slip a word except about shooting in 
 England, hunting in America and India, besides gammoning to 
 be as green about all Australian ways as if he'd never seen a 
 gum tree before. They took up a claim, and bought a tent. 
 Then they got a wages-man to help them, and all four used to 
 work like niggers. The crowd christened them 'The Three 
 Honourables,' and used to have great fun watching them work- 
 ing away in their jerseys, and handling their picks and shovels 
 like men. Starlight used to drawl just like the other two, and 
 asked questions about the colony ; and walk about with them on 
 Sundays and holidays in fashionable cut clothes. He'd brought 
 money, too, and paid his share of the expenses, and something 
 over. It was a great sight to see at night, and people said like 
 nothing else in the world just then. Every one turned out for 
 an hour or two at night, and then was the time to see the Turon 
 in its glory. Big, sunburnt men, with beards, and red silk 
 sashes round their waists, with a sheath-knife and revolvers 
 mostly stuck in them, and broad-leaved felt hats on. There 
 were Calif ornians, then foreigners of all sorts — Frenchmen, 
 Italians, Gtermans, Spaniards, Greeks, Negroes, Indians, China- 
 men. They were a droll, strange, fierce-looking crowd. There 
 weren't many women at first, but they came pretty thick after 
 a bit. A couple of theatres were open, a circus, hotels with lota 
 of plate-glass windows and splendid bars, all lighted up, and 
 the front of them, anyhow, as handsome at first sight as Sydney 
 or Melbourne. Drapers and grocers, ironmongers, general stores, 
 butchers and bakers, all kept open until midnight, and every 
 place was lighted up as clear as day. It wais like a fairy-story 
 place, Jim said ; he was as pleased as a child with the glitter and 
 show and strangeness of it alL Nobody was poor, everybody 
 was well dressed, and had money to spend, from the children 
 upwards. Liquor seemed running from morning to night, as if 
 there were creeks of it • all the same there was very little 
 drunkenness and quarrelling. The police kept good order, and 
 
204 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 the miners were their own police mostly, and didn't seem to 
 want keeping right. We al'vays expected the miners to be a 
 disorderly, rough set of people — it was quite the other way. 
 Only we had got into a world where everybody had everything 
 they wanted, or else had the money to pay for it. How different 
 it seemed from the hard, grinding, poverty-stricken life we had 
 been brought up to, and all the settlers we knew when we were 
 young ! People had to work hard for every pound they made 
 then, and, if they hadn't the ready cash, obliged to do without, 
 even if it was bread to eat. Many a time we'd had no tea and 
 sugar when we were little, because father hadn't the money to 
 pay for it. That was when he stayed at home and worked for 
 what he got. Well, it was honest money, at any rate — pity he 
 hadn't kept that way. 
 
 Now all this was changed. It wasn't like the same country. 
 Everybody dressed well, lived higli, and the money never ran 
 short, nor was likely to as long as the gold kept spreading, and 
 was found in 10, 20, 50 pound nuggets every week or two. 
 We had a good claim, and began to think about six months' 
 work would give us enough to clear right away with. We let 
 our hair grow long, and made friends with some Americans, so 
 we began to talk a little like them, just for fun, and most people 
 took us for Yankees. We didn't mind that. Anything was 
 better than being taken for what we were. And if we could 
 get clear off to San Francisco there were lots of grand new 
 towns springing up near the Rocky Mountains, where a man 
 could live his life out peaceably, and never be heard of again. 
 
 As for Starlight he'd laid it out with his two noble friends to 
 
 fo back to Sydney in two or three months, and run down to 
 [onolulu in one of the trading vessels. They could get over to 
 the Pacific slope, or else have a year among the Islands, and go 
 anywhere they pleased. They had got that fond of Haughton, 
 as he called himself — Frank Haughton — that nothing would 
 have persuaded them to part company. And wasn't he a man 
 to be fond of ? — always ready for anything, always good- 
 tempered except when people wouldn't let him, ready to work 
 or fight or suffer hardship, li it came to that, just as cheerful as 
 he went to his dinner — never thinking or talking much about 
 himself, but always there when he was wanted. You couldn't 
 have made a more out-and-out all round man to live and die 
 ^th ; and yet, wasn't it a murder, that there should be that 
 against him, when it came out, that spoiled the whole lot 1 
 Vie used to meet now and then, but never noticed one another 
 except by a bit of a nod or a wink, in public. One day Jim and 
 I were busy puddling some dirt, and we saw Sergeant Goring 
 ride by with another trooper. He looked at us, but we were 
 splashed with yellow mud, and had handkerchiefs tied over our 
 he^s. I don't think mother would have known us. He just 
 glanced over at us and took no notice. If he didn't know us 
 there was no fear of any one else being that sharp to do it. Sc 
 
jovT ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 205 
 
 we began to take it easy, and to lose our fear of being dropped 
 on at any time. Ours was & middling good claim, too ; two 
 men's ground ; and we were lucky from the start. Jim took to 
 the pick and shovel work from the first, and was as happy as a 
 man could be. 
 
 After our day's work we used to take a stroll through the 
 lighted streets at night. What a plaice it had grown to be, and 
 how different it was from being by ourselves at the Hollow. 
 The gold was coming in that fast that it paid people to build 
 more shops, and bring up goods from Sydney every week, until 
 there wasn't any mortal thing you couldn't get there for money. 
 Everything was dear, of course ; but everybody had money, 
 and nobody minded paying two prices when they were wash- 
 ing, perhaps, two or three pounds' weight of gold out of a tub 
 of dirt. 
 
 One night Jim and I were strolling about with some of our 
 Yankee friends, when some one said there'd been a new hotel 
 opened by some Melbourne people which was very swell, and 
 we might take a look at it. We didn't say no, so we all went 
 into the parlour and called for drinks, ^he landlady herself 
 came in, aressed up to the nines, and made herself agreeable, 
 as she might well do. We were all pretty well in, but one of 
 the Americans owned the Golden Gate claim, and was supposed 
 to be the richest man on the field. He'd known her before. 
 
 ' Waal, Mrs. Mullockson,' says he, ' so you've pulled up stakes 
 from Bendigo City and concluaed to locate here. How do you 
 approbate Turon f ' 
 
 She said something or other, we hardly knew what. Jim 
 and I couldn't help giving one look. Her eyes turned on us. 
 We could see she knew us, though she hadn't done so at first. 
 We took no notice ; no more did she, but slie followed us to the 
 door, and touched me on the shoulder. 
 
 * You're not going to desert old friends, Dick ? ' she said in a 
 low voice. ' I wrote you a cross letter, but we must forgive and 
 forget, you know. You and Jim come up to-morrow night, 
 won't you ? ' 
 
 ' All right. Kate,' I said, and we followed our party. 
 
CHAPTER XXVn 
 
 This meeting with Kate Morrison put the stuns upon me and 
 Jim, and no mistake. We never expected to see her up at 
 the Turon, and it all depended which way the fit took her now 
 whether it would be a fit place for us to live in any longer. Up 
 to this time we had done capital welL We had been planted as 
 close as if we had been at the Hollow. We'd had lots of work, 
 and company, and luck. It began to look as if our luck would 
 be dead out. Anyhow, we were at the mercy of a tiger-cat of a 
 woman who might let loose her temper at any time and lay the 
 police on to us, without thinking twice about it. We didn't 
 think she knew Starlight was there, but she was knowing enough 
 for anything. She could put two and two together, and wait and 
 watch, too. It gave me afit of the shivers every time I thought 
 of it. This was the last place I ever expected to see her. at. 
 However, you never can tell what'll turn up in this world. She 
 might have got over her tantrums. 
 
 Of course we went over to the Prospectors' Arms that night, 
 as the new hotel was called, and found quite a warm welcome. 
 Mrs. MuUockson had turned into quite a fashionable lady since 
 the Melbourne days ; dressed very grand, and talked and chaifed 
 with the commissioner, the police inspectors, and goldfield 
 officers from the camp as if she'd been brought up to it. People 
 lived fast in those goldfield days ; it don't take long to pick up 
 that sort of learning. 
 
 The Prospectors' Arms became quite the go, and all the swell 
 miners and quartz reefers began to meet there as a matter of 
 course. There was Dandy Green, the Lincolnshire man from 
 Beevor, that used to wear no end of boots and spend pounds and 
 pounds in blacking. He used to turn out with everything clean 
 on every morning, fit to go to a ball, as he walked on to the brace. 
 There was Ballersdorf, the old Prussian soldier, that had fought 
 against Boney, and owned half-a-dozen crushing machines and a 
 sixth share in the Great Wattle Flat Company ; Dan Robinson, 
 the man that picked up the 70 pound nugget ; Sam Dawson, of 
 White Hills, and Peter Paul, the Canadian, with a lot of others, 
 aU known men, went there regular. Some of them didn't mind 
 
CHAP, xxvn ROBBERY UIsDER ARMS 207 
 
 spending fifty or a hundred pounds in a night if the fit took 
 them. The house began to do a tremendous trade, and no mis- 
 take. 
 
 Old MuUockson was a quiet, red-faced old chap, who seemed 
 to do all Kate told him, and never bothered himself about the 
 business, except when he had to buy fre^h supplies in the wine 
 and spirit line. There he was first chop. You couldn't lick him 
 for quality. And so the place got a name. 
 
 But where was Jeanie all this time 1 That was what Jim put 
 me up to ask the first night we came, ' Oh i Jeanie, poor girl, 
 she was stopping with her aunt in Melbourne.' But Kate bad 
 written to her, and she was coming up in a few weeks. This 
 put Jim into great heart. What with the regular work and the 
 doing weU in the gold line, and Jeanie coming up, poor old Jim 
 looked that happy that he was a difi'erent man. No wonder the 
 police didn't know him. He had grown out of his old looks and 
 ways ; and though they rubbed shoulders with us every day, no 
 one had eyes sharp enough to see that James Henderson and his 
 brother Dick — mates with the best men on the field — were 
 escaped prisoners, and had a big reward on them besides. 
 
 >i obociy knew it, and that was pretty nigh as good as if it 
 wasn't true. So we held on, and made money hand over fist. 
 We used to go up to the hotel whenever we'd an evening to 
 spare, but that wasn't often. We intended to keep our money 
 this time, and no publican was to be any the better for our hard 
 work. 
 
 As for Kate, I couldn't make her out. Most times she'd be 
 that pleasant and jolly no one could help liking her. She had a 
 way of talking to me and telling me everything that happened, 
 because I was an old friend she said — that pretty nigh knocked 
 me over, I tell you. Other times she was that savage and vio- 
 lent no one would go near her. She didn't care who it was — 
 servants or customers, they all gave her a wide berth when she 
 was in her tantrums. As for old MuUockson, he used to take a 
 drive to Sawpit Gully or Ten-Mile as soon as ever he saw what 
 o'clock it was — and glad to clear out, too. She never dropped 
 on to me, somehow. Perhaps she thought she'd get as good 
 as she gave ; I wasn't over good to lead, and couldn't be 
 drove at the best of times. Xo ! not by no woman that ever 
 stepped 
 
 One evening Starlight and Ids two swell friends comes in, 
 quite accidental like. They sat down at a small table by them- 
 selves and ordered a couple of bottles of foreign wine. There 
 was plenty of that if you liked to pay a guinea a bottle. I 
 remember when common brandy was that price at first, and I've 
 seen it fetched out of a doctor's tent as medicine. It paid him 
 better than his salts and rhubarb. That was before the hotels 
 opened, and while all the grog was sold on the sly. They 
 marched in, dressed up as if they'd been in George Street, 
 though everybody knew one of 'em had been at the windlass all 
 
208 ROBBERY IjyDER ARMS caAS. 
 
 day with the wages man, and the other two below, working up 
 to their knees in water ; for they'd come on a drift in their 
 claim, and were paddling back. However, Uiat says nothing ; 
 we were all in good clothe and fancy shirts and ties. Miners 
 don't go about in their working suits. The two Honourables 
 walked over to the bar first of all, and said a word or two to 
 Kat€, who was all smiles and as pleasant as you please. It was 
 one of her good days. Starlight put up his eyeglass and stared 
 round as if we were all a lot of queer animals out of a caravan. 
 Then he sat down and took up the Turon Star. Kate hardly- 
 looked at him, she was so taken up with his two friends, ana, 
 woman-like, bent on drawing them on, knowing them to be big 
 swells in their own country. We never looked his way, except 
 on the sly, and no one could have thought we'd ever slept under 
 one tree together, or seen the things we had. 
 
 When the waiter was opening their wine one of the camp 
 officers comes in that they had letters to. So they asked him to 
 join them, and Starlight sends for another bottle of Moselle — 
 something like that, he called it. 
 
 'The last time I drank wine as good as this,' says Starlight, 
 
 * was at the Caffy Troy, something or other, in Paris. I wouldn't 
 mind being there again, with the Variety Theatre to follow. 
 Would you, Clifford r 
 
 * Well, I don't know,' says the other swell ' I find tliis amaz- 
 ing good fun for a bit. I never was in such grand condition 
 since I left Oxford. This eight-hours' shift business is just the 
 right thing for training. I feel fit to go for a man's life. Just 
 feel this, Despard,' and he holds out his arm to the camp swell. 
 
 * There's muscle for you 1 ' 
 
 * Plenty of muscle,' said Mr. Despard, looking round. He was 
 a swell that didn't work, and wouldn't work, and thought it fine 
 to treat the diggers like dogs. Most of the commissioners and 
 magistrates were gentlemen and acted as such ; but there were 
 a few young fools like this one, and they did the Government a 
 deal of harm with the diggers more than they knew. ' Plenty 
 of muscle,' says he, ' but devilish little society.' 
 
 ' I don't agree with you,' says the other Honourable. ' It's 
 the most amusing and in a way instructive place for a man who 
 wants to know his fellow-creatures I was ever in. I never pass 
 a day without meeting some fresh variety of the human race, 
 man or woman ; and their experiences are well worth knowing, 
 I can tell you. Not that they're in a hurry to impart them ; for 
 that there's more natural, unaffected good manners on a digging 
 than in any society I ever mingled in I shall never doabt. But 
 when they see you don't want to patronise, and are content to 
 be a simple man among men, there's nothing they won't do for 
 you or tell you.' 
 
 'Oh, d — n one's fello w- creatures ; present company ex- 
 cepted,' says Mr. Despard, filling his glass, ' and the man that 
 grew this "tipple." They're useful to me now and then and 
 
cmi ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 209 
 
 one has to put up with this crowd ; but I never could take 
 much interest in tnem.' 
 
 'All the worse for you, Despard,' says Clifford. 'You're 
 wasting your chances — golden opportunities in every sense of 
 the word. You'll never see such a spectacle as this, perhaps, 
 again as long as you live. It's a fancy dress ball with real 
 characters.' 
 
 'Dashed bad characters, if we only knew,' says Despard, 
 yawning. ' What do you sav, Haughton 1 ' looking at Starlight, 
 who was playing with his glass and not listening much by the 
 look of him. 
 
 'I say, let's go into the little parlour and have a game of 
 picquet, unless you'll take some more wine. No ? Then we'll 
 move. Bad characters, you were saying? Well, you camp 
 feUows ought to be able to give an opinion.' 
 
 They sauntered through the big room, which was Just then 
 crowded with a curious company, as Clifford said. I suppose 
 there was every kind of man and miner under the sun. Not 
 many women, but what there was not a little out of the way in 
 looks and manners. We kept on working away all the time. 
 It helped to stop us from thinking, and every week we had a 
 higher deposit-receipt in the bank where wo used to sell our 
 gold. People may say what they like, but there's nothing like 
 a nest egg ; seeing it grow bigger keeps many a fellow straight, 
 and he gets to like adding to it, and feels the pull of being care- 
 ful with his money, which a pc>or man that never has anything 
 worth saving doesn't. Poor men are the most extravagant, I've 
 always found. They spend all they have, which middling kind 
 of people just above them don't. Tliey screw and pinch to 
 bring up their children, and what not ; and dress shabby and 
 go without a lot which the working man never thinks of stint- 
 ing himself in. But there's the parson here to do that kind of 
 thing. I'm not the proper sort of cove to preach. I'd better 
 leave it to him. So we didn't spend our money foolish, like 
 most part of the diggers that had a bit of luck ; but we had to 
 do a lair thing. We got through a lot of money every week, 
 I expect. Talking of foolish things, I saw one man that had 
 his horse shod with gold, regular pure gold shoes. The black- 
 smith made 'em — good solid ones, and all regular. He rode into 
 the main street one holiday, and no end of people stopped him 
 and lifted up his horse's feet to see. They weighed 7 oz. 4 dwt. 
 each. Eainbow ought to have been shod that way. If ever a 
 horse deserved it he did. But Starlight didn't go in for 
 that kind of thing. Now and then some of the old colonial 
 hands, when they were regularly ' on the burst,' would empty 
 a dozen of champagne into a bucket or light their pipes witb a 
 ten-pound note. But these were not everyday larks, and were 
 laughed at by the diggers themselves as much as anybody. 
 
 But of course some allowance had to be made for men not 
 making much above wages when they came suddenly on a 
 
 P 
 
210 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 biggish stone, and sticking the pick into it found it to be a 
 gigantic nugget worth a small fortune. Most men would go a bit 
 mad over a stroke of luck like that, and they did happen now 
 and then. There was the Boennair nugget, dug at Louisa Creek 
 by an Irishman, that weighed 364 oz. 11 dwt. It was sold in 
 Sydney for £1156. There was the Iving of Meroo nugget, weigh- 
 ing 157 oz. ; and another one that only scaled 71 oz. seemed hardly 
 worth picking up after the others, only £250 worth or so. But 
 there was a bigger one yet on the grass if we'd only known, and 
 many a digger, and shepherd too, had sat down on it and lit his 
 pipe, thinking it no better than other lumps of blind white 
 quartz that lay piled up all along the crown of the ride. 
 
 Mostly after we'd done our day's work and turned out clean 
 and comfortable after supper, smoking our pipes, we walked up 
 the street for an hour or two. Jim and I used to laugh a bit in 
 a queer way over the change it was from our old bush life at 
 Rocky Flat when we were boys, before we had any thoughts 
 beyond doing our regular day's work and milking the cows and 
 chopping wood enough to last mother all day. The little creek, 
 that sounded so clear in the still night when we woke up, rip- 
 pling and gurgling over the stones, the silent, dark forest all 
 round on every side ; and on moonlight nights the moon shining 
 over XuUa Mountain, dark and overhanging all the valley, as if 
 it had been sailing in the clear sky over it ever since the begin- 
 ning of the world. We didn't smoke then, and we used to sit 
 in the verandah, and Aileen would talk to us till it was time to 
 go to bed. 
 
 Even when vre went into Barge, or some of the other country 
 towns, they did not seem so much brighter. Sleepy-looking, 
 steady-going places they all were, with people crawling about 
 them like a lot of old working bullocks. Just about as sensible, 
 many of 'em. What a change all this was i Main Street at the 
 Turon ! Just as bright as day at twelve o'clock at night. 
 Crowds walking up and down, bars lighted up, theatres going 
 on, dance-houses in full swing, billiard-t-ables where you could 
 hear the balls clicking away till daylight; miners walking down 
 to their night shifts, others turning out after sleeping all the 
 afternoon quite fresh and lively ; half-a-dozen trooper's clank- 
 ing down the street, back from escort duty. Everybody just as 
 fresh at midnight as at breakfast time — more so, perhaps. It 
 was a new world. 
 
 One tiling's certain ; Jim and I w^ould never have had the 
 chance of seeing as many different kinds of people in a hundred 
 years if it hadn't been for the gold. No vvonder some of the 
 young fellows kicked over the traces for a change — a change 
 from sheep, cattle, and horses, ploughing and reaping, shearing 
 and bullock-driving ; the same old thing every day ; the same 
 chaps to talk to about the same things. It does seem a dead- 
 and-live kind of life after all we've seen and done since. How- 
 ever, we'd a deal better have kept to the bulldog's motter. 
 
xxrn ROBBERY UXDER ARMS 211 
 
 ' Hang on,' and stick to it, even if it was a shade slow and stupid. 
 We'd have come out right in the end, as all coves do that hold 
 fast to the right thing and stick to the straight course, fair 
 weather or foul. I can see that now, and many things else. 
 
 But to see the big room at the Prospectors' Arms at night — 
 the hall, they called it — was a sight worth talking about— as 
 Jim and I walked up and down, or sat at one of the small 
 tables smoking our pipes, with good liquor before us. It was 
 like a fairy-tale come true to chaps like us, though we had seen 
 a little life in Sydney and Melbourne. 
 
 What made it so different from any other place we'd ever 
 seen or thought of before was the strange mixture of every kind 
 and sort of man and woman ; to hear them all jabbering away 
 together in different languages, or trying to speak English, 
 used to knock us altogether. The American diggers that we 
 took up with had met a lot of foreigners in California and other 
 places. They could speak a little Spanish and French, and got 
 on with them. But Jim and I coula only stare and stand open- 
 mouthed when a Spanish-American chap would come up with 
 his red sash and his big sheath-knife, while they'd yabber away 
 quite comfortable. 
 
 It made us feel like children, and we began to think what a 
 tin Pi thing it would be to clear out by Honolulu, and so on to 
 San Francisco, as Starlight was always talking about. It would 
 make men of us, at any rate, and give us something to think 
 about in the days to come. 
 
 If we could clear out what a heaven it would be ! I could 
 send over for Gracey to come to me. I knew she'd do that, if I 
 was only once across the sea, ready and willing to lead a new 
 life, and with something honest-earned and hard- worked -for to 
 buy a farm with. Nobody need know. Nobody would even 
 inquire in the far West where we'd come from or what we'd 
 done. We should live close handy to one another — Jim and 
 Jeanie, Gracey and I — and when dad went under, mother and 
 Aileen could come out to us ; and there would stiU be a little 
 happiness left us, for all that was come and gone. Ali ! if 
 things would only work out that way. 
 
 W"ell, Diore unlikely things happen every day. And still the 
 big room gets fuller. There's a band .strikes up in the next 
 room and the dancing begins. This is a ball nignt. Kato has 
 started that game. She's a great hand at dancing herself, and 
 she manages to get a few girls to come up ; wherever they 
 come from nobody knows, for there's none to be seen in the day- 
 time. But they turn out wonderfully well dressed, and some of 
 them mighty good-looking ; and the young swells from the 
 camp come down, and the diggers that have been lucky and 
 begin to fancy themselves. And there's no end of fun and 
 flirting and nonsense, such as there always is when men and 
 women get together in a place where they^re not obliged to be 
 over- particular. Not that there was any rowdiness or bad 
 
212 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 behaviour allowed A goldfield iz the wrong shop for that 
 Any one that didn't behave himself would have pretty soon 
 found himself on his head in the street, and lucky if he came 
 out of it with whole bones. 
 
 I once tried to count the different breeds and languages of 
 the men in the big room one night. I stopped at thirty. 
 There were Germans, vSwedes, Danes, Norwegians, Russians, 
 Italians, Greeks, Jews, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Maltese, Mexi- 
 cans, Negroes, Indians, Chinamen, New Zealanders, English, 
 Irish, Scotch, Welsh, Australians, Americans, Canadians, Creoles, 
 gentle and simple, farmers and labourers, squatters and shep- 
 herds, law3^ers and doctors. They were all alike for a bit, all 
 pretty rich ; none poor, or likuly to be ; all workers and 
 comrades ; nobody wearing much ^oetter clothes or trying to 
 make out he was higher than anybody else. Everybody was 
 free with his money. If a fellow was sick or out of luck, or his 
 family was down with fever, the notes came freely— as many as 
 were wanted, and more when that was done. There was no 
 room for small faults and vices ; everything and everybody was 
 worked on a high scale. It was a grand time — better than ever 
 was in our country before or since. Jim and I always said we 
 felt better men while the flash time lasted, and hadn't a thought 
 of harm or evil about us. We worked hard enough, too, as I 
 said before ; but we had good call to do so. Every week when 
 we washed up we found ourselves a lot forrarder, and could see 
 that if it held on like this for a few months more we should 
 have made our ' pile,' as the diggers called it, and be able to get 
 clear off without much bother. 
 
 Because it wasn't now as it was in the old times, when 
 Government could afford to keep watch upon every vessel, big 
 and little, that left the harbour. Now there was no end of 
 trouble in getting sailors to man the ships, and we could have 
 worked our passage easy enough ; they'd have taken us and 
 welcome, though we'd never handled a rope in our lives before. 
 Besides that, there were hundreds of strangers startiiig for 
 Europe and America by every vessel that left. Men who had 
 come out to the colony expecting to pick up gold in the streets, 
 and had gone home disgusted ; lucky men, too, like ourselves, 
 who had sworn to st-art for home the very moment they had 
 made a fair thing. How were any police in the world to keep , 
 the mn of a few men that had been in trouble before among | 
 such a mixed-up mob » --. v l 
 
 Now and then we managed to get a talk with_ Starhght on 
 the sly. He used to meet us at a safe place by night, and talk 
 it all over. He and his mates were doing well, and expected 
 to be ready for a start in a few months, when we might nieet in 
 Melbourne and clear out together. He believed it would be 
 easy, and said that our greatest danger of being recognised was 
 now over— that we had altered so much by li\'ing and working 
 among the diggers that we could pass for diggers anywhere. 
 
xxTir ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 218 
 
 ' Why, we were all dining at the Commissioner's yesterday; 
 he said, ' when who should walk in but our old friend Goring. 
 He's been made Inspector now ; and, of course, he's a great 
 swell and a general favourite. The Commissioner knew his 
 family at home, and makes no end of fuss about him. He left 
 for the Southern district. I am glad to say. I felt queer, I must 
 say ; but, of course, I didn't show it. We were formally intro- 
 duced. He caught me with that sudden glance of his — devilish 
 sharp eyes, he has — and looks me full in the face. 
 
 '"I don't remember your name, Mr. Haughton," said he; 
 " but your face seems familiar to me somehow. I can't think 
 where I've met you before." 
 
 * " Must have been at the Melbourne Club," says 1, pulling 
 my moustache, " Met a heap of Sydney people there." 
 
 * " Perhaps so," says he. " I used to go and lunch there a good 
 deal. I had a month's leave last month, just after I got my 
 step. Curious it seems, too," says he ; "I can't get over it." 
 
 ' " Fill your glass and pass the claret," says the Commissioner. 
 " Faces are very puzzling things met in a different state of 
 existence. I don't suppose Haughton's wanted, eh, Goring?" 
 
 'This was held to be a capital joke, and I laughed too in a 
 way that would have made my fortune on the stage. Goring 
 laughed too, and seemed to fear he'd wounded my feelings, for 
 he was most polite all the rest of the evening.' 
 
 ' Well, if he didn't smoke you,' says Jim, ' we're right till the 
 Day of Judgment. There's no one else here that's half a ghost 
 of a chance to swear to us.' 
 
 ' Except,' says I 
 
 'Oh! Kate?' says Jim ; 'nevermind her. Jeanie's coming 
 up to be married to me next month, and Kate's getting so fond 
 ot you again that there's no fear of her letting the cat out.* 
 
 'That 8 the very reason. I never cared two straws about 
 her, and now I hate the sight of her. She's a revengeful devil, 
 and if she takes it into her head she'll turn on us some fine day 
 as sure as we're alive.' 
 
 'Don't you believe it,' says Jim • 'women are not so bad aa 
 all that.' ('Are they not?' says Starlight.) 'I'll go bail we'll 
 be snug and safe here till Christmas, and then we'll give out, 
 say we're going to Melbourne for a spree, and clear straight 
 out.' 
 
CHAPTER XXVm 
 
 As everything looked so fair -weather -like. Jim and Jeanie 
 made it up to be married as soon after she came up as he could 
 get a house ready. She came up to Sydney, first by sea and 
 after that to the diggings by the coach. She was always a 
 quiet, hard-working, good little soul, awful timid, and prudent 
 in everything but in taking a fancy to Jim. But that's neither 
 here nor there. Women will take fancies as long as the world 
 lasts, and if they happen to fancy the wrong people the more 
 obstinate they hold on to 'em, Jeanie was one of the prettiest 
 girls I ever set eyes on in her way, very fair and clear coloured, 
 with big, soft blue eyes, and hair like a cloud of spun silk. 
 Nothing like her was ever seen on the field when she came up, 
 so all the diggers said. 
 
 When they began to write to one another after we came to 
 the Turon, Jim told her straight out that though we were doing 
 well now it mightn't last. He thought she was a great fool to 
 leave Melbourne when she was safe and comfortable, and come 
 to a wild place, in a way like the Turon. Of course he was 
 ready and willing to marry her • but, speaking all for her own 
 good, he advised her not. She'a better give him up and set her 
 mind on somebody else. Girls that was anyway good-looking 
 and kept themselves proper or decent were very scarce in 
 Melbourne and Sydney now, considering the number of men 
 that were making fortunes and were anxious to get a wife and 
 settle down. A girl like her could marry anybody — most likely 
 some one above her own rank in life. Of course she wouldn't 
 have no one but Jim, and if he was ready to marry her, and 
 could get a little cottage, she was ready too. She would always 
 be his own Jeanie, and was willing to run any kind of risk so 
 as to be with him and near him, and so on. 
 
 Starlight and I both tried to keep Jim from it all we knew. 
 It would make things twice as bad for him if he had to turn 
 out again, and there was no knowing the moment when we 
 might have to make a bolt for it ; and where could Jeanie 
 go then 1 
 
 But Jim had got one of his obstinate fits. He said we were 
 
OHAi. ixriii ROBBEEY UNDER AEM3 215 
 
 regularly mixed up with the diggers now. He never intended 
 to follow any other life, and wouldn't go back to the Hollow or 
 take part in any fresh cross work, no matter how good it might 
 be. roor old Jim ! I really believe he'd made up his mind to 
 go straight from the very hour he was buckled to Jeajiie ; and 
 if he'd only had common luck he'd have been as square and 
 right as George Storelield to this very hour. 
 
 I was near forgetting about old George. My word ! he was 
 getting on faster than we were, though he hadn't a golden hole. 
 He 'vas gold-finding in a different way, and no mistake. One 
 day we saw a stoutish man drive up Main Street to the camp, 
 with a well-groomed horse, in a dogcart, and a servant with 
 him • and who was this but old George? He didn't twig us. 
 He clrove close alongside of Jim, who was coming back from the 
 creek, where he'd been puddling, with two shovels and a pick 
 over his shoulder, and a pair of old yellow trousers on, and him 
 splashed up to the eyes. George didn't know him a bit But 
 we knew him and laughed to ourselves to see the big swell he 
 had grown into. He stopped at the camp and left his dogcart 
 outside with his man. ISext thing we saw was the Commis- 
 sioner walking about outside the camp with him, and talking 
 to him just as if he was a regular intimate friend. 
 
 The Commissioner, that was so proud that he wouldn't look 
 at a digger or shake hands with him, not if he was a young 
 marquis, as long as he was a digger. 'No ! ' he used to say, 'I 
 have to keep my authority over these thousands and tens of 
 thousands ot people, some of them very wUd and lawless, prin- 
 cipally by moral influence, though, of course, I have the Govern- 
 ment to fall back uporu To do that I must keep up my position, 
 and over-familiarity would be the destruction of it.' When we 
 saw him shaking hands with old George and inviting him to 
 lunch we asked one of the miners next to our claim if he knew 
 what that man's name and occupation was there. 
 
 ' Oh ! ' he says, ' I thought everybody knew him. Thaf s 
 Storefield, the great contractor. He has all the contracts for 
 horse-feed for the camps and police stations ; nearly every one 
 between here and Kiandra. He's took 'em lucky this year, and 
 he's making money hand over fist,' 
 
 Well done, steady old George ! No wonder he could afford 
 to drive a good horse and a swell dogcart. He was getting up 
 in the world. We were a bit more astonished when we heard 
 the Commissioner say — 
 
 'I am just about to open court, Mr. Storefield. Would you 
 mind taking a few cAses with me this morning 1 ' 
 
 We went into the courthouse just for a lark. There was 
 old George sitting on the bench as grave as a judge, and a 
 rattling good magistrate he made too. He disagreed from the 
 Commissioner once or twice, and showed him where he was 
 right, too, not in the law but in the facts of the case, where 
 George's knowing working men and their ways gave him the 
 
216 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS cHAi'. 
 
 pull. He wasn't over sharp and hard either, like some men 
 directly they^re raised up a bit, just to show their power. But 
 just seemed to do a fair thing, neither too much one way or the 
 other. George stayed and had lunch at the camp with the 
 Commissioner when the court was adjourned, and he drove 
 away afterwards with his upstanding eighty -guinea horse — 
 horses was horses in those days — just as good a gentleman 
 to look at as anybody. Of course we knew there was a differ- 
 ence, and he'd never get over a few things he'd missed when he 
 was young, in the way of education. But he was liked and 
 respected for all that, and made welcome everywhere. He was 
 a man as didn't push himself one bit. There didn't seem any- 
 thing but his money and his good-natured honest face, and 
 now and then a bit of a clumsy joke, to make him a place. But 
 when the svv^ells make up their minds to take a man in among 
 themselves they're not half as particular as commoner people ; 
 they do a thing well when they^re about it. 
 
 So George was hail-fellow-well-met with all the swells at 
 the camp, and the bankers and big storekeepers, and the 
 doctors and lawyers and clergymen, all the nobs there were at 
 the Turon ; and when the Governor himself and his lady came 
 up on a visit to see what the place was like, why George was 
 taken up and introduced as if he'd been a regular blessed 
 curiosity in the way of contractors, and his Excellency hadn't 
 set eyes on one before. 
 
 * My word ! Dick,' Jim says, * it's a murder he and Aileen 
 didn't cotton to one another in the old days. She'd have been 
 just the girl to have fancied all this sort of swell racket, with 
 a silk gown and dressed up a bit. There isn't a woman here 
 tliat's a patch on her for looks, is there now, except Jeanie, and 
 she's different in her ways.' 
 
 I didn't believe there was. I began to think it over in my 
 own mind, and wonder how it came about that she'd missed all 
 her chances of rising in life, and if ever a woman was bom for 
 it she was. I coiildn't help seeing whose fault it was that she'd 
 been kent back and was now obUged to work hard, and almost 
 ashamed to show herself at Bargo and the other small towns ; 
 not that the people were ever shy of speaking to her, but she 
 thought they might be, and wouldn't give them a chance. In 
 about a month up comes Jeanie Morrison from Melbourne, look- 
 ing just the same as the very first evening we met Kate and her 
 on the St. Kllda beach. Just as quiet and shy and modest- 
 looking — only a bit sadder, and not quite so ready to smile as 
 she'd been in the old days. She looked as if she'd had a grief 
 to hide and fight down since then. A girl's first sorrow when 
 something happened to her love ! They never look quite the 
 same afterwards. I've seen a good many, and if it was real 
 right down love, they were never the same in looks or feel- 
 ings afterwards. They might ' get over it,' as people call it ; 
 but that's a sort of healing over 8. wound. It don't always 
 
xrrni ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 817 
 
 cure it, and the wound often breaks out again and bleeds 
 afresh. 
 
 Jeanie didn't look so bad, and she was that glad to see Jim 
 again and to find him respected as a hard-working well-to-do 
 miner that she forgot most of her disappointments and forgave 
 him his share of any deceit that had been practised upon her 
 and her sister. Women are like that. They'll always make 
 excuses for men they're fond of and blame anybody else that 
 can be blamed or that's within reach. She thought Starlight 
 and me had the most to do with it — perhaps we had ; but Jim 
 could have cut loose from us any time before the Momberah 
 cattle racket much easier than he could now. I heard her say 
 once that she thought other people were much more to blame 
 than poor James — people who ought to have known better, and 
 so on. By the time she had got to the end of her little explana- 
 tion Jim was completely whitewashed of course. It had always 
 happene;.! to him. and I suppose always would. He was a 
 man born to be nelped and looked out for by every one he 
 came near. 
 
 Seeing how good-looking Jeanie was thought, and how all 
 the swells kept crowding round to get a look at her, if she wa^ 
 near the bar, Kat€ wanted to have a ball and show her off a bit. 
 But she wouldn't have it. She right down refused and close 
 upon quarrelled with Kate about it. She didn't take to the 
 glare and noise and excitement of Turon at all. She was 
 frightened at the strange-looking men that filled the streets by 
 day and the hall at the Prospectors' by night. The women she 
 couldn't abide. Anyhow she wouldn't have nothing to say to 
 them. All she wanted — and she kept at Jim day after day till 
 she made him carry it out — was for him to build or buy a 
 cottage, she didn't care how small, where thev could go and 
 live quietly together. She would cook his meals and mend his 
 clothes, and they would come into town on Satuixlay nights 
 only and be as happy as kings and queens. She didn't come 
 up to dance or flirt, she said, in a place like Turon, and if Jim 
 didn't get a home for her she'd go back to her dressmaking at 
 St. Kilda. This woke up Jim, so he bought out a miner who 
 lived a bit out of the town. He had made money and wanted 
 to sell his improvements and clear out for Sydney. It was a 
 small four-roomed weatherboard cottage, with a bark roof, but 
 very neatly put on. There was a little creek in front, and a 
 small flower garden, with rose trees growing up the verandah 
 posts. Most miners, when they're doing well, make a garden, 
 They take a pride in having a neat cottage and everything 
 about it shipshape. The ground, of course, didn't belong to 
 him, but he held it by his miner's right. The title was 
 good enough, and he haid a right to sell his goodwill and im- 
 provements. 
 
 Jim gave him his price and took everything, even to the 
 bits of furniture. They weren't ronch, but a place looks awfuJ 
 
213 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 bare without them. The dog, and the cock and hens he 
 bought too. He got some real nice things in Turon — tables, 
 chairs, sofas, beds, and so on ; and had the place lined and 
 papered inside, quite swell Then he told Jeanie the house was 
 ready, and the next week they were married. They were 
 married in the church — tliat is, the iron building that did duty 
 for one. It had all been carted up from Melbourne — frame- 
 work, roof, seats, and all — and put together at Turon. It 
 didn't look so bad after it was painted, though it was awful 
 hot in summer. 
 
 Here they were married, all square and regular, by the 
 Scotch clergyman. He was the first minister of any kind that 
 came up to the diggings, and the men had all come to like him 
 for his straightforward, earnest way of preaching. Not that 
 we went often, but a good few of us diggers went every now 
 and then just to show our respect for him ; and so Jim said 
 he'd be married by Mr. Mackenzie and no one else. Jeanie was 
 a Presbyterian, so it suited her all to pieces. 
 
 Well, the church was chock-full There never was such a 
 congregation before. Lots of people had come to know Jim on 
 the diggings, and more had heard of him as a straightgoing, 
 good-looking digger, who was free with his money and pretty 
 lucky. As for Jeanie, there was a report that she was the 
 prettiest girl in Melbourne, and something of that sort, and so 
 they all tried to get a look at her. Certainly, though there had 
 been a good many marriages since we had come to the Turon, 
 the church had never held a handsomer coupla Jeanie was 
 quietly dressed in plain white silk. She had on a veil ; no 
 jrnaments of any kind or sorts. It was a warmish day, and 
 there was a sort of peach-blossom colour on her cheeks that 
 looked as delicate as if a breath of air would blow it away. 
 When she came in and saw the crowd of bronze bearded faces and 
 hundreds of strange eyes bent on her, she turned quite pale. 
 Then the flush came back on her face, and her eyes looked as 
 bright as some of the sapphires we used to pick up now and 
 then out of the river-bed. Her hair was twisted up in a knot 
 behind ; but even that didn't hide the lovely colour nor what a 
 lot there was of it. As she came in with her slight figure and 
 modest sweet face that turned up to Jim's like a child's, there 
 was a sort of hum in the church that sounded very like break- 
 ing into a cheer. 
 
 Jim certainly was a big upstanding chap, strong built but 
 active with it, and as fine a figure of a man as you'd see on the 
 Turon or any other place. He stood about six feet and an inch, 
 and was as straight as a rush. There was no stifihess about 
 him either. He was broad-shouldered and light flanked, quick 
 on his pins, and as good a man — all round — with his hands as 
 you could pick out of the regular prize ring. He was as strong 
 as a bullock, and just as good at the end of a day as at the 
 start. With the work we'd had for the last five or six months 
 
xxTTii ROBBERY UNDER ARM3 219 
 
 ■we were all in top condition, as hard as a board and fit to work 
 at any pace for twenty-four hours on end- He had an open, 
 merry, laughing face-, had Jim, with straight features and darkish 
 hair and eyes. Nobody could ever keep angi-y with Jim. He 
 was one or those kind of men that could fight to some purpose 
 now and then, but that most people found it very hard to keep 
 bad friends with. 
 
 Besides the miners, there were lots of other people in cliurch 
 who had heard of the wedding and come to see us, I saw Star- 
 light and the two Honourables, dressed up as usual, besides the 
 Commissioner and the camp officers ; an3 more than that, the 
 new Inspector of Police, who'd only arrived the day before. Sir 
 Ferdinand Morringer, even he was there, dividing the people's 
 attention with the bride. Besides that, who should I see but 
 Bella and Maddie Barnes and old Jonathan. They'd ridden 
 into the Turon, for theVd got their riding habits on, and Bella 
 had the watch and chain Starlight had given lier. I saw her 
 look over to where he and the other two were, but she didn't 
 know him again a bit in the world. He was sitting there look- 
 ing as if he was bored and tired with the whole thing — hadn't 
 seen a soul in the church before, and didn't want to see 'em 
 again. 
 
 I saw Maddie Barnes looking with all her eyes at Jim, while 
 her face grew paler. She hadn't much colour at the best of 
 times, but she was a fine-grown, lissom, good-looking girl for all 
 that, and as full of fun and games as she could stick. Her eyes 
 seemed to get bigger and darker as she looked, and when the 
 parson began to read the service she turned away her head. I 
 always thought she was rather soft on Jim, and now I saw it 
 plain enough. He was one of those rattling, jolly kind of 
 fellows that can't help being friendly with every girl he meets, 
 and very seldom cares much for any one in particular. He had 
 been backward and forward a good deal with father before we 
 got clear of Berrima, and that's how poor Maddie had come to 
 take the fancy so strong and set her heart upon him. 
 
 It must be hard lines for a woman to stand by, in a church 
 or anywhere else, and see the man she loves given away, for 
 good and all, buckled hard and fast to another woman. Xo- 
 body took much notice of i>oor Maddie, but I watched her pretty 
 close, and saw the tears come into her eyes, though she let 'em 
 run down her face before she'd pull out her handkerchief. 
 Then she put up her veil and held up her head with a bit of a 
 toes, and I saw her prixle had helped her to bear it. I don't 
 suppose anybody else saw her, and if they did they'd only think 
 she was cryin' for company — as women often do at weddings 
 and aU kinds of things. But I knew better. She wouldn't 
 peach, poor thing ! StiU, I saw that more than one or two 
 knew who we were and aU about us that day. 
 
 We'd only just heard that the new Inspector of Police had 
 come on to the field ; so of course everybody began to talk about 
 
220 ROBBERY UKDER ARMS oiiAi'. 
 
 him and wanted to have a look at bim. Next to the Com- 
 mLssioner and the P.M., the Inspector of Police is the biggest 
 raan in a country town or on a goldfield. He has a tremendous 
 lot of power, and, inside of the law, can do pretty much what 
 lie pleases. He can arrest a man on suspicion and keep him 
 in gaol for a month or two. He can have him remandecf from 
 time to time for further evidence, and make it pretty hot for 
 him generally. He can let him out when he proves innocent, 
 and nobody can do anything. Ail he has to say is : ' There was a 
 mistake in the man's identity ' ; or, * Not sufficient proof.' Any- 
 thing of that sort. He can walk up to any man he likes (or 
 dislikes) and tell him to hold up his hands for the handcuffs, 
 and shoot him if he resists. He has servants to wait on him, 
 and orderly troopers to ride behind him ; a handsome uniform 
 like a cavalry officer : and if he's a smart, soldierly, good-looking 
 fellow, as he very or ten is, he's run after a good deal and can 
 hold his head as high as he pleases. There's a bit of risk some- 
 times in apprehending desperate — ahem ! — bad characters, and 
 with bush-rangers and people of that sort, but nothing more 
 than any young fellow of spirit would like mixed up with his 
 work. Very often they're men of good family in the old country 
 that have found nothing to do in this, and have taken to the 
 police. When it was known that this Ferdinand Morringer was 
 a real baronet and had been an officer in the Guards, you may 
 guess how the flood of goldfields' talk rose and flowed and 
 formed all round him. It was Sir Ferdinand this and Sir 
 Ferdinand that wherever you went. He was going to lodge 
 at the Royal. No, of course he was going to stay at the camp ! 
 He was married and had three children. Not a bit of it ; he 
 was a bachelor, and he was going to be married to Miss Inger- 
 soll, the daughter of the bank manager of the Bank of New 
 Holland. They'd met abroad. He was a tall, fine-looking man. 
 Not at all, only middle-sized ; hadn't old Major Trenck, the 
 superintendent of police, when he came to enlist and said he 
 had been in the Guards, growled out, *Too short for the 
 Guards ! ' 
 
 ' But I was not a private,' replied Sir Ferdinand. 
 
 ' Well, anyhow there's a something about him. Nobody can 
 deny he looks like a gentleman ; my word, he'll put some of 
 these Weddin Mountain chaps thro' their facin's, youll see,' says 
 one miner. 
 
 ' Not he,' says another ; ' not if he was ten baronites 
 in one : all the same, he's a manly -looking chap and shows 
 blood,' 
 
 This was the sort of talk we used to hear all round us — from 
 the miners, from the storekeepers, from the mixed mob at the 
 Prospectors' Arms, in the big room at night, and generally all 
 about. We said nothing, and took care to keep quiet, and do 
 and say nothing to be took hold of. All the same, we were g]a,d 
 to see Sir Ferdinand. We'd heard of him before from Goring 
 
iXTm ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 221 
 
 and the other troopers ; but he'd been on duty in another 
 district, and hadn't come in our way. 
 
 One evening we were ail sitting smoking and yarning in the 
 big room of the hotel, and Jim, for a wonder — we'd been wash- 
 ing up — when we saw one of the camp gentlemen come in, and 
 a strange otncer of police with him. A sort of whisper ran 
 through the room, and everybody made up their minds it was 
 Sir Ferdinand. Jim and I both looked at him. 
 
 ' Wa-al ! ' said one of our Yankee friends, ' what y\ir twistin 
 your necks at like a flock of geese in a com patch i How d'ye 
 tix it that a lord's b'jtter'n any other man 1 ' 
 
 ' He's a bit different, somehow,' I says. ' We're not ^oin' to 
 kneel down or knuckle under to him, but he don't look like any 
 one else in this room, does he ? ' 
 
 ' He's no slouch, and he looks yer square and full in the eye, 
 like a hunter,' says Arizona Bill ; ' but dum my old buckskins 
 if I can see why you Britishers sets up idols and such and wor- 
 ship 'em, in a colony, jest's if yer was in that benighted old 
 England again.' 
 
 We didn't say any more. Jim lit his pipe and smoked away, 
 thinking, perhaps, more whether Sir Ferdinand was anything 
 of a revolver shot, and if he was likely to hit him (Jim) at forty 
 or fifty yards, in case such a chance should turn up, than about 
 the difference of rank and such things. 
 
 While we were talking we saw Starlight and one of the 
 Honourables come in and sit down close by Sir Ferdinand, who 
 was taking his grog at a small table, and smoking a big cigar. 
 The Honourable and he jumps up at once and shook hands in 
 such a hurry so aa we knew they'd met before. Then the 
 Honourable introduces Starlight to Sir Ferdinand. We felt too 
 queer to laugh, Jim and I, else we should have dropped off our 
 seats when Starlight bowed as grave as a judge, and Sir Ferdi- 
 nand (we could hear) asked him how many months he'd been 
 out in the colony, and how he liked it? 
 
 Starlight saia it wasn't at all a bad place when you got used 
 to it, but he thought he should try and get away before the end 
 of the year. 
 
 We couldn't help sniggerin' a bit at this, 'specially when 
 Arizona Bill said, ' Thar's another durned fool of a Britisher ; 
 look at his eyeglass ! I v.-onder the field has not shaken some 
 of that cussed foolishness out of him by this time.' 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 Jm and liis wife moved over to the cottage in Specimen Gully ; 
 the miners went back to their work, and there was no more 
 talk or bother about the matter. Something always happened 
 every day at the Turon which wiped the last thing clean out of 
 people's mind. Either it was a big nugget, or a new reef, or a 
 tent robbery, a gold-buyer stuck up and robbed in the Iron- 
 barks, a horse-stealing match, a fight at a dance-house, or a big 
 law case. Accidents and ofl'ences happened eveiy day, and any 
 of them was enough to take up the whole attention of every 
 digger on the field till something else turned up. 
 
 Not that we troubled our heads over much about things of 
 this sort. We had set our minds to go on until our claims were 
 worked out, or close up ; then to sell out, and with the lot we'd 
 already banked to get down to ^lelboume and clear out. 
 Should we ever be able to manage that? It seemed getting 
 nearer, nearer, lilie a star that a man fixes his eyes on as he 
 rides through a lonely bit of forest at night. We had all got 
 our eyes nxed on it, Lord knows, and were working double 
 tides, doing our very best to make up a pile worth while leaving 
 the country with. As for Jim, he ana his little wife seemed 
 that happy that he grudged every minute he spent away 
 from her. He worked as well as ever — better, indeed, for he 
 never took his mind from his piece of work, whatever it was^ 
 for a second. But the very minute his shift was over Jim was 
 away along the road to Specimen Gully, like a cow going back 
 to find her calf. He hardly stopped to light his pijie now, and 
 we'd only seen him once up at town, and that was on a Saturday 
 night with Jeanie on his arm. 
 
 Well, the weeks passed over, and at long last we got on as far 
 in the year as the first week in December. We'd given out that 
 we might go somewhere to spend our Christmas. We were 
 known to be pretty well in, and to have worked steady all these 
 months since the early part of the year. We had paid our way 
 all the time, and could leave at a minute's notice without asking 
 any man's leave. 
 
 If we were digging up gold like pot?,toes we weren't the only 
 
CHAP. XXIX ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 223 
 
 ones. Xo, not by a lot. There never was a richer patch of 
 aliuv-ial, I believe, in any of the fields, and the quantity that 
 was sent down in one year was a caution. Wasn't the cash 
 scattered about then 1 Talk of money, it was like the dirt 
 under your feet — in one way, certainly — as the dirt was more 
 often than not full of gold. 
 
 We could see things getting worse on the field after a bit. 
 We didn't set up to be any great shakes ourselves, Jim and I ; 
 but we didn't want the field to be overrun by a set of scoundrels 
 that were the very scum of the earth, let alone the other 
 colonies. We were afraid they'd ^o in for some big foolish row, 
 and ^e should get dragged in for it. That was exactly what we 
 didn't want. 
 
 With the overflowing of the gold, as it were, came such a 
 town and such a people to fill it, as no part of Australia had 
 ever seen before. When it got known by newspapers, and 
 letters from the miners themselves to their friends at home 
 what an enormous yield of gold was being dug out of the ground 
 in such a simple fashion, all the world seemed to be moving 
 over. At that time nobody could tell a lie hardly about the 
 tremendous quantity that was being got and sent away every 
 week. This was easy to know, because the escort returns were 
 printed in all the newspapers every week ; so everybody could 
 see for themselves what pounds r.nd hundredweights and tons 
 — yes, tons of gold — were being got by men who very often, as 
 like as not, hadn't to dig above twenty or thirty feet for it, and 
 had never handled a pick or a shovel in their lives before they 
 came to the Turon. 
 
 There were plenty of good men at the diggings. I will say 
 this for the regular miners, that a more manly, straightgoing 
 lot of fellows no man ever lived among. I wish we'd never 
 known any worse. We were not what might be called highly 
 respectable people ourselves — still, men like us are only half- 
 ana-half bad, like a good many more in this world. They're 
 partly tempted into doing wrong by opix)rtunity, and kept back 
 by circumstances from getting into the straight track after- 
 wards. But on every goldfield there's scores and scores of men 
 that always hurry olf there like crows and eagles to a carcass 
 to see what they can rend and tear and fatten upon. They 
 ain't very particular whether it's the li^'ing or the dead, so as 
 they can gorge their fill. There was a good many of this lot at 
 the Turon, and though the diggers gave tliem a wide berth, and 
 helped to run them down when they'd committed any crime, 
 th^ couldn't be kept out of sight and society altogether. 
 
 We used to go up sometimes to see the gold escort start. It 
 was one of the regular sights of the field, and the miners that 
 were off shift and people that hadn't much to do generally 
 turned up on escort day. The gold was taken down to Sydney 
 once a we':;k in a strong express waggon— something like a 
 Yankee coach, with leather springs and a high driving seat ; so 
 
224 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS cfai 
 
 that four horses could be harnessed. One of the police ser- 
 geants generally drove, a trooper fully armed with rifle and 
 revolver on the box beside him. In the back seat sat two more 
 troopers with their Sniders ready for action ; two rode a 
 hundred yards ahead, and another couple about the same 
 distance behind. 
 
 We always noticed that a good many of the sort of men that 
 never seemed to do any digging and yet always had good 
 clothes and money to spend used to hang about when the escort 
 was starting. People in the crowd 'most always knew whether 
 it was a * big ' escort or a ' light ' one. It generally lea.ked out 
 how many ounces had been sent by this bank and how much by 
 that ; how much had come from the camp, for the diggers who 
 did not choose to sell to the banks were allowed to deposit their 
 gold with an officer at the camp, where it was carefully 
 weighed, and a receipt given to them stating the number of 
 ounces, pennyweights, and grains. Tlien it was forwarded by 
 the escort, deducting a small percentage for the carriage and 
 safe keeping. Government did not take all the risk upon itself. 
 The miner must run his chance if he did not sell. But the 
 chance was thought good enough ; the other thing was hardly 
 worth talking about. Who was to be game to stick up the 
 Grovemment escort, with eight police troopers, all well armed 
 and ready to make a fight to the death before they gave up the 
 treasure committed to their charge? The police couldn't catch 
 all the horse-stealers and bush-rangers in a country that con- 
 tained so many millions of acres of waste land ; but no one 
 doubted that they would make a first-rate fight, on their own 
 ground as it were, and before they^d let anything be taken 
 away from them that had been counted out, box by box, and 
 given into their charge. 
 
 We had as little notion of trying anything of the sort our- 
 selves than as we had of breaking into the Treasury in Sydney 
 by night. But those who knew used to say that ii the miners 
 had known the past history of some of the men that used to 
 stand up and look on, well dressed or in regular digger rig, as 
 the gold boxes were being brought out and counted into the 
 escort drag, they would have made a bodyguard to go with it 
 themselves when they had gold on board, or have worried the 
 Grovemment into sending twenty troopers in charge instead of 
 six or eight. 
 
 One day, as Jim and I happened to be at the camp just as the 
 escort was starting, the only time we'd been there for a month, 
 we saw Warrigal and Morgan standing about. They didn't see 
 us ; we were among a lot of other diggers, so we were able to 
 take them out of winding a bit. 
 
 They were there for no good, we agreed. Warrigai's sharp 
 eyes noted everything about the whole turn-out — the sergeant's 
 face that drove, the way the gold boxes were counted out and 
 Dut in a kind of fixed locker underneath the middle of the 
 
xxTK ROBBERY UXDEH ARMS 225 
 
 coach. He saw wherft the troopers sat before and behind, and 
 m be bound came away with a wonderful good general idea 
 of how the escort travelled, and of a srood many things more 
 about it that nobody guessed at. As for Moran, we could see 
 him fix his eyes upon the sergeant who was driving, and look at 
 him as if he could look right through him. He never took his 
 eyes ofi" him the whole time, but glared at him like a maniac ; 
 if some of his people hadn't given him a shove as they passed he 
 would soon have attracted people's attention. But the crowd 
 was too busy looking at the well-conditioned prancing horses 
 and the neatly got up troopers of the escort drag to waste their 
 thoughts upon a common bushraan, however he might stare. 
 "When he turned away to leave he ground out a red-hot curse 
 betwixt his teeth. It made us think that Warrigal's coming 
 about with him on this line counted for no good. 
 
 They slipped through the crowd again, and, though they were 
 pretty close, they never Siiw us. Warrigal would have known us 
 however we might have been altered, but somehow he never 
 turned his head our way. He was like a child, so taken up with 
 all the things he saw that his great-grandfather might have 
 jumped up from the Fish River Caves, or wherever he takes his 
 rest, and Warrigal would never have wondered at him. 
 
 * That's a queer start ! ' says Jim, £is we walked on our home- 
 ward path. 'I wonder what those two crawling, dingo-looking 
 beggars were here for? Never no good. I say, did you see 
 that fellow Moran look at the sergeant as if he'd eat him ? 
 Wliat eyes he has, for all the world like a black snake ! Do you 
 think he's got any particular down on him ? ' 
 
 ' Not more than on all police. I suppose he'd rub them out, 
 every mother's son, if he could. He and Warrigal can't stick up 
 the escort by themselves.' 
 
 We managed to get a letter from home from time to time 
 now we'd settled, as it were, at the Turon. Of course they had 
 to be sent in the name of Henderson, but we called for them at 
 the post-office, and got them all right. It was a treat to read 
 Aileen's letters now. They were so jolly and hopeful -like 
 besides what they used to be. Now that we'd been so long, it 
 seemed years, at the diggings, and were working hard, doing 
 well, and getting quite settled, as she said, she believed that all 
 would go right, and that we should be able really to carry out 
 our plans of getting clear away to some country where we could 
 Hve safe and quiet lives. Women are mostly like that. They 
 first of all believe all that they're afraid of will happen. Then, 
 as soon as they see things brighten up a bit, they're as sure as 
 fate everything's bound to go right. They don't seem to have 
 any kind of feeling between. They hate making up their minds, 
 most of 'em as I've known, and jump from being ready to drown 
 themselves one moment to being likely to go mad with joy 
 another. Anyhow you take 'era, they're better than men, 
 though, ril never go back on that. 
 
 Q 
 
226 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 So Aileen used to send me and Jim long letters now, telling 
 us that things were better at home, and that she really thought 
 mother was cheerfuller and stronger in health than she'd been 
 ever since— well, ever since — that had happened. ^ She thought 
 her prayers had been heard, and that we were going to be for- 
 given for our sins and allowed, by God's mercy, to lead a new 
 life. She quite believed in our lea\dng the country, although 
 her heart would be nearly broken by the thought that she 
 might never see us again, and a lot more of the same sort. 
 
 Poor mother ! she had a hard time of it if ever any one ever 
 had in this world, and none of it her own fault as I could ever 
 see. Some people gets punished in this world for the sins other 
 people commit. I <;an see that fast enough. Whether they get 
 it made up to 'em afterwards, of course I can't say. They 
 ought to, anyhow, if it can be made up to 'em. Some things 
 that are suffered in this world can't be paid for, I don't care 
 how they fix it. 
 
 More than once, too, there was a line or two on a scrap of 
 paper slipped in Aileen's letters from Gracey Storefield. She 
 wasn't half as good with the pen as Aileen, but a few words 
 from the woman you love goes a long way, no matter -what sort 
 of a fist she writes. Gracey made shift to tell me she was so 
 proud to hear I was doing well ; that Aileen's eyes had been 
 twice as bright lately ; that mother looked better than she'd 
 seen her this years; and if I could get away to any other 
 country she'd meet me in Melbourne, and would be, as she'd 
 always been, 'your own Gracey' — that's the way it was 
 signed. 
 
 When I read this I felt a different man. I stood up and took 
 an oath — solemn, mind you, and I intended to keep it — that if 
 I got clear away I'd pay her for her love and true heart with 
 my life, what was left of it, and I'd never do another crooked 
 thing as long as I lived. Then I began to count the days to 
 Christmas. 
 
 I wasn't married like Jim, and it not being very lively in the 
 tent at night, Ai'izona Bill and I mostly used to stroll up to the 
 Prospectors' Arms. We'd got used to sitting at the little table, 
 drinking our beer or what not, smoking our pipes and listening 
 to aU the fun that was going on. Not that we always sat in the 
 big halL There was a snug little parlour beside the bar that we 
 found more comfortable, and Kate used to run in herself when 
 business was slack enough to leave the barmaid ; then she'd sit 
 down and have a good solid yarn with us. 
 
 She made a regular old friend of me, and, as she was a hand- 
 some woman, always well dressed, with lots to say and plenty 
 of admirers, I wasn't above being singled out and made much 
 of. It was partly policy, of course. She knew our secret, and 
 it wouldn't have done to have let her let it out or be bad friends, 
 so that we should be alwaj^s going in dread of it. So Jim and 
 I were always mighty civil to her, and I really thought she'd 
 
xxix ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 227 
 
 improved a lot lately and turned out a much nicer woman than 
 I thought she could be. 
 
 We used to t-alk away about old times, regular confidential, 
 and though she'd great spirits generally, she used to change 
 quite sudden sometimes and say she was a miserable woman, 
 and wLsh^ she hadn't been in such a hurry and married as she 
 had. Then she'd crack up Jeanie, and say how true and con- 
 stant she'd been, and how she was rewarded for it by marrying 
 the only man she ever loved. She used to blame her temper ; 
 she'd always had it, she said, and couldn't get rid of it ; but she 
 really believed, It things had turned out different, she'd have 
 been a different woman, and any man she really loved would 
 never have had no call tx) complain. Of course I knew what all 
 this meant, but thought I could steer clear of coming to grief 
 ever it 
 
 That was where I made the mistake. But I didn't think so 
 then, or how much hung upon careless words and looks. 
 
 Well, somehow or other she wormed it out of me that we 
 were off somewhere at Christmas. Then she never rested till 
 Blie'd found out that we were going to Melbourna After that 
 she seemed as if she'd changed right away into somebody else. 
 She was that fair and soft-speaking and humble-minded that 
 Jeanie couldn't have been more gentle in her ways ; and she 
 used to look at me from time to time as if her heart was break- 
 ing. I didn't believe that, for I didn't think she'd any heart to 
 break. 
 
 One night, after we'd left about twelve o'clock, just as the 
 house shut up, Arizona Bill says to me — 
 
 ' Say, parti, have yer fixed it up to take that young woman 
 along when you pull up stakes ? ' 
 
 ' Is o,' I said ; ' isn't she a married woman ? and, besides, I 
 haven't such a fancy for her as all that comes to.' 
 
 ' Ye heven't 1 ' he said, speaking very low, as he always did, 
 and taking the cigar out of his mouth— liill always smoked 
 cigars when he could get them, and not very cheap ones either ; 
 ' well, then, I surmise you're lettin' her think quite contrairy, 
 and there's bound to be a muss if you don't hide your tracks 
 and strike a trail she cant foller on.' 
 
 ' I begin to think I've been two ends of a dashed fool ; but 
 what's a man to do '? ' 
 
 ' See here, now,' he said ; ' you hev two cl'ar weeks afore ye. 
 You slack ofl' and go slow ; that'll let her see you didn't sorter 
 cotton to her more'n's in the regulations.' 
 
 ' And have a row with her 1 ' 
 
 ' Sartin,' says Bill, ' and hev the shootin' over right away. It's 
 a plaguey sight safer than letting her carry it in her mind, and 
 then laying for yer some day when ye heven't nary thought of 
 Injuns in your head. That's the very time a woman like her'e 
 bound to close on yer and lift yer ha'r if she can.' 
 
 * Why, how do you know what she's likely to do 1 ' 
 
228 ROBBEEY UNDER ARMS chap, xxix 
 
 Tve been smokin', pard, while you hev bin talkin', sorter 
 careless like. I've had my eyes open and seen Injun sign mor'n 
 once or twice either. I've hunted with her tribe afore, I guess, 
 and old BiU ain't forgot all the totems and the war paint.' 
 
 After this Bill fresh lit his cigar, and wouldn't say any more. 
 But I could see what he was driving at, and I settled to try all 
 I knew to keep everything right and square till the time came 
 for us to make our dart. 
 
 I managed to have a quiet talk with Starlight. He thought 
 that by taking care, being very friendly, but not too much so, 
 we might get clean off, without Kate or any one else being much 
 the wiser. 
 
 Next week everything seemed to go on wheels — smooth and 
 fast, no hitches anywhere. Jim reckoned the best of our claim 
 would be worked out by the 20th of the month, and we'd as 
 good as agreed to sell our shares to Arizona Bill and his mate, 
 who were ready, as Bill said, ' to plank down considerable 
 dollars' for what remained of it. If they got nothing worth 
 while, it was the fortune of war, which a digger never growls 
 at, no matter how hard hit he may be. If they did well, they 
 were such up and down good fellows, and such real friends to 
 us, that we should have grudged them nothing. 
 
 As for Jeanie, she was almost out of her mind with eagerness 
 to get back to Melbourae and away from the diggings. She 
 was afraid of many of the people she saw, and didn't like others. 
 She was territied all the time Jim was away from her, but she 
 would not hear of living at the Prospectors' Arms with her 
 sister. 
 
 * I know where that sort of thing leads to,' she said ; * let us 
 have our own home, however rough ' 
 
 Kate went out to Specimen Gully to see her sister pretty 
 often, and they sat and talked and laughed, just as they did in 
 old times, Jeanie said. She was a simple little thing, and her 
 heart was as pure as quartz crystal. I do really believe she was 
 no match for Kate in any way. So the days went on, I didn't 
 dare stay away from the Prospectors' Arms, for fear she'd think 
 I wanted to break with her altogether, and yet I was never 
 altogether comfortable in her company. It wasn't her fault, 
 for she laid herself out to get round us all, even old Arizona 
 Bill, who used to sit solemnly smoking, looking like an Indian 
 chief or a graven image, until at last his brick-coloured, grizzled 
 old face would break up all of a sudden, and he'd laugh like a 
 youngster. As the days drew nigh Christmas I could see a 
 restless expression in her face that I never saw before. Her 
 eyes began to shine in a strange way, and sometimes she'd 
 break off short in her talk and run out of the room. Then she'd 
 pretend to wish we were gone, and that she'd never seen us 
 again. I could hardly tell what to make of her, and many a 
 time I wished we were on blue water and clear away from aU 
 chance of delay and drawback. 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 We made up our minds to start by Saturday's coach. It left at 
 night and travelled nigh a hundred miles by the same hour next 
 morning. It's more convenient for getting away than the 
 morning. A chap has time for doing all kinds of things just 
 as he would like ; besides, a quieter time to slope than just 
 after breakfast. The Turon daily mail was well horsed and 
 well driven. Nightwork though it was, and the roads dangerous 
 in places, the five big double-rerioctor lamps, one high up over 
 the top of the coach in the middle with two pair more at the 
 side, made everything plain. We Cornstalks never thought of 
 more than the regular pair of lamps, pretty low down, too, 
 before the Yankee came and showed us what cross-country 
 coaching was. We never knew before. My word, they taught 
 us a trick or two. All about riding came natural, but a heap 
 of dodges about harness we never so much as heard of till they 
 came to the country with the gold rush. 
 
 We'd made aU our bits of preparations, and thought nothing 
 stood in the way of a start next evening. This was Friday. 
 Jim hadn't sold his bits of traps, because he didn't want it to be 
 known he wasn't coming back. He left word with a friend he 
 could trust, though, to have 'em all auctioned and the goodwill 
 of his cottage, and to send the money after him. My share and 
 his in the cfaim went to Arizona Bill and his mate. We had no 
 call to be ashamed of the money that stood to uur credit in the 
 bank. That we intended to draw out, and take with us in 
 an order or a draft, or something, to Melbourne. Jeanie had 
 her boxes packed, and -was so wild -with looking forward to 
 seeing St. Ivilda beach again that she could hardly sleep or eat 
 as the time drew near. 
 
 Friday night came ; everything had been settled. It was the 
 last night we should either of us spend at the Turon for many a 
 day — perhaps never. I walked up and down the streets, 
 smoking, and thinking it all over. The idea of bed was 
 ridiculous. How wonderful it all seemed ! After what we had 
 gone through and the state we were in^ less than a year ago, 
 to think that we were within so little of being clear away and 
 
230 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 safe for ever in another country, with as much as would keep 
 us comfortable for life. I could see Gracey, Aileen, and Jeanie, 
 all so peaceful and loving together, with poor old mother, who 
 had lost her old trick of listening and trembling whenever she 
 heard a strange step or the tread of a horse. What a glorious 
 state of things it would be ! A deal of it was owing to the gold. 
 This wonderful gold ! But for it we shouldn't have had such a 
 chance in a hundred years. I was that restless I couldn't 
 settle, when I thought, all of a sudden, as I walked up and 
 down, that I had promised to go and say good-bye to Kate 
 Mullock son, at the Prospectors' Arms, the night before we 
 started. I thought for a moment whether it would be safer to 
 let it alone. I had a strange, unwilling kind of feeling about 
 going there again ; but at last, half not knowing what else to 
 do, and half not caring to make an enemy of Kate, if I could 
 help it, I walked up. 
 
 It was latish. She was standing near the bar, talking to 
 half-a-dozen people at once, as usual ; but I saw she noticed me 
 at once. She quickly drew off a bit from them all ; said it was 
 near shutting-up time, and, after a while, passed through the 
 bar into the little parlour where I was sitting down. It was 
 just midnight. The night was half over before I thought of 
 coming in. So when she came in a.nd seated herself near me 
 on the sofa I heard the clock strike twelve, and most of 
 the men who were walking about the hall began to clear 
 out. 
 
 Somehow, when you've been living at a place for a goodish 
 while, and done well there, and has friends as has stuck by you, 
 as we had at the Turon, you feel sorry to leave it. What you've 
 done you're sure of, no matter how it mayn't suit you in some 
 ways, nor how much better you expect to be off where you are 
 going to. You had that and had the good of it. What the 
 coming time may bring you can't reckon on. All kinds of cross 
 luck and accidents may happen. AYhat's the use of money to a 
 man if he smashes his hip and has to walk with a crutch all his 
 days ? I've seen a miner with a thousand a month coming in, 
 but he'd been crushed pretty near to death with a fall of earth, 
 and about half of him was dead. What's a good dinner to a 
 man that his doctor only allows him one slice of meat, a bit of 
 bread, and some toast and water ^i I've seen chaps like them, 
 and I'd sooner a deal be the poorest splitter, slogging away with 
 a heavy maul, and able, mind you, to swing it like a man, than 
 one of those broken-down screws. We'd had a good time there^ 
 Jim and I. We always had a kind spot in our hearts for Turon 
 ajid the diggings afterwards. Hard work, high pay, good 
 friends that would stick to a man back and edge, and a safe 
 country to lie in plant in as ever was seen. We was both 
 middlin' sorry, in a manner of speaking, to clear out Not as 
 Jim said much about it on account of Jeanie ; but he thought 
 it all the same. 
 
XXX ROBBEKY UXDEE ARMS 231 
 
 Well, of course, Kate and I got talkin' and talkin', first about 
 the diggings, and then about other things, till we got to old 
 times in 2>lelbourne, and she began to look miserable and miser- 
 abler whenever she spoke about marrying the old man, and 
 wished she'd drownded herself first. She made me take a 
 whisky — a stiffish one that she mixed herself — for a parting 
 glass, and I felt it took a bit of effect upon me. I'd been having 
 my whack during the day. I wasn't no ways drunk ; but I 
 must have been touched more or less, because I felt myself to be 
 so sober. 
 
 ' You're going at last, Dick,' says she ; ' and I suppose we 
 shan't meet again in a hurry. It was something to have a look 
 at you now and then. It reminded me of the happy old times 
 at St. Kilda.' 
 
 ' Oh, come, Kate,' I said, ' it isn't quite so bad as all that. 
 Besides, well be back again in February, as like as not. We're 
 not going for ever.' 
 
 'Are you telling me the truth, Richard Marston?' says she, 
 standing up and fixing her eyes full on me— tine eyes they were, 
 too, in their way ; 'or are you trying another deceit, to throw 
 me off the scent and get rid of me ? Why should you ever want 
 to see my face after you leave ? ' 
 
 ' A friendly face is always pleasant. Anyhow, Kate, yours is, 
 though vou did play me a sharpish trick once, and didn't stick 
 to me like some women might have done.' 
 
 ' Tell me this,' she said, leaning forward, and putting one 
 hand on my shoulder, while she seemed to look through the very 
 soul of me — her face grew deadly pale, and her lips trembled, as 
 I'd seen them do once before when she was regular beyond her- 
 self — ' will you take me with you when you go for good and all ? 
 I'm ready to follow you round the world. Don't be afraid of my 
 temper. No woman that ever lived ever did more for the man 
 she loved than I'll do for you. If Jeanie's good to Jim — and 
 you know she is — I'll be twice the woman to you, or I'll die for 
 it Don't speak ! ' she went on ; * I know I threw you over once. 
 I was mad with rage and shame. Y^ou know I had cause, hadn't 
 I, Dick 1 You know I had. To spite you, I threw away my own 
 life then ; now it's a misery and a torment to me every day I 
 live. I can bear it no longer, I tell you. It's killing me — 
 killing me day by day. Only say the word, and I'll join you in 
 Melbourne within a week — to be yours, and yours only, as 
 long as I live.' 
 
 i didn't think there was that much of the loving nature about 
 her. She used to vex me by being hard and uncertain when we 
 were courting. I knew then she cared about me, and I hadn't a 
 thought about any other woman. Now when I didn't ask her to 
 bother herself about me, and only to let me alone and go her 
 own way, she must turn the tables on me, and want to ruin the 
 pair of us slap over again. 
 
 She'd thrown her arms round my neck and was sobbing on 
 
232 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS <hap. 
 
 my slioulder when she finished. I took her over to the sofa, and 
 made her sit down by the side of me. 
 
 ' Kate,' I said, * this won't do. There's neither rhyme nor 
 reason about it. I'm as fond of you as ever I was, but you must 
 know well enough if you make a bolt of it now there'll be no 
 end of a bobbery, ana everybody's thoughts will be turned our 
 way. Weil be clean bowled — tlie lot of us. Jim and I will be 
 jugged. You and Jeanie will be left to the mercy of the world, 
 worse off by a precious sight than ever you were in your lives. 
 Now, if you look at it, what's the good of spoiling the whole 
 jimbang for a fancy notion about rne 1 You and I are safe to be 
 first-rate friends always, but it will be the ruin of both of us if 
 we're fools enough to want to be more. You're living here 
 like a regular queen, Y'^ou've got a good husband, that's proud 
 of you and gives you everything you can think of. Y'^ou 
 took him yourself, and you're bound to stick to him. Besides, 
 think of poor Jeanie and Jim. You'll spoil all their happiness ; 
 and, more than all — don't make any mistake — you know what 
 Jeanie thinks of a woman who leaves her husband for another 
 man.' 
 
 li you let a woman have a regular good cry and talk herself 
 out, you can mostly bring her round in the end. So after a bit 
 Kate grew more reasonable. That bit about Jeanie fetched her 
 too. She knew her own sister would turn against her — not 
 harsh like, but she'd never be the same to her again as long as 
 she lived. 
 
 The lamp had been put out in the big hall. There was only 
 one in this parlour, ana it wasn't over bright. I talked away, 
 and last of all she came round to my way of thinking ; at any 
 rate not to want to clear off from the old man now, but to wait 
 till I came back, or till I wrote to her. 
 
 ' Y^'ou are right, Dick,' she said at last, ' and you show your 
 sense in talking the way you have ; though, if you loved as i do, 
 you could not do it. But, once more, there's no other woman 
 that you're fonder of than me ? It isn't that that makes you so 
 
 food ? Dick Marston good ! ' and here she laughed bitterly. ' If 
 thought that I should go mad.' 
 
 "WTiat was I to do ? I could not tell her that I loved Gracey 
 Storefield ten times as much as I'd ever cheated myself into 
 thinking I cared about her. So I swore that I cared more for 
 her than any woman in the whole world, and always had done 
 
 80. 
 
 This steadied her. We parted good friends, and she promised 
 to keep quiet and try and make the best of things. She turned 
 up the lamp to show mo the way out, though the outer door of 
 the hall was left open night and day. It was a way we had at 
 the Turon ; no one troubled themselves to be particular about 
 such triiies as furniture and so on. There was very little small 
 robbery there ; it was not worth while. All petty stealer^: 
 were most severely punished in&o the bargain. 
 
XXX ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 238 
 
 As I stood up to say good-bye a small note dropped out of my 
 breast-pocket. It had shifted somehow. Kate ahvays had an 
 eye like an hawk. With one spring she pounced upon it, and 
 before I could interfere opened and read it ! It was Gracey 
 Storefield's. She stood for one moment and glared in my face. 
 I thought she had gone mad. Then she threw the bit of paper 
 down and trampled upon it, over and over again. 
 
 ' So, Dick Marston,' she cried out hoarsely, her very voice 
 changed, ' you have tricked me a second time ! Your own 
 Gracey ! your own Gracey ■ and this, by the date, at the very 
 time you were letting me persuade myself, like a fool, like an 
 idiot that I was, that you still care for me ! You have put the 
 cap to your villainy now. And, as God made me, you shall 
 have cause — good cause — to fear the woman you have once 
 betrayed and twice scorned. Look to yourself.' 
 
 She gaze<i at me for a moment with a face from which every 
 trace of expression had vanished, except that of the most devilish 
 fury and spite — the face of an evil spirit more than of a woman ; 
 and then she walked slowly away. I couldn't help pitying her, 
 though I cursed my own folly, as I had done a thousand times, 
 that I had ever turned my head or spoken a word to her when 
 first she crossed my path. I got into the street somehow ; I 
 hardly knew what to think or to do. 'lliat danger was close at 
 our heels I didn't doubt for a moment. Everything seemed 
 changed in a minute. What was going to happen ? Was I the 
 same Dick Marston that had l:)een strolling up Main Street a 
 couple of hours a^o 1 All but off by the to-morrow evening's 
 coach, and with all the world before me, a good round sum in 
 the bank ; best part of a year's hard, honest work it was the 
 price of, too. 
 
 Then all kinds of thoughts came into my head. Would Kate, 
 when her burst of rage was over, go in for revenge in cold 
 blood? She could hardly strike me without at the same time 
 hurting Jeanie through Jim. Should I trust herl Would she 
 come right, kiss, and make friends, and call herself a madwoman 
 — a reckless fool — as she'd often done before? Xo ; she was in 
 bitter earnest tliis time. It did not pay to be slack in making 
 off. Once we had been caught napping, and once was enough. 
 
 The tirst thing to do was to warn Jim — poor old Jim, snoring 
 away, most like, and dreaming of taking the box-seat for 
 himself and Jeanie at the agent's next morning. It seemed 
 cruel to wake him, but it ^\"Ould have been crueller not to 
 do so. 
 
 I walked up the narrow track that led up to the little gully 
 with the moon shining down upon the white quartz rock. The 
 pathway wound through a 'blow' of it. I threw a pebble at 
 the door and waited till Jim came out. 
 
 ' Who^s there ? Oh ! it's you, old man, is it ? It's rather late 
 for a call ; but if you've come to spend the evening I'll get up. 
 and we'll have a smoke, anyhow.' 
 
234 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap, 
 
 ' You dress yourself, Jim/ I said, ' as quick as you can. Put 
 on your hat and come Nvith rae ; there's something u}).' 
 
 ' My God ! ' says Jim, ' what is it ? Fm a rank coward now 
 IVe got Jeanie, Don't go and t^ll me weVe got to cut and run 
 again.' 
 
 ' Something like it,' I said. * If it hasn't come to that yet, it's 
 not far ofif.' 
 
 We walked up the gully together. Jim lit his pipe while I 
 told him shortly what had happened to me with Kate. 
 
 ' May the devil fly away with her ! ' said Jim savagely, ' for a 
 bad-minded, bad-hearted jade ; and then he'd wish he'd left her 
 where she was. She'd be no chop-down there even. I think 
 sometimes she can't be Jeanie's sister at all. They must have 
 changed her, and mothered the wrong child on the old woman. 
 My word ! but it's no laughing matter. What's to be done ?' 
 
 * There's no going away by the coach to-inorrow, I'm afraid. 
 She's just the woman to tear straight up the camp and let it 
 all out before her temper cooled. It would take a week to do 
 that. The sergeant or Sir Ferdinand knows all about it now. 
 They'll lose no time, you may be certain.' 
 
 'And must I leave without saying good-night to Jeanie?' 
 
 says Jim. 'No, by ! If I have half-a-dozen bullets 
 
 through me, I'll go back and hold her in my arms once more 
 before I'm hunted otf and through the country like a wild dog 
 once more. If that infernal Kate has given us away, by 
 George, I could go and kill her with my own hand ! The cruel, 
 murdering, selfish brute, I believe she'd poison her mother for a 
 ten-pound note ! ' 
 
 'No use swearing at Kate, Jim,' I said; 'that won't mend 
 matters. It's not the first time by a thousand that Tve wished 
 I'd never set eyes on her ; but if I'd never seen her that day on 
 St. Kilda beach you'd never known Jennie. So there's evens as 
 well as odds. The thing is, what are we to do now 1 ' 
 
 ' Dashed if I know. I feel stupid about tackling the bush 
 again ; and what can I do with Jeanie ? I wish I was dead. 
 I've half a mind to go and shoot that brute of a woman and 
 then myself. But then, poor Jeanie ! poor little Jeanie ! I 
 can't stand it, Dick ; I shall go mad ! ' 
 
 I thought Jim was going to break out crying just as he used 
 when he was a boy. His heart was a big soft one ; and though 
 he could face anything in the way of work or fighting that a 
 man dare do, and do two men's share very like, yet his tears, 
 mother said, laid very near his eyes, and till he was a grown 
 man they used to pump up on all sorts of occasions. 
 
 ' Come, be a man, Jim,' I said, ' we've got to look the thing in 
 the face ; there's no two ways about it. I shall go to Arizona 
 Bill's claim and see what he says. Anyhow I'll leave word with 
 him what to do when we're gone. I'd advise you not to try to 
 see Jeanie ; but if you will you must^ I suppose. Good-bye, old 
 man. I shall make my way over to Jonathan's, borrow a horse 
 
XXX ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 235 
 
 from him, and make tracks for the Hollow as soon as I can. 
 You'd better leave Jeani© here and do the same.' 
 
 Jim groaned, but said nothing. He wrung my hands till the 
 bones seemed to crack, and walked awar without a word. We 
 knew it was a chance whether we should meet again. 
 
 I walked on pretty quick till I came to the flat where 
 Arizona Bill and his mates had their sluicing claim. There 
 were six of them altogether, tall wiry men all of them ; they'd 
 mostly been hunters and trappers in the Rocky Mountains 
 before the gold was struck at Suttor's Mill, in the Sacramento 
 Valley. They had been tligging in '49 in California, but had 
 come over when they heard from an old mate of a placer 
 diggings at Turon, richer than anything they had ever tried in 
 America. 
 
 This camp was half a mile fix)ra ours, and there was a bit of 
 broken ground between, so that I thought I was safe in haWng 
 a word with them before I cleared for Barnes's place, though I 
 took care not to go near our own camp hut. I walked over, 
 and was making straight for the smallest hut, when a rough 
 voice hailed me. 
 
 ' Hello ! stranger, ye came darned near going to h — 1 with 
 your boots on. Wliat did yer want agin tliat thar cabin V 
 
 I saw then that in my hurry I liad gone stumbling against a 
 small hut where they generally put their gold when the party 
 had been washing up and had more than was safe to start from 
 camp with. In this they always put a grizzled old hunter, 
 about whom the yarn was that he never went to sleep, and 
 could shoot anything a mile off. It was thought a very unlikely 
 thing that any gold he watched would ever go crooked. Most 
 people consider^ him a deal safer caretaker than the escort. 
 
 ' Oh ! it's you, is it ? ' drawled Sacramento Joe. ' Why, what's 
 doin' at ver old camp ? ' 
 
 • ^Vhat about ? ' said I. 
 
 ' Wal, Bill and I seen three or four hrdf-baked \'igilantes that 
 call themselves police ; they was a setting round the hut and 
 looked as if they was awaiting for somelxKly.' 
 
 ' TeU Bill I want him, Joe,' I said. 
 
 'Can't leave guard nohow,' says the true grit old hunter, 
 pointing to his revolver, and dodging up and down with his 
 lame leg, a crooked arm, and a seam in his fa-ce like a terrible 
 wound there some time or other. 'I darsn't leave guard. 
 You'll find him in that centre tent, with the red flag on it.' 
 
 I lifted the canvas flap of the door and went in. Bill raised 
 himself in the bed and looked at me quite coolly. 
 
 ' I was to your location a while since,' he said. * Met some 
 friends of yours there too. I didn't cotton to 'em muchly. 
 Something has eventuat/ed. Is that so ? ' 
 
 * Yes. I want your help.' I told iiim shortly all I could teU 
 him in the time. 
 
236 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chai'. 
 
 He listened quietly, and made no remark for a time. 
 
 'So ye hev bin a road agent. You and Jim, that darned 
 innocent old cuss, robbing mails and cattle ranches. It is a real 
 scoop up for me, you bet. I'd heern of bush-ranging in Aus- 
 tralia, but I never reckoned on their bein' men like you and 
 Jim. So the muchacha went back on yer — snakes alive ! I 
 kinder expecte<i it. I reckon you're bound to git.' 
 
 ' Yes, Bill, sharp's the word. I want you to draw my money 
 and Jim's out of the bank ; it's all in my name. There's the 
 deposit receipt. Ill back it over to you. You give Jeanie what 
 she wants, and send the rest when I tell you. Will you do that 
 for me, Bill ? I've always been on the square with you and 
 your mates.' 
 
 ' You hev, boy, that I'll not deny, and I'll corral the dollars 
 for you. It's an all -fired muss that men like you and Jim 
 should have a black mark agin your record. A spry hunter 
 Jim would have made. I'd laid out to have had him to Arizona 
 yet — and you're a going to dust out right away, you say 1 ' 
 
 Tm off now. Jim's waited too long, I expect. One other 
 thing ; let Mr. Haughton, across the creek, have this before 
 daylight.' 
 
 ' What, the Honourable ! ! ! Lawful heart ! Wal, I hope ye 
 may strike a better trail yet. Y^er young, you and Jim, poor 
 old Jim. Hold on. Hev ye nary shootin' iron ? ' 
 
 'No time,' I said. 'I haven't been to the camp.' 
 
 'Gro slow, then. Wait here ; 3'ou'll want suthin, may be, on 
 the peraira. If ye do, boy ! Jim made good shootin' with this, 
 ye mind. Take it and welcome ; itll mind ye of old Arizona 
 BiU.' 
 
 He handed me a beautifully finished little repeating rifie, 
 hardly hea\-ier than a navy revolver, and a small bag of 
 cartridges. 
 
 ' Thar, that'll be company for ye, in case ye hev to draw a 
 bead on the — any one — just temp'ry like Our horses is hobbled 
 in Bates's clearing. Take my old sorrel if ye can catch him.' 
 He stopped for a second and put his hand in a listening fashion. 
 His hunter's ear was quicker than mine. ' Thar^s a war party 
 on the trail, I reckon. It's a roughish crossing at Slatey Bar,' 
 and he pointed towards the river, which v/e could plainly hear 
 rushing over a rocky bed. We shook hands, and as I turned 
 down the steep river bank I saw him walk slowly into his tent 
 and close the canvas after him. 
 
 The line he pointed to was the one I fixed in my own mind 
 to take long before our talk was over. The Turon, always 
 steep-banked, rocky in places, ran here under an awful high 
 bluff of slate rock. The rushing water in its narrow channel 
 had worn away the rock a good deal, and left ledges or bars 
 im.der which a deal of gold had been found. Easy enough te 
 cross here on a kind of natural ford. We had many a time 
 walked over on Sundays and holidays for a little kangaroo 
 
XXX ROBBERY UXDER ARMS 237 
 
 shooting now and then. It was here Jim one day, when we 
 were all together for a ramble, surprised the Americans by his 
 shooting with the little Ballard rifle. 
 
 As I crossed there was just moon enough to show the deep 
 pools and the hurrying, tearing waters of the wild river, 
 toaming betwixt the big boulders and jags of rock which the 
 bar was strewed with. In front the bank rose 300 feet Like 
 the roof of a house, with great overhanging crags of slat« rock, 
 and a narrow track in ana out between. If I had light enough 
 to find tliis and get to the top — the country was terribly rough 
 for a few miles, with the darkness coming on — I should be 
 pretty well out of reach by daylight. 
 
 I had just struck the track when I heard voices and a horse's 
 tramp on the otlier side of the river. They seemed not to be 
 sure whether I'd crossed or not, and were tracking up and 
 down on each side of the bar. I breasted the liill track faster 
 than I had done for many a day, and when I got to the top 
 stopped to listen, but could hear nothing. The moon had 
 dropped suddenly ; the forest was as black as pitch. You 
 couldn't see your hand before you. 
 
 I knew tliat I was safe now, if a hundred men were at my 
 heels, till daybreak at any rate. I had the two sides of the gully 
 to guide me. I could manage to make to the farm where the 
 sorrel was at grass with a lot of other diggers' horses. If I 
 could get a saddle and catch the old horse I could put many a 
 mile between me and them before sundown. I stood still when 
 I reached the top of the blutf, partly to get breath and partly 
 to take a last look at old Turon. 
 
 Below lav the gold field clearly marked out by hundreds of 
 camp-fires that wore still red and showed bright in the darkened 
 sky. The course of the river was marked by them, in and out, 
 as most of the shallow diggings had followed the river fiats. 
 Far back the fires glowed against the black forest, and just 
 before the moon fell I could catch the shine of the water in the 
 deeper reaches of the river. 
 
 It was the very picture of what Td read about an army in 
 camp — lines of tents and a crowd of men all spread out over a 
 bit of land hardly big enough for a flock of sheep. Now and 
 then a dog would bark — now a re\olver would go oS. It was 
 never quiet on Turon diggings, day or night. 
 
 Well, there they all were^ tents and diggers, claims and wind- 
 lasses, pumps and water-wheels. I had been happy enough 
 there, God knows ; and perhaps I was looking at it all for the 
 last time. As I turned and made down the hill into the black 
 forest that spread below me like the sea, I felt as if I was leav- 
 ing everything that was any good in life behind with the Turon 
 lights, and being hunted once more, in spite of myself, into a 
 desert of darkness and despair. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 I GOT to Bates's paddocks about daylight, and went straight 
 up to the hut where the man lived that looked after it. Most 
 of the diggers that cared about their horses paid for their grass 
 in farmers' and squatters' paddocks, though the price was pretty 
 high. Old Bates, who had a bit of a good grassed flat, made a 
 pretty fair thing out of it by taking in horses at half-a-crown 
 a week apiece. As luck would have it, the man in charge knew 
 me ; he'd seen me out with the Yankees one day, and saw I was 
 a friend -vvnith them, and when I said I'd come for Bill's sorrel he 
 thought it likely enough, and got out the saddle and bridle. I 
 tipped him well, and went off, telling him I was going to Wattle 
 Flat to look at a quartz-crushing plant that was for sale. I 
 accounted for coming up so early by saying I'd lost my road, 
 and that I wanted to get to Wattle Flat sharp, as another chap 
 wished to buy the plant. I cut across the range, kept the sun 
 on my right hand, and pushed on for Jonathan's. I got there 
 early, and it's well I did. I rode the sorrel hard, but I knew he 
 was pretty tough, and I was able to pay for him if I killed 
 him. I trusted to leaving him at Jonathan's, and getting a 
 fresh horse there. What with the walk over the bluff and the 
 forest, having no sleep the night before, and the bother and 
 trouble of it all, I was pretty well used up. I was real glad to 
 see Jonathan's paddock fence and the old house we'd thought so 
 little of lately. It's wonderful how soon people rise grand 
 notions and begin to get too big for their boots. 
 
 ' Hello, Dick, what's up ? ' says Jonathan. ' No swag, 'lastic- 
 side boots, flyaway tie, new rifle, old horse ; looks a bit fishy, 
 don't it?' 
 
 ' I can't stop barneying,' I said. ' Have you a decent horse 
 to give me ? The game's up. I must ride night and day till I 
 get home. Heard anything V 
 
 'No ; but Billy the Boy's just rode up. I hear him a-taUdn' 
 to the gals. He knows if anybody does. FU take the old 
 moke and put him in the paddock. I can let you have a 
 stunner.' 
 
CHAP, xxn EOBBEEY UXDER ARMS 239 
 
 ' All right ; Fll go in and have some breakfast It's as much 
 as I dare stop at all now.' 
 
 * Why, Dick Marston, is that you ? No, it can't be,' said both 
 girls togetiier. ' Why, you look like a ghost. He doesn't ; he 
 looks as if he'd been at a ball all night. Plenty of partners, 
 Dick?' 
 
 * Never mind, Dick,' says Maddie ; ' go and make yourself 
 comfortable in that room, and I'll have breakfast for you while 
 youd let a cow out of the baiL We don't forget our friends.' 
 
 ' If all our friends were as true as you, ^laddie,' I said, rather 
 down-like, *I shouldn't be here to-day.* 
 
 ' Oh I that's it, is it ? ' says she ; ' we're only indebted to 
 somebody's laying the traps on — a woman of course — for your 
 honour's company. Never mind, old man, I won't hit you when 
 you're down. But, I say, you go and have a yarn with Billy the 
 Boy — he's in the kitchenu I believe the voung imp knows 
 something, but he won't let on to Bell and I. 
 
 While the steaks were frying — and they smelt very good, 
 bad as I felt — I called out Master Billv and had a talk with 
 him. I handed him a note to begin with. It was money well 
 spent, and, you mark my words, a shilling spent in grog often 
 buys a man twenty times the worth of it m information, let 
 alone a pound. 
 
 Billy had grown a squarish-set, middle-sized chap ; his hair 
 wasn't so long, and his clothes were better ; his exe was as 
 bright and bold-looking. As he stood tapping one or his boots 
 •v^dth his whip, he looked for all the world like a bull-terrier. 
 
 * My colonial oath, Dick, you're quite the gentleman — free 
 with your money just the same as ever. You takes after the 
 old governor • he always paid well if you told him the truth. 
 I remember nim giving me a hidin' when 1 was a kiddy for 
 saying something I wasn't sure of. My word ! I was that sore 
 for a week after I couldn't button my shirt. But ain't it a 
 pity about Jim?' 
 
 ' Oh, that's it What about Jim ? ' 
 
 ' Why, the p'leece grabbed him, of course. You fellers don't 
 think you're going on for ever and ever, keepin' the country in 
 a state of terrorism, as the papers say. No, Dick, it's wrong 
 and wicked and sinfuX You'll have to knock under and give us 
 young uns a chance.' 
 
 Here the impudent young rascal looked in my face as bold as 
 brass and burst out laughing. He certainly was the cheekiest 
 young scoundrel I ever came across. But in his own line you 
 couldn't lick him. 
 
 ' Jim's took,' he said, and he looked curiously over at me. ' I 
 seen the pleece a-takin' him across the country to Bargo early 
 this morning. There was poor old Jim a-lookin' as if he was 
 goin' to be hanged, with a chap leading the screw he was on. 
 imd Jim's long legs tied underneath. I was gatherin' cattle, I 
 waa I drew some up just for a stall, and had a good look.' 
 
240 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 ' How many men were with him ? ' 
 
 ' Only two ; and they're to pass through Bargo Brush about 
 sundown to-night, or a bit earlier. I asked one of the men the 
 road ; said Pd lost myself, and would be late home. Ha ! ha ! 
 ha!' 
 
 And how the young villain laughed till the tears came into 
 his eyes, while he danced about like a blackfellow. 
 
 * See here, Billy,' I said, ' here's another pound for you, and 
 there'll be a fiver after if you stick well to me to-day. I won't 
 let Jim be walked off to Berrima without a flutter to save him. 
 It'll be the death of him. He's not like me, and he's got a 
 young wife besides.' 
 
 ' More fool he, Dick. What does a cross cove want with a 
 wife ? He can't never expect to do any good with a wife follerin' 
 of him about. I'm agin marrying, leastways as long as a chap's 
 sound on his pins. But I'll stick to you, Dick, and, what's more, 
 I can take you a short cut to the brush, and we can wait in a 
 gully and see the traps come up. You have a snack and lie 
 down for a bit. I seen you were done when you came up. I'll 
 have the horses ready saddled up.' 
 
 ' How about the police 1 Suppose they come this way.' 
 
 ' Not they. They split ajid took across towards the Mountain 
 Hut, where you all camped with the horses. I didn't see 'em ; 
 but I cut their tracks. Five shod horses. They might be here 
 to-morrow.' 
 
 A bush telegraph ain't a bad thing. They're not all as good 
 as Billy the Boy. But the worst of 'em, like a bad sheep dog, 
 is a deal better than none. 
 
 A bush telegraph, you see, is mostly worked about the neigh- 
 bourhood he was born in. He's not much good anywhere else. 
 He's like a blackfellow outside of his own 'taurL' He's at sea. 
 But within twenty or thirty miles of where he was bom and 
 bred he knows every track, every range, every hill, every creek, 
 as well as all the short cuts and by-roads. He can bring you 
 miles shorter than any one that only follows the road. He can 
 mostly track like a blackfellow, and tell you whether the cattle 
 or horses which he sees the tracks of are belonging to his country 
 or are strangers. He can get you a fresh horse on a pinch, 
 night or day, for he knows everybody's paddocks and yards, as 
 well as the number, looks, pace, and pluck of everybody's riding 
 horses — of many of which he has * taken a turn' out of— that is, 
 ridden them hard and far, and returned them during the night. 
 Of course he can be fined — even imprisoned for this — when he is 
 caught in the act. Herein lies the difficulty. I felt like another 
 man after a wash, a nip, and a real good meal, with the two 
 girls sitting close by, and chattering away as usuaL 
 
 ' Do you know,' says Bella, ' it half serves you right. Not 
 that that Port Phillip woman was right to peach. She ought tc 
 have had her tongue torn out first, let alone go open-mouthed at 
 it. But mightn't vou have come down here from the Turon on 
 
XXXI ROBBERY U2TDER ARMS 241 
 
 Sundays and holidays now and then, and had a yarn with ua 
 all 1 ' 
 
 ' Of course we ought, and v,^e deserve to be kicked — the lot 
 of us ; but there were good reasons why we didn't like to. We 
 were regularly boxed up with the diggers, nobody knew who 
 we were, or where we came from, and only for this Jezebel 
 never would have known. If we'd come here they'd have all 
 dropped that we were old friends, and then they'd have known 
 all about us.' 
 
 'Well, I'm glad you've lost your characters,' says Maddie. 
 * You won't iiave to V^e so particular now, and you can come as 
 often as Sir Ferdinand will let you. Good-bye. Billy's waving 
 his hat.' 
 
 It wasn't long before I was in the saddle and off again. I'd 
 made a bit of a bargain with Jonathan, who sold me a pair of 
 riding boots, butcher's, and a big tweed poncho. The boots 
 were easier to take a long routch ride in than trousers, and I 
 wanted the poncho to keep the Ballard ritle under. It wouldn't 
 do to have it in your hand ail tlie time. 
 
 As we rode along I settled upon the way I'd try and set poor 
 Jim free. Bad off as I was myself I couldn't bear to see him 
 chained up, and knew that he was going for years and years to 
 a place more wicked and miserable than he'd ever heard of. 
 
 After riding twenty miles the sun was getting low, when 
 Billy pointed to a trail which came broad ways across the road, 
 and which then followed it. 
 
 ' Here they are — p'leece, and no mistake. Here's their horses' 
 tracks right enougn. Here's the prisoner's horse, see how he 
 stumbled 1 and this road they're bound to go till they cross the 
 Stony point, and get into Bargo Brush, near a creek. 
 
 We nad plenty of time by crossing a range and running a 
 blind creek down to be near the place where the troopers must 
 
 Eass as they crossed the main creek. We tied up the horses a 
 undred yards' distance behind us in the forest, and I made 
 rea,dy to rescue Jim, if it could be managed anyhow. 
 
 How was it to be done 1 1 could depend on the rifle carrying 
 true at short ranges ; but I didn't like the notion of firing at a 
 man behind his back, like. I hardly knew what to do, when all 
 of a sudden two policemen showed up at the end of the track 
 nearest the creek. 
 
 One man was a bit in front — riding a fine horse, too. The 
 next one had a led horse, on which rode poor old Jim, looking 
 as if he was going to be hanged that day, as Billy said, though 
 I knew well he wasn't thinking about himself. I don't believe 
 Jirn ever looked miserable for so long since he was born. What- 
 ever happened to him before, he'd have a cry or a fight, and it 
 would be over. But now his poor old face looked that wretched 
 and miserable, as if he'd never smile again as long as he lived. 
 He didn't seem to care where they took him ; and when the old 
 horse stumbled and close upon fell down he didn't take notice. 
 
 B 
 
242 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 WTien I saw that, my mind was made up. I couldn't let them 
 take him away to his death. I could see he wouldn't live a 
 month. He'd go fretting his life about Jeanie, and after the 
 free life he'd always led he'd fall sick like the blacks when 
 they're shut up, and die without any reason but because a wild 
 bird won't live in a cage. 
 
 So I took aim and waited till they were just crossing the 
 creek into the forest. The leading man was just riding up the 
 bank, and the one that led Jim's horse was on the bit of a sand 
 bed that the water had brought down. He was the least bit 
 ahead of Jim, when I pulled trigger, and sent a ball into him, 
 just under the collar-bone. I fired high on pu.pose. He drops 
 off his saddle like a dead man. The next minute Billy the Boy 
 raises the most awful corroboree of screams and howls, enough 
 for a whole gang of bush-rangers, if they went in for that sort 
 of thing. He emptied four chambers of his revolver at the 
 leading trooper right away, and I fired at liis horse. The con- 
 stable never doubted — the attack was so sudden and savage 
 like — but there was a party of men hid in the brush. Billy's 
 shots had whistled round him, and mine had nearly dropped 
 his horse, so he thought it no shame to make a bolt and leave 
 his mate, as seemed very bad hit, in our hands. 
 
 His horse's hand-gallop growed fainter and fainter in the dis- 
 tance, and then we unbound poor Jim, set his feet at liberty, 
 and managed to dispose of the handcuffs. Jim's face began to 
 look more cheerful, but he was down in the mouth again when 
 he saw the wounded man. He began at once to do all he could 
 for him. We stopped a short distance behind the brush, which 
 had already helped us well. 
 
 Jim propped up the poor chap, wliose life-blood was flowing 
 red through the bullet-hole, and made him as comfortable as he 
 could. ' I must take your horse, mate,' he says ; ' but you know 
 it's only the fortune of war. A man must look after himself. 
 Some one'll come along the road soon.' He mounted the 
 trooper's horse, and we slipped through the trees — it was getting 
 dark now — till we came to our horses. Then we all rode off 
 together. We took Billy the Boy with us until he put us on to 
 a road that led us into the country that we knew. We coald 
 make our ov^'n way from there, and so we sent off our scout, 
 telling him to ride to the nearest township and say he'd seen a 
 trooper lying badly wounded by the Bargo Brush roadside. 
 The sooner he was seen to, the better chance he'd have. 
 
 Jim brightened up considerably after this. He told me how 
 he'd gone back to say good-bye t<) Jeanie — how the poor girl 
 went into fits, and he couldn't leave her. By the time she got 
 better the cottage was surrounded by police ; there was no u.^e 
 being shot down without a chance, so he gave himself up. 
 
 * My word, Dick,' he said, ' I wished for a bare-backed horse, 
 and a deep gully, then ; but it wasn't to be. There was no 
 horse handy, and I'd only have been carried into my own place 
 
ixxi ROBBERY IINDER ARMS 343 
 
 a dead man and frightened the life out of poor Jeanie as 
 well' 
 
 ' You're worth a dozen dead men yet, Jim/ I said. * Keep up 
 your pecker, old man. Well get across to the Hollow some 
 time within the next twenty-four hours, and there we'll be safe 
 anyhow. They can't touch Jeanie, you know ; and you're not 
 short of what cash she'll want to keep her till this blows over 
 a bit.' 
 
 ' And what am I to do all the time ? ' he says so pitiful lika 
 ' We're that fond of one another, Dick, that I couldn't hardly 
 bear her out of my sight, and now I'll be months and months 
 and months without a look at her pretty face, where I've never 
 seen anything yet but love and kindness. Too good for me she 
 always wels : and what have I brought her to ? 3ly God I Dick. 
 I wish vou'd shot me instead of the constable, poor devil ! ' 
 
 ' Well, you wasn't very far apart,' I says, chatfing lika ' If 
 that old horse they put you on had bobbed forward level with 
 hiiu you'd have got plugged inst^^ad. But it's no use giving in, 
 Jim. We must stand up to our fight now, or throw up the 
 sponge. There's no two ways about it.' 
 
 We rattled on then without speaking, and never cried crack 
 till we got to Nulla Mountain, where we knew we were pretty 
 safe not to be followed up. We took it easier then, and stopped 
 to eat a bit of bread ana meat the girls had put up for me at 
 Jonathan's. I'd never thought of it before. When I took the 
 parcel out of the pocket of my poncho I thought it felt deuced 
 heavy, and there, sure enough, was one of those shilling flasks 
 of brandv they sell for chaps to go on the road with. 
 
 Brandy ain't a good thing at all times and seasons, and Pve 
 seen more than one man, or a dozen either, that miglit just as 
 well have sawed away at their throats with a blunt knife as put 
 the first glass to their lip.s. But we was both hungry, thirsty, 
 tired, miseca'ole, and pretty well done and beaten, though we 
 hadn't had time to think about it. That drop of brandy seemed 
 as if it had saved our lives. I never forgot it, nor poor Maddie 
 Barnes for thinking of it for me. And I did live to do her a 
 good turn back — much as there's been said again me, and true 
 enough, too. 
 
 It was a long way into the night, and not far from daylight 
 either, when we stumbled up to the cave — dead beat, horses and 
 men both. W e'd two minds to camp on the mountain, but we 
 might have been followeti up, hard as wed ridden, and we didn't 
 like to throw a chance away. We didn't want the old man to 
 laugh at us, and we didn't want to do any more time in Berrima 
 — not now, anyhow. We'd been living too gay and free a life 
 to begin with the jug all over again. 
 
 So we thought we'd make one job of it, and get right through, 
 if we had to sleep for a week after it. It would be slow enough, 
 but anything was better than what we'd gone through lately. 
 
 After we'd got down the mountain and on the flat land of 
 
244 KOBBERY UNDER ARMS chap, xxxi 
 
 the valley it rested our feet a bit, that was pretty nigh cut to 
 pieces with the rocks. Our horses were that done we dursn't 
 ride 'em for hours before. As we came close, out walks old Crib, 
 and smells at us. He knew us in a minute, and jumped up and 
 began to try and lick Jim's hand : the old story. He just gave 
 one sort of sniff at me, as much as to say, ' Oh ! it's you, is it ? ' 
 Then he actually gave a kind of half -bark. I don't believe he'd 
 barked for years, such a queer noise it was. Anyhow, it woke 
 up dad, and he came out pretty sharp with a revolver in his 
 hand. As soon as he saw the old dog walking alongside of ua 
 he knew it was right, and begins to feel fur his pipe. First 
 thing fathor always did as soon as any work or fighting or talk- 
 ing was over was to get out his pipe and light it. He didn't 
 seem the same man without it. 
 
 *So you've found your way back again, have ye?' he says. 
 ' Why, I thought you was all on your way to Calif orny by this 
 time. Ain't this Christmas week ? Why, I was expecting to 
 come over to Ameriky myself one of these days, when all the 
 derry was over Why, what's up with the boy V 
 
 Jim was standing by, say in' nothing, while I was taking ofl 
 the saddles and bridles and letting the horses go, when all of a 
 sudden he gives a lurch forward, and if the old man hadn't laid 
 hold of him in his strong arms and propped him up he'd have 
 gone down face foremost like a girl in a dead faint. 
 
 * "What's up with him, Dick "i ' savs father, rather quick, 
 almost as if he was fond of him, and Lad some natural feeling 
 —sometimes I raly think he haa — 'been any shooting V 
 
 ' Yes ; not at him, though. Tell you all about it in the morn- 
 ing. He's eaten nothing, and we've been travelling best part 
 of twenty-four hours right off the reel.' 
 
 ' Hold him up while I fetch out the pannikin. There's plenty 
 of grub inside. He'll be all right after a sleep.' 
 
 A drop of rum and water brought him to, and after that we 
 made ourselves a cup of tea and turned in. The sun was pretty 
 high when I woke. ^Yhen I looked out there was the old man 
 sitting on the log by the fire, smoking. VSTiat was a deal more 
 curious, I saw the half-caste, Warrigal, coming up from the flat, 
 leading a horse and carrying a pair of hobbles. Something 
 made me look over to a particular corner where Starlight always 
 slept when he was at the Hollow, Sure enough there was the 
 figure of a man rolled up in a cloak. I knew by the way his 
 boots and things were thrown about that it could be do other 
 than Starlicrht. 
 
CHAPTEK XXXn 
 
 Fd settled in my niind that it couldn't be any one else, when he 
 sat up, yawned, and looked round as if he Lad not been away 
 from the old place a week, 
 
 * Ha ! Richard, here we are again ! " Feeds the lx)ar in the 
 old frank ? " The governor told uie you and Jim had made 
 back. Dreadful bore, isn't it 1 Just when we'd all rubbed off 
 the rust of our bush life and were getting civilised. I feel very 
 seriously ill-treated, I assure you. I have a great mind to apply 
 to the Government for compensation. That s the worst of these 
 new inspectors, they are so infernally zealous.' 
 
 ' You were too many for them, it seems. I half thought you 
 might have been nailed. How the deuce did you get the office 
 in time 1 ' 
 
 'The faithful Warrigal, as usual, gave me timely warning, 
 and brought a horse, of course. He will appear on the Judg- 
 ment Day leading Rainbow, I firmly believe. Why he should 
 be so confoundedly^ anxious about my welfare I can't make out 
 — I can't, really. It's his peculiar form of mania, I suppose. 
 We all sutler from some madness or other.' 
 
 ' How the blazes did he know the police were laid on to the 
 lot of us ? ' I said. 
 
 ' I didn't know myself that your Kate had come the double 
 on you. I might have known she would, though. Well, it 
 seems Warrigal took it into his semi -barbaric head to ride 
 into Turon and loaf -ibout, partly to see me, and partly about 
 another matter that your father laid him on about. He was 
 standing about near the Prosj^ectors' Arms, late on Friday 
 night, doing nothing and seeing everything, as usual, when he 
 noticed Mrs. Mullockson run out of the house like a Bedlamite. 
 " My word, that missis big one coolah ! " was his expression, and 
 maile straight for the camp. Now Warrigal had seen you come 
 out just before. He doesn't like you and Jim over much — bad 
 taste, I tell him, on his part — but I suppose he looks upon you as 
 belonging to the family. So he stalked the fair and furious Kate,' 
 
 ' That was how it was, then ? ' 
 
 'Yes, much in that way. I must say, Dick, that if you are 
 
246 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 80 extremely fond of — well — studying the female character, 
 you should carry on the pursuit more discreetly. Just see what 
 this miscalculation has cost your friends ! ' 
 
 * Confound her ! She's a heartless wretch, and I hope she'll 
 die in a ditch.' 
 
 'Exactly. Well, she knocked, and a constable opened the 
 outer door. 
 
 ' " I want to see Sir Ferdinand," she says. 
 
 ' " He's in bed and can't be disturbed," says the bobby. " Any 
 message I can deliver ? " 
 
 * " I have important information," says she. " Rouse him up, 
 or you'll be sorry for it." 
 
 ' " Won't it do to-morrow morning ? " says he. 
 ' " No, it won't," says she, stamping her foot. " Do what 1 
 tell you, and don't stand there like a fool." 
 
 * She waited a bit. Then, Warrigal says, out came Sir Ferdi- 
 nand, very polite. '* What can I do for you," says he, " Mrs. 
 Mullockson ? " 
 
 '"Should you like to know where the ^^farstons are, Sir 
 Ferdinand," says she. " Dick and Jim ? " 
 
 '"Know? Would I not?" says he. "No end of warrants 
 out for them ; since that Ballabri Bank robbery they seem to 
 have disappeared under ground. And that fellow Starlight, 
 too ! Most remarkable man of his day. I'd give my eyes to 
 put the bracelets upon him." 
 
 ' She whispered something into his ear. 
 
 ' " Guard, turn out," he roars out first ; then, dropping his 
 voice, says out, " My dear Mrs. Mullockson " (you should hear 
 Warrigal imitate him), " you have made my fortune — ofiicially, 
 I mean, of course. I shall never forget your kindness. Thanks, 
 a thousand times." 
 
 ' " Don't thank me," she says, and she burst out crying, and 
 goes slowly back to the hotel 
 
 ' Warrigal had heard quite enough. He rips over to Daly's 
 mob, borrows a horse, saddle, and bridle, and leads him straight 
 down to our camp. He roused me up about one o'clock, and I 
 could hardly make any explanation to my mates. Such stunning 
 good fellows they were, too ! I wonder whether I shall ever 
 associate with gentlemen again 1 The chances are against it. 
 
 'I had all kinds of trouble to tell them I was going away 
 with Warrigal, and yet not to t^ll too much. 
 
 * " What the dickens," says Clifford, " can you want, going 
 away with this familiar of yours at this hour of the night? 
 You're like the fellow in Scott's novel {Anne of Geierstein) that 
 I was reading over again yesterday — the mysterious stranger 
 that's called for at midnight by the Avenger of Blood, departs 
 with him and is never seen more." 
 
 '"In case you never see me afterwards," I said, " we'd 
 better say good-bye. We've been good mates and true friends, 
 haven't we 1 " 
 
xixii ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 247 
 
 ' " Never better," he said. " I don't know what we shall do 
 without you. But, of course, you're not going very far?" 
 
 ' " Good-bye, in case," I said. " Anyhow, 111 write you a line," 
 RTid as I shook hands with them — two regular trumps, if ever 
 there were any in the world — I had a kind of notion I'd never 
 see them again. Hardly think I shall, either. Sir Ferdinand 
 surrounded the hut about an hour later, and made them come 
 out one by one — both of them and the wages man. I daresay 
 they were surprised. 
 
 * " "Where's the fourth man, ClifFord ? " says Sir Ferdinand. 
 " Just ask him to come out, will you 1 "' 
 
 '"What, Frank Haughton?" says he. 
 
 ' I heard most of this from that young devil, Billy the Boy. He 
 saw Sir Ferdinand ride up, so he hid close by, just for the fun 
 of hearing how he got on. He'd seen Warrigal and me ride 
 away. 
 
 '"Frank Devil !" bangs out Sir Ferdinand, who'd begun to 
 get his monkey up. " How should I know his infernal purser's 
 name? No man, it seems to me, has his right name on this 
 confounded goldfield. I mean Starlight — Starlight the cattle 
 stealer, the mail robber, the bush-ranger, whose name is notori- 
 ous over the three colonics, and New Zealand to boot — your 
 intimate friend and partner for the last nine months ! " 
 
 ' " You perfectly amaze me," says ClitTord. " But can't you 
 be mistaken 1 Is your information to be depended upon ? " 
 
 '"Mine came from a jealous woman," says Sir lerdinand. 
 "They may generally be depended upon for a straight tip. 
 But we're losing time. When did he leave the claim, and which 
 way did he go 1 " 
 
 "I have no idea which way he went," says Clifford. "He 
 did not say, but he left about an hour since." 
 
 ' " On foot or on horseback ? " 
 
 '"On horseback." 
 
 ' " Any one with him ? " 
 
 ' " Yes, another horseman." 
 
 '"WTiatwashelike?" 
 
 * " Slight, dark man, youngish, good-looking." 
 
 ' " Wariigal the half-caste ! By George ! warrants out for 
 him also," says Sir Ferdinand. " On a good horse, of course, 
 with an hour's start. We may give up the idea of catching him 
 this time. Follow him up as a matter of form. Good-bye, 
 Clifford. You U hear news of your friend before long, or I'm 
 much mistaken." 
 
 '"Stop, Sir Ferdinand, you must pardon me: but I don't 
 exactly understand your tone. The man that we knew by the 
 name of Frank Haughton n:iay be, as you say, an escaped 
 criminal. All I know is that he lived with us since we cama 
 here, and that no fellow could have behaved more truly like a 
 man and a gentleman. As far as we are concerned, I have a 
 material guarantee that he has been scrupulously honest. Do 
 
248 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 you mean to hint for one moment ihat we were aware of iiia 
 previous history, or in any way mixed up with his acts 1 " 
 
 ' "If I do, what then?" says Sir Ferdinand, laughing. 
 
 ' " The affair is in no way ludicrous," says Clitiord, very stifl 
 and dignified. " I hold myself to have received an insult, and 
 must ask you to refer me to a friend." 
 
 ' " Do you know that I could arrest you and Hastings now 
 and lock you up on suspicion of being concerned with him in 
 the Ballabri Bank robbery?" says Sir Ferdinand in a stern 
 voice. " Don't look so indignant. I only say I could. I am not 
 going to do so, of course. As to fighting you, my dear fellow, I 
 am perfectly at your service at all times and seasons M'henever 
 I resign my appointment as Inspector of Police for the colony 
 of New South Wales. The Civil Service regulations do not per- 
 mit of duelling at present, and I found it so deuced hard to work 
 up to the billet that I am not going to imperil my continuance 
 therein. After all, I had no intention of hurting your feelings, 
 and apologise if I did. As for that rascal Starlight, he would 
 deceive the very devil himself." 
 
 ' And so Sir Ferdinand rode off.' 
 
 ' How did you come ; by Jonathan's ? ' 
 
 ' We called nowhere. Warrigal, as usual, made a short cut 
 of his own across the bush — scrubs, gullies, mountains, all 
 manner of desert paths. We made the Hollow yesterday after- 
 noon, and went to sleep in a nook known to us of old. We 
 dropped in to breakfast here at daylight, and I felt sleepy enough 
 for another snooze.' 
 
 ' We're all here again, it seems,' I said, sour enough, ' I sup- 
 pose we'll have to go on the old lay ; they won't let us alone 
 when we're doing fair work and behaving ourselves like men. 
 They must take the consequencas, d — n them !' 
 
 ' Ha ! very true,' says Starlight in his dreamy kind of way. 
 ' Most true, Richard. Society should make a truce occasionally, 
 or proclaim an amnesty with offenders of our stamp. It would 
 pay better than driving us to desperation. How is Jim ? He's 
 worse off than either of us, poor fellow.' 
 
 * Jim's very bad. He can't get over being away from Jeanie. 
 I never saw him so down in the mouth this years.' 
 
 ' Poor old Jim, he's a deal too good for the place. Sad mis- 
 take this getting married. People should either keep straight 
 or have no relatives to bear the brunt of their villainies. " But 
 soft," as they say in the play, " where am 11" I thought I was 
 a virtuous miner again. Here we are at this devil-discovered, 
 demon -haunted old Hollow again — first cousin to the pit of 
 Acheron. There's no help for it, Dick. We must play our parts 
 gallantly, as demons of this lower world, or get hissed off the 
 stage.' 
 
 We didn't do much for a few days, you may be sure. There 
 was nothing to do, for one thing ; and we hadn't made up our 
 
xxxri ROBBERY UKDEK ABMS 249 
 
 mind what our line was to be. One Uiing was certaiu : there 
 would ]yQ moi^ row made about Ub than ever. We should have 
 all the p)olice in the country worried and barked at by the 
 press, the people, tlie Grovernment, and tlieir sirperior officers 
 till they got something to show about us. Living at the 
 diggings under the nose of the police, without their having the 
 least suspicion who we were, was bad enough ; but the rescue 
 of Jim and the shooting of a policeman in charge of him was 
 more serious — the worst thing that had happened yet. 
 
 There would be the devil to pay if they couldn't find a track 
 of us. No doubt money would be spent like water in bribing 
 any one who might give information about us. Eveiy one 
 would be tried that we had ever been known to be friendly 
 with. A special body of men could bo told off to make a dart 
 to any spot they might get wdnd of near where we had been 
 last seen. 
 
 We had long talks and barneys over the whole thing — some- 
 times by ourselves wdth Starlight, sometime^s with father. A 
 long time it was before we settled upon anj' regular put-up bit 
 of v.ork to do. 
 
 Sooner or later we began to see the secret of the Hollow 
 would be found out. There was no great chance in the old 
 times with only a few shepherds and stock-riders wandering 
 through the bush, once in a way straggling over the coantr5\ 
 But now the whole colony swarmed with miners, who were 
 always prospecting, as they called it — that is, looking out for 
 fresh patches of gold. Now, small parties of these men — bold, 
 hardy, experienced chaps — would take a pick and shovel, a 
 bucket, and a tin dish, with a few weeks' rations, and scour the 
 whole countryside. They would try every creek, gully, hill- 
 side, and river-bed. If they found the colour of gola, the least 
 trace of it in a dish of wash-dirt, they would at once settle 
 down themselves. If it went rich the news would soon spread, 
 and a thousand men might be gathered in one spot — the bank 
 of a small creek, the side of a steep range — within a fort- 
 night, with ten thousand more sure to follow within a 
 month. 
 
 That might happen at any time on one of the spurs of Nulla 
 Mountain ; and the finding out of the track down to the Hollow 
 by some one of the dozens of rambling, shooting, fishing diggers 
 would be as certain to happen as the sun to rise. 
 
 Well, the country had changed, and we were bound to change 
 with it. We couldn't stop boxed up in the Hollow day after 
 day, and month after month, shooting and horse-breaking, 
 doing nothing and earning notliing. 
 
 If we went outside there wero ten times more men looking out 
 for us than ever, ten times more chance of our being tracked or 
 run down thfin ever. That we knew from the newspapers. 
 How did we see them? Oh, the old way. We sent out our 
 scout, Warrigal, and he got our letters and papers too, froic h 
 
250 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 ' sure hand,' as Starlight said the old people in the English wars 
 used to say. 
 
 The papers were something to see. First he brought us in a 
 handbill that was posted in Bargo, like this : — 
 
 FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD. 
 
 The above reward will be paid to any one giving information as to the 
 whereabouts of Richard Marston, James Marston, and a man whose name 
 is unknown, but who can be identified chiefly by the appellation of Star- 
 light, 
 
 'Pleasing way of drawing attention to a gentleman's private 
 residence,' says Starlight, smiling first and looking rather grim 
 afterwards. ' Never mind, boys, they'll increase that reward 
 yet, by Jove ! It will have to be a thousand apiece if they 
 don't look a little sharper.' 
 
 We laughed, and dad growled out — 
 
 'Don't seem to have the pluck, any on ye, to tackle a big 
 touch again. I expect they'll send a summons for us next, and 
 get old Bill Barkis, the bailiff at Bargo, to serve it.' 
 
 * Come, come, governor,' says Starlight, ' none of that. We've 
 got quite enough devil in us yet, without your stirring him up. 
 You must give us time, you know. Let's see wliat this paper 
 says. Turon Star I What a godsend to it ! 
 
 •BUSH-RANGERS! 
 •STARLIGHT AND THE MARSTONS AGAIN. 
 
 'The announcement will strike our readers, if not with the most pro- 
 found astonishment, certainly with considerable surprise, that these cele- 
 brated desperadoes, for whose apprehension such large sums have been 
 offered, for whom the police in all the colonies have made such unre- 
 mitting search, should have been discovered in our midst. Yet such is 
 the case. On this very morning, from information received, our respected 
 and efficient Inspector of Police, Sir Ferdinand Morringer, proceeded soon 
 after midnight to the camp of Messrs. Clifford and Hastings. He had 
 every reason to believe that he would have had no difficulty in arresting 
 the famous Starlight, who, under the cognomen of the Honourable Frank 
 Haughton, has been for months a partner in this claim. The sharelioldera 
 were popularly known as " the three Honourables, " it being rumoured that 
 both Mr. Clifford and Mr. Hastings were entitled to that prefix, if not to 
 a more exalted one. 
 
 * With characteristic celerity, however, the famous outlaw had shortly 
 before quitted the place, having received warning and been provided with 
 3 fast horse by his singular retainer, Warrigal, a half-caste native of the 
 colony, who ia said to be devotedly attached to him. and who has been 
 seen from time to time on the Turon. 
 
 ' Of the Marston brothers, the elder one, Richard, would seem to have 
 been similarly apprised, but James Marston was arrested in his cottage in 
 Specimen Gully. Having been lately married, he was apparently uawili* 
 ing to leave his home, and lingered too long for prudence. 
 
XXXII 
 
 ROBBERY UNDER ARilS 251 
 
 • While rejoicing, as mast all good citizens, at the dts-oovery of evil- 
 doers and the capture of one member of a band of notorious criminals, we 
 mast sute in fairness and candour that their conduct has been, while on 
 the field as miners, free from reproach in every way. For James Marston, 
 who waa married but a short while since to a Melbourne young lady of 
 high personal attractions and the most winning amiability, gre^it sym- 
 pathy has been expressed by all classes. 
 
 So much for the Star. Everybody is sorry for you, old man,' 
 he says to Jim. ' I shouldn't wonder if they'd make you a beak 
 if you'd stayed there long enough, I'm afraid Dick's dropping 
 the policeman won't add to our popularity, though.' 
 
 'He's all right,' I said. 'Hurrah! look here. I'm glad I 
 didn't finish the poor beggar. Listen to this, from the Turon 
 Banner : — 
 
 •BUSH-RANGING REVIVED. 
 
 'The good old days have apparently not passed away for ever, when 
 mail robberies and hand-to-hand conflicts with armed robbers were 
 matters of weekly occurrence. The comparative lull observable in such 
 exciting occurrences of late has been proved to be but the ominous hush 
 of the elements that precedes the tempest. "Within the last few days the 
 mining community has been startltd by the discovery ot the notorious 
 gang of bush-rangers, Starlight and the Marstons, domiciled in the very 
 heart of the dij^gings, attired as ordinary miners, and — for their own pur- 
 poses possibly — leading the laborious lives proper to the avocation. They 
 have been fairly succes-sful, and as miners, it is said, have shown them- 
 selves to be manly and fair-dealing men. We are not among those who 
 care to judge their fellow-men harshly. It may be that tht-y had resolved 
 to forsake the criminal practices which had rendered them so unhappily 
 celebrated. James Marston had recently married a young person of most 
 respectable family and prepossessing appearance. As far as may be 
 inferred from this step and his subsequent conduct, he had cut loose from 
 his former habitudes. He, with his brother, Ricbard Marston, worked an 
 adjoining claim to the Arizona Sluicing Company, with the respected 
 shareholders of which they were on terms of intimacy. The well-known 
 Starlight, as Mr. Frank Haughton, became partner and tent-mate with 
 the Hon. Mr. Clifford and Mr. Hastings, an aristocratic society in which 
 the manners and bearing of this extraordinary man permitted him to 
 mingle without suspicion of detection. 
 
 ' Suddenly information was furnished to the poUce respecting all three 
 men. We are not at present aware of the source from which the clue waa 
 obtained. Suffice it to say that Sir Ferdinand Morriager promptly 
 arranged for the simultaneous action of three parties of police with the 
 hope of capturing all three outlaws. But in two cases the birds were 
 flown. Starlight's dme damndf, a half-caste named Warrigal, bad been 
 observed on the field the day before. By him he was doubtless furnished 
 with a warning, and the horse upon which he left his abode shortly before 
 the arrival of Sir Ferdinand. The elder Marston had also eluded the 
 proHce. But James Marston, hindered possibly by domestic ties, was cap- 
 tured at his cottage at Specimen Gully. For him sympathy has been uni- 
 versally expressed. He is regarded rather as a victim than as an active 
 agent in the many criminal offences chargeable to the account of Starlight'? 
 
252 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap, xxxu 
 
 ' Since •RTitiDg the above we have been informed that trooper Walsh, who 
 »nth another constable waa escorting Jamea Llarston to Bargo Gaol, haa 
 been brought in badly wounded. The other trooper rpporta that he was 
 shot down and the party attacked by persons concealed in the thick 
 timber near "Wild Horse Creek, at the edge of Bargo Brush. In the con- 
 fusion that ensued the prisoner escaped. It was at first thought that 
 Walsh was fatally injured, but our latest report gives food hope of bis 
 recovery. 
 
 ' We shall be agreeably surprised if this be the cud and not the 
 oommenceinent of a series of darker trasedies.' 
 
CHAPTER XiXin 
 
 A month's loafing in the Hollow. Nothing doing and nothing 
 to think of except what was miserable enough, God knows. 
 Then things began to shape themselves, in a manner of speak- 
 ing. We didn't talk much together ; but each man could see 
 plain enough what the others was thinking of. Dad growled 
 out a word "now and then, and Warrigal would look at us from 
 time to time with a flash in his hawk's eyes that we'd seen once 
 or twice before and knew the meaning of. -:Vs for Jim, we were 
 bound to do something or other, if it was only to keep him from 
 going melancholy mad. I never seen any man changed more 
 from what he used to be than Jim did. He that was the most 
 careless, happy-go-lucky chap that ever stepped, always in a 
 good temper and full of his larks. At the end of the hottest 
 day in summer on the plains, with no water handy, or the 
 middle of the coldest winter night in an ironbark forest, arid 
 we sitting on our horses waiting for daylight, with the rain 
 pouring down our backs, not game to light a fire, and our hands 
 that cold we could hardly hold the reins, it was all one to Jim. 
 Always jolly, always ready to make little of it all. .^Vlways 
 ready to laugh or chaff or go on with monkey tricks like a boy. 
 Now it was all the other way with him. HeM sit grizzling and 
 smoking by himself all day long. No getting a word out of 
 him. The "only time he seemed to brighten up was once when 
 he got a letter from Jeanie. He took it away into the bush and 
 stayed hours and hours. 
 
 From never thinking about anything or oaring what came 
 uppermost, he seemed to have changed all on the other tack 
 and do nothing but think. I'd seen a chap in Berrima some- 
 thing like him for a month or two : one day he manned the 
 barber's razor and cut his throat. I began to be afraid Jim 
 would go off his head and blow his brains out with hLs own 
 revolver. Starlight himself got to be cranky and restless-like 
 too. One night he broke out as we were standing smoking 
 under a tree, a mile or so from the cave — 
 
 'By all the devils, Dick, I can't stand this sort of thing much 
 longer. We shall go mad or drink ourselves to death' — (we'd 
 
254 ROBBEIiY UNDER ARMS chsjlp. 
 
 all been pretty well ' on ' the night before) — ' if we stick here 
 till we're trapped or smoked out like a 'guana out of a tree 
 spout. We must make a rise somehow, and try for blue water 
 again. Pve been fighting against the notion the whole time 
 we've been here, but the devil and your old dad (who's a near 
 relative, I believe) have been too strong for us. Of course, you 
 know what it's bound to be ; ' 
 
 *I suppose so. I know when dad was away last week he saw 
 that beggar and some of his mates. They'd partly made it up 
 a while back, but didn't fancy doing it altogether by themselves. 
 They've been waiting on the chance of our standing in and your 
 taking command.' 
 
 ' Of course, the old story,' he says, throwing his cigar away, 
 and giving a half laugh — such a laugh it was, too. 'Capt-ain 
 Starlight again, I suppose. The paltry vanity of leadership, 
 and of being in the front of my fellow-men, has been the ruin of 
 me ever since I could recollect. If my people had let me go into 
 the army, as I begged and prayed of them to do, it might have 
 been all the other way. I recollect that day and hour when my 
 old governor refused my boyish petition, laughed at me — sneered 
 at me. I took the wrong road then. I swear to you, Dick, I 
 never had thought of evil till that cursed day which made me 
 reckless and indifferent to everything. And this is the end — a 
 wasted life, a felon's doom ! Quite melodramatic, isn't it, 
 Richard ? Well, we'll play out the last act with spirit. " Enter 
 first robber," and so on. Good-night.' 
 
 He walked away. I never heard him say so much about him- 
 self before. It set me thinking of what luck and chance there 
 seemed to be in this world. How men were not let do what 
 they knew was best for 'em — often and often — but something 
 seemed to drive 'em farther and farther along the wrong road, 
 like a lot of stray wild cattle that wants to make back to their 
 own run, and a dog here, a fence the other way. A man on foot 
 or a flock of sheep always keeps frightening 'em farther and 
 farther from the old beat till they get back into a bit of back 
 country or mallee scrub and stop there for good. Cattle and 
 horses and men and women are awful like one another in their 
 ways, and the more you watch 'em. the more it strikes you. 
 
 Another day or two idling and card-playing, another headache 
 after too much grog at night, brought us to a regular go in 
 about business, and then we fijxed it for good. 
 
 We were to stick up the next monthly gold escort. That was 
 all We knew it would be a heavy one and trusted to our luck 
 to get clear off with the gold, and then take a ship for Honolulu 
 or San Francisco. A desperate chance ; but we were desperate 
 men. We had tried to work hard and honest. We had done so 
 for best part of a year. No one could say we had taken the 
 value of a halfpenny from any man. And yet we were not let 
 stay right when we asked for nothing but to be let alone and 
 live out the rest of our lives like men. 
 
iCTTTn ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 265 
 
 They ■wouldn't have us that way, and now thev must take us 
 across the grain, and see what they would gain by that. So it 
 happened we went out one day with Warrigal to show us the 
 way, and after riding for hours and hours, we came to a thick 
 scrub. We rode through it till we came to an old cattle track. 
 We followed that till we came to a tumble-down slab hut with 
 a stockyard beside it. The yard had been mended, and the 
 rails were up. Seven or eight horses were inside, all in good 
 condition. As many men were sitting or standing about smok- 
 ing outside the old hut. 
 
 When we rode up they all came forward and we had it out 
 We knew who was coming, and were ready for 'em. There was 
 Moran, of course, quiet and savage-looking, ju.st as like a black 
 snake as ever twisting about with his deadly glittering eyes, 
 wanting to bite some one. There was Daly and Burke, Wall 
 and Hulbert, and two or three more — I won't say who they were 
 now — and if you please who should come out of the hut last but 
 Master Billy the Boy, as impudent as you like, with a pipe in 
 his mouth, and a revolver in his belt, trying to copy Moran and 
 Daly. I felt sorry when I see him, and thought what he'd 
 gradually come to bit by bit, and where he'd most likely end, 
 all along of the first money he had from fatlier for telegraphing. 
 But after all I've a notion that men and women grow up as 
 they are intended to from the beginning. All the same as a 
 tree from seed. You may twist it this road or that, make it a 
 bit bigger or smaller according to the soil or the way it's pruned 
 and cut down when it's young, but you won't alter the nature 
 of that tree or the fruit that it bears. You won't turn a five- 
 corner into a quince, or a geebung into an orange, twist and 
 twine, and dig and water as you like. So whichever way Billy 
 the Boy had been broken and named he'd have bolted and run 
 off the course. Take a pet dingo now. He might look 
 very tame, and follow them that feed liim, and stand the 
 chain ; but as soon as anything passed close that he could 
 kill, he'd have his teeth into it and be lapping its blood 
 before you could say 'knife,' and the older he got the worse 
 he'd be. 
 
 ' Well, Dick,' says this young limb of Satan, ' so you've took 
 to the Queen's highway agin, as the chap says in the play. I 
 thought you and Jim was a-going to jine the Methodies or the 
 Sons of Temperance at Turon, you both got to look so thunderin' 
 square on it. Poor old Jim looks dreadful down in ihe mouth, 
 don't he, though?' 
 
 ' It would be all the better for you if you'd joined some other 
 body, you young scamp,' I said, '^^^lo told you to come herci 
 I've half a mind to belt you home again to your mother ' ; and 
 I walked towards him. 
 
 ' No, you won't, Dick Marston, don't you make any mistake,' 
 says the young bull-pup, looking nasty. 'I'm as good a man as 
 you, with this little tool.' Here he pulled out his revolver. ' I've 
 
256 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 as much right to turn out as vou have. What odds is it to you 
 v.^hatIdor 
 
 I looked rather foolish at this, and Moran and Burke began 
 to laugh. 
 
 'You'd better set up a night-school, Dick,' says Burke, *and 
 get Billy and some of the other flash kiddies to come. They 
 might turn over a new leaf in time.' 
 
 ' If you'll stand up, or Moran there, thtat's grinning behina 
 you, I'll make some of ye laugh on the wrong side,' I said. 
 
 ' Come on,' drawls Moran, taking oflf his coat, and walking 
 ap : * I'd like to have a smack at \'ou before you go into the 
 Church.' 
 
 We should have been at it hammer and tongs — we both 
 hated one another like poison — only the others interfered, and 
 Billy said we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for quarrelling 
 like schoolboys. We were nice sort of chaps to stick up a gold 
 escort. That made a laugh, and we knocked off. 
 
 Well, it looked as if no one wanted to speak. Then Hulbert, 
 a very quiet chap, says, 'I believe Ben Marston's the oldest m.an 
 here ; let's hear what he's got to say.' 
 
 Father gets up at once, and looks steady at the rest of 'em, 
 takes his pipe out of his mouth, and shakes the baccy out. Then 
 he says — 
 
 ' All on ye knows without my telling what we've come here 
 about, and what there's hangin' to it. It's good enough if it's 
 done to rights ; but make no mistake, boys, it's a battle as must 
 be fought game, and right back to the ropes, or not at all. If 
 there's a bird here that won't stand the steel he'd better be put 
 in a bag and took home again.' 
 
 'Never mind about the steel, daddy,' says one of the new 
 men. 'We're all good for a flutter when the wager's good. 
 vVhat'U it be worth a man, and where are we going to divide 1 
 We know your mob's got some crib up in the mountains that 
 no one knows about. We don't want the swag took there and 
 planted. It mightn't be found easy.' 
 
 ' Did ever a one of ye heer tell o' me actin' crooked ? ' says 
 father. ' Look here, Bill, I'm not as young as I was, but you 
 stand up to me for three rounds and I'll take some of the cheek 
 out of yer.' 
 
 Bill laughed. 
 
 ' No fear, daddy, I'd sooner face Dick or Jim. But I only 
 want what's fair between man and man. It's a big touch, you 
 know, and we can't take it to the bank to divide, like diggers, 
 or summons yer either.' 
 
 '"What's the good of growHn' and snappin'?' says Burke. 
 'We're all goin' in regular, I suppose, share and share alike?' 
 The men nodded. 'Well, there's only one way to make things 
 shipshape, and that's to have a captain. VrVU pick one of 
 ourselves, and whatever he says we'll bind ourselves to do — 
 life or death. Is that it, boys ? ' 
 
XXXIII ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 257 
 
 ' Yes, yes, that's tlie only way,' came from all hands. 
 
 ' Now, the next thing to work is who we're to make captain 
 of. There's one here as we can all depend on, who knows more 
 about road- work than all the rest of us put together. Y'^ou know 
 who I mean • but I don't want ye to choose him or any man 
 because I t^ll you. I propose Starlight for captain if he'll take 
 it, and them that don't believe me let 'em find a better man if 
 they can-' 
 
 ' I vote for Dan Moran,' says another man, a youngish farmer- 
 looking chap. ' He's a bushman, like ourselves, and not a half- 
 bred swell, that's just as likely to clear out when we want him 
 most as do anything else.' 
 
 ' You go back to the Springs and feed them pigs, Johnny,' 
 says father, walking towards the young chap. 'That's alx)ut 
 what yoijire bred for ; nobody'll taKO you for a swell, quarter- 
 bred, or anything else. Howsoever, let's draw lots for it. 
 Every man put his fancy down on a bit of paper, and put 'em 
 into my old hat here.' 
 
 This W9,s done after a bit, and the end of it was ten votes for 
 Starlight and two or three for ^loran, who looked savage and 
 sulkier than ever. 
 
 When this was over Starlight walked over from where he was 
 standing, near me and Jim, and faced the crowd. He drew 
 himself up a bit, and looked round as haughty as he used to do 
 when he walked up the big room at the Prospectors' xVrms in 
 Turon — as if all the rest of us was dirt under his feet. 
 
 'Well, my lads,' he said, 'you've done me the great honour to 
 elect me to be your captain. I'm willing to act, or I shouldn't 
 be here. If you're fools enough to risk your lives and liberties 
 for a thousand ounces of gold a man, I'm fool enough to show 
 you the way.' 
 
 ' Hurrah ! ' said half-a-dozen of them, flinging up their hat«. 
 'We're on, Captain. Starlight for ever! You ride ahead and 
 we'll back up.' 
 
 ' That will do,' he says, holding up his hand as if to stop a lot 
 of dogs barking ; ' but listen to me.' Here he spoke a few words 
 in that other voice of his that always soundea to me and Jim 
 as if it was a different man talking, or the devil in his likeness. 
 * Now mind this before we go : you don't quite know me ; you 
 will by and by, perhaps. When I take command of this gang, 
 for this bit of work or any other, my word's law — do you hear % 
 
 And if any man disputes it or disobeys my orders, by , I'll 
 
 shoot him like a dog.' 
 
 As he stood there looking down on the lot of 'em, as if he was 
 their king, with his eyes burning up at last with that slow fire 
 that lay at the bottom of 'em, and only showed out sometimes, 
 I couldn't help thinking of a pirate crew that I'd read of when 
 I was a boy, and the way the pirate captain ruled 'cm. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 We were desperate fidgety and anxious till the day came. 
 While we were getting ready two or three things went wrong, 
 of course. Jim got a letter from Jeanie, all the way from Mel- 
 bourne, where she'd gone. It seems she'd got her money from 
 the bank — Jim's share of the gold — all right. She was a saving, 
 careful little woman, and she told him she'd enough to keep 
 them both well for four or five years, anyhow. What she 
 wanted him to do was to promise that he'd never be mixed up 
 in any more dishonest work, and to come away down to her at 
 once. 
 
 ' It was the easiest thing in the world,' she said, ' to get away 
 from Melbourne to England or America. Ships were going 
 every day, and glad to take any man that was strong and willing 
 to work his passage for nothing ; they'd pay him besides.' 
 
 She'd met one or two friends down there as would do any- 
 thing to help her and him. If he would only get down to Mel- 
 bourne all would yet be well ; but she begged and prayed him, 
 if he loved her, and for the sake of the life she hoped to Kve 
 with him yet, to come away from his companions and take his 
 own Jeanie's adWce, and try and do nothing wrong for the 
 future. 
 
 If Jim had got his letter before we made up matter^, just at 
 the last he'd have chucked up the sponge and cleared out for 
 good and alL He as good as said so ; but he was one of them 
 kind of men that once he'd made a start never turned back. 
 There'd been some chaff, to make things worse, between Moran 
 and Daly and some of the other fellows about being game and 
 what not, specially after what father said at the hut, so he 
 wouldn't draw out of it now. 
 
 I could see it fretted him worse than anything since we came 
 back, but he filled himself up with the idea that we'd be sure to 
 get the gold all right, and clear out different ways to the coast, 
 and then we'd have something worth while lea\^g off with. 
 Another thing, we'd been all used to having what money we 
 wanted lately, and we none of us fancied living like poor men 
 again in America or anywhere else. We hadn't had hardly a 
 
vnAv. xxxiv ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 259 
 
 scrap from AUeen since we'd come back this last time. It 
 wasn't much odds. She was regular broken-hearted ; you could 
 gee it in every line. 
 
 * She had been foolish enough to hope for better things,' she 
 said ; ' now she expected nothing more in this world, and -was 
 contented to wear out her miserable life the best way she could. 
 If it wasn't that her religion told her it was wrong, and that 
 mother depended on her, she'd drown herself in th© creek before 
 the door. She couldn't think why some people were brought 
 into this miserable world at alL Our family had been marked 
 out to evil, and the same fate would foUow us to the end. She 
 was sorry for Jim, and believed if he had been let take his own 
 road that he would have been happy and prosperous to-day. It 
 was a pity he could not have got away safely to Melbourne with 
 his wife before that wicked woman, who deserved to be burnt 
 alive, ruined everything. Even now we might all escape, the 
 country seemed in so much confusion with all the strangers and 
 bad p)eople ' (bad people — well, every one thinks their own crow 
 the blackest) 'that tne goldfields had brought into it, that it 
 wouldn't be hard to get away in a ship somehow. If nothing 
 else bad turned up perhaps it might come to pass yet.' 
 
 This was the only writing we'd had from poor Aileen. It 
 began all misery and bitterness, but got a little better at the 
 end. If she and Gracey could have got hold of Kate Morrison 
 there wouldn't have been much left of her in a quarter of an 
 hour, I could see that. 
 
 Inside was a little bit of paper with one line, 'For my sake,' 
 that was all. 1 knew the writing ; there was no more. 1 could 
 see what Gracey meant, and wished over and over again that I 
 had the chance of going straight, as Pd wished a thousand times 
 before, but it was too late, too late ! When the coach is running 
 down hill and the brake's off, it's no use trying to tuin. We had 
 all our plan laid oat and settled to the smallest thing. We were 
 to meet near Eugowra Rocks a good hour or two before the 
 escort passed, so as to have everything ready. I remember the 
 day as well as if it was yesterday. \ye were all in great buckle 
 and very fit, certainly. I don't think I ever felt better in my 
 lifa There must be something out-and-out spiriting in a real 
 battle when a bit of a scrimmage like this sent our blood boil- 
 ing through our veins ; made us feel as if we weren't plain Dick 
 and Jim Marston, but regular grand fellows, in a manner of 
 speaking. What fools men are when they're young — and some- 
 times aft^r that itself — to be sure. 
 
 We started at daylight, and only stopped once on the road 
 for a bite for ourselves and to water the horses, so that we were 
 in good time. We brought a little corn with us, just to give the 
 I horses something ; they^ be tied up for hours and hours when 
 w© got to the place pitched on. They were all there before us ; 
 they hadn't as good horses by a long chalk as we had, and two 
 of their packers were poor eaough, Jim and I were riding 
 
260 ROBBERY UNDER ARl^IS ohap. 
 
 ahead mth Starlight a little on the right of us. When the 
 fellows saw Rainbow they all came crowding rotind him as if 
 he'd been a show. 
 
 ' By George ! ' says Burke, ' that's a horse worth calling a 
 horse, Captain, I often heard tell of him, but never set eyes on 
 him before. I've two minds to shake him and leave you my 
 horse and a share of the gold to boot T never B^y^ bis equal in 
 my life, and I've seen some plums too.' 
 
 'Honour among — weU— bush-rangers, eh, Burke T says Star 
 light cheerily. * He's the right sort, isn't he ? We shall want 
 good goers to-night. Are we all here now? We'd better get 
 to business.' 
 
 Yes, they were aU there, a lot of weU-built, upstanding chaps, 
 young and strong, and fit to do anything that a man could do 
 in the way of work or play. It was a shame to see them there 
 (and us too, for the matter of that), but there was no get away 
 now. There will be fools and rogues to the end of the world, I 
 expect. Even Moran looked a bit brighter than he did last 
 time. He was one of those chaps that a bit of real danger 
 smartens up. As for Burke, Daly, and Hulbert, they were like 
 a lot of schoolboys, so full of their fun and larks. 
 
 Starlight just spoke a word to them all; he didn't talk much, 
 but looked hard and stern about the face, as a captain ought to 
 do. He rode up to the gap and saw where the trees had been 
 cut down to block up the road. It would be hard work getting 
 the coach through there now — for a bib to come. 
 
 After that our horses and the two packers were left behind 
 with Warrigal and father, close enough for hearing, but weU 
 out of the way for seeing ; it was behind a thick belt of timber. 
 They tied up some to trees and short-hobbled others, keeping 
 them all so as to be ready at a moment's notice. Our men hid 
 themselves behind rocks and stumps on the high side of the 
 road so as they could see well, and had all the shadow on their 
 side. Wall and Hulbert and their lot had their mob of horses, 
 packers, and all planted away, and two young fellows belonging 
 to their crowd minding them. 
 
 We'd been ready a good bit when a cove comes tearing up 
 full bat. We were watching to see how he shaped, and whether 
 he looked likely to lay on the police, when I saw it was Billy 
 the Boy. 
 
 ' Now I call this something like,' says he, pulling up short : 
 'army in readiness, the enemy not far off. My word, it is a fine 
 thing to turn out, ain't it, Dick ? Do you chaps feel shaky at 
 all 1 Ain't yer galiied the least little bit ? They're a-comm' ! ' 
 
 'How long will they be?' Starlight said. 'Just remember 
 that you're not skylarking at a pound-yard, my boy.' 
 
 ' All right, Captain,' he answered, quiet enough. ' I started 
 on ahead the moment I saw 'em leave the camp. They're safe 
 to be here in ten minutes now. You can see 'em when they 
 come into the flat. TU clear out to the back for a bit I want 
 
XXXIV ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 261 
 
 em to think I come ap permiskus-like -when it's over.' So the 
 young rascal galloped away till the trees hid him, and in a 
 quarter of an hour more we saw the leaders of the four-horse 
 drag that carried the escort gold turn round on the forest road 
 and show out into the flat-. 
 
 It gave me a queer feeling just at first. We hadn't been used 
 to firing on the Queen's servants, not in cold blood, anyhow, 
 but it was them or us for it now. There was no time to think 
 about it They came along at a steady trot up the MIL We 
 knew the Turon sergeaut of police that drove, a tall man with 
 a big black beard down to his chest He had been in an 
 English dragoon regiment, and could handle the ribbons above 
 a bit He had a trooper alongside him on the box with his rifle 
 between his knees. Two more were in the body of the drag. 
 They had put their rifles down and were talking and laughing, 
 not expecting anything sudden. Two more of the mounted 
 men rode in tront, but not far. The couple behind were a good 
 way off. All of a sudden the men in front came on the trees 
 lying across the road. They pulled up short, and one of them 
 jumped down and looked to see if anything could be done to 
 move them. The other man held his horsa The coach drove 
 up close, 80 that they were bunched up pretty well together. 
 
 ' WTio the de^nl has been doing that ? sung out the sergeant 
 •Just as if the road isn't bad enough without these infernal 
 lazy scoundrels of bullock-drivers cutting down trees to make 
 us go round. It's a beastly track here at the best of times." 
 
 ' I believe them trees have been fallen on purpose,' says the 
 trooper that was down. 'There's been men, and horses too, 
 about here to-dav, by the tracks. They're up to no good 1 ' 
 
 'Fire!' 
 
 The order was given in Starlight's clear, bold voice. Just 
 like a horn it sounded. You might have heard it twice as far 
 off. A dozen shots followed the next second, making as much 
 row as fifty because of the way the sound echoed among the 
 rocks. 
 
 I never saw a bigger surprise in my life, and wasn't likely to 
 do, as this was my first regular battle. We had plenty of time 
 to take aim, and just at first it looked as if the whole blessed 
 lot of the police was killed and wounded. 
 
 The sergeaut threw up his arms and fell off the box like a 
 log, just under the horses' feet. One of the troopers on ahead 
 dropped, he that was holding the horses, and both horses 
 started off at full gallop. The two men in the body of the drag 
 were both hit — one bftdlv. So when the two troopers came up 
 full gallop from the back they found us cutting the traces of 
 the team, that was all plunging like mad; s.nd letting the horses 
 go. 
 
 We opened fire at them directly they showed themselves ; of 
 course they couldn't do much in the face of a dozen men, all well 
 armed and behiiid good cover. They kept it up for a bit till one 
 
262 EjOBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 of their horses wa^i Int. and then made tracks for T'uron to 
 report that the escort had been stuck up by twenty or thirty 
 men at Eugowra Rocks — the others had come up with the pack- 
 horses by this time, along with Master Billy the Boy firing his 
 revolver and shouting f^nough for half-a-dozen ; so we fooked a 
 bi^ crowd — that all the men were shot dead, wounded, or taken 
 prisoners, and that a strong force had better be despatched at 
 once to recapture the gold. 
 
 A good deal of this was true, though not all The only man 
 killed was the sergeant. He was shot clean through the heart, 
 and never stirred again. Of the five other men, three were 
 badly wounded and two slightly. We attended to them as well 
 as we could, and tied the others so that they would not be able 
 to give any bother for an hour or two at any rate. 
 
 Then the trouble began about dividing the gold. We opened 
 the sort of locker there was in the centre of the coach and took 
 out the square boxes of gold. They held canvas bags, all 
 labelled and weighed to the grain, of about 1000 oz. each. 
 There were fourteen boxes in alL Not a bad haul. 
 
 Some of the others couldn't read or write, and they wouldn't 
 trust us, so they brought their friend with them, who was an 
 educatea man sure enough. We were a bit stunned to see him, 
 holding the sort of position he did at the Turon. But there he 
 was, and he did his work well enough. He brought a pair of 
 scales with him and weighed the lot, and portioned it all out 
 amongst us just the same as Mr. Scott, the banker, used to do 
 for us at the Turon when we brought in our month's washing- 
 up. We had 5000 oz. Starlight had an extra share on account 
 or being captain, and the rest had somewhere about 8000 oz. or 
 9000 oz. among them. It wasn't so bad. 
 
 ^ Dad wasn't long before he had our lot safely packed and on 
 his two pack-horses. Warrigal and he cleared out at a trot, and 
 went out of sight in a jifly. It was every man for himself 
 now. We waited a bit to help them with their swag ; it was 
 awful heavy. We told them that their pack-horses would never 
 carry it if there was anything of a close run for it. 
 
 'Suppose you think you've got the only good horse in the 
 country, Dick Marston,' says Daly. ' We'll find a horse to run 
 anything you've got, barrin' Rainbow. I've got a little roan 
 horse here as shall run ever a horse ye own, for three mile, 
 for a hundred notes, with twelve stone up. What do you think 
 of that, now f ' 
 
 * Don't take your shirt off Patsey,' I said. ' I know the roan's 
 as good as ever was foaled ' (so he was ; the police got liim after 
 Patsey was done for, and kept him till he died of old age). ' but 
 he's in no condition. Pm talking of the pack-horses ; they're 
 not up to much, as you'll find out 
 
 We didn't want to rush off at once, for fear the other fellows 
 might say something afterwards if anything happened cross. 
 So we saw them make a fair start for a spot on. Weddin Mountain, 
 
XXXIV ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 263 
 
 where they thought they were right. We didn't think we 
 could be caught once we made tracks in earnest. After a couple 
 or three hours' riding we should be pretty safe, and daylight 
 would see us at the Hollow, 
 
 We stopped, besides, to do what we could for the wounded 
 men. They were none of them regularly done for, except the 
 sergeant. One man was shot through the lungs, and was breath- 
 ing out blood every now and then. We gave them some brandy 
 and water, and covered them all up and left them as comfort- 
 able as we could. Besides that, we sent Billy the Boy, who 
 couldn't be recognised, to the camp to have a doctor sent as 
 soon as possible. Then we cleared and started off, not the way 
 we had to go, but so as we could turn into it. 
 
 We couldn't ride very slow after such a turn as that, so we 
 made the pace pretty hot for the first twenty miles or so. By 
 Jove ! it was a great ride ; the forest was middling open, and 
 we went three parts speed when we could see before us. The 
 horses seemed to go as if they knew there was something up. 
 I can see llainbow now, swinging along with that beautiful 
 bounding style of goin^ he had, snorting now and then and 
 sending out his legs as if one hundred miles, more or less, was 
 nothing. His head up, his eye shining like a star, his nostrils 
 open, and every now and then, if anything got up, he'd give a 
 snort as if he'a just come up out of the bush. They'd had a 
 longish day and a fast ride before they got to Eugowra, just 
 enough to eat to keep them from starving, with a drink of 
 water. Now they were going the same style back, and 
 they'd never had the saddles off their backs. All the night 
 through we rode before we got to the top of Nulla Mountain ; 
 very glad to see it we were then. We took it easy for a few 
 miles now and again, then we'd push on again. We felt awful 
 sleepy at times- we'd been up and at it since the morning 
 before ; long beiore daylight, too. The strangeness and the 
 chance of being followed kept us up, else I beueve we'd have 
 dropped off our horses' backs, regular dead beat. 
 
 We lost ground now and then through Warrigal not being 
 there to guide us, but Jim took the lead and he wasn't far out ; 
 besides, the horses knew which way to steer for their grass at 
 the Hollow. They wouldn't let us go much off the line ii it was 
 ever so dark. We gave 'em their heads mostly. The sun was 
 just rising as we rode across the last tableland. We got off and 
 stumbled along, horses and men, down the track to the Hollow. 
 Dad and Warrigal hadn't come back ; of course they couldn't 
 stand the pace we did. They'd have to camp for a bit, but they 
 both knew of plants and hiding holes, where all the police in 
 the colony couldn't find them. We knew they'd turn up some 
 time next day. So we let go our horses, and after a bit of 
 supper laid down and slept tiU well on in the afternoon. 
 
 When I looked round I saw the dog sleeping at Jim's feet, 
 old Crib. He never left father very far, so of course the old 
 
26i ROBBERY UNDER ARMS cfap. sjcxiv 
 
 man must be home, or pretty close up. I was that dead beat 
 and tired out that I turned over and went to sleep for another 
 couple of hours. When I next woke up I was right and felt 
 rested, so I put on my things, had a good wash, and went out 
 to speak to father. He was sitting by the fire outside smoking, 
 just as if he'd never been away. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 * Wk done that job to rights if we never done another, eh, lad / 
 says father, reaching out for a coal to put in his pipe. 
 
 'Seems like it,' I said. 'There'll be a deuce of a bobbery 
 about it We shan't be able to move for a Wt, let alone clear 
 out.' 
 
 ' We'll show 'em a trick or two yet,' says dad. I could see 
 he'd had a tot, early as it was. * I wonder how them chaps got 
 on t But we'll hear soon-' 
 
 * How shall we hear anything 1 Nobody^U be mad enough to 
 show out of here for a bit.' 
 
 ' I could get word here,' says father, ' if there was a p)olicc 
 barrack on the top of Nulla Mountain. Fve done it afore^ and 
 I can do it again.' 
 
 * Well, I hope it won t be long, for I'm pi"etty full up of this 
 staying-at-home business in the Hollow. It's well enough for a 
 bit, but it's awful slow when you've too much of it.' 
 
 ' It wouldn't be very slow if we was all grabbed and tried for 
 our lives. Mr. Dick Marston. Would ye like that better for a 
 change ? says the old man, showing his teeth like a dog that's 
 making up his mind to have ye and don't see where he's to 
 get first bite. 'You leave the thing to them as knows more 
 than you do, or you'll find yourself took in, and that precious 
 sharp.' 
 
 ' You'll find your pals, Burke and aloran, and their lot will 
 have their turn first,' I said, and with that I walked ofl^ for I 
 saw the old man had been drinking a bit after his night's work, 
 and that always started his temi)er the wrong way. There was 
 no doing anything ^vith him then, as I knew by long experience. 
 I was going to ask him where he'd put the gold, but thought it 
 best to leave that for some other time. 
 
 By and by, when we all turned out and had some breakfast, 
 we took a bit of a walk by ourselves and talked it over. We 
 could hardly think it was all done and over. 
 
 ' The gola escort stuck up. Fourteen thousand ounces of gold 
 taken. Sergeant Hawkins shot dead. The robbers safe ofi" with 
 their booty.' 
 
268 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chat, 
 
 This is the sort of thing that we were sure to see in all the 
 papers. It would make a row and no mistake. It was the first 
 time such a thing had been thought of, much less carried out 
 Ho rights,' as father said, * in any of the colonies.' We had the 
 five thousand ounces of gold, safe enough, too. That was some- 
 thing : whether we should be let enjoy it, or what chance we 
 had of getting right away out of the country, was quite another 
 matter. We were aU sorry for Sergeant Hawkins, and would 
 have been better pleased if he'd been only wounded like the 
 others. But these sorts of things couldn't be helped. It was the 
 fortune of war ; his luck this time, ours next. We knew what 
 we had to expect. Nothing would make much difference. ' As 
 well be hung for a she^p as a lamb.' We were up to our necks 
 in it now, and must fight our way out the best way we could. 
 
 Bar any man betraying the secret of the Hollow we might be 
 safe for years to come, as long as we were not shot or taken in 
 fair fight. And who was to let out the secret? No one but 
 ourselves had the least notion of the track or where it led to, or 
 of such a place as the Hollow being in the colony. Only us 
 five were in possession of the secret. We never let any of these 
 other men come near, much less to it. We took good care never 
 to meet them within twenty miles of it. Father was a man 
 that, even when he was drunk, never let out what he didn't 
 want other people to know. Jim and I and Starlight were not 
 likely to blab, and Warrigal would have had his throat cut 
 sooner than let on about anything that might be against Star- 
 light, or that he told him not to do. 
 
 We had good reason, then, to think ourselves safe as long as 
 we had such a place to make for whenever we were in danger 
 or had done a stroke. We had enough in gold and cash to keep 
 us comfortable in any other country — provided we could only 
 get there. That was the rub. When we'd got a glass or two 
 in our heads we thought it was easy enough to get across 
 country, or to make away one by one at shearir.g time, disguised 
 as swagsmen, to the coast. But when we thought it over 
 carefully in the mornings, particularly when we were a bit 
 nervous after the grog had died out of us, it seemed a rather 
 blue look-out. 
 
 There was the whole countryside pretty thick with police 
 stations, where every man, from the sergeant to the last- joined 
 recruit, knew the height, size, colour of hau', and so on of every 
 one of us. If a suspicious-looking man was seen or hea,rd of 
 within miles the telegraph wires could be set to work. He 
 could be met, stopped, searched, and overhauled. What chance 
 would any of us have then ? 
 
 ' Don't flatter yourselves, my boy,' Starlight said, when we'd 
 got the length of thinking how it was to be done, ' that there's 
 any little bit of a chance, for a year or two at any rate, of 
 getting away. Not a kangaroo rat could hop across from one 
 scrub to another if there was the least suspicion upon him 
 
xxxv ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 2«7 
 
 without being blocked or run into. Jim, old man, I'm sorry 
 for you, but my belief is we're quartered here for a year or 
 tvro certain, and the sooner we make up our minds to it the 
 better' 
 
 Here poor old Jim groaned. 'Don't you think,' he said, 
 quite timid-Uke, 'that about shearing-time a man might take 
 his chance, leading an old horse with a swag on, as if he 
 wanted to get shearing in some of the big down-the-river 
 sheds r 
 
 ' Not a bit of it,' says Starlight ' You're such a good-lookin», 
 upstanding chap that you're safe to be pulled up and maoe 
 answer for yourself before you'd get fifty miles. If you rode a 
 good horse they'd think you were too smart -looking for a 
 regiilar shearer, and naU you at once.' 
 
 'But I'd take an old screw with a big leg,' pleaded Jim. 
 'Haven't I often seen a cove walking and leading one just to 
 carry his blankets and things ? ' 
 
 ' Then they'd know a chap like you, full of work and a native 
 to boot, ought to have a better tnm-out — if it wasn't a stall. So 
 theyd nave you for that.' 
 
 ' But there's Isaac Lawson and Campbelltown. You've seen 
 them. Isaac's an inch taller than me, and the same cut and 
 make. Why shouldn't they shop them when they're going 
 shearing? They're square enough, and always was. Ana 
 Cainpbelltown's a good deal like Dick, beard and alL' 
 
 'Well, m bet you a new meerschaum that both men are 
 arrested on suspicion before shearing. Of course they'll let 
 them go again ; but, you mark my words, they^ll be stopped, 
 as weD as dozens of others. That will show how close the 
 search will be.' 
 
 *I don't care,' says Jim, in his old, obstinate way, which he 
 never put on except very seldom. ' I'll go in a montn or two — 
 police or no police. I'll make for Melbourne if there was an 
 army of soldiers between me and Jeanie.' 
 
 Yi e had to settle where the gold was to be hid. After a lot 
 of talk we agreed to keep one bag in a hole in the side of the 
 wall of the cave, and bury the others in the place where we'd 
 found old Mr. Devereux's box. Hi« treasure had laid many a 
 year safe and sound without anybody touching it, and we 
 thought ours might do the same. Besides, to find it they must 
 get into the Hollow first. So we packed it out bag by bag, and 
 made an ironbark cofl^ for it, and buried it away there, and 
 put some couch-grass turfs on it. We knew they'd soon grow 
 up, and nobody could tell that it hadn't always been covered up 
 the same as the rest of the old garden. 
 
 It felt pretty hard lines to think W3 shouldn't be able to get 
 away from this lonely place after the life we'd led the last year ; 
 but Starlight wasn't often wrong, and we came to the same 
 way of thinking ourselves when we looked at it all round, 
 steady wid quiet like.. 
 
268 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 We'd been a week or ten days all by cureelves, horge-break- 
 ing, fishing, and shooting a tat, thinking how strange it was 
 that we should have more than £20,000 in gold and money and 
 not be able to do anything with it, when dad, sudden Kke, salt 
 he'd go out himseli and get some oi the newspapers, and 
 perhaps a letter or two if any came. 
 
 Starlight laughed at him a bit for being foolhardy, and said 
 we should hear of his being caught and committed for trial 
 ' Why, theyll know the dog,' says he, ' and make him give evi- 
 dence in court. Pve known that done before now. Inspector 
 Merlin nailed a chap through his dog.' 
 
 Father grinned. ' I know'd that case — a sheej>-stealing one. 
 They wanted to make out Brummy wats the man as owned the 
 dorg— a, remarkable dorg he was, too, and had been seen driving 
 the sheep.' 
 
 ' Well, what did the dog do ? Identify the prisoner, didn't 
 he?' 
 
 'Well, the dashed fool of a coolie did. Jumps up as soon as 
 he was brought into court, and whines and scratches at the 
 dock rails and barks, and goes on tremenjus, trying to get at 
 Brummy.' 
 
 ' iiuv\- did his master like it ?' 
 
 ' Oh ! Brummy 1 He looked as black as the ace of spades. 
 He'd have made it hot for that dorg if he could ha' got at him. 
 But I suppose he forgived him when he came out,' 
 
 nVhy should he?' 
 
 * Because the jury fetched him in guilty without leaving the 
 box, and the judge give him seven years. You wouldn't find 
 this old varmint a-doin' no such foolishness as that.' 
 
 Here he looks at Crib, as was lyin' down a good way off, and 
 not letting on to know anything. He savr father's old mare 
 brought up, though, and saddled, and knowed quite well what 
 that meant. He never rode her unless he was going out of the 
 Hollow. 
 
 * I believe that dog could stick up a man himself as well as 
 some fellows we know,' says F tarlight, ' and he'd do it, too, if 
 your father gave him the word.' 
 
 While we were taking it easy, and except for the loneliness 
 of it as safe as if we had been out of the country altogether, 
 Moran and the other fellows hadn't quite such a good time oi 
 it. They were hunted from pillar to post by the police^ who 
 were mad to do something to meet the chaff that v/as always 
 being cast up to them of having a lot of bush-rangers robbing 
 and shooting all over the country and not being able to take 
 tliem. There were some out-of-the-way^ places enough in the 
 Weddin Mountains, but none like the Hollow, where they could 
 lie quiet and untroubled for weeks together, if they wanted. 
 Besides, they had lost their gold by their own foolishness in not 
 having better pack-horses, and hadn't much to carry on with. 
 
XXXV ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 26Jr 
 
 and if s not a life that can be worked on the cheap, I can tell 
 you, as we often found ' ut. Money comes easy in our line, but 
 it goes faster still, and a man must ncTer be short of a pound or 
 two to chuck about if he wants to keep his information fresh 
 and to have people working for him night and day with a 
 wilL 
 
 So they had some every-day sort of work cut out to keep 
 themselves going, and it took them all their time to get from 
 one part of the conntry where they were known to some other 
 place where they weren't exp>ectecL Having out-and-out good 
 hacks, and being all of them chaps that h^ been born in the 
 bush and knew it like a book, it waa wonderful how they man- 
 aged to rob people ac one place one day, and then be at some 
 place a hundrea miles off the next. Ever so many times they 
 came off^ and they'd call one another Starlight and Marstom 
 and so on, till the people got regularly dumbfoundered, and 
 couldn't tell which of the gang it was that seemed to be all over 
 the country, and in two places at the same time. We used to 
 laugh ourselves sometimes, when we'd hear tell that all the 
 travellers passing Big Hill on a certain day were 'stuck up by 
 Wall's gang and robbed.' Every man Jack that came along for 
 hours was made to stand behind a clump of trees with two of 
 the gang guarding them, so as the others couldn't see them as 
 they CAme up. They all had to deliver up what therd got 
 about 'em, and no one was allowed to stir till sundown, for fear 
 they should send word to the polica Then the gang went off, 
 telhng them to stay where they were for an hour or else they'd 
 come back and shoot them. 
 
 This would be on the western road, perhaps. Next day a 
 station on the southern road, a hundred and twenty miles off, 
 would be robbed by the same lot. Money and valuables taken 
 away, and three or four of the best horses. Their own they'd 
 leave behind in such a state that any one could see how far and 
 fast they'd been ridden. 
 
 They often got stood to, when ihey were hard up for a mount, 
 and it was this way. The squatters weren't alike, by any 
 manner of means, in their way of dealing with them. Many of 
 them had lots of tine riding-horses in their paddocks. These 
 would be yarded some fine night, the best taken and ridden 
 hard, p>erhaps returned next morning, perhaps in a day or 
 two. 
 
 It was pretty well known who had used them, but nothing 
 was said ; the best jx)licy, some think, is to hold a candle to the 
 de\'il, especially when the devil's camped close handy to your 
 paddock, and might any time sack your house, bum down your 
 wool shed and stacks, or even shoot at your worshipful self if he 
 didn't like the way you treated him and his imps. 
 
 These careful respectable people didn't show themselves too 
 forward either in giving help or information to the police. Not 
 by no meauR. They never encouraged them to Bt*v when they 
 
270 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 came about the place, and weren't that over liberal in feeding 
 their horses, or giving them a hand in any way, that they'd come 
 again in a hurry. It they were asked about the bush-rangers 
 or when they'd been last seen, they were very careful, and saia 
 sts little as possible. 
 
 No one wonders at people like the Barnes's, or little farmers, 
 or the very small sort of settlers^ people with one flock of sheep 
 or a few cows, doing this sort of thing ; they have a lot to lose 
 and nothing to get if they gain ill-will. But regular country 
 gentlemen, with big properties, lots of money, and all the rest 
 of it, they're there to show a good example to the countryside, 
 whether it paid for the time or whether it didn't ; and all us 
 sort of chaps, on the cross or not, like them all the better for it. 
 
 When I say all of us, I don't mean Moran. A sulky, black- 
 hearted, revengeful brute he always was — I don't think he'd any 
 manly feeling about him. He was a half-bred gipsy, they told 
 us that knew where he was reared, and Starlight said gipsy 
 blood was a queer cross, for devilry and hardness it couldn't be 
 beat ; he didn't wonder a bit at Moran's being the scoundrel he 
 was. 
 
 No doubt he ' had it in ' for more than one of the people who 
 helped the police to chevy Wall and his lot about. From what 
 I knew of him I was sure he'd do some mischief one of these 
 days, and make all the country ten times as hot against us as 
 they were now. He had no mercy about him. He'd rather 
 shoot a man any day than not ; and he'd bum a house down 
 just for the pleasure of seeing how the owner looked when it 
 was lighted. 
 
 Starlight used to say he despised men that tried to save 
 themselves cowardly-like more than he could say, and thought 
 them worse than the bush-rangers themselves. Some of them 
 were big people, too. 
 
 But other country gentlemen, like Mr. Falkland, were quite 
 of a different pattern. If they all acted like him I don't think 
 we should any of us have reigned as long as we did. They 
 helped and encouraged the police in every possible way. They 
 sent them information whenever they had received any worth 
 while. They lent them horses freely when their own were tired 
 out and beaten. More than that, when bush-rangers were sup- 
 posed to be in the neighbourhood they went out with them 
 themselves, lying out and watching through the long cold nights, 
 and taking their chance of a shot as well as those that were paid 
 for it. 
 
 Now there was a Mr. Whitman that had never let go a 
 chance from the start of running their trail with the police, and 
 had more than once given them aU they knew to get away. He 
 was a native of the country, like themselves, a first-class horse- 
 man and tracker, a hardy, game sort of a chap that thought 
 nothing of being twenty-four hours in the saddle, or sitting 
 under a femce watching for the whole of a frosty night. 
 
-TKXY ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 271 
 
 Weil, he was pretty close to Moran once, who had been out 
 by himself ; that close he ran him he made him drop his rifle 
 and ride for his life. Moran never forcrave him for this, and 
 one day when they had all been drinking pretty heavy he 
 managed to persuade Wall, Hulbert, Burke, and Daly to come 
 with him anci stick up Whitman's house, 
 
 * I sent word tx) him Td pay him out one of these fine days,' 
 he drawled out, 'and he'll find that Dan Moran can keep his 
 word.' 
 
 He picked a time when he knew Whitman was away at an- 
 other station. I always thought Moran was not so game as he 
 gave himself out to be. Ana I think if he'd had Whitman's 
 steady eyes looking at him, and seeing a pistol in his hand, he 
 wouldn't have shot as straight as he generally did when he vas 
 practising at a gum tree. 
 
 Anvhow, they laid it out all right, as they thought, to take 
 the place unawares. They'd been drinking at a flash kind of 
 inn no great way off, and when they rode up to the house it 
 seems they were all of 'em three sheets in the wind, and fit for 
 any kind of villainy that came uppermost. As for Moran, he 
 was a de\'il unchained. I know what he was. The people in 
 the house that day trembled and shook when they heard the 
 dogs bark and saw five strange horsemen ride through the back 
 gate into the yard. 
 
 They'd have trembled a deal more if they'd known what waa 
 cominp 
 
CHAPTER XXXVl 
 
 When we found that by making darts and playing hide and 
 seek \^th the police in this way we could ride about the country 
 more comfortable like, we took: matters easier. Once or twice 
 we tried it on by night, and had a bit of a lark at Jonathan's, 
 which was a change after having to keep dark so long. We'd 
 rode up there after dark one night, and made ourselves pretty 
 snug for the evening, when Bella Barnes asked us if we'd dropped 
 across Moran and his mob that day. 
 
 ' No,' says L ' Didn't know they were about this part. Why, 
 weren't they at Monckton's the day before yesterday ? ' 
 
 ' Ah ! but they came back last night, passed the house to-day 
 
 foing towards Mr. Whitman's, at Darjallook. I don't know, but 
 expect they're going to play up a bit there, because of his fol 
 lowing them up that time the police nearly got Moran.' 
 
 ' What makes you think that 1 They're only going for what 
 they can get ; perhaps the riding-horses and any loose cash 
 that's knocking about; 
 
 * Billy the Boy was here for a bit,' says Maddie, ' I don't like 
 that young brat, he'll turn out bad, you take my word for it ; 
 but he said ^loran knew Mr. Whitman was away at the Castle- 
 reagh station, and was going to make it a warning to them all' 
 
 'Well, it's too bad,' said Bella ; 'there's no one there but Mrs, 
 Whitman and the young ladies. It's real cowardly, I call it, to 
 frighten a parcel of women. But that Moran's a brute and 
 hasn't the feelings of a man about him,' 
 
 'We must ride over, boys,' says Starlight, yawning and 
 stretching himself. ' I was looking forward to a pleasant evening 
 here, but it seems to me we ought to have a say in this matter. 
 Whitman's gone a trifle fast, and been hard on us ; but he's a 
 gentleman, and goes straight for what he considers his duty. I 
 don't blame him. If these fellows are half drunk thej^ll burn 
 the place do^Ti I shouldn't wonder, and play hell's delight.' 
 
 ' And Miss Falkland's up there too, staying with the young 
 ladies,' says Maddie, 'Why, Jim, what's up with you? I 
 thought you wasn't taking notice.' 
 
 * Come along, Dick,' says Jim. quite hoarse-like, making one 
 
K.r iiivi ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 273 
 
 jump to the door. 'Dash it, man, what's the use of us wasting 
 
 time jawing here '? By , if there's a hair of her head touched 
 
 m break Moran's neck, and shoot the lot of them down like 
 crows.' 
 
 ' Good-bye, girls,' I said, ' there's no time to lose.' 
 
 Starlight made a bow, polite to the last, and passed out. Jim 
 was on his horse as we got to the stable door. Warrigal fetched 
 Starlight's, and in half a minute Jim and he were otf together 
 along the road full split, and I had as much as I could do to 
 catch them up within the next mile. It wasn't twenty miles to 
 Whitman's place, Darjallook, but the road was good, and we did 
 it in a hour and twenty minutes, or thereabouts. I know 
 Starlight lit a match and looked at his watch when we got near 
 the front gate. 
 
 We could see nothing particular about the house. The lights 
 shone out of the windows, and we heard the piano going. 
 
 'Seems all right,' says Starlight. 'Wonder if they came, 
 after all ] They'll think we want to stick the place up if we 
 ride up to the hall door. G^et off and look out tracks, Warrigal.' 
 
 Warrigal dismounted, lit a couple of matches, and put his 
 head down close to the soft turf, as if he was going to smell it. 
 
 'Where track?' says Starliglit. 
 
 ' There ! ' says Warrigal, pointing to something we couldn't 
 see if we'd looked for a month. ' Bin gone that wa^. That one 
 track Moran's liorse. I know him ; turn foot in likit cow. 
 Four more track follow up.' 
 
 ' Why, they're in the house now, the infernal scoundrels,' says 
 Starlight. 'Vou stay here with the horses, Warrigal; we'll 
 walk up. If you hear shooting, tie them to the fence and run 
 in.' 
 
 We walked up very quiet to the house — we'd all been there 
 before, and knew where the front parlour was — over the lawn 
 and two dower-beds, and then up to the big bow- window. The 
 others stood under an old white cedar tree that shadowed all 
 round. I looked in, and, by George ! my face burned, cold as it 
 was. There was Moran lying back in an arm-chair, with a glass 
 of grog in his hand, takin' it easy and makin' himself quite at 
 home. Burke and Daly were sitting in two chairs near the 
 table, looking a long way from comfortable ; but they had a 
 couple of bottles of branay on the table and glasses, and were 
 filling up. So was Moran. They'd had quite as much as was 
 good for them. The eldest ^liss Whitman was sitting at the 
 piano, playing away tune after tune, while her eyes were 
 wandering about and her lips trembling, and every now and 
 then she'd flush up all over her face ; then she'd turn as white 
 as a sheet, and look as if she'd fall off the stool. The youngest 
 daughter was on her knees by her, on the other side, with her 
 head in her lap. Every now and then I could hear a sob come 
 from her, hut stifled-like, as if she tried to choke it back as much 
 a& oLg oould. 
 
274 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS . ohap. 
 
 Bui'ke and Daly had their pistols on the table, among the 
 bottles — though what they wanted em there for I couldn't see 
 — and Moran had stuck his on the back of the piano. That 
 showed me he was close up drunk, for he was a man as never 
 hardly let go of his revolver. 
 
 Mrs. ^Yhitman was sitting crouched up in a chn.ir behind her 
 daughter, with a stony face, looking as if the end of the world 
 was come. I hardly knew her again. She was a very kind 
 woman, too ; many a glass of grog she'd given me at shearing 
 time, and medicine too, once I was sick there with influenza. 
 
 But Miss Falkland ; I couldn't keep my eyes oft' her. She 
 was sitting on the sofa against the wall, quite upright, with her 
 hands before her, and her eyes looking half proudly, half miser- 
 able, round the room. You couldn't hardly tell she was 
 frightened except by a kind of twitching of her neck and 
 shoulders. 
 
 Presently Moran, who was more than half boozed as it was, 
 and kept on drinking, calls out to Miss Whitman to sing a song. 
 
 'Come, Miss Polly,' says he, 'you can sing away fast enough 
 for your dashed old father and some o' them swells from 
 Bathurst. By George, you must tune your pipe a bit this 
 time for Dan Moran." 
 
 The poor girl said she couldn't sing just then, but she'd play 
 as much as he liked. 
 
 ' Y^'er'd better sing now,' he drawls out, ' unless ye want me to 
 come and make you. I know you girls wants coaxing some- 
 times.' 
 
 Poor Miss Mary breaks out at once into some kind of a song 
 — the pitif ullest music ever you listened to. Only I wanted to 
 wait a bit, so as to come in right once for all, Pd have gone at 
 him, hammer and tongs, that very minute. 
 
 All this time Burke and Daly were goin' in steady at the 
 brandy, finished one bottle and tackled another. They began 
 to get noisy and talked a lot, and sung a kind of a chorus to 
 Miss Mary's song. 
 
 After the song was over, Moran swore he'd have another one. 
 She'd never sing for him any more, he said, unless she took a 
 fancy to him, and went back to the Wedclln ^Mountains with 
 them. 
 
 'It ain't a bad name for a mountain, is it miss?' says he, 
 grinning. Then, fixing his black snake's eyes on her, he poured 
 out about half a tumbler of brandy and drank it off 
 
 ' By gum ! ' he says, ' I must have a dance ; blest if I don't ! 
 First chop music — good room this — three gals and the missus — 
 course we must. Pm regular shook on the polka, Y'ou play us 
 a good 'un, Polly, or whatever yer name is. Dan Moran's goin' 
 to enjoy himself this night if he never sees another. Come on, 
 Burke. Patsey, stand up, yer blamed fooL Here goes for my 
 partner.' 
 
 * Come, Moran,' says Burke, ' none of your larks ; we're very 
 
XXXV7 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 275 
 
 jolly, and the young ladies ain't on for a hop ; are ye, miss ? ' 
 and he looked ov©r at the youngest Miss ^Vhitman, Trho stared 
 at him for a moment, and then hid her face in her hands. 
 
 ' Are you a-goin* to play as I told yer ? ' says Morr^n. * D'ye 
 think yer know when yer well off "^ ' 
 
 The tone of voice he said this in and the look seemed to 
 frighten the poor girl so tliat she started an old-style polka there 
 and then, which made him bang his heels on the floor and spin 
 round as if he'd been at a dance-house. As soon as he'd done 
 two or three turns he walks over to the sofa and sits down close 
 to Miss Falkland, and put his arm round her waist. 
 
 ' Come, Fanny Falkland,' says he, * or whatever they call yer ; 
 you're so dashed proud yer won't speak to a bush cove at all. 
 You can go home by'n by, and tell your father that you had a 
 twirl-round with Dan Moran, and helper! to make the evening 
 pass pleasant at Darjallook afore it was burned.' 
 
 Anythins: like the disgust, misery, and rage mixed up that 
 came into Miss Falkland's face all in a moment and together- 
 like, I never saw. She made no sound, but her face grew paler 
 and paler ; she turned white to the lips, as trembled and worked 
 in spite of her. She struggled fierce and wild for nigh a solid 
 minute to clear herself from him, while her beautiful eyes moved 
 about like I've seen a wild animal's caught in a trap. Then, 
 when she felt her strength wasn't no account against his, she 
 gave one piercing, terrible scream, so long and unnatural-like in 
 the tone of it that it curdled my very blood 
 
 I lifted up the window -sash quick, and jumped in; but 
 before I made two st^ps Jim sprang pa.st me, and rais^ his 
 pistol. 
 
 ' Drop her ! ' he shouts to Morau : * vum hound ! Leave go 
 Miss Falkland, or by the living God 111 blow your head off, Dan 
 Moran, before you can lift your hand ! How dare you touch 
 her, you cowardly dog ! ' 
 
 ^loran was that stunned at seeing us show up so sudden that 
 he was a good bit took off his guard, cool card as he was in a 
 general way. Besides, he'd left his revolver on the piano close 
 by the arm-chair, where his grog was. Burke and Daly were no 
 better off. They found Sta,rlight and Warrigal covering them 
 with their pistols, so that they'd have been shot down before 
 they could so much as reach for their tools. 
 
 But Jim couldn't wait ; and just as Moran was risinc on his 
 feet, feeling for the revolver that wasn't in his belt (an3 that I 
 never heard of his being without but that once), he jumps at 
 him like a wallaroo, and, catching him by the collar and waist- 
 belt, lifts him clean off his feet as if he'd been a child, and brings 
 him agen the corner of the wall with all his full stren^h. I 
 thought his brains was knocked out, dashed if I didn't I heard 
 Moran's head sound against t^e stone wall with a dull sort of 
 thud ; and on the floor he drops like a dead man — never made 
 R kick. By George ! we all thought he had killed him. 
 
276 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS oar.p 
 
 ' Stash that, now/ aays Burke ; ' don't touch him again, Jim 
 Marston. He's got as much as '11 do him for a bit : and I 
 don't say it doni; serve him right. I don't hold with being 
 rough to women. It ain't manly, and we've got wives and kids 
 of our own.' 
 
 'Then why the devil didn't you stop it?' says Starlight, 
 'You deserve the same sauce, you and Daly, for sitting there 
 like a couple of children, and letting that ruffian torment these 
 helpless ladies. If you fellows go on sticking up on your own 
 account, and I hear a whisper of your behaving yourselves like 
 brutes, I'll turn policeman myself for the pleasure of running 
 you in. Now, mind that, you and Daly too. Where's Wall and 
 Hulbertr 
 
 ' They went to yard the hori>es. 
 
 'That's fair game, and all in the day's work. I don't care 
 what you take or whom you shoot for that matter, as long as 
 it's all in fair fight ; but 111 have none of this sort of work if 
 I'm to be captain, and you're all sworn to obey me, mind that, 
 ril have to shoot a man yet, I see, as I've done before now, 
 before I can get attended to. That brute's coming to. Lift 
 him up, and clear out of this place as soon as you can. I'U wait 
 behind.' 
 
 They blundered out, taking Moran with them, who seemed 
 quite stupid like, and staggered as he walked. He wasn't him- 
 self for a week after, and longer too, and threatened a bit, but 
 he soon saw he'd no show, as all the fellows, even to his own 
 mates, told him he deserved all he got. 
 
 Old Jim stood up by the fireplace after that, never stirring 
 nor speaking, with his eyes fixed on Miss Falkland, who had got 
 back her colour, and though she panted a bit and looked raised 
 like, she wasn't much different from what we'd seen her before 
 at the old place. The two Misses Whitman, poor girls, were 
 standing up with their arms round one another's necks, and 
 the tears running down their faces like rain. Mrs. Whitman 
 was lying back in her chair with her hands over her face cryin' 
 to herself quiet and easy, and wringing her hands. 
 
 Then Starlight moved forward and bowed to the ladies as if 
 he was just coming into a ballroom, like I saw him once at a 
 swell ball they gave for the hospital at Turon. 
 
 * Permit me to apologise, Mrs. Whitman, and to you, my dear 
 young ladies, for the rudeness of one of my men, whom I un- 
 happily was not able to restrain. I have nad the pleasure of 
 meeting Mr. Whitman, and I hope you will express my regret 
 that I was not in time to save you from the great annoyance to 
 which you have been subjected.' 
 
 * Oh ! I shall be grateful all my life to you, and so, I'm sure, 
 will Mr. Whitman, when he returns ; and oh ! Sir Ferdinand, if 
 you and these two good young men, who, I suppose, are police- 
 men in plain clothes, had not come in, goodness only knows 
 what would have become of ua' 
 
xxm ROBBERY UI^-DER ARMS S77 
 
 I am afraid you are labouring under some mistake, my deai- 
 madam. I have not the honour to be Sir Ferdinand Morringer 
 or any other baronet at present ; but I assure you I feel the 
 compliment intensely. I am sure my good friends here, James 
 and Richard Marston, do equally.' 
 
 Here the Misses "NVhitman, in spite of all their terror and 
 anxiety, were so tickled by the idea of their mother mistaking 
 Starlight and the Mars tons for Sir Ferdinand and his troopers 
 that they began to laugh, not but what they were sober enough 
 in another minute. 
 
 iliss Falkland got up then and walked forward, looking just 
 the way her father usea to do. She spoke to Starlight first. 
 
 * I have never seen you before, but I have often lieard of you, 
 Captain Starlight, if you will allow me to address you by that 
 title. Believe me when I say that by your conduct to-night you 
 have won our deepest gratitude — more than that, our respect 
 and regard. ^Miatevcr may be your future career, whatever 
 the fate that your wild life may end in, always believe there 
 are those wlio will think of you, pray for you, rejoice in 
 your escapes, and sorrow sincerely for your doom. I can 
 answer for myself, and I am sure for my cousins also.' 
 
 Here the Misses ^Vhitman said — 
 
 'Yes, indeed, we will — to our life's end.' 
 
 Then she turned to Jim, who still stood there looking at her 
 with his big gray eyes, that had got ever so much darker 
 lately. 
 
 ' \ ou, poor old Jim,' bhe said, and she took hold of his brown 
 hand and held it in her own, '1 am more sorry than I can tell 
 to hear all I have done about you and Dick too. This is the 
 second time you have saved me, and I am not the girl to forget 
 it, if I could only show my gratitude. Is there any way ? ' 
 
 * There's Jeanie,' just them two words he said. 
 
 ' Your wife 1 Oh yes, I heard about her,' looking at him so 
 kind and gentle-like. *I saw it all in the papers. She's in 
 Melbourne, isn't she ? What is her address 1 * 
 
 ' Esplanade Hotel, St. Kilda,' says Jim, taking a small bit of 
 a letter out of his pocket. 
 
 * Very well, Jim, I have a friend who lives near it. She will 
 find her out, and do all for her that can be done. But why 
 don't you — whv don't all of you contrive to get away somehow 
 from this haterul life, and not bring ruin and destruction on the 
 heads of all who love you ? Say you will try for their sake — for 
 my sake' 
 
 'It's too late, Miss Falkland,' I said. 'We're all thankful to 
 you for the way you've spoken. Jim and I would be proud to 
 shed our blood for you any time, or Mr. Falkland either. Well 
 do what we can, but well have to fight it out to the end now, 
 and take our chance of the bullet coming before the rope. 
 Good-night, Miss Falkland^ and good luck to you always.' 
 
 Sh« rr.ook h?r!d8 b*»vtily with me and Jim, but when she 
 
27« ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 came to Starlight he raised her hajid quite respectful like and 
 just touched it with hi:^ lips. Then he bowed low to them al] 
 and walked slowl}^ out 
 
 When we got to the public-house, which wasn't far ofl^ we 
 found that Moran and the other two had stayed there a bit till 
 Wall and Hulbert came ; then they had a drink all round and 
 rode away. The publican said Moran was in an awful temper, 
 and he was afraid he'd have shot somebody before the others got 
 him started and cloar of the place. 
 
 'It's a mercy you went over, Captain,' says he ; Hhere'd have 
 been the devil to pay else. He swore he'd burn the place down 
 before he went from here.' 
 
 'He'll get caught one of these fine days,' says Starlight. 
 'There's more risk at one station than half-a-dozcn road scrim 
 nages, and that he'll find, clever as he thinks himself.' 
 
 'Where's Mr. Whitman, Jack ? ' says I to the landlord (he 
 wasn't a bad sort, old Jack Jones). ' What made him leave his 
 place to the mercy of the world, in a manner of speaking V 
 
 'Well, it was this way. He heard that all the shepherds at 
 the lower station had cut it to the diggings, ye see ; so he 
 thought he'd make a dart up to the Castlereagh and rig'late the 
 place a bit. Hell be back afore morning.' 
 
 ' How d'ye know that 1 ' 
 
 ' Well, he's ridin' that famous roan pony o' his, and he always 
 comes back from the station in one day, though he takes two to 
 go ; eighty-five miles every yard of it. It's a big day, but that 
 pony's a rum un, and can jump his own height easy. He'll be 
 welcome home to-night.' 
 
 'I daresay he will, and no wonder. The missus must ha' 
 been awful frightened, and the young ladies too. Good-night, 
 Jack ' ; and we rattled off. 
 
 It wasn't so very late after all vvhen we got back to Jona- 
 than's ; so, as the horses wanted a bit of a rest and a feed, we 
 roused up the girls and had supper. A very jolly one it was, 
 my word. 
 
 They were full of curiosity, you bet, to know how we got on 
 when they heard Morsui was there a,nd the others. So bit by 
 bit they picked it out of us. When they heard it all, Maddie 
 got up and threw her arms round Jim's neck. 
 
 ' I may kiss you now you're married,' she says, ' and I know 
 there's only one woman in the world for you ; but you deserve 
 one from every woman in the country for smashing that wretch 
 Moran. It's a pity you didn't break his neck. Never mind, old 
 man; Miss Falkland won't forget you for that, you take my 
 word. I'm proud of you, that I am,' 
 
 Jim inst sat there ana let her talk to him. He smiled iu a 
 serious tind of way when she ran over to him first ; but, instead 
 of a good-looking girl, it might have been his grand mother fw 
 all he seemed to care. 
 
 'You're a regular old image, Jim/ says she. 'I hojje none of 
 
xxxTi ROBBEEY UNDER ARMS 279 
 
 my other friends 'U get married if it knocks all the go out of 
 them, same as it has from you. However, you can stand up for 
 a friend, can't you 1 You wouldn't see me trod upon ; d'ye 
 think you would, now 1 Td stand up for you, I know, i f you 
 was bested anywhere.' 
 
 ' My dear ^laddie,' says Starlight, ' Jauico is in that particular 
 stage of infatuation when a man only sees one woman in the 
 whole world. I envy him, I assure you. When your day comes 
 you will understand much of what puzzles you at present.' 
 
 ' I suppose so,' said Maddie, going back to her seat .v^ith a 
 wondering, queer kind of look. ' But it must be dreadful dull 
 being shut in for weeks and weeks in one place, perhaps, and 
 with only one man.' 
 
 * I have heard it asserted,' he says, ' that a slight flavour of 
 raonotonv occasionally assails the honeymoon. Variety is the 
 salt of life, I begin to think. Some of these line days, Maddie, 
 we'll both get married and compare notes.' 
 
 'You'll have to look out, then,' says Bella. 'All the girls 
 about here are getting snapped up quick. There's such a lot of 
 young bankers, Government officers, and swells of all sorts 
 about the diggings now, not to reckon the golden-hole men, 
 that we girls have double the pull we had before the gold. 
 Why, there was my old schoolmate, Clara Mason, was married 
 last week to such a fine young chap, a surveyor. She'd only 
 known him six weeks.' 
 
 ' Well, I'll come and dance at your wedding if you'll send me 
 an in\4t«,' says Starlight. 
 
 ' Will you, though ? ' she said. ' Wouldn't it bo fun 1 Unless 
 Sir Ferdinand was there. He's a great friend of mine, you 
 know.' 
 
 ' I'll come if his Satanic Majesty himself was present (he 
 occasionally does attend a wedding, I've heard), and bring you 
 a present, too, Bella • mind, it's a bargain.' 
 
 'There's my hand on it,' says she. 'I wonder how you'll 
 manage it, but I'll leave that to you. It mightn't be so long 
 either. And now it's time for us all to go to bed. Jims asleep, 
 I believe, this half hour.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXVn 
 
 This bit of a barney, of course, made bad blood betv^Lxt us and 
 Moran's mob, so for a spell Starlight and father thought it 
 handier for us to go our own road and let them go theirs. We 
 never could agree with chaps like them, and that was the long 
 and short of it. They were a deal too rough and ready for Star- 
 light ; and as for Jim and me, though we were none too good, 
 we couldn't do some of the things these coves was up to, nor 
 stand by and see 'em done, which was more. This time we 
 made up our mind to go bick to the Hollow and drop out of 
 notice altogether for a bit, and take a rest like. 
 
 We hadn't heard anything of Aileen and the old mother for 
 weeks and weeks, so we fixed it that we should sneak over to 
 Rocky Flat, one at a time, and see how things were going, and 
 hearten 'em up a bit. "When we did get to the Hollow, instead 
 of being able to take it easy, as we expected, we found things 
 had gone wrong as far as the devil could send 'em that way if 
 he tried his best. It seems father had taken a restless fi.t 
 himself, and after we were gone had crossed Nulla Mountain 
 to some place above Rocky Flat, to where he could see what 
 went on with a strong glass. 
 
 Before I go further I might as well tell you that, along with 
 the whacking big reward that was offered for all of us, a good 
 many coves as fancied themselves a bit had turned amateur 
 policemen, and had all kinds of plans and dodges for catching 
 us dead or alive. Now, men that take to the bush like us don't 
 mind the regular paid force much, or bear them any malice. 
 It's their duty to catch us or shoot us if we bolt, ana ours to 
 take all sorts of good care that they shan't do either if we 
 can help it. 
 
 Well, as I was sayin' we don't have it in for the regulars in 
 the police ; it's all fair pulling, ' pull devil pull baker,' some one 
 has to get the worst of it. Now it's us, now it's them, that gets 
 took or rubbed out, and no more about it. 
 
 But what us cross coves can't stand and are mostly sure to 
 turn nasty on is the notion of fellows going into tne raan- 
 bunting trade, with us for game, either for the fun of it or for 
 
OSAP. XJ3TI1 E0BBEK7 UITDEB ARMS 281 
 
 the reward Tiiat reward means the money paid for our blood. 
 We doii't like it. It may seem curious, but we dou't ; and them 
 as take up the line as a game to make money or fun out of, 
 when they've no call to, find out their mistake, sometimes when 
 it's a deal too late. 
 
 Now we d heard that a party of four men — some of them had 
 been gaol warders and some hadn't — had made it up to follow 
 us up and get us one way or the other if it was to be done. 
 They weren't in the police, but they thought they knew quite as 
 much as the police did ; and, besides, the reward, £5000, if they 
 got our lot and any one of the others, was no foolish money. 
 
 Well, nothing would knock it out of these chaps' heads but 
 that we were safe to be grabbexl in the long-run trying to make 
 into the old homa This was what made them gammon to be 
 surveyors when they first came, as we heard about, and go 
 measuring and tape-lining about, when tiiere wasn't a child 
 over eight years old on the whole creek that couldn't have told 
 with half an eye they wasn't nothing of tiie sort. 
 
 Well, as bad luck would have it, just as father was getting 
 down towards the place he meets Moran and Daly, who were 
 making over to the Fish River on a cattle-dufiing lay of their 
 own. They were pretty hard up ; and Moran alter his rough 
 and tumble with Jim, in which he had come off second best, 
 was ready for anything — anything that was bad, that is. 
 
 After he'd a long yam with them about cattle and hoi-ses and 
 what not, he offered them a ten-pound note each if they^d do 
 what he told them. Dad always carried money about with 
 him ; he said it came in handy. If the police didn't take him, 
 they wouldn't get it ; and if they did take him, why, nothing 
 would matter much and it might go with the rest. It came in 
 handy enough this time, anyhow, though it helped whau had 
 been far better left undone. 
 
 I remember what a blinded rage father got into when he first 
 had Aileen's letter, and heard that these men were camped close 
 to the old house, poking about there all day long, and worrying 
 and frightening poor Aileen and mother. 
 
 WeU, it seems on this particular day they'd been into the 
 little township, and I suppose got an extra glass of grog. Any- 
 how, when they came back they began to be more venturesome 
 than they generally were. One chap came into the house and 
 began talking to Aileen, and after a bit mother goes into her 
 bedroom, and Aileen comes out into the verandah and begins to 
 wash some clothes in a tub, plashing the water pretty well 
 about and making it a bit uncomfortable for any one to come 
 near her. 
 
 What must this fool do but begin to talk about what white 
 arms she'd got — not that they were Uke that much, she'd done 
 too much hard work lately to have her arms, or hands either, 
 look very grand ; and at last he began to be saucy, telling her 
 as no ilarston girl ought to think so much of herself, <:-on- 
 
282 KOBBERY UNDER ARMS crap, i 
 
 siderin' who and what she was. Well, the end of it was father 
 heard a scream, and he looked out from where he was hidden 
 and saw Aileen running down the garden and the fellow after 
 her. He jumps out, miq fires his revolver slapbang at the chap * 
 it didn't hit him, but it went that close that he stopped dead 
 and turned round to see who it was. 
 
 ' Ben Marston, by all that's lucky, boys ! ' says he, as two of 
 the other chaps came running down at the shot. ' We've got 
 the ould sarpint out of his hole at last,' With that they all 
 fires at father as quick as they could draw ; and Aileen gives 
 one scream and starts running along the tra<;k up the hill that 
 leads to George Storefield's place. 
 
 Father drops ; one of the bullets had hit him, but not so bad 
 as he couldn't run, so he ups again and starts running along 
 the gully, with the whole four of them shouting and swearin' 
 after him, making sure they got him to rights this time. 
 
 ' Two hundred a man, boys,' the big fellow in the lead says ; 
 ■ and maybe we'll take tay with the rest of 'em now.' 
 
 They didn't know the man they were after, or they'd have 
 just as soon have gone to 'take tea,' as they called it, with a 
 tiger. 
 
 Father put on one of his old poacher dodges that he had 
 borrowed from the lapwing in his own country, that he used to 
 tell us about when we were boys (our wild duck '11 do just the 
 same), and made himself out a deal worse than he was. Father 
 could run a bit, too ; he'd been fast for a mile when he was 
 young, and though he was old now he never carried no flesh to 
 signify, and v>'as as hard as nails. So what with knowing the 
 ground, and they being flat-country men, he kept just out of 
 pistol-shot, and yet showed enough to keep 'em filled up with 
 the notion that they'd run him down after a bit. 
 
 They fired a shot every now and then, thinking a chance one 
 might wing him, but this only let Moran and Daly see that 
 some one was after dad, and that the hunt was coming their 
 way. 
 
 They held steady wnere they had been told to stop, and 
 looked out for the men they'd been warned of by father. As he 
 got near this place he kept lettin' 'em git a bit nearer and 
 nearer to him, so as they'd follow him up just where he wanted. 
 It gave them more chance of hitting him, but he didn't care 
 about that, now his blood was up — not he. All he wanted was 
 to get them. Dad was the coolest old cove, when shooting was 
 going on, ever I see. You'd think he minded bullets no more 
 than bottle-corks. 
 
 Well, he go^ stumbling and dragging himself like up the 
 gully, and they, cocksure of getting him, closing up and shooting 
 
 Suicker and quicker, when just as he jumps down the Black 
 uUy steps a bullet did hit him in the shoulder under the right 
 arm, and staggers him in good earnest. He'd just time to cut 
 down tiie bank and turn to the left along the creek ckanaelj 
 
iXjTiu KOBBERY UNDER ARMS 283 
 
 throvrlag himself down on his face among the bushes, when the 
 whole four of 'em jumps down the bank after him. 
 
 * Stand ! ' says Moran, and they looked up and saw him and 
 Daly covering them with their revolvers. Before they^d time to 
 draw, two of 'em rolls over as dead as door-nails. 
 
 The other two were dumbfoundered and knocked all of a heap 
 by suddenly finding themselves face to face with the very men 
 thej^'d been hunting after for weeks and weeks. They held up 
 their pistols, but they didn't a^em to have much notion of using 
 them — particularl V when they fouxid father had rounded on 'em 
 too. ana was stanuing a bit away on the side looking very ugly 
 ana with his revolver held straight at 'em. 
 
 ' Give in ! Put down your irons,' says Moran, ' or by , 
 
 well drop ye where ye stand-' 
 
 'Come on,' says one, and I think he intended to make a 
 fight for it. 
 
 He'd 'a been better oflf if he had. It couldn't have been 
 worse for him ; but the other one didn't see a chance, and so 
 he says— 
 
 ' Give in, what's the good ? There's three to two.' 
 
 ' All right,' savs the other chap, the big one ; and they put 
 down their pistols. 
 
 It was curious now as these two were both men that father 
 and Moran had a down on. They'd better have fought it out 
 as long as they could stand up. There's no good got by givin' 
 in that I ever seen. Men as does so always drop in for it worse 
 in the end. 
 
 First thing, then, they tied em with their hands behind 'em, 
 and let 'em stand up near their mates that were down— dead 
 enough, both of them, one shot through the heart and one 
 through the head. 
 
 Then Moran sits down and has a smoke, and looks over 
 at 'em. 
 
 ' You don't remember me, Mr. Hagan T' says he, in his drawl- 
 ing way. 
 
 ' No,' says the poor chap, ' I don't think I do.' 
 
 'But 1 remember you devilish well,' says Moran ; 'and so 
 you'll find afore we leave this.' Then he took another smoke. 
 'Weren't you warder in Berrima Gaol,' says he, 'about seven 
 year ago ? Ah ! now we're coming to it. You don't remember 
 getting Daniel iloran — a prisoner serving a long sentence there 
 — seven days' solitary on oread and water for what you called 
 disobedience of orders and insolence ? ' 
 
 'Yes, I do remember now. Td forgotten your face. I 
 was only doing my duty, and I hope you won't bear any 
 malice.' 
 
 ' It waa a little thing to you, maybe,' says Moran ; ' but if 
 you'd had to do seven long oays and long cold nights in that 
 dovire den, you'd 'a thought more about it. But you will now. 
 My turn 8 oome ' 
 
284 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 ' I didn't do it to you more than to the rest. I had to keep 
 order in the gaol, and devilish hard work it was.' 
 
 ' You're a liar,' says Moran, striking him across the face with 
 his clenched hand. ' You had a down on me because I wouldn't 
 knuckle down to you like some of them, and so you dropped 
 it on to me every turn you could get. I was a youngster then, 
 and might have grown into a man if Td been let. But feUows 
 like you are enough to turn any man into a devil if they^ve 
 got him in their power.' 
 
 * Well, Pm in your power now,' says he. ' Let's see how you 11 
 shape.' 
 
 *1 don't like ye any the worse for being cheeky,' says Moran, 
 ' and standing up to me, but if s too late. The last punishment 
 I got, when I was kept in irons night and day for a month 
 because I'd tried to get out, I swore Td have your life if ever 
 I came across ye.' 
 
 'You'll never shoot me in cold blood,' says the poor devil, 
 beginning to look blue about the lips. 
 
 ' I don't know what old Ben's going to do with the man he 
 found chevying his daughter,' says Moran, looking at him 
 with his deadly black-snake eyes, ' but I'm a-goin' to shoot you 
 as soon as Tve smoked out this pipe, so don't you make any 
 mistake.' 
 
 * I don't mind a shot or two,' says Daly, ' but I'm dashed if I 
 can stand by and see men killed in cold blood. You coves have 
 your own reasons, I suppose, but I shall hook it over to the 
 Fish River. Y^'ou know where to find me.' And he walked 
 away to where the horses were and rode off. 
 
 We got fresh horses and rode over quick to Eocky Flat. 
 We took Warrigal with us, and follovv^ed our old track across 
 Nulla Mountain till we got within a couple of miles of the 
 place. Warrigal picked up the old mare's tracks, so we knew 
 father had made over that way, and there was no call for us 
 to lose time running his trail any longer. Better go straight 
 on to the house and find out what had happened there. We 
 sent Warrigal on ahead, and waited with our horses in our 
 hands till he come back to us. 
 
 In about an hour he comes tearing back, with his eyea 
 staring out of his head. 
 
 ' I bin see old missis,' he says. ' She yabber that one make- 
 believe constable bin there. Gammon-like it surveyor, and 
 bimeby old man Ben gon' alonga hut, and that one pleece- 
 man fire at him and all about, and him break back alonga 
 guUy.' 
 
 ' Any of 'em come back 1 ' says Jim. 
 
 * Bale ! me see um tent-dog tied up. Cake alonga fireplace, 
 aU burn to pieces. No come home last night. I b'lieve shot 
 em old man longa gully.' 
 
 *Com9 along, boys,' says Starlight, jumping into his saddJa 
 
^3LZTii BOBBERY UXDER ARMS 2S5 
 
 *The old man might have been hit. We must run the tracks 
 and see what's come of the governor. Four to one's big 
 odds.' 
 
 "We skirted the hut and kept out wide till Warrigal cut the 
 tracks, which he did easy enough. We couldn't see a blessed 
 thing. Warrigal rode along with his head down, reading every 
 tuft of grass, every little stone turned up, every foot of sana, 
 like a book. 
 
 'Your old fader run likib Black Gully. Tw^o fellow track 
 here — bullet longa this one tree.' Here he pointed to a scratch 
 on the side of a box tree, in which the rough bark had been 
 shivered- ' Bimeby two fellow more come ; 'nother one bullet ; 
 'nother one here, too. This one blood drop longa white le^.' 
 
 Here he picked up a dried gum leaf, which had on the upper 
 side a dark red 8p>ot, slightly irregular. 
 
 We had it all now. We came to a place where two horses 
 had been tied to a tree. They had been stamping and pawing, 
 as if they had been there a goodish while ana had time to get 
 pretty sick of it. 
 
 ' That near side one Moran's horse, pigeon-toes ; me know 
 'em,' says Warrigal. ' Oflf side one Daly's roan horse, new shoes 
 on. You see 'um hair, rub himself longa tree.' 
 
 'What ^^he blazes were they doing hereabouts?' says Star- 
 light. ' This begins to look complicated ^Yhatever the row 
 was, Daly and he were in it. There's no one rich enough to rob 
 hereabouts, is there ? I don't like the look of it. Kide on, 
 boys.' 
 
 We said nothing to each other, but rode along as fast 
 as Warrigal could follow the Une, The sky, which was 
 bright enough when we started, clouded over, and in less than 
 ten minutes the wind rose and rain began to pour down in 
 bucket.s, with no end of thunder and Lightning. Then it got 
 that cold we could hardly sit on our horses for trembling. "The 
 sky grew blacker and blacker. The wind began to whistle and 
 cry till I could almost swear I heard some one singing out for 
 help. Nulla Mountain was as black as your hat, and a kind of 
 curious feeling crept over me, I hardly knew why, as if some- 
 thing was going to nappen, I didn't know what 
 
 I fully expected to find father dead ; and, though he wasn't 
 altogether a good father to us, we both felt bad at the notion 
 of his lyin' there cold and stiff I began to think of him as he 
 used to be when ^*'e were boys, and when he wasn't so out and 
 out hard — and had a kind word for poor mother and a kiss for 
 little Aileen. 
 
 But if he were shot or taken, why hadn't these other men 
 come back? We had just ridden by their tents, and they looked 
 as if they'd just been left for a bit by men who were coming 
 back at night. The dog was howling and looked hungry. Their 
 Hankets were all thrown about. Anyhow, there was a kettle 
 
 the fii*©, which was gone out; and more than that, there wag 
 
2«6 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. xtxyti 
 
 the damper that Warrigal had seen lying in the ashes all burnt 
 to a cinder. 
 
 Everything looked as if they'd gone off in a hurry, and never 
 come back at night or since. One of their horses was tied with 
 a tether rope close to the tent poles, and he'd been walking 
 round and trampling down the grass, as if he'd been there all 
 night. We couldn't make it out. 
 
 We rode on, hardly looking at one another, but following 
 Warrigal, who rattled on now, hardly looking at the ground at 
 all, like a dog with a burning scent. All of a sudden he pulls 
 up, and points to a dip into a cross gully, like an old river, 
 wnich we all knew. 
 
 ' You see um crow 1 I b'leeve longa Black Gully.' 
 
 Sure enough, just above the drop down, where we used to 
 gallop our ponies in old times and laugh to see 'era throw up 
 their tails, there were half-a-dozen crows and a couple of eagle- 
 hawks high up in the sky, wheeling and circling over the same 
 place. 
 
 ' By Oeorge ! they've got the old man,' savs Jim. * Come on. 
 Dick. I never thought poor old dad woula be run down like 
 this.' 
 
 ' Or he's got them ! ' says Starlight, curling his lip in a way 
 he had. * I don't believe your old governor's dead till I see him. 
 The devil himself couldn't grab him on hia own ground.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 We all pulled up at the side of the giiUy or drv creek, whatever 
 it was, and jumped off our horses, leaving Warrigal to look 
 after them, and ran down the rocky sides of it. 
 
 'Great God !' Starlight cries out, 'what's that ?' and he pointed 
 to a small sloping bit of grass just underneath the bank. ' Who 
 are they ? Can they be asleep ?' 
 
 They were asleep, never to wake. As we stood side by side 
 by the dead men, for there were four of them, we shook so, Jim 
 and I, that we leaned against one another for support. We had 
 never seen a sight before that like it, I never want to do so 
 again. 
 
 There they lay, four dead men. We didn't know them our- 
 selves, but guessed they were Hagan and his lot. How else did 
 they come there ? and how could dad have shot them all by him- 
 self, and laid them out there ? Were Daly and Moran with him? 
 This looked like .Moran's damnable work. 
 
 We looked and looked, I rubbed my eyes. Could it be real 1 
 The sky was dark, and the daylight going fast. The mountain 
 hung over us black and dreadful-looking. The wind whimpered 
 up and down the hillside with a sort ot cry in it. Everything 
 was dark and dismal and almost unnatural-looking. 
 
 All four men were lying on their backs side by side, with 
 their eyes staring up to the sky — staring — staring ! When we 
 got close beside them we could see they had all been shot — one 
 man through the head, the rest through the body. The two 
 nearest to me had had their hands tied ; the bit of rope was 
 lying by one and his wrist was chafed. 
 
 One had been so close to the man that shot him that the 
 powder had burnt his shirt. It wasn't for anything they had 
 either, for every man's notes (and one had four fives and some 
 ones) were pinned to them outside of their pockets, as if to 
 show every one that those who killed them wanted their blood 
 and not their money. 
 
 ' This is a terrible affair, boys," said Sta.rlight ; and his voice 
 sounded strange and hoarse. 'I never thought we should be 
 mixed up with a deed like this. I see how it was done. They 
 
288 ROBBERY UNDER AKM3 chap. 
 
 have been led into a trap. Your father has made 'em think 
 they could catch him; and had Daly and Moran waiting for 
 them — one on each side of this hole here. Warrigal ' — for he 
 had tied up his horse and crept up — ' how many bin here 1 ' 
 
 Warrigal held up three fingers. 
 
 'That one ran down here — one after one. I see 'em boot. 
 Moran stand here. Patsey Daly lie down behind that ole log. 
 All about boot-nail mark. Old man Ben he stand here. Dog 
 bite'm this one.' 
 
 Here he stooped and touched a dead man's ankle. Sure 
 enough there was the mark of Crib's teeth, with the front one 
 missing, that had been kicked down his throat by a wild 
 mare. 
 
 ' Two fellow tumble down f nst-like ; then two fellow bimeby. 
 One — two — three fellow track go along a flat that way. Then 
 that one get two horses and ridem likit Fish River. Penty 
 blood tumble down here.' 
 
 This was the ciphering up of the whole thing. It was clear 
 enough now. Moran and Daly had waited for them here, and 
 had shot down the two first men. Of the others, it was hard 
 to say whether they died in fair fight or had been taken 
 prisoners and shot afterwards. Either way it was bad enough. 
 What a noise it would make ! The idea of four men, well known 
 to the Government, and engaged in hunting down outlaws on 
 whose head a price was set, to be deliberately shot — murdered 
 in cold blood, as there was some ground for tbinking to be the 
 case. What would be the end of it all ? 
 
 We had done things that were bad enough, but a deliberate, 
 cold-blooded, shameful piece of bloodshed like this had never 
 been heard of in New South Wales before. 
 
 There was nothing more to be done. We couldn't stay any 
 longer looking at the dead nien: it was no use burying them, 
 even if we'd had the time. We hadn't done it, though we 
 should be sure to be mixed up with it somehow. 
 
 'We must be moving, lads,' said Starlight. 'As soon as this 
 gets wind there'll be another rush out this way, and every 
 
 Soliceman and newspaper reporter in the country wiU be up at 
 lack Gully. "SYhen they're found everybody will see that 
 they've been killed for vengeance and not for plunder. But the 
 sooner they're found the better.' 
 
 ' Best send word to Billy the Boy,' I said ; ' he'll manage tc 
 lay them on without hurting himself.' 
 
 ' All right. Warrigal knows a way of communicating with 
 him ; I'll send him otf at once. And now the sooner we're at 
 the Hollow the better for everybody.' 
 
 We rode all ni^ht. Anything was better than stopping still 
 with such thoughts as we were likely to have for companions. 
 About daylight we got to the Hollow. Not far from the cave 
 we found father's old mare with the saddle on and the reins 
 trailins; on the ground. Thera was a lot of blood on the saddle 
 
xxjcviii ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 289 
 
 too, and the reins were smeared all about with it ; red they 
 were to the buckles, so was her mane. 
 
 We knew then something was wrong, and that the old man 
 was hard hit, or he'd never have let her go loose like that. When 
 we got to the cave the dog came out to meet us, and then walked 
 back whining in a queer way towards the log at the mouth, 
 where we used to sit in the evenings. 
 
 There was father, sure enough, lying on his face in a pool of 
 blood, and to all appearances as dead as the men wed just 
 left. 
 
 We lifted him up, and Starlight looked close and careful at 
 him by the light of the dawn, that was just showing up over 
 the tree tops to the east. 
 
 * He's not dead ; I can feel his heart beat,' he said. ' Carry 
 him in, bovs, and we'll soon see what's the matter with him.' 
 
 We tooK his waistcoat and shirt otf — a coat he never wore 
 unless it was raining. Hard work we had to do it, they was so 
 stuck to his skin when the blood had dried. 
 
 ' By gum ! he's been hit bad enough,' says Jim. ' Look here, 
 and here, poor old dad ! ' 
 
 'There's not much "poor" about it, Jim,' says Starlight. 
 ' Men tliat play at bowls must expect to get rubbers. They've 
 come otf second best in this row, and I wish it had been 
 different, for several reasons.' 
 
 Dad was hit right through the top of the left shoulder. The 
 ball had gone through the muscle and lodged somewhere. We 
 couldn't see anything of it. Another bullet had gone right 
 through hira, as far as we could make out, under the breast on 
 the right-hand side. 
 
 'That looks like a good-bye sliot,' says Starlight; 'see how 
 the blood comes welling out still ; but it hasn't touched the 
 lungs. There's no blood on his lips, and his breathing is all 
 right. What's this 1 Only through the muscle of the right arm. 
 That's nothing ; and this graze on the ribs, a mere scratch. 
 Dash more water in his face, Jim. He's coming to.' 
 
 After a few minutes he did come to, sure enough, and looked 
 round when he found himself in bed. 
 
 ' Where am I ? ' says he. 
 
 ' You're at liome,' I said, ' in the Hollow.' 
 
 ' Dashed if I ever thought I'd get here,' he says. ' I was that 
 bad I nearly tumbled off the ola mare miles away. She must 
 have carried me in while I was unsensible. I don't remember 
 nothing after we began to get down the track into the Hollow. 
 Where is she ? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! we found her near the cave, with the saddle and bridle 
 on. 
 
 'That's all right. Brin» me a taste of grog, will ye; Fra 
 a'most dead with thirst. W nere did I come from last, I wonder 1 
 
 Oh, I seem to know now. Settling accounts with that 
 
 dog that insulted my gaL Moran got square with t'other 
 
 U 
 
290 ROBBERY IIN^DER ARMS chap. 
 
 That'll learn 'em to leave old Ben Marston alone when he's not 
 meddling with them.' 
 
 ' Never mind talking about that now,' I said. ' You had a 
 near shave of it, and it will take you all your time to pull 
 through now,' 
 
 'I wasn't hit bad till just as I was going to drop down into 
 Black Gully,' he said, 'I stood one minute, and that cursed 
 wretch Hagan had a steady shot at me. I had one at him 
 afterwards, though, with his hands tied, too,' 
 
 ' God forgive you ! ' says Jim, * for shooting men in cold blood. 
 I couldn't do it for all the gold in Turon, nor for no other 
 reason. It'll bring us bad luck, too ; see if it don't.' 
 
 'You're too soft, Jim,' says the old man. 'You ain't a bad 
 chap ; but any young fellow of ten years old can buy and sell 
 you. Where's that brandy and water 1 ' 
 
 ' Here it is,' says Jim ; ' and then you lie down and take a 
 sleep. You'll have to be quiet and obey orders now — that is if 
 a few more years' life's any good to you. 
 
 The brandy and water fetched him to pretty well, but after 
 that he began to talk, and we couldn't stop him. Towards 
 night he got worse and worse and liis head got hotter, and he 
 kept on with all kinds of nonsense, screeching out that he was 
 going to be hung and they were waiting to take him away, but 
 if he could get the old mare he'd be all right; besides a lot of 
 mixed-up things about cattle and horses that we didn't know 
 the right of. 
 
 Starlight said he was delirious, and that if he hadn't some 
 one to nurse him he'd die as sure as fate. We couldn't be 
 always staying with him, and didn't understand what was to be 
 done much. We didn't like to let him lie there and die, so at 
 long last we made up our minds to see if we could get Aileen 
 over to nurse him for a few weeks. 
 
 Well, we scribbled a bit of a letter and sent Warrigal off 
 with it. Wasn't it dangerous for him 1 Not a bit of it. He 
 could go anywhere all over the whole country, and no trooper 
 of them all could manage to put the bracelets on him. The 
 way he'd v/ork it would be to leave his horse a good way the 
 other side of George Storefield's, and to make up as a regular 
 blackfellow. He could do that first-rate, and talk their lingo, 
 too, just like one of themselves. Gin or blackfellow, it was all 
 the same to WarrigaL He could make himself as black as soot, 
 and go barefooted \vith a blanket or a 'possum rug round him 
 and beg for siccapence, and nobody'd ever bowl him out. He 
 took us in once at the diggings ; Jim chucked him a shilling, 
 and told him to go away and not come bothering near us. 
 
 So away Warrigal went, and we knew he'd get through 
 somehow. He was one of those chaps that always does what 
 they're told, and never comes back and says they can't do it, or 
 they've lost their horse, or can't find the way, or they'd changed 
 their mind, or something. 
 
Tin ROBBERY UXDER AEMS 291 
 
 No ; once he'd started there was no fear of him not ecoring 
 somehow or other. Wkatever Starlight told him to do, day or 
 night, foul weather or fair, afoot or on hoi^seback, that thing 
 was don© if Warrigal was alive to do it. 
 
 WTiat we'd written to Aileen was telling her that father was 
 that bad we hardly thought he'd pull through, and that if 
 she wanted to save his life she must come to the Hollow and 
 aurse him. 
 
 How to get her over was not the easiest thing in the world, 
 but she could ride away on her old pony without anybody 
 thinking but she was going to fetch up the cows, ana then 
 cut straight up the gully to the old yard in the scrub on Nulla 
 Mountain. One of us would meet her there with a fresh horse 
 and bring her safe into the Hollow. If all went well she would 
 be there in the afternoon on a certain day ; anyhow we'd be 
 there to meet her, come or no come. 
 
 She wouldn't fail us, we were dead sure. She had suffered a 
 lot by him and us too ; but, like most women, the very moment 
 anything happened to any of us, even to da<l, everything flew 
 out of her head, except that we were sick or sorry and wanted 
 her help. Help, of course ; wasn't she willing to give that, and 
 her rest and comfort, health, even life itself, to wear herself 
 out, hand and foot, for any one of her own family ? 
 
 So poor Aileen made her way up all alone to the old scrub 
 stockyard. Jim and I had ridden up to it pretty e^rly (he 
 wouldn't stop behind) with a nice, well-bred little horse that 
 had shone a bit at country races for her to ride om We waited 
 there a goodish while, we lying down and our horses hung up 
 not far otf for fear we might be 'jumped ' by the police at any 
 time. 
 
 At last we sees the old pony's head coming bobbing along 
 through the scrub along the worn-out cattle track, grown up as 
 it was, and sure enough there was Aileen on him, with her gray 
 riding skirt and an old felt hat on. She'd nothing with her ; she 
 was afraid to bring a ha'porth of clothes or anything for fear 
 they should any of 'em tumble that she was going a long way, 
 and, perhaps, follow her up. So she had to hand that over to 
 Warrigal, and trust to him to bring it on some way or other. 
 We saw her before she saw us, and Jim gave a whistle just as 
 he used to do when he was coming home late at night. She 
 knew it at once, and a smile for a minute came over her pale 
 face : such a sad sort of one it was too, as if she was 
 wondering at herself that she could feel that pleased at any- 
 thing. 
 
 W hatever thoughts was in her mind, she roused up the old 
 pony, and came towards us quick as soon as she catches sight 
 of us. In two seconds Jim had lifted her down in his strong 
 arms, and was holding her off the ground and hugging her as if 
 she'd been a child. How the tears ran down her cheeks, though 
 sdl the time she was kissing him with her arms round his neck ; 
 
392 ROBBERY UXDER ARMS chap. 
 
 and me too, when I came up, just as if we were boys and girls 
 again. 
 
 After a bit she wiped her eyes, and said — 
 
 * How's father ? ' 
 
 * Very bad,' I said ; ' off his head, and raving. Itll be a close 
 thing with him. Here's your horse now, and a good one 
 too. "We must let the old pony go ; he'll make home fast 
 enough,' 
 
 She patted his neck and we turned him loose. He slued 
 round and went away steady, picking a bit as he went. He'd 
 be home next day easy enough, and nobody the wiser where 
 he'd been to. 
 
 "We'd brought a bit to eat and a glass of wine for the girl in 
 case she was faint, but she wouldn't take anything but a crust 
 of bread and a drink of water. There was a spring that ran all 
 the year round near the cattle-yard ; and off went we, old 
 Lieutenant holding up his head and showing himself off. He 
 didn't get such a rider on his back every day. 
 
 ' What a dear horse,' she said, as she pulled him together a 
 bit like and settled herself fair and square in the saddle. ' Oh, 
 
 how I could enjoy all this if— if O my God i shall we 
 
 ever know a moment's peace and happiness in this world again 1 
 Are we always to be sunk in wretchedness and misery as long 
 as we live ? ' 
 
 We didn't lose much time after that, you be sure. Up and 
 down, thick and open, rough or smooth, we made the pace good, 
 and Aileen gave us all we knew to keep ahe^d of her. We had 
 a good light when we got to the drop down into the Hollow. 
 The sun was just setting, and if we'd had time or thought 
 to give to the looks of things, no doubt it was a grand 
 sight. 
 
 All the Hollow was lighted up, and looked like a green sea 
 with islands of trees in it. The rock towers on the other side of 
 the range were shining and glittering like as if they were made 
 of crystallised quartz or diamonds — red and white. There was 
 a sort of mist creeping up the valley at the lower end under the 
 mountain that began to soften the fire colours, and mix them 
 up like. Even the mountain, that mostly looked black and 
 dreary, frowning at our ways, was of purple and gold, with pale 
 shadows of green and gray. 
 
 Aileen pulled up as we did, and jumped off our horses. 
 
 * So this is the Hollow,' she said, halt talking to herself, 'that 
 I've heard and thought so much about. What a lovely, lovely 
 place ! Surely it ought to have a different effect on the people 
 that lived there.' 
 
 ' Better come off^ Ailie, and lead your horse down here,' saya 
 Jim, ' unless you want to ride down, like Starlight did, the first 
 time we saw him.' 
 
 'Starlight ! is he here?' she said, in a surprised sort of way. 
 * I never thought of that.' 
 
x3:xTin ROBBERY UNDER ARMS S93 
 
 ' Of conrse he is ; where else should he be ? Why don't you 
 lead on, Dick V 
 
 ' Won't you get off? It's not altogether safe,' I said, 'though 
 Lieutenant's all right on his old pins.' 
 
 '' Safe ! ' she said, with a bitter sort of laugh. ' What does it 
 matter if a Marston g^l does break her neck, or her heart 
 either 1 ' 
 
 She never said another word, but sat upright with a set face 
 on her, as the old horse picked his way down after ours, and 
 except when he put his foot on a rolling stone, never made a 
 slip or a stumble all the way down, though it was like going 
 down the side of a house. 
 
 When we got to the valley we put on a spurt to the cave, and 
 found Warrigal sitting on the log in front of us. He'd got 
 home first, of course, and there was Aileen's bundle, a biggish 
 one too, alongside of him. We could hear father ra\ing and 
 screaming out inside dreadful. Starlight wasn't nigh hand any- 
 where. He had walked ofl when Warrigal came home, and left 
 him to watch the old man. 
 
 * He been like that all the time, Warrigal ? ' 
 
 ' No ! Captfl.in say big one sleep. Him give him medicine 
 like ; then wake op and go on likit that I believe him bad 
 along a cobra.' 
 
 Aileen had jumped off her horse and gone in to the old man 
 the moment we came up and she heard his voice. 
 
 All that long night we could hear him talking to himself, 
 groaning, cursing, shouting, arguing. It was wonderful how a 
 man who talked so little as tather could have had so many 
 thoughts in his mind. But then they all are boxed up together 
 in every man's heart. At a time like this they come racing and 
 tumbling out like a flock of sheep out of a yard when the hurdle's 
 down. What a dashed queer thing human nature is when you 
 come to think of it. That a man should be able to keep his 
 tongue quiet, and shut the door on all the sounds and images 
 and wishes that goes racing about inside of his mind like wild 
 horses in a paddock ! 
 
 One day ne'll be smiling and sensible, looking so honest all 
 the time. Next day a knock on the hea*] or a little vein goes 
 crack in the brain (as the doctor told me) ; then the rails are 
 down, and everything comes out with a rush into the light of 
 day — right and wrong, foul and fair, station brands and clear- 
 skins, it don't make no difference. 
 
 Father was always one of the closest men that ever lived. He 
 never told us much about his old life at home or after he came 
 out here. Now he was letting drop things here and there that 
 helped us to a few secrets he'd never told to no man. They 
 made poor Aileen a bit more miserable than she'd be4fn before, 
 if that was possible ; but it didn't matter much to ns. We were 
 pretty tired ourselves that night, and so we got Aileen all she 
 wanted, and left her alone with him. 
 
294 
 
 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 
 
 CHAP. XXiVin 
 
 AVhile we were away to meet her some one had taken the 
 trouble to put np a bit of a partition, separating that part of 
 the cave from the other ; it was bui]t up of stone — there was 
 plenty aboutr— and not so roughly done either. It made Aileen 
 feel a lot more comfortable. Of course there was only one man 
 who could have done it ; and that was Starlight. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 Towards morning father went into a heavy sleep ; ho didn't 
 wake till the afternoon. Poor Aileen was able to get a doze and 
 change her dress. After breakfast, while wo were having a bit 
 of a chat, in walks Starlight. He bowed to Aileen quite respect- 
 ful, as he always did to a woman, and then shook hands with 
 her. 
 
 ' Welcome to the Hollow, Miss Marston,' he said. ' I can't say 
 how charmed I am in one sense, though I regret the necessity 
 which brought you here.' 
 
 ' I'm glad to come, and onlv for poor father's being so bad I 
 could delight in the life here. 
 
 * How do you find your father 1 ' 
 
 ' He is asleep now, and perhaps the rest will do him good.* 
 
 ' He may awake free from fever,' says Starlight. ' I took the 
 risk of givmg him an opiate before you came, and I think the 
 result has been favourable.' 
 
 ' Oh ! I hope he will be better when he wakes,' says Aileen, 
 * and that I shall not have to watch through another dreadful 
 night of raving. I can hardly bear it.' 
 
 ' You must make your brothers take their share ; it's not fair 
 to you.' 
 
 ' Thank you ; but I feel as if I couldn't leave him to any- 
 body but myself. He seems so weak now ; a little neglect 
 might kill him.' 
 
 ' Pardon me, Miss Marston ; you overrate the danger. De- 
 pend upon it, your respected parent will be, quite a different 
 man in a week, though it may be a month or more before he 
 is fully recovered. You don't know what a constitution he 
 has,' 
 
 'You have given me fresh hope,' she said. *I feel quite 
 cheered up — that is' (and she signed)* if I could be cheerful 
 again about anything.' 
 
 Here she walked into the cave and sat down by father to 
 watch till he awoke, and we all went out about our daily work, 
 whatever it was — nothing very wonderful, I daresay, but it kept 
 us from thinking. 
 
296 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 Starlight was right. As luck would have it, father woke up 
 a deal better than when he laid down. The fever had gone 
 away, his head was right again, and he began to ask for some- 
 thing to eat — leastways to drink, first. But Aileen wouldn't 
 give him any of that, and very little to eat. Starlight had 
 told her what to do in case he wanted what wasn't good for 
 him, and as she was pretty middling obstinate, like himself, she 
 took her own ways. 
 
 After this he began to get right ; it wasn't easy to kill old 
 dad. He seemed to be put together with wire and whip- 
 cord: not made of flesh and blood like other men. I don't 
 wonder old England's done so much and gone so far with her 
 soldiers and sailors if they was bred like nim. It's my notion 
 if they was caught young, kept well under command, and led 
 by men they respected, a regiment or a man-of-v/ar's crew like 
 him would knock smoke out of any other thousand men the 
 world could put up. More's the pity there ain't some better 
 way of keeping 'em straight than there is. 
 
 He was weak for a bit — very weak ; he'd lost a deal of blood : 
 and, try how he would, he couldn't stand up long at a time, and 
 had to give in and lie down in spite of himself. It fretted 
 him a deal, of course; he'd never been on his back before, 
 and he couldn't put up with it. Then his temper began 
 to show again, and Aileen had a deal to bear and put up 
 with. 
 
 We'd got a few books, and there was the papers^f course, so 
 she used to read to him by the hour together. He was very 
 fond of hearing about things, and, like a good many men that 
 can't read and write, he was clever enough in his own way. 
 When she'd done all the newspapers — they were old ones (we 
 took care not to get any fresn ones, for fear she'd see about 
 Hagan and the others) — she used to read about battles and sea- 
 fights to him ; he cared about them more than anything, and 
 one night, after her reading to him about the battle of Trafalgar, 
 he turned round to her and says, 'I ought to have been in ^at 
 packet, Ailie, my girl I was near going for a sailor once, on 
 board a man-o'-war, too. I tried twice to get away to sea, that 
 was Vjefore I'd snared my first hare, and something stopped me 
 both times. Once I was fetched back and flogged, and pretty 
 nigh starved. I never did no good afterwards. But it's came 
 acrost me many and many a time that I'd been a difierent sort 
 o' chap if I'd had my will then. I was allays fond o' work, and 
 there couldn't be too much fightin' for me ; so a man-o'-war in 
 those days would have been just the thing to straighten me. 
 That was the best chance I ever had. Well, I don't say as I 
 haven't had others — plenty in this country, and good ones too ; 
 but it was too late — I'd got set. When a man's young, that's 
 the time he can be turned right way or wrong. It s none so 
 easy afterwards.' 
 
 He went to sleep then, and Aileen said that was the only 
 
XXXIX ROBBERY UlsTJER ARMS 297 
 
 time he ever spoke to her in that way. We never he^rd him 
 talk like that, nor nobody else, I expect. 
 
 If we could have got some things out of our heads, that 
 was the pleasantest time ever we spent in the Hollow. After 
 father could be left by himself for a few hours we got out the 
 horses, and used to take Aileen out for long lides all over the 
 place, from one end to the other. It did her good, and we 
 went to every hole and comer in it. She was never tired of 
 looking at the great rock towers, as we used to call 'em, where 
 the sandstone walls hung over, just like the pictures of castles, 
 till, Starlight said, in the evenings you could fancy you saw 
 flags waving and sentinels walking up and down on them. 
 
 One afternoon we went out to the place where ihe old hermit 
 had hved and died. We walked over his old garden, and talked 
 about the box we'd dug up, and all the rest of it. Starlight 
 came with us, and he persuaded Aileen to ride ilainbow that 
 day, and, my word, tliey made a splendid pair. 
 
 She'd drvssed herself up that aitemoon just a little bit more 
 than common, poor thing, and nut a bit of pink ribbon on and 
 trimnjcd up her hat, and looked as if she began to see a little 
 more interest in things. It didn't take much to make her look 
 nice, particularly on horseback. Her habit fitted her out and 
 out, and she had the sort of figure that, when a girl can ride well, 
 and you see her swaying, graceful and easy -like, to every motion 
 of a spirited horse, makes you think her handsomer than any 
 woman can Icn^k on the ground. We rode pretty fast always, 
 and it brought a bit of colour to her face. The old horse got 
 pulling and pra 'icing a bit, thou^di he was that fine-tempered 
 he'd can-y a child almost, and Jim and I thought we hadn't 
 seen her look like herself before this for years past. 
 
 It was a beautiful warm evening, though summer wa.s over, 
 and we were getting into the cold nights and sharp mornings 
 again, just before the regular winter weather. There was going 
 to be a change, and there were a few clouds coming up from 
 the north-west ; but for all that it had been quite like a spring 
 day. The turf on all the flats in the Hollow was splendid and 
 sound. The grass had never been cut up with too he-a\-y' stock- 
 ing (which ruins half the country, I believe), and there was a good 
 thick undergrowth underneath. We had two or three little 
 creeks to cross, and they were pretty full, except at the crossing 
 places, and rippled over the stones and sparkled in the sun like 
 the brooks we'd heard tell of in the old country. Everything 
 wa^ so quiet, and bright and happy -looking, that we could 
 hardly fancy we were the men we were ; and that all this wild 
 work had been going on outside of the valley that looked so 
 peaceful and innocent. 
 
 There was Starlight riding alongside of Aileen on his second- 
 best horse, and he was no commoner either (though he didn't 
 come up to Rainbow, nor no other horse I ever saw), talking 
 away in his plea-sant, easy-going way. You'd think he iuidn't 
 
298 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 got a thing to trouble him in the world. She, for a wonder, 
 was smiling, and seemed to be enjoying herself for once in a 
 way, with the old hor^ arching his neck, and spinning along 
 under her as light as a greyhound, and as smooth aa oil It was 
 something Uke a pleasant rida I never forgot that evening, 
 and I never shall 
 
 We rode up to the ruined hut of the solitary man who had 
 lived there so long, and watched the sun go down so often 
 behind the rock towers from his seat under the big peach tree. 
 
 ' What a wonderful thing to think of ! ' Aileen says, as she 
 slipped down off her side-saddle. 
 
 We dismounted, too, and hung up our horses. 
 
 * Only to think that he was living here before we were born, 
 or father came to Rocky Flat. Oh ! if we could have come 
 here when we were little how we should have enjoyed it ! It 
 would have seemed fairyland to us.' 
 
 ' It always astonishes me,' said Starlight, ' how any human 
 being can consent to live, year after year, the same life in the 
 same place. I should go mad half-a-dozen times over. Change 
 and adventure are the very breath of my nostrils.' 
 
 ' He had the memory of his dead wife to keep him,' said 
 Aileen. ' Her spirit soothed the restless heart that would have 
 wandered far into the wilds again.' 
 
 *It may be so,' said Starlight dreamily. *I have known no 
 such influences. An outlaw I, by forest laws, almost since the 
 days of my boyhood, I shall be so till the day of my death,' he 
 added. 
 
 ' If I were a man I should go everywhere,' said Aileen, her 
 eyes sparkling and her face regular lighted up. ' I have never 
 been anywhere or seen anything, hardly so much as a church, 
 a soldier, a shop -window, or the sea, begging his pardon for 
 putting him last. But oh ! what a splendid thing to be rich ; 
 no, not that altogether, but to be able to go wherever you 
 liked, and have enough not to be troubled about money.' 
 
 * To be free, and have a mind at ease ; it doesn't seem so 
 much,' said Starlight, talking almost to himself ; ' and yet how 
 we fools and madmen shut ourselves out of it for ever, for ever, 
 sometimes by a single act of folly, hardly crime. That comes 
 after.' 
 
 ' The sun is going down behind the great rock tower,' Aileen 
 says, as if she hadn't heard him. Perhaps she didn't. When 
 people have a lot on their minds they're half their time thinking 
 their own thoughts. ' How all the lovely colours are fading 
 away. Life seems so much like that- — a little brightness, then 
 gray twilight, night and darkness so soon after.' 
 
 * Now and then there's a star : you must admit that, Miss 
 Marston,' says he, cheerful and pleasant again ; he was never 
 down for long at a time ' And there's that much-abused lumi- 
 nary, the moon ; you'll see her before we get homa We're hef 
 sworn votaries and worshippers, you know.' 
 
jLsxix ROBBEEY UNDER ARMS 299 
 
 We had tx) ride a bit to get home with any kind of light, for 
 we didn't want father to be growling or kicking up a row with 
 Warrigal that we left to look after him. But a few miles didn't 
 matter much on such a road, and with horses in such buckle as 
 ours. 
 
 The stars came out after a while, and the sky was that clear, 
 without a cloud in it, that it was a better light to ride by than 
 the moon throws. Jim and I sometimes rode on one side and 
 sometimes tiie other ; but there was old Rainbow always in 
 the lead, playing with his bit and arching his neck, and going 
 with Aileen's hght weight on him as if he could go on all night 
 at the same pace and think nothing of it ; and I believe he 
 could. 
 
 When we got home dad was grumpy, and wondered what we 
 wanted riding the horses about when there was nothing to do 
 and nothing to see. But Warrigal had made him a pot of tea, 
 and he was able to .^moke now ; so he wasn't so bad after all. 
 We made ourselves pretty comfortable — Aileen said she'd got 
 a good appetite, for a wonder — and we sat chatting round the 
 fire and talking away quite Like old days till the moon was 
 pretty high. 
 
 Father didn't get well all at once. He went back twice 
 because he would try to do too much, and wouldn't be said by 
 Starlight or Aileen either when he took a thing into his head ; 
 then he'd have to be nursed and looked after day and night 
 again just the same as ever. So it took near a month Vjefore he 
 was regularly on his pins again, and going about as he did before 
 ho was hit. His right arm was a bit stitf, to<j ; it used to pain 
 and make him swear awful now and again. Anyhow, Aileen 
 made us that comfortable and liappy while she was there, we 
 didn't care how long he took getting weU. 
 
 Those were out and out the pleasantest days we ever spent 
 in the Hollow — the be^t time almost Jim and I had had since 
 we were lx>y8. Nearly every day we rode out in the afternoon, 
 and there wasn't a hole or comer, a spring or a creek inside the 
 walls of the old Hollow that we didn't show Aileen. She was 
 that sort of girl she took an interest in everything ; she began 
 to know all the horses and cattle as well as we did ourselves. 
 Rainbow was regular given up to her, and the old horse after a 
 bit knew her as well as his master. I never seen a decent horse 
 that didn't like to have a woman on his back ; that is, if she was 
 young and lissom and could ride a bit. They seem to know, in 
 a sort of way. I've seen horses that were no chop for a man to 
 ride, and that wouldn't be particular about bucking you off if 
 the least thing started them, but went as quiet as mice with a 
 girl on their backs. 
 
 So Aiieen used to make Rainbow walk and amble his best, 
 so that all the rest of ilb, when she did it for fun, had to jog. 
 Then she'd jump him over logs or the little trickling deep creeks 
 that ran down to the main water ; or she'd pretend to have a 
 
800 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ok.u'. 
 
 race and go off full gallop, riding him at his best for a quarter 
 of a mile ; then he'd pull up as easy as if he'd never gone out of 
 a walk. 
 
 * How Rtrange all this is,' she said one day ; ' I feel as if I 
 were living on an island. It's quite like playing at " Robinson 
 Crusoe," only there's no sea. We don't seem to be able to get 
 out all the same. It's a happy, pea.-cefu\ life, too. Why can't 
 we keep on for ever like this, and shut out the wicked, sorrow- 
 ful world altogether ? ' 
 
 ' Quite of your opi:iion, Miss Marston ; why should we ever 
 change V says Starlight, who wa^ sitting down with the rest of 
 us by the side of our biggest river. We had been fishing all the 
 afternoon and done well. ' Let us go home no more ; I am 
 quite contented. But what about poor Jim ? He looks sadder 
 every day.' 
 
 'He is fretting for his wife, poor feUow, and I don't wonder. 
 You are one of tho.se natures that never change, Jim ; and if 
 you don't get away soon, or see some chance of rejoining her, 
 you wiD die. How you are to do it I don I know.' 
 
 'I am bound to make a try next month.' says Jim. * If I 
 don't do something towards it I shall go mad.' 
 
 ' You could not do a wiser thing,' says Starlight, ' in one way, 
 or more foolish thing in another. Meantime, why should we 
 not make the best of the pleasant surroundings with which 
 Nature provides us here — green turf, sparkling water, good 
 sport, and how bright a day ! Could we be more favoured by 
 Fortune, slippery dame that she is 1 It is an Australian De- 
 cameron without the naughty stories.' 
 
 ' Do you know, sometimes I really think I am enjoying my- 
 self,' said Aiieen, half to herself, ' and then I feel that it must 
 be a dream. Such dreadful things are waiting for me — for us 
 alL' Then she shuddered and trembled. 
 
 She did not know the most dreadful thing of all yet. We 
 had carefully kept it from her. We chanced its not reaching 
 her ears until after she had got home safe and Lad time to 
 grieve over it all by herself. 
 
 We had a kind of feeling somehow that us four might never 
 meet again in the same way, or be able to enjoy one another's 
 company for a month, without fear of interruption, again, as 
 long as we li-s-ed. 
 
 So we all made up our minds, in spite of the shadow of evil 
 that would crawl up now and then, to enjoy each other's com- 
 pany while it lastea, and make the best of it. 
 
 Starlight for all that seemed altered like, and every now and 
 then he'd go off with Warrigal and stay away from daylight to 
 dark. When he did come he'd sit for houi's with his handa 
 before him and never say a word to any one. I saw Aiieen 
 watch him when he looked like that, not that she ever said any- 
 thing, but pretended to take it as a matter of course. 
 
 Other times he'd be jost as much the other way. He'd read 
 
icxxix ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 301 
 
 to her, and he had a good many books, jwetry, and all kinds of 
 things stowed away in the part of the cave ne called his own. 
 And he'd talk about other countries that he'd been in, and the 
 strange people he'd seen, by the hour together, while she would 
 sit listening and looking at him, hardly saying a thing, and 
 regular bound up in his v»'ords. Aiid he could talk once he wa-s 
 set agoing. I never saw a man th»t could come up to him. 
 
 Aileen wasn't one of those sort of g^rls that took a fancy to 
 any good-looking sort of fellow that came across her. Quite 
 the other way. She seemed to think so little about it that Jim 
 and I always used to say she'd be an old maid, and never marrv 
 at all. And she used to say she didn't thiiik she ever would. 
 She never seemed to trouble her head about the thing at all, 
 but I a] ways knew that if ever she did set her fancy upon a 
 man, and take a liking to him, it would not be for a year or 
 two, but for ever. Though she'd mother's good heart and soft- 
 ness about her, she'd a dash of dad's obstinacy in her blood, 
 and once she made up her mind about anything she wasn't easy 
 turned. 
 
 Jim and I could see clear enough that she was taking to 
 Starlight ; but then so many women ha<l done that, had fallen 
 in love with him and had to fall out again— as far as we could 
 see. He used to treat them all alike— very kind and respectful, 
 but like a lot of children. What was the use of a wife to him 1 
 ' No,' he said, once or twice, ' I can bear my fate, because my 
 blood does not run in the veins of a living soul in Australia. If 
 it were otherwise I could not bear my relJections. As it is, the 
 revolver has more than once nearly been asked to do me last 
 service.' 
 
 Though both Aileen and he seemed to like each other, Jim 
 and I never thought there was anything in it, and let them talk 
 and ride and wallc together just a.« they pleased. Aileen always 
 had a good word for Starlight, and seemed to pity him so for 
 having to lead such a life, and because he said lie had no hope 
 of ever getting free from it. Then, of course, there was a 
 mystery about him. Nobody knew who he'd been, or almost 
 where he had come from — next to nothing about him had ever 
 come out. He was an Englishman — that was certain — but he 
 must have come young to the colony. No one could look at 
 him for a moment and see his pale, proud face, his dark eyes — 
 half-scornful, half-gloomy, except when he was set up a bit 
 (and then you didn't like to look at them at all) — without seeing 
 that he was a gentleman to the tips of his delicate -looking 
 fingers, no matter what he'd done, or where he'd been. 
 
 He was rather over the middle size ; because he was slight 
 made, he always looked rather tall than not. He was tremen 
 dous strong, too, though he didn't look that, and as active as 
 a cat, though he moved as if walking was too much trouble 
 altogether, and running not to be thought of. 
 
 We didn't expect it would do either of 'em much good How 
 
302 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS (mAH. 
 
 could it, even if they did fall in love •with one another and 
 make it up to get married ? But they were both able to take 
 care of themselves, and it was no use interfering with 'em 
 either. They weren't that sort. 
 
 Starlight had plenty of money, besides his share of the gold. 
 If we could ever get away from this confounded rock-walled 
 prison, good as it was in some ways ; and if he and Aileen and 
 the rest of us could make a clean dart of it and get to America, 
 we could live there free and happy yet, in spite of all that had 
 come and gone. 
 
 Aileen wasn't like to leave poor old mother as long as she 
 wanted her, so it couldn't come off for a ^ear or two at earliest, 
 and many things were sure to happen in the meanwhile. So 
 we let ail the talking and walking and riding out in the evening 
 go on as much as they pleased, and never said anything or 
 seemed to take any notice at all about it. 
 
 All this time mother was at George Storefield's. When 
 Aileen ran over that time, he said it wasn't fit for them to live 
 at Rocky Flat by themselves. So he went over that very day — 
 like a good fellow, as he was — and brought over the old woman, 
 and made them both stay at his house, safe and comfortable. 
 When Aileen said she had to go away to nurse dad he said he 
 would take care of mother till she came back, and so she'd 
 been there all the time. She knew Mrs. Storefield (G^eorge's 
 mother) well in the old times ; so they used to sit by the 
 kitchen fire when they wanted to be extra comfortable, and 
 knit stockings and talk over the good old times to their hearts' 
 content. 
 
 If it hadn't been for old Mrs. Storefield I don't expect mother 
 would have contented herself there — the cottage was got so 
 grand, Aileen told us, and Gracey had to dress a bit now. 
 George had kept on making more money in every way he tiied 
 it, and of course he began, bit by bit, to live according to his 
 means. 
 
 He'd bought cattle -stations on the Lachlan just when the 
 gold broke out first, and everybody thought station property 
 was never going to be worth nothing again. Now, since cattle 
 had rif5en and meat and all to such a price, he was making 
 money hand over fist. More than that, as I said before, he'd 
 been made a magistrate, and all the swells began to take notice 
 of him — not altogether because he'd made money either ; what I 
 call the real swells, as far as I see, won't do that. If they don't 
 care for a man — no matter how much money he's made — they 
 hold shy of him. But if he's a straight - going goo<l sort of 
 fellow, that has his head screwed on the right way, and don't 
 push himself forward too much, theyll meet him half-way, and 
 a very good thing too. 
 
 We could see George was going upwards and out of our lot, 
 beginning to mix with diS'erent people and get different notions 
 — not but what he was always kina and friendly in his way to 
 
XXXIX ROBBERY TXDER AEMS 903 
 
 Aileen and mother, and would have been to us if he'd ever seen 
 as. But all his new friends \7ere different kind of people, and 
 after a bit, Aileen said, we'd only be remembered as people he'd 
 known when he was youner, anJ soon, when the old laay died, 
 we'd be asked into the kitchen and not into the fmrlour. 
 Aileen used to laugh when she talked like this, and say she'd 
 come and see George when he'd married a lady, and what fun 
 it would Ik? to remind Gracey of the time they threshed the 
 oats out together at Rocky ^lat But still, laugh and all, I 
 could see, though she talked that way, it made her feel wretched 
 all the while, because she couldn't help thinking that we ought 
 to have done just as well as George, and might have been nigh- 
 hand as far forward if we'd kept straight. If we'd only kept 
 straight ! Ah, there was where the whole mistake lay. 
 
 It often seems to me as if men and women ought to have 
 two lives — an old one and a new one — one to repent of the 
 other ; the first one to show men what they ought to keep clear 
 of in the second. When you think how foolish-like and cnildish 
 man or woman commits their first fault, not so bad in itself, 
 but enough often to shut them out from nearly all their chances 
 of pood in this world, it does seem hardish that one life should 
 end all under the sun. Of course, there's the other, and we 
 don't know what's coming, but there's so many different notions 
 about that a chap like me gets puzzled, and looks on it as out 
 of his line altogether. 
 
 "We weren't sorry to have a little excuse to stop quiet at home 
 for this month. We couldn't have done no good by mooching 
 about, and ten to one, while the chase was so hot aft«r all that 
 were supposed to have had a hand in rubbing out Hagan and 
 his lot, we should have been dropped upon. The whole country 
 was alive with scouting parties, as well as the regulars. You'd 
 have thought the end of the world was come. Father couldn't 
 have done a l>ett/^r thing for himself and all of us than get hit 
 as he did- It kept him and us out of harm's way, and put them 
 off the scent, while they hunted Moran and Burke ana the rest 
 of their lot for their lives. They could hardly get a bit of 
 damper out of a shepherd's hut without it being known to the 
 police, and many a time they got off by the skin of their teeth. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 At last father got well, and said he didn't see what good Aileen 
 could do stopping any longer in the Hollow, unless she meant 
 to follow up bush-ranging for a living. She'd better go back 
 and stay along with her mother. If George Storefield liked to 
 have 'em there, well and good ; things looked as if it wasn't 
 safe now for a man's wif© and daughter, and if he'd got into 
 trouble, bo live peaceable and quiet in their own house. He 
 didn't think they need be afraid of any one interfering with 
 them for the future, though. Here dad looked so dark that 
 Aileen began to think he was going to be ill again. We'd all 
 start and go a bit of the way with her next day — to the old 
 stockyard or a bit farther ; she could ride from there, and take 
 the horse back with her and keep him if she liked. 
 
 ' You've been a good gal to me,' he says to her ; ' you always 
 was one ; and your mother's been a good woman and a good 
 wife ; tell her 1 said so. Td no call to have done the things I 
 have, or left home because it wasn't tidy and clean and a wel- 
 come always when I came back. It's been rough on her, and 
 on you too, my gal ; and if it'll do her any good, tell her I'm 
 dashed sorry. You can take this trifle of money. You needn't 
 boggle at it ; it's honest got and earned, long before this other 
 racket. Now you can go. Kiss your old dad ; like as not you 
 won't see him again.' 
 
 We'd got the horses in. I lifted her up on to the saddle, and 
 she rode out. Her horse was all on the square, so there was no 
 harm in her taking him back with her, and off we went. Dad 
 didn't go after all. We took it easy out to the old stockyard. 
 We meant to camp there for half-an-hour, and then to send her 
 on, with Warrigal to keep with her and show her the way home. 
 
 We didn't want to make the time too short. What a lovely 
 day it was ! The mountain sides were clogged up with mist for 
 an hour after we started ; still, any one that knew the climate 
 would have said it was going to be a fine day. There wasn't a 
 breath of air ; everything was that still that not a leaf on any 
 of the trees so much as stirred. 
 
 When we came to the pass out of the valley, we none of ua 
 
CHAP. XL ROBBERY UXDER AEMS 805 
 
 got off; it was better going up than coming downj^and it would 
 have tired Aileen out at the start to walk up. bo the horses 
 had to do their climbing. It didn't matter much t-o them. We 
 were all used to it, horses and riders. Jim and I went first, 
 then Warrigal, then Aileen and Starlight After we got up to 
 the top we all stopped and halted a bit to look round. 
 
 Just then, as ii he'd waited for us, the sun came out from 
 behind the mountain ; the mists lifted and rolled away as if 
 they had been gray curtains. Everything showed clear out like 
 a playhouse^ the same Jim and I used to see in Melbourne. 
 From where we stood you could see everything, the green valley 
 flats with the big old trees in clumps, some of "em just the same 
 as they'd been plantefl. The two little river-like silver thre^tds 
 winding away among the trees, and far on the opposite side the 
 tall gray rock towers shining among the forest edges of the high 
 green wall. Somehow the sun wasn't risen enough to light up 
 the mountain. It looked as black and dismal as if it was night- 
 fall coming on. 
 
 ' Good-bye, old Hollow ! ' Aileen called out, waWng her hand. 
 'Everything looks bright and l^eautiful except the mountain. 
 How gloomy it appears, as if it held some dreadful secret — 
 doesn't it ? Ah I what a pleasant time it has been for ma Am 
 I the same /Vileen Marston that went in there a few weeks 
 since 1 And now I suppose there will be more misery and 
 anxiety waiting for all of us when I get back. Well, come what 
 will, I have had a little happiness on this earth. In heaven 
 there must be i*est.' 
 
 We all rode on, but none of us seemed to care to say much. 
 Every step we went seemed to be taking us away from the 
 place where we d all been so happy together. The next change 
 was sure to be for the worse. UTiat it would be, or when it 
 would come, we none of us could tell. 
 
 Starlight and Aileen rode together mo^^t of the way, and 
 talked a good deal, we could see. Before we got to the stock- 
 yard she rode over to Jim and cheered him up as much as she 
 could about Jeanie. She said she'd write to her, and tell her 
 all about him, and how happy we'd all been together lately ; 
 and tell her that Jim would hnd some way to get down to her 
 this spring, if he could manage it any road. 
 
 * If I'm above ground, tell her 111 be with her,' says poor old 
 Jim, ' before Christmas. If she don't see me then I'U be dead, 
 and she may put on black and make sure she's a widow.' 
 
 'Oh, come, you mustn't talk like that, Jim, and look to the 
 bright side a bit. There's a good chance yet, now the country's 
 so full of diggers and foreigners. You try your luck, and you'll 
 see jouT wife yet' 
 
 Ihen she came to me, and talked away just like old times. 
 
 * You're the eldest, Dick,' she said, ' and so it's proper for me 
 to say what Im going to say.' Then she told me ail that was in 
 her heart about Starlight He and she had made it up that if 
 
 I 
 
806 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS orap. 
 
 he could get away to a foreign country she would join him 
 there, and take mother with her. There was to bo nc marrying 
 or love-making uul-'ss they could carry out that plan. Then 
 she told me that she had always had the same sort of feeling 
 towards him ' ^Vhen I saw him first I thought I had never 
 seen a man before — never one that I could care for or think of 
 marrying. And now he has told me that he loves me — loves me, 
 a poor ignorant girl that I am ; and I will wait for him all my 
 life, and follow him all round the world. I feel as if I could die 
 for him, or wear out my life in trying to make him happy. 
 And yet, and yet,' she said, and all her face grew sad, and put 
 on the old look that I knew so well, so hopeless, so full of quiet 
 bearing of pain, 'I have a kind of feeling at my heart that it 
 will never be. Something will happen to me or to him. We 
 are all doomed to sorrow and misfortune, and nothing can save 
 us from our fate.' 
 
 'Aileen, dear,' I said, 'you are old enough to know what's 
 best for yourself. I didn't think Starlight was on for marrying 
 any woman, but he's far and away the best man we've ever 
 known, so you can please yourself. But you know what the 
 chances are. If he gets clear off, or any of us, after what's been 
 done, you're right. But it's a hundred to one against it' 
 
 ' ril take the odds,' says she, holding up her head. * I'm will- 
 ing to put my life and happiness, what little there's left of it, 
 on the wager. Things can't well be worse.' 
 
 ' I don't know,' I said. ' I ought to tell you — I must tell you 
 something before we part, though Td a deal rather not. But 
 you'll bear it better now than in a surprise.' 
 
 ' Not more blood, more wickedness,' she said, in a half-whis- 
 
 Ser, and then she looks up stern and angry-like. 'When is this 
 st of horrible things to stop 1 ' 
 
 'It was none of our doing. Moran and Daly were in it, 
 and ' 
 
 ' And none of you ? Swear that,' she said, so quick and 
 pitiful-like. 
 
 ' None of us,' I said again ; 'nor yet Warrigal.' 
 
 'Then who did it? 'Tell me all Vm not a child. I will 
 know.' 
 
 ' You remember the man that was rude to you at Eocky Flat, 
 and father and he tired at one another?' 
 
 ' Of course I do, cowardly wretch that he was. Then Moran 
 was waiting for them up the gully? I wondered that they did 
 not come back next day.' 
 
 'They never came back,' I said. 
 
 ' Vrhy, you don't mean to tell me that they are all dead, all 
 four ? — those strong men ! Oh, surely not, Dick ? ' and she 
 caught hold of my arm, and looked up into my face. 
 
 ' Yes, Aileen, all. We came after and followed up dad, when 
 we got home • it's a wonder he did it by him.self. But we saw 
 fchem all four lying stretched out,' 
 
XL ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 807 
 
 She put down her head and never spoke more till we parted 
 
 We turned back, miserable enough all of us, God knows. 
 Aftor having Aileen to make the plac^ bright and pleasant 
 and cheer us ail up, losing her was just as if all the little 
 pleasure we had in our lives was dropped out of them — like the 
 sun going out of the sky, cand the wind rising ; like the moon 
 clouding over, and a fog burying up everything — dark and 
 damp, the same as we'd had it many a time cattle-driving by 
 night We hardly spoke a word to one another all the way 
 home, and no wonder. 
 
 Next day we all sat about, looking more down on our luck, 
 dad said, than any day since we'd 'turned out.' Then Starlight 
 told him about him and Aileen, how they'd made it up to be 
 married some day or other. Not yet, of course ; but if he could 
 get away by Melbourne to some of these places — the islands on 
 the Pacific coast, where vessels were always sailing for — he 
 didn't see why his luck shouldn't change. *I have always 
 thought your daughter,' he says to father, 'one of the grandest 
 women I ever met, in any degree, gentle or simple. She has 
 had the imprudence to care for me ; so, unless you have some 
 well-grounded objection — and I don't say you haven't, mind 
 you, I should if I were in your place — you may as well say 
 you're contented, and wish us luck ! ' 
 
 Father was a long time before he said anything. He sat 
 there, looking very sullen and set- like, while Starlight lit a 
 cigar and walked quietly up and down a few paces otT. 
 
 Dad answers at last ' I don't say but what other lads would 
 have suited better if they'd come oK, but most things goes con- 
 trary in this world. The only thing as I'm doubtful of, Captain, 
 is your luck. If that's bad, all the trying and crying won't set 
 it right. And it's great odds as you'll be caught or shot afore 
 the year's out. For thtit matter, every one of us is working for 
 Grovemment on the same road But the gal's a ^ood gal, and if 
 she's set her fancy on you I won't block ner. \ ou're a pair of 
 dashed fools, that's all, botherin' your heads with the like at a 
 time like this, when you boys are all more likely to have a rope 
 round your necks than any gal's arms, good or bad Have your 
 own way. You always managed to get it, somehow or other, 
 ever since I knowed ye.' 
 
 After this father Lit his pipe and went into the cave. 
 
 By and by he comes out again and catches the old mare. 
 
 ' I ain't been out of this blessed hole,' he .says, ' for a month of 
 Sundays. I'm dead tired of seeing nothin' and doin" nothin'. FU 
 crawl over to old Da\'y's for our letters and papers. We ain't 
 heard nothing for a year, seems to me.' 
 
 Dad was strong enough to get about in the saddle again, and 
 we weren't sorry to get shut of him for a bit He was that 
 cranky at times there was no living with him. As for ourselves, 
 we were regular wild for some sort of get away for a bit of a 
 
308 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 change ; so we hadn't talked it over very long before we made 
 up our minds to take a run over to Jonathan Barnes's and have 
 a bit of fun, just to take the taste out of our mouths of Aileen'a 
 going away. 
 
 We had to dress ourselves very quiet and get fresh horses — 
 nags that had nothing particular about them to make people 
 look, at the same time with a bit of go in them in case we were 
 pushed at any time. 
 
 No sooner said than done. We went to work and got every- 
 thing ready, and by three o'clock we were off — all three of us, 
 and never in Vjetter heart in our lives — for a bit of fun or devil- 
 ment ; it didn't matter which came first. 
 
 When we got to Jonathan's it was latish, but that didn't 
 matter to us or to the girls neither ; they were always ready for 
 a bit of fun, night or day. However, just at first they pretended 
 to be rather high and mighty about this business of Hagan's. 
 
 ' Oh ! it's you, is it ? ' says Bella, after we walked in. * I don't 
 know as it's safe for us to be kno\^4ng such dangerous characters. 
 There's a new law against harbouring, father says. He's pretty 
 frightened, I can tell you, and for two pins we'd be told to shut 
 the door in your faces.' 
 
 * You can do that if you like now,' says I ; ' we shan't want 
 telling twice. I daresay. But what makes you so stiff to-night V 
 
 'Why. Hagan's business, of coune,' says Maddie ; 'four men 
 killed in cold blood. Only I know you couldn't and wouldn't 
 be in it I'd not know any of ye from a crow. There now.' 
 
 ' Quite right, most beauteous Madeline,' says Starlight ; * it 
 was a very dreadful affair, though I believe there was some 
 reason for old Ben being angry. Of course, you know we 
 weren't within miles of the place when it was done. You re 
 member the night we were here last ? ' 
 
 ' Of course we do. Captain, quite well. Weren't you going to 
 dance at Bella's wedding and aU '] You'll have to do that 
 sooner than we expected, though.' 
 
 ' Glad to hear it, but listen to me, my dear ; I want you to 
 know the truth. We rode straight back to the — to where we 
 lived — and, of course, found the old man gone away from the 
 place. We tracked him right enough, but came up when it was 
 all over. Daly and Moran were the chief actors in that 
 tragedy.' 
 
 ' Oh, we said it was Moran's work from the first, didn't we. 
 Bill 1 It's just the line he's cut out for. I always think he 
 ought to have a bowl and dagger. He looks like the villain on 
 the stage.' 
 
 ' On or off the stage he can support the principal part in that 
 line most naturally,' says Starlight ; 'but Iprophesy he will be 
 cut off in the midst of his glorious career. He's beastly cunning, 
 but he'll be trapped yet.' 
 
 'It's a pity Jim can't stay a few days with us.' says Maddie; 
 ' I believe we'd fi^d a way of passing him on to Victoria, I've 
 
XT. ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 809 
 
 known more than one or two, or half-a-dozen either, that has 
 been put through the same way.' 
 
 * For Grod's sake, Mad, lay me on ! ' says poor Jim, * and m 
 go on my knees to you.' 
 
 ' Oh ! I daresay,' says Maddie, looking saucy, ' but I like a man 
 to be fond of some woman in a proper way, even if it isn't me ; 
 50 111 do what I OAn to help you to your wife and pickaninny.' 
 
 ' We must get you into the police force, Maddie,' says Star- 
 light, *or make you a sort of inspector, unattached, if you're so 
 clever at managing these little anairs. But what's the idea?' 
 
 * Well,' says she, settling herself in a chair, spre«uiing out her 
 dress, and looking very knowing, 'there's an old gentleman 
 being driven all the way overland in a sort of light Yankee trap, 
 and the young fellow that's driving has to find horses and feed 
 'em, and get so much for the trip.' 
 
 * Who is it ? ' says I. 
 
 *0h! you know him,' savs Maddie, looking down, 'he's a 
 great friend of mine, a hteaay-goiug, good-conducted chap, and 
 he's a little — you understand — well, shook on me, I could per 
 suade him a bit, that is ' 
 
 ' I don't doubt that at all,' says L 
 
 * Oh ! you know him a little. He says he saw you at the 
 Turon ; he was working with some Americans. His name's Joe 
 Moreton.' 
 
 ' I remember him well enough • he used to wear a moustache 
 and a chin beard, and talk YanKee. Only for that he was a 
 good deal like Jim ; we always said so.' 
 
 ' Do you see anything now, Dick, you that's so sharp ? ' says 
 Maddie. 
 
 'Bless my soul,' says Starlight, 'of course, it is aa clear as 
 your beautiful eyes. Jim is to shave hia beard, talk like a 
 Yankee, and go in Joe Moreton's place. I see it alL Maddie 
 persuading Joe to consent to the exchange of duties.' 
 
 * But what will his employer say ? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! he's as bad as hskd can be with the sandy blight,' says 
 Maddie, ' wears green goggles, poor old gentleman. Hell never 
 know nothing, and heU be able to swear up for Jim if the police 
 pull him anywhere this side of the Murray.' 
 
 We'd tola Maddie that money needn't stand in the way, so 
 she was to promise Joe the full sum that he was to get for his 
 contract would be j>aid to him in cash that night — Jim to pay 
 his own expenses as ho went, the same as he was to do himseli. 
 Of course she could get the money from old Jonathan- A word 
 from us then was worth a deal more than that'd com© to. 
 Money wasn't the worst thing we had to care about. 
 
 They would have to change clothes, and he'd tell Jim about 
 the horses, the stages, and how to answer the old cove, and what 
 to do to humour him as they went along. If he'd had his full 
 eyesight he might have noticed some difierence, bat as it was. 
 it was as much as the poor old chap, she believed, could see 
 
310 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS cuap. 
 
 there was a driver at alL His eyes was bcaud up mostly ; he 
 had a big shade over 'em, and was half the night swabbiDg and 
 poulticing, and putting lotion into 'em. He'd got sandy blight 
 that bad it would take months to get right. Once you get a 
 touch like that it's a terror, i can tell you. I've had it that bad 
 myself I had to be led about. 
 
 After a lot of talking, that Jim was to try his luck as the 
 Rev. Mr. Watson's coachman, he was mad to get away somehow, 
 and such another chance might never turn up in a month of 
 Sundays. He would have plenty of time to shave his beard and 
 make himself look as like as ever he could to Joe Moreton, 
 Maddie said she'd see after that, and it would be as good as a 
 play. Lucky for old Jim we'd all taken a fancy at the Turon. 
 tor once in a way, to talk like Arizona Bill and his mates, just 
 for the fun of the thing. There were so many Americans there 
 at first, and they were such swells, with their silk sashes, bowie 
 knives, and broad-leafed ' full-share ' hats, that lots of the young 
 native fellows took a pride in copying them, and could walk and 
 t'alk and guess and calculate wonderful well considering. Besides, 
 most of the natives have a sort of slow, sleepy way of talking, 
 so it partly came natural to this chap, Joe Moreton, and Jim. 
 There couldn't be a better chance, so we thought we'd stay a 
 day and give Jim a send off all square and regular. It wasn't 
 no ways too safe, but we wanted a bit of a jollification and we 
 thought we'd chance it. 
 
 That night we had a regular good ball. The girls got some of 
 the young fellows from round about to come over, and a couple 
 or two other girls, and we had no end of fun. There was plenty 
 of champagne, and even Jim picked up a bit ; and what with 
 being grateful to Maddie for giving him this lift, and better in 
 spirits on the chance of seeing Jeanie again, he was more like 
 his o%vn self. Maddie said he looked so handsome she had half 
 A mind to throw over Joe Moreton after alL 
 
 Joe came rather latish, and the old gentleman had a cup 
 of tea and went to bed at once, leaving word for Joe that he 
 wanted to start almost before daylight, or as soon as he could 
 see to drive, so as to get half-way on their stage before the sun 
 was hot. 
 
 After Joe had seen to his horse? and put the trap away he 
 came into the house and had a glass or two, and wired in with 
 the rest of us like a good *un. After a bit we see Maddie comer 
 him off and have a long talk, very serious too. After that they 
 went for a walk in the garden and was away a good while. 
 When she came back she looked over at Jim and nodded, as 
 much as to say, ' It's all right,' and I saw poor old Jim's face 
 brighten up as if a light had passed over it. 
 
 By and by she came over and told us all about it. She'd 
 had a hard matter to manage it, for Joe was a square sort of 
 fellow, that had a place of his own, and at first didn't like the 
 notion of being mixed ut> with our crowd at all But he was 
 
KL ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 311 
 
 regular shook on ifaddie, and she went at hiin as only a woman 
 can, and I daresay, though she didn't tell us, made it part of the 
 bargain, if she was to marry him, to help Jim in this particular 
 way. He was to be well paid for this journey by old Mr. Wat- 
 son, and he wanted a bit of money before harvest or he wouldn't 
 have taken the job at all. 
 
 The end of it was that Jim and Joe sat up ever so late, 
 pretty well on to daylight, smoking and yarning, and Joe prac- 
 tising Jim in all the things he was to do and say, giving him 
 a kind of chart of the stages, and telling him the sort of answers 
 he was to give to the old chap. It was just before daylight 
 when they knocked off, and then Joe goes and peels off his duds 
 and hinds 'em over to Jim, rough great-coat and all — up to his 
 chin and down to his toes. 
 
 Joe takes Jim's togs. They titt^ him all to pieces, and Jim 
 hands him over his horse, saddle, revolver, and spurs, and tells 
 him the old horse is a real plum, and he hopes he'll be good to 
 him. Then Jim shakes hands with us all round. Blessed if the 
 girls wasn't up too, and had some coffee smoking hot for us. 
 'We can sleep when you're all gone,' says Maddie, 'and perhaps 
 we shan't see old Jim any more' (this was said when Joe was 
 out of the room), ' so here's gooa luck ; and when you've got 
 your wife and child again don't forget Maddie Barnes.' Then 
 she shook hands with him, and made a quick bolt to her own 
 room. Queer things women are, my word. 
 
 When old Jim drove round to the front with the pair of 
 horses, setting up square with his big coat and Joe's ' full-share' 
 hat on him, we all bursted out laughing. He'd first of all gone 
 to the old gentleman's room and sung out, 'All aboard, bir, 
 time's up,' just to liven him up a bit. Joe kept away down at 
 the staVjile. 
 
 Well, presently out comes the old chap, with a veil on and 
 his gi'een goggles, winkin' and blinkin' as if he couldn't see a 
 door from a window. He drinks off' a cup of coffee and takes a 
 munch of bread and butter, makes a kind of bow to Bella, and 
 shuffles into his carriage. Jim touches up the horses and awav 
 they go. We rose a bit of a cheer. Maddie waved her hand- 
 kerchief out of the window. Jim looked round and raised his 
 whip. That was the last sight any of us had of him for many 
 * day. Poor old Jim ! 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 
 We hadn't boen long at horae, just enough to get tired of doing 
 nothing, when we got a letter from Bella Barnes, telling us that 
 she was going to get married the day after the Turon races, and 
 reminding Starlight that he had promised to come to her 
 wedding. If he didn't think it was too risky, she hoped he'd 
 come. There was going to be a race ball, and it was sure to be 
 good fun. It would be a good wind-up, and Maddie was coming 
 out a great swell. Sir Ferdinand would be there, but there'd be 
 such a crowd anybody would pass muster, and so on. 
 
 ' Yours sincerely, 
 
 ' Isabella Barnes. 
 
 * P.S. — There was a big handicap, with 500 added ; hadn't we 
 a good horse enough ? ' 
 
 * Well done, Bella ! ' says Starlight, * I vote we go, Dick. 
 I never went to a hop with a price on my head before. A 
 thousand pounds too ! Quite a new sensation. It settles the 
 question. And we'll enter Rainbow for the handicap. He 
 ought to be good enough for anything they're likely to have.' 
 
 ' Captain Starlight's Rainbow, 9st. 8 lb.,' I said, ' with Dick 
 Marston to lead him up to the judge's box. How will that wash 1 
 And what are the police going to be about all the time ? Bella's 
 gone out of her senses about her marriage and thinks we are 
 too.' 
 
 * You're a good fellow, Richard, i»nd stanch, but you're like 
 your father — you haven't any imagination. I see half-a-dozen 
 ways of doing the whole thing. Besides, our honour's concerned. 
 I never made a promise yet, for good or for evil, that I didn't 
 carry out, and some have cost me dearly enough, Gk)d knows. 
 Fancy running our horses and going to the ball under the noses 
 of the police — the idea \s delicious ! ' 
 
 ' I daresay you're about tired of your life,' I said. ' I'm pretty 
 sure I am ; but why we should ride straight into the lion's mouth, 
 to please a silly girl, I can't see. I haven't over much sense, I 
 know, or I shcuidn't be here j but I'm not such a dashed fool as 
 all that comes to.' 
 
CHAP. XLi ROBBERY UXDER ARMS 813 
 
 * My mind is made up, Richard — I have decided irrevocably. 
 Of course, you needn't come, if you 8«e objections ; but I'll bet 
 you my Dean and Adams revolver and the Navy Colt against 
 your repeating rifle that I do all I've said, and clear out safe.' 
 
 ' Done ! ' 1 said. ' I've no doubt youll try ; but you might aa 
 "^ell try to pull down the walls of Berrima (jaol with a hay-rake. 
 YouTJ make Sir Ferdinand's fortune, that's all He always said 
 he'd die happy if he could only bag you and the Marstons. Hell 
 be made IIlspecto^-G^«neral of Police.' 
 
 Starlight smiled in his queer, quiet way. 
 
 'If he doesn't rise to the top of the tree until he takes me — 
 aUve, I mean — hell die a sub-inspector. But we'd better sleep 
 on it This is an enterprise of great pith and moment, and 
 requires no end of thought. We must get your sister to come 
 over. That will crown all' 
 
 'Good-night,' I said, rather hasty. 'We'd better turn the 
 Hollow into Tarban Creek, and advertise for boarders.' 
 
 Next morning I expected he'd think better of it — we'd had a 
 glass or two of grog ; but no, he was more set on it than ever, 
 and full of dtwlges to work it to rights. He certainly was won- 
 derful clever in all sorts of ways when there was any devilment 
 to be carried out. Half as much in the straight way would have 
 made a man of him. But that's the way of the world all over. 
 He ain't the only one. 
 
 As for father, he was like me, and looked on the notion as 
 rank foolishness. He swore straight on end for about twenty 
 minutes, and then said he expected Starlight would have his 
 own way as usual ; but he'd play at that game once too often. 
 He supposed he'd be left in the Hollow all by himself, \^^th War- 
 rigal and the dog for company. 
 
 'Warrigal goes with me — might want him,' says Starlight. 
 ' You're losing your nerv e, governor. Perhaps you'd Uke to go 
 to the ball too '? ' 
 
 Father gave a sort of growl, and lit his pipe and wouldn't say 
 no more. Starlight and I regular talked it out, and, after I'd 
 heard all he had to say, it didn't look quite so impossible as it 
 did at first We were to work apart. He was to get in with 
 some of the betting men or sporting people that always came to 
 country races, and I was t-o find out some of our old digger 
 mates and box up with them. Warrigal would shift for himself 
 and look after the horses, and have tnem ready in case we had 
 to clear at short notice. 
 
 ' And who was to enter Rainl>^w and look after him ? ' 
 
 ' Couldn't we get old Jacob Benton ; he's the best trainer Pve 
 seen since I left home ? Billy the Boy told us the other day he 
 was out of a job, and was groom at Jonathan's ; had been sacked 
 for getting drunk, and so on. He'll be ail the more likely to 
 kecpBober for a month.' 
 
 'The very man,' I said. ' He can ride the weight, and train 
 too. But we can't have him here, surely 1 ' 
 
314 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 ' No ; but I can send the horse to him at Jonathan's, and he 
 can get him fit there as well as anywhere. There's nearly a 
 month yet ; he's pretty hard, and hes been regularly exercised 
 lately.' 
 
 Jacob Benton was a wizened, dried-up old Yorkshireman 
 He'd been head man in a good racing stable, but drink had 
 been the ruin of him — lost him his place, and sent him out here. 
 He could be trusted to go right through with a job like ours, 
 for all that. Like many men that drink hard, he was as sober 
 as a judge between one burst and another. And once he took 
 oyer a horse in training he touched nothing but water till the 
 race was run and the horse back in his box. Then he most 
 times went in an awful perisher — took a month to it, and was 
 never sober day or night the whole time. When he'd spent all 
 his money he'd crawl out of the township and get away into the 
 country more dead than alive, and take the first job that offered. 
 But he was fonder of training a good horse than anything else 
 in the world ; and if he'd got a regular flyer, and was treated 
 liberal, he'd hardly allow himself sleep or time to eat his meala 
 till he'd got hira near the mark. He could ride, too, and was an 
 out-and-out judge of pace. 
 
 When we'd regular chalked it out about enteiing Rainbow 
 for the Grand Turon Handicap, we sent Warrigal over to Billy 
 the Boy, and got him to look up old Jacob. He agreed to take 
 the old horse, the week before the races, and give him a last bit 
 of French-polish if we'd keep him in st/eaay work till then. 
 From what he was told of the horse he expected he would carry 
 any weight he was handicapped for and puU it off easy. He 
 was to enter him in his own name, the proper time before the 
 races. If he won he was to have ten per cent on winnings ; if 
 he lost, a ten-pound note would do him. He could ride the 
 weight with some lead in his saddle, and he'd never wet his lips 
 with grog tiJl the race was over. 
 
 So that part of the work was chalked out. The real risky 
 business was to come. I never expected we should get through 
 all straight. But the more I hung back the more shook on it 
 Starlight seemed to be. He was like a boy home from school 
 sometimes — mad for any kind of fun with a spice of devilment 
 in it. 
 
 About a week before the races we all cleared out, leaving 
 father at home, and pretty sulky too. Warrigal led Rainbow ; 
 he was to take him to Jonathan Barnes's, and meet old Jacob 
 there. He was to keep him until it was time to go to Turon. 
 We didn't show there ourselves this time ; we were afraid of 
 drawing suspicion on the pla<;e. 
 
 We rode right into Turon, taking care to be well after dark. 
 A real pleasure it was to see the old place again. The crooked 
 streets, the lighted -up shops, the crowd of jolly diggers walking 
 about smoking, or crowding round the public-house bars, the 
 row of the stampers in the quartz-crushing machines going 
 
XII ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 315 
 
 night and day. It all reminded me of the pleasant year Jim 
 and I had spent here. I wished we'd never had to leave it. We 
 parted just outside the township for fear of ticcidents, I went 
 to a little place I knew, where I put up my horse — could be 
 quiet there, and asked no questions, Stp.rlight, as usual, went 
 to the best hotel, where he ordered everybody about and was as 
 big a swell as ever. He had been out in the north-west country, 
 and was going to Sydney to close for a couple of stations that 
 had been offered to hira. 
 
 That night he went to the barber, had his hair cut and his 
 beard shaved, only leaving his moustache and a bit of whisker 
 like a ribbon. He put on a suit of tweed, all one colour, and 
 ordered a lot more clothes, which he paid for, and were to be 
 left at the hotel till he returned from Sydney. 
 
 Next day he starts for Sydney ; what he was going to do 
 there he didn't say, and I didn't ask him. He'd be back the 
 day before the races, and in good time for all the fun, and 
 Bella's wedding into the bargain, I managed to find out that 
 night that Kate Mullockson had left Turon. She and her 
 husband had sold their place and gone to another diggings just 
 opened. I was glad enough of this, for 1 knew that her eyes 
 were sharp enough to spy me out whatever disguise I had on ; 
 and even if che didn't I should always have expected to find her 
 eyes fixed upon me. I breathed freer after I heard this bit of 
 news. 
 
 The gold was better even than when we were there. A lot 
 of men who were poor enough when we were there had made 
 fortunes. The field never looked better, and the hard-driving, 
 well-paid, jolly mining life was going on just the same as ever ; 
 every one making money fast — spending it faster — and no one 
 troubling themsel/es about anything except how much the 
 washdirt went to the load, and whether the sinking was 
 through the false bottom or not. 
 
 When I first came I had a notion of mating in with some 
 diggers, but when 1 saw how quiet everybody took it, and what 
 thousands of strangers there were all over the place, I gave 
 myself out for a speculator in mining shares from Melbourne. 
 So I shaved off most of my beard, haid my hair cut short, and 
 put on a tall hat. I thought that would shift any sort of 
 likeness there might be to my old self, and, though it was 
 beastly uncomfortable, I stuck to it all the time. 
 
 I walked about among the stables and had a good look at all 
 the horses that were in training. Two or three good ones, as 
 usual, and a lot of duffers. If Rainbow wasn't beat on his con- 
 dition, he had pace and weight-carrying for the best of them. 
 I hardly thought he could lose it, or a bigger stake in better 
 company. I was that fond of the horse I thought he was good 
 enough for an English Derby. 
 
 Well, I kept dark, you be sure, and mooned about, buying a 
 share at a low price now and then just to let 'em see I had 
 
316 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 money and meant something. My name was Mr. Broraford, and 
 I lived at Petersham, near Sydney. 
 
 The day before the races thei^e was a lot of excitement in tht 
 town. Strangers kept pouring in frora everywhere round 
 about, and all the hotels were crammed full Just as I was 
 wondering whether Starlight was going to turn up till next 
 day I saw a four-in-hand drag rattle down the street to the 
 principal inn, and a crowd gather round it as three gentlemen 
 got out and went into the inn. 
 
 'You'll see after all our luggage, will you, ostler t' says one 
 of them to the groom, 'and whatever you do don't forget my 
 umbwella ! ' 
 
 Some of the diggers laughed, 
 
 ' Know those coves ^ ' I said to a man that stopped at the 
 same house as I did. 
 
 ' Don't you know ? Them's the two Mr. Dawsons, of Wide- 
 view, great sporting men, natives, and ever so rich. They've 
 some horses to run to - morrow. That's a new chum from 
 England that's come up with 'em.' 
 
 I hardly knew him at first. His own mother wouldn't, I 
 believe. He'd altered himself that wonderful as I could hardly 
 even now think it was Starlight ; and yet he wasn't a bit like 
 the young Englishman he gammoned to be last year, or the 
 Hon. Frank Haughton either. He had an eyeglass this time, 
 and was a swell from top to toe. How and when he'd picked 
 up with the Mr. Dawsons I couldn't tell ; but he'd got a\nack 
 or making people like him — especially when they didn't know 
 him. Not that it was worse when they did. It wasn't for that. 
 He was always the same. The whitest man 1 ever knew, or 
 ever shall — that I say and stick to — but of course people can't 
 be expected to associate with men that have 'done time.' Well, 
 next day was the races. I never saw such a turn-out in the 
 colony before. Every digger on the field had dropped work for 
 the day ; all the farmers, and squatters, and country people had 
 come in for miles round on all sides. The Commissioner and all 
 the police were out in full uniform, and from the first moment 
 the hotels were opened in the morning till breakfast time all 
 the bars were full, and the streets crowds with miners and 
 strangers and people that seemed to have come from the ends 
 of the earth. When I saw the mob there was I didn't see so 
 much to be jerran about, as it was fifty to one in favour of 
 any one that was wanted, in the middle of such a muster of 
 queer cattle &s was going on at Turon that day. 
 
 About eleven o'clcxjk every one went out to the course. It 
 wasn't more than a mile from town. The first race wasn't to be 
 run till twelve ; but long before that time ths road was covered 
 with horserjQen, traps of every kind and sort, every horse and 
 mare in the whole distarict. 
 
 Most of the miners went in four-horse coaches and 'buses 
 that were plying all day lon^ from the town and back ; very 
 
XM ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 317 
 
 few -walked. The country people moetiv drove in spring-carts, 
 or rode on horseback. Any young fellows that had a good 
 horse liked to show him off, of course ; the girls in habits of 
 their own make^ peri^aps, and now and then a top hat, though 
 they looked very well too. They could ride, some of them, 
 above a bit, and it made me think of the old days when Jim 
 and I and .-Vileen used to ride into Bargo races together, and 
 how proud we were of her, even when she was a little thing, 
 and we used to groom up the old pony till we nearly scrubbed 
 the hide off him. 
 
 It was no use thinking of that kind of thing, and I began to 
 wonder how Starlight was getting on with his friends, when 1 
 gaw the Dawsous' drag come up thu straight, \*'ith four upstand- 
 ing ripping bay horses in top condition, and well matclied. 
 There wa.° Starlight on the box seat, alongside of Jack Dawson, 
 the eldest brother, who could handle the ribbons in style, and 
 was a man every inch of him, only a bit too fast ; didn't care 
 about any tiling but horses and dogs, and live«i every day of his 
 life. The other brother was standing up behind, leaning over 
 and talking to Starlight, who was ' in great form,' as he used 
 to say himself, and looked as if he'd just come out of a 
 bandbox. 
 
 He had on a silk coat buttoned round him, a white top hat 
 with a blue silk veil. His eyeglass was stuck in his eye all the 
 time, and he had kid gloves on that fitted his hands like wax. 
 I really couldn't hardly take iny oath he was the same man, and 
 no wonder nobody else couldn't. I was wondering why Sir 
 Ferdinand wasn't swelling about, bowing to all the ladies, and 
 making that thoroughbred of his dance and arch his neck, when 
 I heard some one say that he'd got news that Moran and the 
 rest of 'em had stuck up a place about forty miles off, towards 
 Forbes, and Sir Ferdinand had sworn at his luck for having' to 
 miss the races ; but started off just as he was, and taken all 
 the troopers but two with him, 
 
 * Who brought the news ?' 
 
 ' Oh ! a youngster called "William Jones — said he lived out 
 there. A black boy came with him that couldn't hardly speak 
 English ; he went with 'em to show the way.' 
 
 *Well, but how did they know it was true?' says 1. * It 
 micht have been only a stall.' 
 
 ^Oh, the young fellow brought a letter from the overseer, 
 saying they might hold out for a few hours, if the police came 
 along quick.' 
 
 ' It's a good thing they started at once,' says I. ' Them boys 
 are very useful sometimes, and biackfellows too.' 
 
 I went off then, and had a laugh to myself. I was pretty 
 middling certain it was Billy the Boy and tVarrigal. Starlight 
 had wrote the note before we started, only I didn't think they'd 
 be game to deliver it ihemselves. 
 
 Now the police was away, all but a couple of young fellows 
 
318 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 —I -went and had a look to make snre — that didn't know any 
 of us by sight, I thought we might enjoy ourselves for once in 
 a way without watching every one that came nigh us. And we 
 did enioy ourselves. I did, I know ; though you'd think, as we 
 carriea our lives in our hands, in a manner of speaking, the fun 
 couldn't have been much. But it's a queer world ! Men like 
 us, that don't know what's to happen to them from one day to 
 another, if they can only see their way for a week ahead, often 
 have more real pleasure in the bit of time they have to them- 
 selves than many a man las in a year that has no call to care 
 about time or money or be afraid of anybody. 
 
 As for Starlight, if he'd been going to be hung next week it 
 would have been all one to him. He'd have put off thinking 
 about it until about an hour before, and then would have made 
 all his arrangements and done the whole business quietly and 
 respectably, without humbug, but without any flashness either. 
 You couldn't put him wrong, or make him do or say anything 
 that was out of place. 
 
 However, this time nobody was going to be hung or took or 
 anything else. We'd as good as got a free pardon for the time 
 being, now the police was away ; no one else would have 
 meddled with us if we'd had our names printed on our hats. 
 So we made the most of it, I expect. Starlight carried on all 
 sorts of high ropes. He was introduced to all the nobs, and I 
 saw him in the grand stand and the saddling-paddock, taking 
 the odds in tens and fifties from the ringmen — he'd brought 
 a stiffish roll of notes with him — and backing the Dawson stable 
 right out. 
 
 It turned out afterwards that he'd met them at an inn on 
 the mountains, and helped them to doctor one of their leaders 
 that had been griped. So they took a fancy to him, and, being 
 free-hearted sort of fellows, asked him to keep them company 
 in the drag, and let one of the grooms ride his horse. Once he 
 started he kept them alive, you may be sure, and by the time 
 they got to Turon they were ready to go round the world with 
 him, and swore they'd never met such a man in their lives — 
 very likely they hadn't, either. He was introduced to the 
 judge and the stewards and the Commissioner and the police 
 magistrate, and as much fuss made over him as if he was the 
 Grovernoi-'s son. It was as good as a play. I got up as near as 
 I dared once or twice, and I couldn't hardly keep from bursting 
 out laughing when I saw how grave he talked and drawled and 
 put up his eyeglass, and every now and then made 'em all 
 laugh, or said something reminded him of India, where he'd 
 last come from. 
 
 Well, that was a regular fizzer of a spree, if we never had 
 another. The racing was very fair, and, as luck would have it, 
 the Dawson horses won all the big money, and, as they sta,rtea 
 at longish odds, they must have made a pot of money, and 
 Starlight too, as he'd gone in a docker for their stable. This 
 
XLi ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 319 
 
 made them better friends than ever, and it was Dawson here 
 and Lascelles there all over the course. 
 
 Well, the day went over at last, and all of them that liked a 
 little fun and dancing better than heavy drinking made it up 
 to go to the race ball. It was a subscription afllair — guinea 
 tickets, just to keep out the regular roughs, and the proceeds 
 to go to the Turon Jockey Club Fund. All the swells had to go, 
 of course, and, though they knew it would be a crush and pretty 
 mixed, as I heard Starlight say, the room was large, the band 
 was good, and they expected to get a fair share of dancing 
 after an hour or so. 
 
 Starlight and the Dawsons dined at the camp, and were 
 made a good deal of — their health drunk and what not — and 
 Starlight told us afterwards he returned tlianks for the strangers 
 and visitors ; said he'd been told Australia was a rough place, 
 but he never expected to find so much genuine kindness and 
 hospitality and, he might arid, so much refinement and gentle- 
 manly feeling. Speaking for himself, he had never expected, 
 considering Lis being a total stranger, to be welcomed so 
 cordially and entertained so handsomely, more particularly at 
 the mess of her Majesty's goldfields otficials, whose attention on 
 this occasir-i they might be assured he would never forget. He 
 would rept -t, the events of this particular day would never be 
 effaced from his memory. (Tremendous cheering.) 
 
 After dinner, and when the champagne had gone round 
 pretty reasonable, the Commissioner proposed they should all 
 adjourn to the ball, when, if Atr. Lascelles cared about dancing, 
 he ventured to think a partner or two could be found for him. 
 So they all got up and went away down to the hall of the 
 Mechanics' Institute— a tremendous big room that had been 
 built to use as a theatre, and to give lectures and concerts in. 
 These sort of things are very popular at diggings. Miners 
 like to l^e amused, and have plenty of money to spend when 
 times are good. There was hardly a week passed without some 
 kind of show being on when we went there. 
 
 I walked down quietly an hour or so before most of the 
 people, so as to be in the way to see if Aileen came. We'd 
 asked her to come on the chance of meeting us there, but we 
 hadn't got any word, and didn't know whether she could man- 
 age it nor whether George would bring her. I had a sort of 
 half-and-half notion that perhaps Gracey might come, but I 
 didn't like to think of it for fear of being disappointed, and 
 tried to make believe I didn't expect her. 
 
 I gave in my ticket and walked in about eight o'clock, and 
 sat down pretty close to the door so that I could see the people 
 as they came in. I didn't feel much up to dancing myself, but 
 I'd have ridden a thousand miles to have had the chance of 
 seeing those two girls that night. 
 
 I waited and waited while one after another came in, till the 
 big hall was pretty near filled, and at nine o'clock or so the 
 
820 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ciiap. 
 
 music struck up, and the first dance began. That left the seats I 
 pretty bare, and between listening to the music and looking at 
 the people, and thinking I was V)ack again at the old ciainj and 
 pa.ssing half-an-hour at a dance-house, I didn't mind the door so 
 Giuch till I heard somebodj'- give a sort of sigh not very far oil, 
 and I looked towards the door and saw two women sitting be- 
 tween me and it. 
 
 They were Aileen and Gracey sure enough. My head almost 
 turned round, and I felt my heart beat — beat in a way it never 
 did when the bullets were singing and whistling all about. It 
 was the suddenness of it, I expect. I looked at them for a bit. 
 They didn't see me, and were just looking about them as I did. 
 They were dressed very quiet, but Gracey had a little more 
 ornament on her, and a necklace or something round her neck. 
 Aileen was very pale, but her beautiful dark hair was dressed 
 up a bit with one rosebud in it, and her eyes looked bigger and 
 brighter than they used to do. She looked sad enough, but 
 every now and then Gracey said something that made her smile 
 a bit, and then I thought she was the handsomest girl in the 
 room. Gracey had just the same steady, serious, kind face as 
 ever : she'd hardly changed a bit, and seemed pleased, just like 
 a child at the play, with all that was going on round about. 
 
 There was hardly anybody near the corner where they were, 
 so I got up and went over. They both looked at me for a 
 minute as if they'd never seen me before, and then Aileen turned 
 as pale as deato, and Gracey got altogether as red, and both 
 held out their hands. I sat down by the side of Aileen, and 
 we all began to talk. Not much at first, and very quiet, for 
 fear notice might be taken, but I managed to let them know 
 that the police had all been called off in another direction, and 
 that we should be most likely safe till to-morrow or next 
 day. 
 
 ' Oh dear ! ' says Gracey, ' wasn't it awfully rash of you to 
 come here and run all this risk just to come to Bella Barnes's 
 wedding 1 I believe I ought to be jealous of that girl.' 
 
 'All Starlight's fault,' I said ; ' but anyhow, it's through him 
 we've had this meeting here. I was dead against coming all the 
 time, and I never expected things to turn out so lucky as they 
 have done.' 
 
 '■ Will he be here to-night ? ' Aileen says, very soft and timid 
 like. ' I almost wished I'd stayed away, but Gracey here would 
 coma Young Cyrus Williams brought us. He wanted to show 
 his wife the races, and take her to the ball There they are, 
 dancing together. George is away at the races.' 
 
 ' You will see Starlight about ten or eleven o'clock, I expect,' 
 I said. ' He's dining with the Commissioner and the camp 
 officers. They'll all come together, most likely.' 
 
 'Dining at the camp !' says Aileen, looking regularly perished. 
 ' You don't mean to say they've taken him ? ' 
 
 'I mean what I say. He's here with the Mr. Dawsons, of 
 
iXLi ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 321 
 
 Wideview, and has been hand-and-glove with all the swells. 1 
 hardly think you'll know him. It's as much as I did.' 
 
 Poor Aileen gave another sigh. 
 
 ' Do you think he'll know me?' she says. ' Oh ! what a foolish 
 girl I was to think for a moment that he could care about a girl 
 like me. Oh ! I wish I had never come.' 
 
 * Nonsense,' says Gracey, who looked a deal brighter on it. 
 * Why, if he's the man you say he is, this will only bring him 
 out a bit. What do you think, Di — I mean ^Ir. Jones 1 ' 
 
 ' That's right, Miss Storefield,' says I. * Keep to the company 
 manners to night. We don't know who may be listening ; but 
 I'm not much afraid of being bowled out this particular night. 
 Somehow I feel ready to chance everything for an hour's happi- 
 ness like this.' 
 
 Gracey said nothing, but looked down, and Aileen kept turn- 
 ing towards the door as if she half hoped and was half afraid of 
 seeing him come in. By and by we heard some one say, ' Here 
 comes the Commissioner ; all the camp will be here now,' and 
 there was a bit of a move to look at them as they came in. 
 
CHAPTER XUI 
 
 A GOOD many gentlemen and ladies that lived in the town and 
 in the diggings, or near it, had come before this and had been 
 dancing away and enjoying themselves, though the room was 
 pretty full of diggers and all sorts of people. But as everybody 
 was quiet and well behaved, it didn't make much odds who was 
 there. 
 
 But, of course, the Commissioner was the great man of the 
 whole place, and the principal visitors, like the Mr. Dawsons and 
 some others, were bound to come along with him. Then there 
 were the other Government officers, the bankers and surveyors, 
 lawyers and doctors, and so on. All of them took care to come 
 a little late with their wives and families so as to be in the room 
 at the same time as the swell lot. 
 
 Bella Barnes was going to marry a surveyor, a wildish young 
 fellow, but a good one to work as ever was. She was going to 
 chance his coming straight afterwards. He was a likely man 
 to rise in his office, and she thought she'd find a way to keep 
 him out of debt and drinking and gambling too. 
 
 Well, in comes the Commissioner and his friends, very grand 
 indeed, all dressed like swells always do in the evening, I believe, 
 black all over, white tie, shining boots, white kid gloves, flower 
 in their buttonhole, all regular. People may laugh, but they 
 did look different from the others — showed more blood like. 1 
 don't care what they say, there is ^uch a thing. 
 
 Close by the Commissioner, laughing and talking, was the 
 two Mr. Dawsons ; and — I saw Aileen give a start — who should 
 come next, cheek by jowl with the police magistrate, whom he'd 
 been making laugh with something he'd said as they came in, but 
 Starlight himself, looking like a regular prince — their pictures 
 anyhow — and togged out to the nines like all the rest of 'em. 
 Aileen kept looking at him as he lounged up the ballroom, and 
 I thought she'd faUdown in a faint or bring herself to people's 
 , notice by the wild, earnest, sad way she looked at him. How 
 ever he'd got his clothes and the rest of it that fitted him like 
 as if the^d been grown for him, T couldn't think. Brd of course 
 
CHAP. XLii ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 323 
 
 he'd made all that right when he went to Sydney, and had 'em 
 sent up with his luggage in Mr. Dawson's drag.' 
 
 Though he didn't seem to notice anything, T saw that he 
 knew us. He looked round for a moment, and smiled at 
 Aileen. 
 
 ' That's a pretty girl,' he said to one of the young fellows ; 
 ' evidently from the country. I must get introduced to her.' 
 
 * Oh, well introduce you,' says the other man. ' They're not 
 half bad fun, these bush girls, some of them.* 
 
 Well, a new dance was struck up by the band just after 
 they'd got up to the top of the room, and we saw Starlight 
 taken up and introduced to a grand lady, the wife of the head 
 banker. The Commissioner and some of the other big wigs 
 danced in the same quadrille. We all moved a bit higher to 
 get a good look at him. His make-up was wonderful We 
 could hardly believe our eyes. His hair whs a deal shorter than 
 he ever wore it (except in one place), and lied shaved nearly all 
 but his moustache. That was dark brown and heavy. You 
 couldn't see his mouth except when he smiled, and then his 
 teeth were as white as Warrigal's nearly and as regular. There 
 was a softness, too, about his eyes when he was in a good 
 temper and enjoying himself that I hardly ever saw in a man's 
 face. I could see Aileen watching him when he talked to this 
 lady and that, and sometimes she looked as if she didn't 
 enjoy it. 
 
 He was only waiting his chance, though, for after he'd had a 
 dance or two we saw him go up to one of the stewards. They 
 had big rosettes on, and presently they walked round to us, ana 
 the steward asked the favour of Aileen's name, and then begged, 
 by virtue of his office, to present Lieutenant Lascelles, a gentle- 
 man lately from India, who had expressed a wish to be 
 introduced to her. Such a bow Starlight made, too. We could 
 hardly help staring. Poor Aileen hardly knew whether to 
 laugh or to cry when he sat down beside her and asked for the 
 pleasure of a dance. 
 
 She wouldn't do that. She only came there to see him, she 
 said, and me ; but he persuaded her to walk round the room, 
 and then they slipped into one of the supper-rooms, where they 
 were able to talk without being disturbed, and say what they 
 had in their hearts. I got Gracey to take a turn with me, and 
 we were able to have our little say. She was, like Aileen, 
 miserable enough and afraid to think of our ever having the 
 chance of getting married and living happy like other people, but 
 she told me she would wait and remain faithful to me — if it was 
 to her life's end — and that as soon as I could get away from the 
 country and promise her to leave our wild lives behind she was 
 ready to join us and follow me all over the world Over and 
 over again she tried to persuade me to get away like Jim, and ' 
 said how happy he was now, and how much better it was than 
 9toDping where we were and running terrible risks every day 
 
324 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 and every hour. It was the old story over again ; but 1 felt 
 better for it, and really meant to try and cut loose from all this 
 cross TTOfk. We hadji't too much time. Aileen waa fetched 
 back to her seat, and then Starlight went off to his friends at 
 the other end of the room, and was chaffed for flirting with a 
 regular currency lass by one of the Dawsons, 
 
 ' I admire his taste,' says the Commissioner. ' I really think 
 she's the prettiest girl in the room if she was well dressed and 
 had a little more animation. I wonder who she isl Wliat's 
 her name, Lascelles ? I suppose you know all about her by this 
 time.' 
 
 ' Her name is Martin, or Marston, or some such name,' 
 answered Starlight, quite cool and pleasant. 'Deuced nice, 
 sensible girl, painfully quiet, though. Wouldn't dance, though, 
 at all, and talked very little.' 
 
 'By Jove ! I know who she is,' says one of the young chaps. 
 ' That's Aileen Marston, sister to Dick and Jim. No wonder sne 
 isn't over lively. Why, she has two brothers bush-rangers, 
 regular out-and-outers. There's a thousand on each of their 
 heads.' 
 
 * Good gad ! ' says Starlight, * you don't say so ! Poor girl ! 
 What a most extraordinary country ! You meet with surpwises 
 every day, don't you ? ' 
 
 * It's a pity Sir Ferdinand isn't here,' said the Commissioner. 
 ' I believe she's an acquaintance of his. I've always heard she 
 was a splendid girl, though, poor thing, frets to death about her 
 family. I think you seem to have cheered her up, though, 
 Lascelles. She doesn't look half so miserable as she did an 
 hour ago.' 
 
 ' Naturally, my dear fellow,' says Starlight, pulling his 
 moustache ; ' even in this savage country — beg your pardon — 
 one's old form seems to be appreciated. Pardon me, I must 
 regain my partner ; I am engaged for this dance.' 
 
 ' You seem disposed to make the most of your opportunities,' 
 says the Commissioner. 'Dawson, you'll have to look after 
 your friend. Who's the enslaver now ? ' 
 
 * I didn't quite catch her name,' says Starlight lazily ; ' but 
 it's that tall girl near the pillar, with the pale face and dark 
 eyes.' 
 
 'You're not a bad judge for a new chum,' says one of the 
 goldfield subs. ' Why, that's Maddie Barnes. I think she's the 
 pick of all the down-the-river girls, and the best dancer here, 
 out-and-out. Her sister's to be married to-morrow, and we're 
 all going to see her turned off.' 
 
 ' BeaUy, now ? ' says Starligiit, putting up his eyeglass. ' I 
 begin to think I must write a book. I'm falling upon adven- 
 tures hourly. Oh, the " Morgen-blatter." What a treat ! Can 
 she valse, do you think ? ' 
 
 'You try her,' says the young fellow. 'She's a regular 
 stunner. 
 
XLU ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 826 
 
 It was a ^ine, large i-ooiii, and the band, mostly Grermans, 
 struck up some outlandish queer sort of tune that I'd never 
 heard anything like before ; whatever it was it seemed to suit 
 most of the dancing people, for the floor was pretty soon full 
 up, and everybody twisting round and round as if they were 
 never going to stop. But, to my mind, there was not a couple 
 there that was a patch on Maddie and Starlight. He seemed 
 to move round twice as light and easy as any one else ; he looked 
 somehow different from all the others. As for Madaie, where- 
 ever she picked it up she went like a bird, with a free, springy 
 sort of sliding step, and all in time to the music, anybody could 
 see. After a bit some of the people sat down, and 1 could hear 
 them passing their remarks and admiring both of 'cm till the 
 music stopped. I couldn't make out whether Aileen altogether 
 liked it or not ; anyhow she didn't say anything. 
 
 About an hour afterwards the camp party left the room, and 
 took Starlight with them. Some one said there was a little loo 
 and hazard at the Commissioner's rooms. Cyrus Williams was 
 not in ^ hurry to go home, or his young wife either, so I stayed 
 and walked about with the two girls, and we had ever so much 
 talk together, and enjoyed ourselves for once in a quiet way. A 
 
 ?ood crowd was sure to be at Bella Barnes's wedding next day. 
 t was fixed for two o'clock, so as not to interfere with the races. 
 Tlie big handicap was to be run at three, so we should be able 
 to be at the church when Bella was turned off, and see Rainbow 
 go for the great race of the day afterwards. When that was run 
 we intended to clear. It would be time for us to go then. 
 Things were middling straight, but it mightn't last. 
 
 Next day was the great excitement of the meeting. The 
 ' big money ' was all in the handicap, and there was a big field, 
 with two or three cracks up from Sydney, and a very good local 
 horse that all the diggers were sweet on. It was an open race, 
 and every man that nad a note or a fiver laid it out on one hoi se 
 or another. 
 
 Kainbow had been entered in proper time and all regular by 
 old Jacob, under the name of Darkie, which suited in all ways. 
 He was a dark horse, sure enough ; dark in colour, and dark 
 enough as to his performances — nobody knew much about them. 
 We weren't going to enter him in his right name, of course. 
 
 Old Jacob was a queer old fellow in all liis ways and notions, 
 so wo couldn't stable him in any of the stables in Turon, for fear 
 of his being * got at,' or something. So when I wanted to see 
 him the day before, the old fellow grinned, and took me away 
 about a mile from the course ; and there was old llainbow, snug 
 enough — in a tent, above all places ! — but as fine as a star, and 
 as fit as ever a horse was brought to the post. 
 
 * WTiat's the fun of having him under canvas 1 ' I said. * Who 
 ever heard of a horse being trained in a tent before ? — not but 
 what he looks first-chop.' 
 
 ' I've seen hoi ses trained in more ways than one,' says he, 
 
326 ROBBEEY UNDER AEAIS chaf 
 
 ' and I can wind 'em up, in the stable and out of it, as mightj 
 few in this country can — that is, when I put the muzzle on 
 There's a deal in knowing the way horses is brought up. Nov 
 this here's an excitable hoss in a crowd.' 
 
 'Is Le?' I said. 'Why, he's as cool and steady as an oi. 
 trooper when ' 
 
 ' When powder's burning and bullets is flying,' says the ok 
 chap, grinning again ; ' but this here's a different crowd. WheL 
 he's got a training saddle and seven or eight stone up, anc 
 there's two or three hundred horses rattling about this side oju 
 him and that, it brings out the old racehorse feeling that's in 
 his blood, and never had a chance to show itself afore.' 
 
 'I see, and so you want to keep him quiet till the last 
 minute 1 ' 
 
 ' That's just it,' says he ; ' I've got the time to a second ' — here 
 he pulls out a big old turnip of a silver watch — ' and I'll have 
 him up just ready to be weighed out last. I never was late in 
 my life.' 
 
 ' All right,'" I said, ' but don't draw it too fine. Have you got 
 your weight all right ? ' 
 
 ' Eight to a bounce,' says he, ' nine stun four they've put on 
 him, and him an untried horse. I told 'em it was weighting 
 him out of the race, but they laughed at me. Never you mind^ 
 tihough, he can carry weight and stay too. My ten per cent's as 
 safe as the bank. He'll put the stuns on all them nobs, too, 
 that think a racehorse must always come out of one of their 
 training stables.' 
 
 ' Well, good-bye, old man,' says I, ' and good luck. One of us 
 will come and lead you into the weighing yard, if you pull it off, 
 and chance the odds, if Sir Ferdinand himself was at the gate.' 
 
 ' All right,' says he, ' I'll look out for you,' and off he goes. I 
 went back and told Aiieen and Gracey, and we settled that they 
 were to drive out to the course with Cyrus Williams and his 
 wife. I rode, thinking myself safer on horseback, for fear of 
 accidents. Starlight, of course, went in the Dawsons' drag, and 
 was going to enjoy himself to the last minute. He had his horse 
 ready at a moment's notice, and Warrigal was not far off to give 
 warning, or to bring up his horse if we had to ride for it. 
 
 Well, the first part of the day went well enough, and then 
 about half -past one we all went down to the church. The young 
 fellow that was to marry Bella Barnes was known on ihe lield 
 and well liked by the miners, so a good many of them made it 
 up to go and see the wedding. They'd heard of Bella and 
 Maddie, and wanted to see what they looked like. 
 
 The church was on the side of the town next the racecourse, 
 bO they hadn't far to go. By and by, as the crowd moved that 
 way^ Starlight says to the Commissioner — 
 WTiere are all these good folks making for ,= 
 
 'Why, the fact is there's to be a wedding,' he says, *and it 
 excites a good deal of attention es the young people are well 
 
XLii ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 827 
 
 Known on the field and popular. Bella Barnes and her sister are 
 very tine girls in their way. Suppose we go and look on too ! 
 There won't be anything now before the big race.' 
 
 ' By Jove ! a first-rate ideah,' says Starlight. * I should like to 
 see an Australian wedding above all things.' 
 
 'This will be the real thing, then, ' says Mr. Jack Dawson. 
 ' Let's drive up to our hotel, put up the horses, have a devil and 
 a glass of champagne, and we can be back easy in time for the 
 race.' So away they went. Cyrus drove the girls and his wife 
 in his dogcart, so we were there all ready to see the bride come up. 
 
 It looked a regular grand affair, my word. The church was 
 that crammed there was hardly a place to sit or stand in. Every 
 woman, young and old, in the countryside was there, besides 
 hundreds of diggers who sat patiently waiting as if some 
 wonderful show were going to take place. Aileen and Gracey 
 had come in early and got a pew next to the top almost. I 
 stood outside. There was hardly a chance for any one else to 
 get in. 
 
 By and by up comes old Jonathan, driving a respectable 
 looking carriage, with his wife and Bella and Maddie all in 
 white silk and satin, and looking splendid. Out he gets, and 
 takes Bella to walk up the middle of the church. When he 
 went in with Bella, Maddie had one look in, and it seemed so 
 crammed full of people that she looked frightened and drew 
 back. Just then up comes the Mr. Dawsons and Starlight, with 
 the Commissioner and a few more. 
 
 Directly he sees Maddie draw back, Starlight takes the whole 
 thing in, and walked forward. 
 
 * My dear jroung lady,' says he, ' will you permit me to escort 
 you up the aisle ? The bride appears to have preceded you.' 
 
 He ofiered her his arm, and, if you'll believe me, the girl 
 didn't know him a bit in the world, and stared at him like a 
 perfect stranger. 
 
 * It's all right, Miss Maddie,' says the Commissioner. He had 
 a way of knowing all the girls, as far as a laugh or a bit of chaff 
 went, especially if they were good-looking. ' Mr. Lascelles is an 
 English gentleman, newly arrived, and a friend of mine. He's 
 anxious to learn Australian ways.' 
 
 She took his ai-m then and walked on, never looking at him, 
 but quite shy-like, till he whispered a word in her ear which 
 brought more colour into her face than any one had seen there 
 before for a year. 
 
 ' My wora, Lascelles knows how to talk to 'em,' says Jack 
 Dawson. * He's given that girl a whip that makes her brighten 
 up. What a chap he is ; you can't lick him.' 
 
 * Pretty fair all round, I should say,' says the other brother. 
 Bill. ' Hullo ! are we to go on the platform with the parson and 
 the rest of 'em 1 ' 
 
 The reason was that as we went up the church all together, 
 all in a heap, with the Barneses and the bride, they thought we 
 
328 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 must be related to 'em ; and the church being choke-full they 
 shunted us on to the place inside the rails, where we found our- 
 selves drafted into the small yard with the bridegroom, the 
 bride, the parson, and all that mob. 
 
 There wa.sn't much time to spare, what with the racing and 
 the general bustle of the day. The miners gave a sort of buzz 
 of admiration as Bella and Maddie and the others came up the 
 aisle. They looked very weD, there's no manner of doubt. They 
 were both tallish girls, slight, but well put together, and had 
 straight features and big bright eyes, with plenty of fun and 
 meaning in 'em. All thev wanted was a little more colour like, 
 and between the hurry for time and Bella getting marrie<i, a 
 day's work that don't come often in any one's life, and having 
 about a thousand people to look at 'em, both the girls were 
 flushed up a good deal. It set them off first-rate. I never saw 
 either of them look so handsome before. Old Barnes had come 
 down well for once, and they were dressed in real good style — 
 hadn't overdone it neither. 
 
 When the tying-up fakement was over everything went of} 
 first-rate. The bridegroom was a hardy-looking, upstanding 
 young chap that looked as if work vras no trouble to him. Next 
 to a squatter I think a Grovernment sur\'eyor's the best billet 
 going. He can change about from one end of the district to 
 another. He has a good part of his time the regular free bush 
 life, with his camp and his men, and the harder he works the 
 more money he makes. Then when he comes back to town he 
 can enjoy himself and no mistake. He is not tied to regular 
 hours like other men in the service, and can go and come when 
 he likes pretty well Old Barnes would be able to give Bella 
 and her sister a tidy bit of money some day, and if they took 
 care they'd be comfortable enough off after a fevr years. He 
 might have looked higher, but Bella would make any man she 
 took to a slashing good wife, and so she did him. So the parson 
 buckles them to, and the last words were said. Starlight steps 
 forward and says, 'I believe it's the custom in all circles to 
 salute the bride, which I now do,' and he gave Bella a kiss before 
 every one in the most high and mighty and respectful manner, 
 just as if he was a prince of the blood. At the same time he 
 says, 'Ivv'ish her every happiness and good fortune in her 
 married life, and I beg of her to accept this trifling gift as a 
 souvenir of the happy occasion.' Then he pulls off a ring from 
 his little finger and slips it on hers. The sun glittered on it for 
 a moment. Vfe could see the stones sliine. It was a diamond 
 ring, every one could see. Then the Commissioner steps forward 
 and begs to be permitted the same pri-vdlege, which made Bella 
 laugh and blush a bit. Directly after !^Ir. Chanewood, who had 
 stood quiet enough along.side or his wife, tucked her arm inside 
 of his and walked away down the church, as if he thought this 
 kind of thiiig was well enough in its way, but couldn't be allowed 
 to laf;t all day. 
 
XLii ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 329 
 
 When they got into the carriage and drove oflf the whole 
 church was cleared, and they got such a choer as you might have 
 heard at Tambaroora, The parson ^v;is the only living soul left 
 near the building in five minutes. Everybody was in such a 
 hurry to get back to the course and see the big race of the 
 meeting. 
 
 Stai-iight slipped away in the crowd from hi3 two friends, 
 and managed to get a quiet few minutes with me and Gracey 
 and Aileen ; she was scolding him between jest and earnest for 
 the kissing business, and said she thought he was going to leave 
 off these sort of attentions to other girls, 
 
 ' Not that she knew you at first, a bit in the world,' Aileen 
 said. ' T watched her face pretty close, and I'm sure she thought 
 you were some grand gentleman, a friend of the Commissioner's 
 and the Mr. Dawsons. 
 
 ' ^[y dearest girl,' said he, *it was a promise I made months 
 since that I should attend Bella's wedding, and I never break 
 my word, as I hope you will find. These girls have been good 
 friends and true to us in our need. We all owe them much. I 
 don't suppose we shall cross each other's path again.' 
 
 There wasn't much more time. We tx)th had to move off. 
 He had just time to catch his drag, and I had to get my horse. 
 The Dawsons bullied him a bit for keeping them waiting, and 
 swore he had stayed behind to flirt with some of the girls in the 
 church after the wedding ws^ over. 
 
 'You're not to be trusted when there's temptation going,' 
 Jack Dawson said, * Saw you talking to that Marston girl If 
 you don't mind youll have your head knocked off They're a 
 rum lot to deal with, I can tell vou.' 
 
 ' I must take care of myself,' he said, laughing. ' I have done 
 so in other lands, and I suppose yours is no exception.' 
 
 'This is a dashed queer country in some ways, and with 
 deuced strange people in it, too, as you'll find by the time you've 
 had your colonial experience,' says Bill Dawson ; ' but there 
 goes the saddling-bell ! ' 
 
 The course had 20,000 people on it now if there was one. 
 About a dozen horses stood stripped for the race, and the betting 
 men were yelling out the odds as we got close enough to the 
 stand to hear them. We had a good look at the lot. Three or 
 four good-looking ones among them, and one or two flyers that 
 had got in light as usuaL Eainbow was nowhere about. 
 Darkie was on the card, but no one seemed to know where he 
 was or anything about him. We expected he'd start at 20 to 
 i, but somehow it leaked out that he was entered by old Jacob 
 Benton, and that acted as a damper on the layers of the odds. 
 ' Old Jake's generally there or thereabouts. If he's a duffer, it's 
 the first one he's brought to the post. WTiy don't the old varmint 
 show up 1 ' 
 
 This was what I heard about and round, and we began to get 
 une^.sv ourselves, for i\^ar that something mijrht have happened 
 
330 ROBBEEY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 to liim or the horse. About 8 or 9 to 1 was all we could get, and 
 that we took over and over again. 
 
 As the horses came up the straight, one aft^er the other, 
 having theii' pipe-openers, you'd have thought no race had been 
 run that week, to see the interest all the people took in it. My 
 word, Australia is a horsey country, and no mistake. With the 
 exception of Arabia, perhaps, as they tell us about, I can't think 
 as there's a country on the face of the earth where the people's 
 fonder of horses. From the time they're able to walk, boys and 
 girls, they're able to ride, and ride well. See the girls jump on 
 bare-backed, with nothing but a gunny-bag under 'em, and ride 
 over logs and stones, through scrub and forest, down gullies, or 
 along the side of a mountain. And a horse race, don't they love 
 it ? Wouldn't they give their souls almost — and they do often 
 enough — for a real flyer, a thoroughbred, able to run away from 
 everything in a country race. The horse is a fatal animal to us 
 natives, and many a man's ruin starts from a bit of horse-flesh 
 not honestly come by. 
 
 But our racing ain't going forward, and the day's passing 
 fast. As I said, everybody was looking at the horses — coming 
 along with the rush of the thoroughbred when he's ' on his top ' 
 for condition ; his coat like satin, and bis legs like iron. There 
 were lots of the bush girls on horseback, and among them I soon 
 picked out Maddie Barnes. She was dressed in a handsome 
 habit and hat. How she'd had time to put them on since the 
 wedding I couldn't make out, but women manage to dress faster 
 sometimes than others. She'd wasted uo time anyhow. 
 
 She was mounted on a fine, tall, upstanding chestnut, and 
 Joe Moreton vv^as riding alongside of her on a good-looking bay, 
 togged out very superior also. Maddie was in one of her lark- 
 ing humours, and gave Joe quite enough to do to keep time 
 with her, 
 
 ' I don't see my horse here yet,' she says to Joe, loud enough 
 for me to hear ; but she knew enough not to talk to me or pre- 
 tend to know me. ' I want to back him for a fiver. I hope that 
 old Jacob hasn't gone wrong.' 
 
 'What do you call your horse?' says Joe. *I didn't know 
 your father had one in this race.' 
 
 ' No fear,' says ^laddie ; ' only this horse was exercised for a 
 bit near our place. He's a regular beauty, and there isn't a 
 horse in this lot fit to see the way he goes.' 
 
 ' Who does he belong to ? ' say:. Toe. 
 
 ' That's a secret at present,' says she ; ' but you'U know some 
 day, when you're a bit older, if you behave vourself . He's Mr. 
 Jacob Benton's Darkie now, and you bet on Lim to the coat on 
 your back.' 
 
 ' I'll see what I think of him first,' says Joe, who didn't fancy 
 having a horse rammed down his throat like that. 
 
 'If you don't like him you don't lik** me,' says Maddie. *So 
 taind that, Joe Moreton.' 
 
XLii ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 331 
 
 Just as she spoke there wajs a stir in the crowd, and old 
 Jacob came along across the course leading a horse with a sheet 
 on, just as easy-going aa if he'd a day to spara One of the 
 stewards rode up to hi in, and asked him what he meant by being 
 so late. 
 
 The old chap pulls out his watch. ' You'll stick to vour 
 advertised time, won't you 1 I've time to weigh, time to puil off 
 this here sh^^et and my overcoat, time to mount, and a minute 
 to spare. I never was late in my life, governor.' 
 
 Most of the riding mob was down with the racehorses, a dis- 
 lance or so from the stand, where they was to start, the coui*se 
 being over two miles. So the weighing yard and stand was 
 pretty well empty, which was just what old Jacob expected. 
 
 The old man walks over to the scales and has himself 
 weighed all regular, declaring a pound overweight for fear 
 of accidents. He gets down as quiet and easy as possible to the 
 starting point, and iust in time to walk up steadily with the 
 other horses, when down goes the starter's flag, and ' Off' was 
 the word. Starlight and the Dawsons were down there waiting 
 for him. As they went away one of the ringmen says, 'Ten to 
 one against Darkie. I lay Darkie.' * Done,' says Starlight ; 
 ' will you do it in tens ? ' ' All right,' says the ' book.' ' I'll take 
 you,' says b<jth the Dawsons, and he entered their names. 
 
 They'd taken all they could get the night before at the hotel ; 
 and as no one knew anything about Darkie, and he had top 
 weight, hfc ha^ln't many bs.ckenL 
 
CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 Mr. Dawson drove pretty near the stand then, and they all 
 stood up in the drag. I went back to Aileen and Gracey Store- 
 field. We were close by the winning post when they came past ; 
 they had to go another time round. 
 
 The Sydney horses were first and second, the diggers' 
 favourite third ; but old Rainbow, lying well up, was coming 
 through the ruck hard held and looking full of running. They 
 passed close by us. What a sight it is to see a dozen blood 
 horses in top condition come past you like a flash of lightning ! 
 How their hoofs thunder on the level turf ! How the jockeys' 
 silk jackets rustle in the wind they make ! Hov/ muscle and 
 sinew strain as they pretty near fly through the air ! No 
 wonder ua young fellows, and the girls too, feel it's worth a 
 year of their lives to go to a good race. Yes, and will to the 
 world's end. ^ ' O you darling Rainbow ! ' I heard Aileen say. 
 'Are you going to win this race and triumph over all these 
 grand horses ? What a sight it will be ! I didn't think I could 
 have cared for a race so much.' 
 
 It didn't seem hardly any time before they were half-way 
 round again, and the struggle was on, in good do^vnright 
 earnest. One of the Sydney horses began to shake his tail. 
 The other still kept the lead. Then the Turon favourite — a real 
 game pebble of a little horse — began to show up. 
 
 'Hotspur, Hotspur! No. Bronze wing has it — Bronze wing. 
 It's Bronzewing's race. Turon for ever ! ' the crowd kept 
 yelling. 
 
 ' Oh ! look at Rainbow ! ' says Aileen. And just then, at the 
 turn, old Jacob sat down on him. The old horse challenged 
 Bronzewing, passtjd him, and collared Hotspur. ' Darkie ! 
 Darkie ! ' shouts everybody. ' No ! Hotspur — Darkie's coming 
 — Darkie — Darkie ! I tell yer Darkie.' And as old Jacob 
 made one last effort, and landed him a winner by a clear head, 
 there was a roar went up from the whole crowd that might 
 have been heard at Nulla Mountain. 
 
 Starhght jumps off the drag and leads the old horse into the 
 weighing yard. The steward says * Dismount.' No fear of old 
 
( HAP. xuii ROBBEitY UNDER ARMS 388 
 
 Jacob getting down before he heard that. He takes his saddle 
 in his lap and e:ets into the scales. * Weight,' says the clerk. 
 Then the old fellow mounts and rides past i. 3 judge's box. * I 
 declare Mr. Benton's hor.«!e Darkie to be the winner of the 
 Turon Grand Handicap, Brouzetring second horse, Hotspur 
 third,' says he. 
 
 Well, there was great cheering and hollering, though none 
 knew exactly whose horse he was or anything about him ; but 
 an Australian crowd always likes to see the best horse win — 
 and they like fair play — 80 Darkie was cheered over and over 
 again, and old Jacob too. 
 
 Aileen stroked and petted him and patted his neck and 
 rubbed his nose, and you'd raly thought the old horse knew her, 
 he seemed so gentle-like. Then the Commissioner came down 
 and said Mrs. Hautley, the police magistrate's wife, and some 
 other ladies wanted to see the horse that had won the race. So 
 he was taken over there and admired and stroked till old Jacob 
 got quite crusty. 
 
 ' It's an odd thing, Dawson,' says the Commissioner, ' no- 
 body here knows this horse, where he was bred, or anything 
 about him. Such a grana animal as he is, too ! I wish 
 Morringer could have seen him ; he's always raving about 
 horses. How savage he'll be to have missed all the fun ! ' 
 
 'He's a horse you don't see every day,' says Bill Dawson. 
 I'll give a couple of hundred for him right off. 
 
 'Not for Bale at present,' savs old Jacob, looking like a cast- 
 iron imago. ' I'll send ye word when he is. 
 
 ' All right,' says Mr. Dawson. ' What a shoulder, what legs, 
 what loins he has ! Ah ! well, he'll be weighted out now, and 
 you will be glad to sell him soon.' 
 
 ' Our heads won't ache then,' says Jacob, as he turns round 
 and rides away. 
 
 'Very neat animal, shows form,' drawls Starlight. 'Worth 
 three hundred in the shires for a hunter ; if he can jump, per- 
 haps more ; but depends on his manners — must have manners 
 in the hunting-field, Dawson, you know.' 
 
 ' Manners or not,' says Bill Dawson, ' it's my opinion he could 
 have won that race in a canter. I must find out more about 
 him and buy him if I can.' 
 
 ' ril go you halves if you like,' says Starlight. ' I weally be- 
 lieve him to be a good animal.' 
 
 Just then up rides Warrigal. He looks at the old horse as if 
 he had never seen him before, nor us neither. He rides close 
 by the heads of Mr. Dawson's team, and as he does so his hat 
 falls off, by mistake, of course. He jumps off and picks it up, 
 and rides slowly down towards the tent. 
 
 It was the signal to clear. Something was up. 
 
 I rode back to town with Aileen and Gracey ; said good-bye 
 — a hard matter it was, too — and sloped off to where my horse 
 was, and was out of Bia:nt of Turon in twenty mimit^s. 
 
384 ROBBERY UKDER ARMS ch/p. 
 
 Starlight hails a cabby (he told me this afterwards) and geti 
 him to drive him over to the inn where he was staying, telHng 
 the Dawsons he'd have the wine put in ice for the dinner, that 
 he wanted to send off a letter to Sydney by the post, and he'd 
 be back on the course in an hour in good time for the last race. 
 
 In about half-an-hour back comes the same cabman and puts 
 a note into Bill Dawson's hand. He looks at it, stares, swears 
 a bit, and then crumples it up and puts it into his pocket. 
 
 J ust as it was getting dark, and the last race ^ust run, back 
 comes Sir Ferdinand and all the police. They^d ndden hard, as 
 their horses showed, and Sir Ferdinand (they say) didn't look 
 half as good-natured as he generally did. 
 
 'Youve lost a great meeting, Morringer,' says the Com- 
 missioner. ' Great pity you had to be off just when you did. 
 But that's just like these infernal scoundrels of bush-rangers. 
 They always play up at the most inconvenient time. How did 
 you get on with them ? ' 
 
 * Get on with them 1 roars Sir Ferdinand, almost making a 
 hole in his manners — he was that tired out and done he could 
 hardly sit on his horse — 'why, we've been sold as clean as a 
 whistle. I believe some of the brutes have been here all the 
 time.' 
 
 ' That's impossible,' says the Commissioner. * There's been 
 no one here that the police are acquainted with ; not that I 
 suppose Jackson and Murphy know many of the cross boys.' 
 
 ' No strange men nor horses, no disguises 1 ' says Sir Ferdi- 
 nand. Here he brings out a crumpled bit of paper, written 
 on — 
 
 If snr firdnand makes haist back heel be in time to see Starlite'a Rane- 
 boe win the handy capp. Billy the Boy. 
 
 * I firmly believe that young scoundrel, who will be hanged 
 vet, strung us on after Moran ever so far down south, just to 
 leave the coast clear for the Marstons, and then sent me this, 
 too late to be of any use.' 
 
 ' Quite likely. But the Marstons couldn't be here, let alone 
 Starlight, unless — by Jove ! but that's impossible. Impossible ! 
 Whew ! Here, Jack Dawson, where's your Indian friend ? ' 
 
 ' Gone back to the inn. Couldn't stand the course after the 
 handicap. You're to dine with us, Commissioner ; you too, 
 Scott ; kept ix place, Sir Ferdinand, for you on the chance.' 
 
 ' One moment, pardon me. Who's your friend 1 ' 
 
 ' Name Lascelles, Just from home — came by India. Splendid 
 fellow ! Backed Darkie for the handicap — we did too — won a 
 pot of money.' 
 
 ' What sort of a horse is this Darkie ? ' 
 
 ' Very grand animal. Old fellow had him in a tent, about a 
 mile down the creek ; dark bay, star in forehead. Haven't seen 
 such a horse for years. Like the old Emigrant lot.' 
 
 Sir Ferdinand beckoned to a senior constable. 
 
XLiii ROBBERY UNDER ARSIS 336 
 
 ' There's a tent down there near the creek, I think yon said, 
 Dawson. Bring up the racehorse you find there, and any one 
 in charge.' 
 
 ' And now I think Fll drive in with you, Dawson ' (dismount- 
 ing, and handing his horse to a trooper). *I suppose a decent 
 dinner will pick me up, though I feel just as much inclined to 
 hang myself as do anything else at present I should like to 
 meet this travelled friend of yours \ strangers are most agree- 
 able.' 
 
 Sir Ferdinand was right in thinking it was hardly worth 
 while going through the form of seeing whether we had waited 
 for him. Lieutenant Lascelles, on leave from his regiment in 
 India, had taken French leave. When inquiry was made at the 
 hotel, where dinner had been ordered by Mr. Dawson and covers 
 laid for a dozen, he had just stepped out. No one seemed to 
 know exactly where to find him. The hotel people thought he 
 was with the Mr. Dawsons, and they thought he was at the hotel. 
 When they surrounded the tent, and then rushed it, all that it 
 contained was the body of old Jacob Benton, lying dead drunk 
 on the floor. A horse-rug was over him, his racing saddle under 
 his head, and his pockets stuffed with five-pound notes. He had 
 won his race and got his money, so he was not bound in honour 
 to keep sober a minute longer. 
 
 Rainbow was ?one, and there was nothing to be got out of 
 him as to who had taken him or which way he had gone. No- 
 body seemed to have 'dropped' to me. I might have stayed at 
 Turon longer if I'd liked. But it wasn't good enough by a long 
 way. 
 
 We rode away straight home, and didn't lose time on the 
 road, you bet. Not out-and-out fast, either ; there was no need 
 for that. We had a clear two hours' start of the police, and 
 their horses were pretty well knocked up by the pace they^d 
 come home at, so they weren't likely to overhaul us easy. 
 
 It was a grand niglit, and, though we didn't feel up to much 
 in the way of talking, it wasn't bad in its way. Starlight rode 
 Rainbow, of course ; and the old horse sailed away as if a hun- 
 dred miles or a thousand made no odds to him. 
 
 Warrigal led the way in front. He always went as straight 
 as a line, just the same as if he'd had a compass in his forehead. 
 We never had any bother about the road when he led the 
 way. 
 
 ' There's nothing like adventure,' says Starlight, at last. ' As 
 some one says, who would have thought we should have come 
 out so v,'ell ? Fortune favours the brave, in a general way, 
 there's no doubt. By George ! what a comfort it was to feel 
 one's self a gentleman again and to associate with one's equals. 
 Ha! ha! how savage Sir Ferdinand is hj this time, and the 
 Commissioner ! As for the Dawsons, they 11 make a joke of it. 
 Fancy my dining at the camp ! It's about the best practical 
 joke I ever carried out, and Tve been in a good many ' 
 
336 ROBBERY UNDE-R ARMS oiikF. 
 
 ' The luckiest turn we've ever had,' savs I. ' I never expected 
 to see Gracey and Aileen there, much less tx) go to a ball with 
 them and no one to say no. It beats the world.' 
 
 * It makes it all the rougher going back, that's the worst of 
 it,' says he. * Good God ! what fools, idiots, raving lunatics 
 we've all been ! Why, but for our own infernal folly, should we 
 be forced to shun our fellow-men, and hide from the light like 
 beasts of prey ? What are we better ? Better 1 — nay, a hundred 
 times worse. Some day I shall shoot myself, I know I shall. 
 What a muff Sir Ferdinand must be, he's missed me twice 
 already.' 
 
 Here he rode on, and never opened his mouth again till we 
 began to rise the slope at the foot of Nulla Mountain. When 
 the dark fit was on him it was no use talking to him. He'd 
 either not seem to hear you, or else he'd say something which 
 made you sorry for opening your mouth at all. It gave us all 
 we could do to keep along with him. He never seemed to look 
 where he was going, and rode as if he had a spare neck at any 
 rate. When we got near the pass to the mountain, I called out 
 to him that he'd better pull up and get off Do you think he'd 
 stop or make a sign he heard me 1 Not a bit of it. He just 
 started the old horse down when he came to the path in the 
 cliff as if it was the easiest road in the world. He kept staring 
 straight before him while the horse put down his feet, as if it 
 was regular good fun treading up rugged sharp rocks and rolling 
 stones, and turf wasn't worth going over, it seemed to me as 
 if he wanted to kill himself for some reason or other. It would 
 have been easy enough with some horses, but you could have 
 ridden Rainbow down the roof of a house and jumped him into 
 the front balcony, I firmly believe. You couldn't throw him 
 down ; if he'd dropped into a well he'd have gone in straight 
 and landed on his legs. 
 
 Dad was glad enough to see us ; he was almost civil, and 
 when he heard that Rainbow had won the ' big money ' he 
 laughed till I thought he'd do himself mischief, not being used 
 to it. He made us tell him over again about StarKght and I 
 going to the ball, and our seeing Aileen and Gracey there ; and 
 when he came to the part where Starlight made the bride a 
 present of a diamond ring I thought he never would have done 
 chuckling to himself. Even old Crib looked at me as if he didn't 
 use to think me much of a fellow, but after this racket had 
 changed his mind. 
 
 'Won't there be a jolly row in the pollers when they get all 
 these different characters played by one chap, and that man the 
 Captain 1 ' says he. ' I knew he was clever enough for anything ; 
 but this beats all. I don't believe now, Captain, you'll ever be 
 took.' 
 
 ' Not alive i ' says Starlight, rather grim and gloomy -looking ; 
 then he walks off by himself. 
 
 We stabled Rainbow, of course, for a week or two after this 
 
XLiii ROBBEEY UNDER ARMS 387 
 
 —being in training it wouldn't do to turn him out straight at 
 once. Hardy as he was, no horse could stand that altogether ; 
 so we kept him under shelter in a roughish kind of a loose box 
 we had knocked up, and fed him on bush hay. We had a small 
 sta'^k of that in case we wanted to keep a horse in — which wo 
 did sometimes. In the daytime he was loose in the yard. .^Vf ter 
 a bit, when he was used to the weather, he was turned out again 
 with his old mob, and was never a hair the worse of it. We 
 took it easy ourselves, and sent out Warrigal for the lett^ers and 
 papers. We expected to knock a good bit of fun out of them 
 when they came. 
 
 Sure enough, there was the deuce and all to pay when the big 
 Sydney papers got hold of ir, as well as the little Turon Star and 
 the Banner. 
 
 Was it true that the pohce had again been hoodwinked, justice derided, 
 and the law set at defiance by a gang of mfEans who would have been run 
 down in a fortnight had the police force been equal to the task entrusted 
 to them ? "Was the moral sentiment of the country population so perverted, 
 80 obliterated, that robbers and murderers could find safe harbourage, 
 trustworthy friends, and secret intelhgence ? Could they openly show 
 themselves in places of public resort, mingle in amusements, and frequent 
 the company of unblemished and distinguished citizens ; and yet more, 
 after this flagrant insult to the Government of the land, to every sacred 
 principle of law and order, they could disappear at will, apparently invisible 
 and invulnerable to the officers of the peace and the guardians of the public 
 safety ? It was incredible, it was monstrous, degrading, nay, intolerable, 
 and a remedy would have to be found either in the reorganisation of an 
 inefficient police force or in the resignation of an incapable Ministry. 
 
 ' Good for the Sydney Monitor* says Starlight ; ' that reporter 
 knows how to double-shot his guns, and winds up \nth a broad 
 side. Let us see what the Star says. I had a bet with the 
 editor, and paid it, as it happened- rcrhaps he'll temper justice 
 with mercy. Now for a start : — 
 
 'That we have had strong casts from time to time and exciting per- 
 formances at our local theatres, no one will deny ; but perhaps the 
 inhabitants of Turon never witnessed a more enthralling melodrama than 
 was played during the first two days of our race meeting before a crowded 
 and critical audience, and never, we can state from a somewhat extended 
 experience of matters dramatic, did they gaze on a more finished actor 
 than the gentleman who performed the leading part. Celebrated per- 
 sonages have ere now graced our pro\ incial boards. On the occasion of 
 the burning of the Theatre- Royal in Sydney, we were favoured with the 
 presence in our midst of artists who rarely, if ever before, had quitted 
 the metropoht<in stage. But our jeuiie premier in one senst has eclipsed 
 every darling of the tragic or the comic muse. 
 
 ' TSTiere is there a member of the profession who could have siistained 
 his part with faultless ease and self-possession, being the whole time 
 aware of the fact that he smiled and conversed, danced and diced, 
 dined and slept (ye gods ! did he sleep ?), with a price upon his bead — 
 
 Z 
 
388 ROBBERY U:NDER AIIMS csa? 
 
 with tbe terrible doom of dishonour and inevitable death hanging over 
 him, consequent upon a detection which might occur at any moment ? 
 
 * Yet was there a stranger guest among lis who did all this and more 
 with unblenching brow, unruffled self-possession, unequalled courtesy, 
 who, if discovered, would have been arrested and consigned to a lock-up, 
 only to be exchanged for the gloom and the manacles of the condemned 
 cell. He, indeed, after taking a prominent part in all the humours of 
 the vast social gathering by which the Turon miners celebrated their 
 annual games, disappeared with the almost magical mystery which has 
 already marked his proceedings. 
 
 * Whom could we possibly allude to but the celebrated, the illustrious, 
 we grieve to be compelled to add, the notorious Starlight, the hero of a 
 hundred legends, the Australian Claude Duval ? 
 
 ' Yes, almost incredible as it may seem to our readers and persons at a 
 distance imperfectly acquainted with exceptional phases of colonial life, 
 the robber chief (and, for all we know, more than one of his aides-de- 
 camp) was among us, foremost among the betting men, the observed of all 
 observers in the grand stand, where, with those popular country gentle- 
 men, the Messrs. Dawson, he cheered the winners in the two great races, 
 both of which, with demoniac luck, he had backed heavily. 
 
 ' We narrate as a plain, unvarnished truth that this accomplished and 
 semi-historical personage raced a horse of his own, which tm-ns out now 
 to have been the famous Rainbow, an animal of such marvellous speed, 
 courage, and endurance that as many legends are current about him as 
 of Dick Turpin's well-known steed. He attended the marriage, in St. 
 Matthew's Church, of Miss Isabel Barnes, the daughter of our respected 
 neighbour, Mr. Jonathan Barnes, when he presented the bride with a 
 costly and beautiful diamond ring, completing the round of his vagaries 
 by dining on invitation with the Commissioner at the camp mess, and, 
 with that high official, honouring our race ball with his presence, and 
 sunning himself in the smiles of our fairest maidens, 
 
 *We are afraid that we shall have exhausted the fund of human 
 credulity, and added a fresh and original chapter to those tales of 
 mystery and imagination of which the late Edgar Allan Poe was so 
 masterly a delineator. 
 
 * More familiarly rendered, it seems that the fascinating Captain Star- 
 light — " as mild a mannered man " (like Lambre) " as ever scuttled a ship 
 or cut a throat," presented himself opportunely at one of the mountain 
 hostelries, to the notice of our good-hearted squires of Wideview, Messrs. 
 William and John Dawson. One of their wheelers lay at the point of 
 death — a horse of great value — when the agreeable stranger suggested a 
 remedy which effected a sudden cure. 
 
 * With all their generous instincts stirred, the Messrs. Dawson invited 
 the gentleman to take a seat in their well-appointed drag. He intro- 
 duced himself as Mr. Lascelle-s, holding a commission in an Indian 
 regiment of Irregular Horse, and now on leave, travelling chiefly for 
 health. ^ 
 
 'Just sufficiently sunburned, perfect in manner, full of information, 
 humorous and original in conversation, and with all the prestige of the 
 unknown, small wonder that "The Captain" was regarded as a prize, 
 socially considered, and introduced right and left. Ha ! ha ! What a 
 most excellent jest, albeit rather keen, as far as Sir Ferdinand is con- 
 cerned ! We shall never, never cease to recall the humorous side of 
 the whole affair. Why, we ourselves, our august editorial self, actu?illy 
 
n ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 389 
 
 licii a bet in the stand with the audacious pretender, and v,^^ u, too. 
 Did he pay up ? Of course he did. A " pony," to wit, and on the naiL 
 He does nothing by halves, notrf capitaine. We have been less promptly 
 reimbursed, indeed, not paid at all, by gentlemen boasting a fairer record. 
 How graciously he smiled and bowed as, with his primrose kid gloves, he 
 disengaged the two tenners and a five -pound note from his well -filled 
 receptacle. 
 
 ' The last time we had seen him was in the dock at Nomah, being tried 
 in the great cattle case, that causi c^lebre. To do him justice, he was 
 quite as cool and unconcerned there, and looked as if he was doing the 
 amateur casual business without ulterior liabilities. 
 
 'Adieu ! fare thee well, Starlight, bold Rover of the "Waste : we feel 
 inclined to echo the lament of the ancient Lord Douglas — 
 
 " 'Ti3 pity of him, too," he cried ; 
 " BoM c&D be speak, aud fairly ride ; 
 I warrant him a warrior tried." 
 
 it ii ill the interests of justice, doubtless, that thou be hunted down, and 
 expiate by death-doom the crimes which thou and thy noyrmidons have 
 committed against society in the sight of God and man. But we cannot, 
 for the life of us, take a keen interest in thy capture. "We owe thee 
 much, Starlight ; many a slashing leader, many a spicy paragraph, many 
 a stately reflection on contemporary morals hast thou furnished us with. 
 Shall we haste to the slaughter of the rarast bird — golden ovaried ? "We 
 trow not Get thee to the wilderness, and -vpent thee of thy sins. "Why 
 should we judge thee ? Thou hast, if stioh dubiotis donation may avail, 
 an editor's blessing. Depart, and "stick up" no more. 
 
 'Well done, the Turon Star !' says Starlight, alter he read it 
 all out. ' I call that very fair. There's a flavour of good feel- 
 ing underneath much of that nonsense, as well as of porter 
 and oysters. It does a fellow a deal more good than slanging 
 him to believe that he's human after aU, and that men 
 think so.' 
 
 'Do vou reckon that chap was sober when he wrote that? 
 says father. ' Blest if I can make head or tail of it. Half what 
 them fellows puts down is regular rot Why couldn't he have 
 cut it a bit shorter, too ? ' 
 
CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 " The Banner comes next,' says Starlight, tearing it open. ' "We 
 shall have something short and sweet after the Star. How's 
 this? 
 
 STARLIGHT AGAIN. 
 
 ' This mercurial brigand, it would appear, has paid Turon another visit, 
 but, with the exception of what may be considered the legalised robbery 
 of the betting ring, has not levied contributions. Rather the other way, 
 indeed. A hasty note for Mr. Dawson, whom he had tricked into tem- 
 porary association by adopting one of the disguises he can so wonderfully 
 assume, requested that gentleman to receive the Handicap Stakes, won by 
 his horse, Darkie, alias Rainbow, and to hand them over to the treasurer 
 of the Turon Hospital, which was accordingly done. 
 
 ' Sir Ferdinand and the police had been decoyed away previously nearly 
 100 miles by false intelligence as to Moran and his gang. Our town and 
 treasure were thus left undefended for forty-eight hours, while a daring 
 criminal and his associates mingled unsuspected with all classes. We 
 have always regarded the present system — facetiously called police protec- 
 tion — as a farce. This latter fiasco will probably confirm the idea with 
 the public at large. "We, unlike a contemporary, have no morbid sym- 
 pathy with crime — embroidered or otherwise ; our wishes, as loyal sub- 
 jects, are confined to a short shrift and a high gaUows for all who dare to 
 obstruct the Queen's highway.' 
 
 'That's easy to understand, barrin' a word here and there,' 
 says father, taking his pipe out of his mouth and laying it 
 down ; ' that's the way they used to talk to us in the old days. 
 Dashed if I don't think it's the best way after all You know 
 where you are. The rest's flummery. All on us as takes to the 
 cross does it with our eyes open, and deserves all we gets.' 
 
 'I'm^ afraid you're right, governor; but why didn't these 
 moral ideas occur to you, for instance, and others earlier in 
 life?' 
 
 * Why ? ' says father, getting up and glaring with his eves, 
 'because I was a blind, ignorant dog when I was young, as Kad 
 never been taught nothing, and knowed nothing, not so much 
 as him there' (pointing to Crib), 'for he knows what his 
 
CHAi-. XLiT EOBBERY UNDER ARMS 841 
 
 business is, and 1 didn't. I was thrashed and starved, locked 
 up in a gaol, chained and flogged after that, end half the time 
 for doing what I didn't know was wrong, and couldn't know 
 more than one of them four-year-old colts out there that knocks 
 his head agin the yard when he's roped, and falls backard.-? 
 and breaks his neck if he ain't watched. Whose business was 
 it to have learned me better / That I can't rightly say, but it 
 seemed it was the business of the Grovemment people to gaol 
 me, and iron me, and flog me. Was that justice? Any man's 
 sense '11 tell him it wasn't. It's been them and me for it since I 
 got mv liberty, and if I had had a dozen lives they'd all have 
 gone tne same road ! ' 
 
 We none of us felt in the humour to say much after that. 
 Father had got into one of his tantrums, and when he did he 
 was fit to be tied ; only I'd not have took the contract for 
 something. Whatever it was that had happened to him in the 
 old times when he was a Government man he didn't talk about- 
 Only every now and then he'd let out just as he did now, as if 
 nothing could ever set him straight again, or keep him from 
 fighting against them, as he called the swells and the Govern- 
 ment, and everybody almost that was straightgoing and honest. 
 He'd been at it a good manv years, one way and another, and 
 any one that knew him didn t think it likely he'd change. 
 
 The next dust we got into was all along of a Mr. Knightley, 
 who lived a good way down to the south, and it was one of the 
 worst things we ever were mixed up in. After the Turon races 
 and all that shine, somehow or other we found that things had 
 been made hotter for us than ever since we first turned out. 
 Go where we would, we found the police always quick on our 
 trail, and we had two or three very close shaves of it. It looked 
 as if our luck was dead out, and we began to think our chance 
 of getting across the border to Queensland, and clear out of the 
 colony that way, looked worse every day. 
 
 Dad kspt foraging about to get information, and we sent 
 Warrigal and Billy the Boy all over the country to find out how 
 it was things were turning out so contrary. 
 
 Sir Ferdinand was always on the move, but we knew he 
 couldn't do it all himself unless he got the office from some one 
 who knew the ropes better than he did. 
 
 Last of all we drop})ed on to it. 
 
 There was one of the Goldfields Commissioners, a Mr. 
 Knightley, a very keen, cool hand ; he was a great sporting 
 man, and a dead shot, like Mr. Hamilton. Well, this gentleman 
 took it into his head to put on extra steam and try and run us 
 down. He'd lost some gold by us in the escort robbery, and 
 not forgotten it ; so it seems he'd been trying his best to fit us 
 ever since. Just at first he wasn't able for much, but later on 
 he managed to get information about us and our beat, whenever 
 we left the Hollow, r.ad he put two and two together^ and very 
 nearly dropped on us, ai» I said before, two or three times. We 
 
842 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chak 
 
 heard, too, that he should say he'd never rest till he had 
 Starlight and the Mars tons, and that if he could get picked 
 police he'd bring us in within a month, dead or alive. 
 
 We didn't care much about blo^^^alg of this sort in a general 
 way ; but one of dad's telegraphs sent word in that Mr. 
 Knightley had a couple of thousand pounds' worth of gold 
 from a new diggings lodged at his private residence for a few 
 days till he could get the escort to call for it ; that there was 
 only him and a German doctor, a great scholar he was, named 
 Schiller, in the house. 
 
 Moran and Daly knew about this, and they were dead on for 
 sticking up the place and getting hold of the gold. Besides 
 that, we felt savage about his trying to run us in. Of course, 
 it was his duty and that of all magistrates and commissionors 
 in a general way. But he wasn't an officer of police, and v'e 
 thought he was going outside of his line. So when all came to 
 all, we made up our minds to learn him a lesson to stick to his 
 own work ; besides, a thousand ounces of gold was no foolisli 
 touch, and we could kill two birds with one stone. Moran, 
 Daly, and Joe Wall were to be in it besides. We didn't like 
 working with them. Starlight and I were dead against it. 
 But we knew they'd tackle it by themselves if we backed out. 
 So we agreed to make one thing of it. We were to meet at a 
 place about ten miles ofl' and ride over there together. 
 
 Just about ten o'clock we closed in on the place, and left 
 Billy the Boy and Warrigal with the horses, while we sneaked 
 up. We couldn't get near, though, without his knowing it, for 
 he always had a lot of sporting dogs — pointers, retrievers, 
 kangaroo dogs, no end. They kicked up a deuce of a row, and 
 barked and howled enough to raise the dead, before we got 
 within a quarter of a mile from the house. 
 
 Of course he was on his guard then, and before long the 
 bullets began to fly pretty thick among us, and we had to take 
 cover to return fire and keep as dark as we could. No doubt 
 this Dr. Schiller loaded the guns and handed them to him, else 
 he couldn't have made such play as he did. 
 
 We blazed away too, and as there was no stable at the back 
 we surrounded the house and tried hard to find an opening. 
 Devil a chance there seemed to be ; none of us dared show. So 
 sure as we did we could hear one of those Winchester rifle 
 bullets sing through the air, almost on the top of us. We all 
 had a close shave more than once for being too fast. 
 
 For more than half the night he kept cannonading away, 
 and we didn't seem able to get any nearer the place. At last 
 we drew lots which should try and get up close to the place, 
 so as to make a rush while we poured m our broadside and 
 open a door to let us in. 
 
 The lot fell upon Patsey Daly. ' Grood-bye, all,' he said. ' I'm 
 dashed if I don't think Knightley will bag me, I don't half 
 like charging him, and that's God's truth. Anyhovr I'll try for 
 
XLiv ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 343 
 
 that barrel there ; and if I get behind it I can fire from short 
 range and make him come out.' 
 
 He made a rush, half on his hands and knees, and managed 
 to get behind this barrel, where he was safe from being hit as 
 long as he kept well behind it Then he peppered away, right 
 and left. 
 
 On the left of the verandah there was a door stood partly 
 open, and after a bit a man in a light overcoat and a white hat, 
 like Mr. Knightley always wore, showed himself for a second. 
 Daly raps away at this, and the man staggers and falls. Patsey 
 shows himself for a moment from behind the cask, thinking to 
 make a rush forward ; that minute Mr. Knightley, who was 
 watching him from a window (the other was only an image), 
 lets drive at him, cool and steady, and poor Patsey drops like a 
 cock, and never raised his head again. He was shot through 
 the body. He lingered a bit ; but in less than an hour he was 
 a deail man. 
 
 We began to think at last that we had got in for a hot thing, 
 and that we should have to drop it like Moran's mob at 
 Kadombla. However, Starlight was one of those men that 
 won't be beat, and he kept getting more and more determined 
 to score. He crept away to the back of the building, w here he 
 could see to fire at a top window close by where the doctor and 
 Mr. Kjiightley had been potting at us. 
 
 He had the repeating rifle he'd won from me : he never let it 
 go afterwards, and he could make wonderful shooting with it. 
 He kept it going so lively that they began to be hai-d pressed 
 inside, and had to tire away twice as much ammunition as they 
 otherwise would. It always beat me how they contrived to 
 defend so many points at once. We tried back and front, doors 
 and windows. Twenty times we tried a rush, but they were 
 always ready — so it seemed — and their tire was too hot for us to 
 stana up to, unless we wanted to lose every second man. 
 
 The shooting was very close. Nearly every one of us had a 
 scratch — Starlight rather the worst, as he was more in the front 
 and showed himself more. His left arm was bleeding pretty 
 free, but he tied a handkerchief over it and went on as if nothing 
 had happened, only I could see that his face had that set look he 
 only got now and then, and his eyes began to show out a fierce 
 light. 
 
 At last we began to see that the return fire was slacking off, 
 while ours was as brisk as ever. 
 
 ' Hurrah ! ' says Starlight, ' I believe they'll give in soon. If 
 they had any cartridges they would have had every man of us 
 in that last rush. Let's try another dodge. Here goes for a 
 battering-ram, Dick ! ' 
 
 He pointed to a long, heavy sapling which had been fetched 
 in for a sleeper or something of that sort. We picked it up, 
 and, taking a run back, brought it with all its weight against 
 tlie front door. In it went like a sheet of bark ; we almost fell 
 
344 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap 
 
 as we ran forward and found ourselves in a big, dark halL It 
 seemed very queer and strange, everything was so silent and 
 quiet. 
 
 We half expected another volley. But nothing came. We 
 could only stand and wait. The others had gone round the side 
 of the house. 
 
 ' Get to a corner, Dick ; they're always the safest places. 
 We must mind it isn't an ambush. What the devil's the matter ? 
 Are they going to suicide, like the people in the round tower of 
 Jhansi 1 ' 
 
 * There are no women here,' I said. ' There's no saying what 
 Mr. Knightley might do if his wife had been here.' 
 
 ' Thank God, she's away at Bathurst,' said Starlight. * I hate 
 seeing women put out. Besides, everybody bows down to Mrs 
 Knightley. She's as good as she's handsome, I believe, and 
 that's saying a great deal.' 
 
 Just then Moran and Wall managed to find their way into 
 the other side of the house, and they came tearing into the hall 
 like a pair of colts. They looked rather queer when they saw 
 us three and no one else. 
 
 * What in thunder's up ? ' says Moran. ' Are they all gone to 
 bed, and left us the spare rooms ? Poor Patsey won't want one, 
 anyhow.' 
 
 ' Better make some search upstairs,' says Starlight. ' Who'll 
 go first ? You make a start, Moran ; you like fighting people.' 
 
 'Couldn't think of going before the Captain,' says Moran, 
 with a grin. ' I'll follow where you lead.' 
 
 ' All right ! ' says Starlight ; ' here goes,' and he started to walk 
 upstairs, when all of a sudden he stopped and looked up as if 
 something had surprised him above a bit. Then he stepped 
 back and waited. I noticed he took off his hat and leaned 
 against the wall. 
 
 It was an old-fashioned house for that part of the world, 
 built a good many years ago by a rich settler, who was once the 
 owner of all that side of the country. The staircase was all 
 stone, ornamented every way it could be. Three or four people 
 could walk abreast easy enough. 
 
 Just about half-way up was a broad landing, and on this, all 
 of a sudden, appeared four people, inclined by their ways to 
 come down to where we were, while we were all wondering, for 
 a reason you'll see afterwards. 
 
 It was Mr. Knightley who took the lady's arm — it was his 
 v/ife, and she had been there all the timo, firing at us as like as 
 not, or at any rate helping. The others followed, and they all 
 walked quite solemn and steady-like down the stairs together. 
 
 It was a strange sight. There we were standing and leaning 
 about the dark hall, staring and wondering, and these people 
 walking down to meet us like ghosts, without speaking or any- 
 thing e'.se. 
 
 Mr. Knightley was a tall, handsome man, with a grand black 
 
XLiT EOBBEEY UNDER AR^S 346 
 
 beard that came down to his chest. He waikeo like a lord, and 
 had that kind of manner "^ath him that comes to people that 
 have always been used to be •waited on and have everything 
 found for them in this world. As for his wife, she was given in 
 to be the handsomest woman in the whole countryside — tall and 
 graceful, with a beautiful smile, and soft fair hair. Everybody 
 liked and respected her, gentle and simple — everybody had a 
 good word for her. You couldn't have got any one to say 
 different for a hundred pounds. There are some people, here 
 and there, like this among the gentlefolk, and, say what you 
 like, it does more to make coves like us look a little closer at 
 things and keep away from what's wrong and bad than all the 
 parsons' talk twice over. Mrs. Knightley was the only woman 
 that ever put rne in mind of ^Vizs Falkland, and I can't say 
 more than that. 
 
 So, as I said before, it was quite a picture to see them walk 
 slowly and proudly down and sweep into the hall as if they'd 
 been marching into a ballroom. We had both seen them at 
 the ball at the Turon, and everybody agreed they were the 
 handsomest couple there. 
 
 Now they were entering their own hall in a different way. 
 But you couldn't have told much of wliat they felt by their 
 faces. He was a proud man, and felt bitterly enough that 
 he had to surrender to a gang of men that he hated and de- 
 spised, that he'd boasted he could run down and capture in a 
 month. Now the tables were turned. He and his beautiful 
 wife were in our power, and, to make matters worse, one of our 
 band lay dead, beside the inner wall, killed by his hand. 
 
 What was to be his doom 1 And who could say how such a 
 play might end 1 
 
 1 looked at our men. As they stepped on to the floor of the 
 hall and looked round Mrs. Knightley smiled. She looked to 
 me like an angel from heaven that had come by chance into the 
 other place and hadn't found out her mistake. I saw Starlight 
 start as he looked at her. He was still leaning against the wall, 
 and there was a soft, sorrowful look in his eyes, like I remember 
 noticing once before wliile he was talking to Aileen about his 
 early days, a thing he never did but once. Part of her hair had 
 straggled down, and hung in a sort of ringlet by her face. It 
 was pale, but clear and bright-looking, and there was a thin 
 streak of blood across her forehead that showed as she came 
 underneath the lamp-light from the landing above. 
 
 I looked over at Moran. He and Wall sat in a comer, look- 
 ing as grim and savage as possible, while his deadly black eyes 
 had a kind of gloomy fire in them that made him look like a 
 wild beast in a cage. 
 
 Mr. Knightley was a man that always had the first word in 
 everything, and generally the best of an argument — putting 
 dowTi anybody who differed from him in a quiet, euperior sor^j 
 cf way. 
 
346 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. xlit 
 
 He began now. 'Well, my men, I have come down to sur- 
 render, and I'm sorry to be obliged to do so. But we have fired 
 our last cartridge — the doctor thought we had a thousand left 
 — in which case, I may as well tell you, you'd never have had 
 this pleasure. Captain Starlight, I surrender my sword — or 
 should do so if I had one. We trust to receive honourable 
 treatment at your hands.' 
 
 ' I'm sure the Captain will nevei permit any harm to come 
 to me,' says ]\Irs. Knightley, with a look in her eyes that, in 
 spite of herself, said a deal more than words. ' ^Vhy, I danced 
 vis-a-vis to him in a quadrille at the Turon ball.' 
 
 *I shaD never forget the honour,' says Starlight walking 
 forward and bo^^'i^g low. 'Permit me to oiler you a chair, 
 madam ; you look faint.' 
 
 As he did so she sank &ovm in it, and really looked as if 
 she would faint away. It wouldn't have been much wonder if 
 she had after what she'd gone through that night. 
 
 Then Mr. Knightley began again. He wanted to know how 
 he stood. He didn't like the look of Moran and Wall — they 
 were a deal too quiet for him, and he could read men's faces 
 like a book. The other two prisoners were the German Dr. 
 Schiller — a plucky old chap, who'd been a rebel and a con- 
 spirator and I don't know what all in his own country. He'd 
 seen too much of that kind of thing to trouble himself over 
 much about a trifle of this kind. The old woman was a family 
 servant, who had been with them for years and years. She was 
 a kind of worshipper of theirs, and was ready to live or die with 
 her mistress. 
 
CHAPTER XLT 
 
 So Mr. Knightley stood up aud faced theai all like a man. He 
 was one of those chaps that makes up their mijid pretty quick 
 about the sort of people they've cot to deal with, and if there's 
 anything to be said or done let5 em have it ' straight from the 
 shoulder.' As he stood there — straight and square — with his 
 head thrown back, and his eyes — very bright and sharp they 
 were — looking every man's face over as ii he was reading a 
 notice and had no time to spare, you couldn't have told, from 
 his look, or voice, or manner, whether he was afraid that things 
 would go wrong, or whether he was dead sure they^d go right. 
 Some men are like that. Others you can tell every thought 
 that's passing through their minds just as if it was printed in 
 big letters on their breasts, like a handbill : ' £200 reward,' and 
 so on. 
 
 ^Yell, Mr. Knightley wasn't one of that sort, though I sa\^ 
 hiuj keep his eye a trifle longer on Moi*an than the rest 
 of 'em. 
 
 'Now then, boys,' he savs, 'we've had our llulber out. I've 
 done mv best, ana you've done yours. I've bagged one of your 
 lot, ana you've done your best to pot me. See here,' and he 
 lifts up the collar of his coat and show^s a hole through it, 
 touches his head on the side, and brings away a red mark ; and 
 takes out his watch w^th the case all battered in by a revolver 
 bullet. 'You can't say I hadn't cause to show fight,' and he 
 points to his wife. '"VMiere's the man among you that wouldn't 
 have done the same ? An Englishman's house is his castle. 
 What fun 1 to expect 1 ' 
 
 He looked over at Starlight, but he didn't take no notice, and 
 made no sign. I saw Mrs. Knightley look over at him too. It 
 was the first time I ever seen him look hard when there was a 
 woman in the case, and such a one ! But he kept his face set 
 and stern-like. 
 
 Then Moran breaks in — 
 
 ' Expect, be bio wed ! "What the do you expect now we've 
 
 got yer to rights ; are we going to let you ofi' after knocking 
 over Daly 1 No dashed fear, mister, we'll serve you the same 
 
848 ROBBERY UXDER ARMS okajp. 
 
 way as you served him, as soon as we've had some grub and 
 another glass or two of your grog. You've got some fairish 
 stuff here.' 
 
 *"Why, Moran,' says Mr. Knightley, still making believe to 
 joke — and, by George ! if he could laugh then, he could sing a 
 song with a bullet through him — ' you're getting bad-tempered 
 since you used to be horsebreaking for Mr. Lowe. Don't you 
 remember that chestnut Sir Henry colt that no one else could 
 ride, and I backed you not to get thrown, and won a fiver? 
 But I'm a man of the world and knov/ how to play a losing 
 game at billiards as well as most men. Look here now ! Daly^s 
 dead. We can't bring him to life again, can we ? If you shoot 
 me, you'll be nothing to the good, and have eveiy spare man in 
 the three colonies at your heels. This is a game of brag, though 
 the stakes are high. I'll play a card. Listen. You shall have 
 a hundred fivers — £500 in notes — by to-morrow at four o'clock, 
 if you'll let Mrs. Knightley and the doctor ride to Bathurst for 
 the money. What do you say 1 ' 
 
 *D — n you and your money too,' growled Moraru 'We'll 
 have your blood, and nothing else. D'ye liear that ? You're a 
 dead man now ; if you're not buried by this time to-morrovr, 
 it won't be because you're not as ready for it as Patsey is.' 
 
 I saw Mrs. Knightley turn round and clasp her hands ; her 
 face grew as white as death, but she said nothing, only looked 
 over at Starlight, and her eyes grew bigger and bigger, while 
 her mouth trembled just the least bit. 
 
 * You're off your head, Moran,' says Mr. Knightley, pulling 
 out a cigar and lighting it. 'But I suppose you're the chief 
 man, and all the rest must do as you tell them.' 
 
 'Suppose we talk it over,' says Starlight, very quiet, but I 
 knew by the first word that he spoke something was coming. 
 'Daly dropped, and it can't be helped. Accidents will happen. 
 If you play at bowls you must take rubbers. It has been a fair 
 fight ; no one can say otherwise. Let us put it to the vote. I 
 propose that Mr. Knightley's offer be accepted. Not that I 
 intend to take a shilling of the money.' 
 
 ' Nor me either,' says L ' So you three chaps will have it to 
 share between you. I don't see that we can do better. A fight's 
 a fight, and if ratsey got his gruel it might have happened to 
 Mr. Knightley himself. As for shooting in cold blood, I'm not 
 on, and so I tell you.' 
 
 ' I suppose you think you and Starlight's going to boss the 
 lot of us, because you've been doing it fine at the Turon races 
 along with a lot of blasted swells as 'ud scrag us if they had the 
 chance, and we're to take so much a head for our dashed lives, 
 because we're only working chaps. Not if Dan Moran knows 
 it. What we want is satisfaction — blood for blood — and we're 
 a-goin' to have it, eh, mates 1 ' 
 
 Wall and Hulbert hadn't said anything before this. The^ 
 were not bad <^haps underneath, but Moran wai! such a devL^ 
 
. ^T ROBBERY UNDER ARJIS 349 
 
 when he was raised that they didn't like to cross him. Besides, 
 they had a do^-n on Mr. Knightley, and wanted to sheet it home 
 to him somehow. They had got to the brandy too, and it 
 didn't make matters anv better, you take my word for it. 
 
 Starlight didn't speak for a minute or two. I couldn't think 
 what he was at If Jim had been there we should have been 
 right, three to three. Xow we were two to three. I knew 
 Starlight had a good card to play, and was ready to play it, but 
 he was waiting on the deal. Mr. Knightley must have hacl 
 some sort of notion of the hand ; he was wonderful quick at 
 picking up the points of the game. 
 
 He said nothing, and looked as cool as you please, smoking 
 his cigar as if he had nothing on his mind and wanted a rest. 
 The lady sat quite still and pale, but her beautiful eyes kept 
 wandering round from one to another, Hke some pretty creature 
 caught in a trap. Dr. Schiller found it hard lines on him to 
 keep quiet all tnis time — he couldn't hold it in no longer. 
 
 ' Good heafens ! ' he says, ' are you men, and will not say 
 nodings when you haf such an ovver as dis ? Subbose you shood 
 us all, what then ? Will not the whole coundry rice and hund 
 you down like mat docks ? ' 
 
 ' That won't make it any better for you, mate,' says Moran, 
 with a grin. 'When you and he's lying under that old tree 
 outside, it'll make no odds to yer whether our rope's a long or a 
 short 'un.' 
 
 ' Quite right, Moran,' says Mr. Knightley. ' Doctor, he has 
 you there.' 
 
 Starlight moved a step or two over towards him, as if he was 
 uncertain in his mind. Then he says to Wall and Hulbert — 
 
 ' See here, men ; you've heard what Moran says, and what I 
 think. Which are you going to do ? To help in a brutal, cowardly 
 murder, and never be able to look a man in the face again, or to 
 take this money to-morrow ? — a hundred and seventy each in 
 notes, mind, and get away quietly — or are you going to be led 
 by Moran, and told what you are to do like children ?' 
 
 ' Oh come, Dan, let's take the stuff,' says Wall. 'I think it's 
 good enough. What's the use of being contrary 1 I think the 
 Captain's right. He knows a dashed sight more than us.' 
 
 ' He be hanged ! ' says Moran, with eves glaring and the whole 
 of his face working like a man in a fit. ' He's no Captain of 
 mine, and never was. Fll never stir from here till I have pay- 
 ment in blood for Daly's life. We may as well be hung for a 
 sheep as a lamb. Fve sworn to have that man's life to-night, 
 and have it I will' 
 
 ' You'll have ours first, yon bloodthirsty, murdering dog,' says 
 Starlight ; and, as he spoke, he slipped his revolver into Mr. 
 Knightley's hand, who covered Moran that moment. I drew 
 mine, too, and had Wall under aim. Starlight's repeating rifle 
 was up like lightning, 
 
 Mrs. Knit^htley covered her eyes, the old woman screamed, 
 
350 KOBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 and the doctor sat down on a chair and puffed away at hia 
 meerschaum pipe. 
 
 * We're three to three, now,' says St<arlight ; ' you've only to 
 move a finger and you're a dead man. \Vall and Hulbert can 
 have a hand in it if they haven't had shooting enough for one 
 evening. Do your worst, you black-hearted brute ! I've two 
 minds to take you and run you in myself, if it's only to give you 
 a lesson in manners.' 
 
 Moran's face grew as black as an ironbark tree after a bush 
 fire. He raised his revolver, and in one second we should have 
 been in the middle of a desperate hand-to-hand fight ; and God 
 knows how it might have ended hadn't Hulbert struck up his 
 arm, and spoke out like a man, 
 
 'It's no use, Dan, we won't stand it. You're a dashed fool 
 and want to spoil everything for a bit of temper. Well take 
 the notes and let Mrs. Knightley and the doctor clear out for 
 Bathurst if you'll say honour bright that you'll be at the Black 
 Stump by to-morrow evening at five, and won't give the police 
 the office.' 
 
 Moran, slow and sulkily, put down his hand ajid glared round 
 like a dingo with the dogs round him — as if he didn't know 
 which to snap at first. Then he looked at Mr. Knightley with 
 a look of hellish rago and spite that ten devils couldn't have im- 
 proved upon, and, throwing himself down on a chair, drank off 
 half a tumbler of brandy. 
 
 ' Settle it amongst yourselves, and be to you,' he said. 
 
 'You're all agin me now ; but, by ,I'll be square with some 
 
 of ye yet.' 
 
 It was all over now. Mr. Knightley took a match out of the 
 silver match-box at his watch-chain, and lit another cigar. I 
 saw the tears trickling through Mrs. Kjiightley's fingers. Then 
 she turned away her head, and after a minute or two was as 
 calm and quiet as ever. 
 
 'You know your way about the place. Wall,' says Mr. 
 Knightley, as if he was in his own house, just the same as usual ; 
 ' run up the horses, there's a good fellow ; they're in the little 
 horse paddock. Mrs. Kjiightley's is a gray, and the doctor's is 
 a mouse-coloured mare with a short tail ; you can't mistake 
 them. The sooner they're off the sooner youll handle the cash.' 
 
 Wall looked rather amused, but went out, and we heard him 
 rattle off to go round the paddock. The doctor went upstairs, 
 and buckled on a long-necked pair of old-fashioned spurs, and 
 Mrs. Knightley walk^ away like a woman in a dream to her 
 own room, and soon afterwards returned in her riding-habit 
 and hat. 
 
 I foraged about and found the side-saddie and bridle in the 
 harness-room. Everything was in tip- top order there — glass 
 sides for keeping the dust off the four-in-hand harness and all 
 that kind of thing. AU the bits and stirrup-irons like silver. 
 There wasn't much time lost in saddling-up, you bet 1 
 
XLV EORBERY UNDER ARMS 351 
 
 We watched pretty close lest Moran should take a new fancy 
 into his head, but he stuck to the brandy bottle, and very soon 
 put himself from fighting or anything else. I wasn't sorry to 
 see it. I was well aware he was as treacherous as a dingo, and 
 could shciDi dead or anything else to gain liis ends and throw 
 people off their guards. 
 
 Well, the horses were brought out, and when Mr. Knightley 
 lifted his wife up on to her saddle on the high-crested gray 
 thoroughbred with a dash of Arab blood from an old Satellite 
 strain, I guess he was never better pleased with anything in the 
 world. They looked in each other's eyes for a minute, and then 
 the old horse started off along the road to Bathurst with his 
 fast, springy walk. Starlight took off" his hat and bowed low 
 in the most respectful way. Mrs. Knightley turned in her 
 saddle and tried to say something, but the words wouldn't come 
 — she could only wave her hand — and then her head went down 
 nearly to her saddle. The doctor scrambled on to his horse's 
 back, and trotted off after her. The gray moved off, shaking 
 his head, at a beautiful, easy, springy canter. We raised a cheer, 
 and they swept round a comer of tiie road and out of sight. 
 
 'You 11 fina these ratlier good. Captain,' says Mr. Knightley, 
 handing Starlight his cigar-case. ' There's a box upstaii's in my 
 dressing-room. If you'll allow me I'll order in dinner. There 
 ought to be something decent if my old cook hasn't been fright- 
 ened out of his life, but I think he has seen too much to be put 
 out of his way by a little shooting.' 
 
 'Now I think of it,' says Starlight, ' I do really feel disposed 
 for refreshment. I say. Wall, see if ycu can't get that ferocious 
 friend of yours into a room where he can sleep off his liquor. I 
 really must ajx)logise for his bad manners ; but you see how the 
 case stands.' 
 
 ' Perfectly, my dear fellow,' says Mr. Kniorhtley. * Don't men- 
 tion it. I shall always feel personally indebted to you for far 
 more than I can express. IBut let that pass for the present. 
 What shall we do to pass the evening? \ou play picquet and 
 hazard, of course 1 ' 
 
 'Do I not,' says Starlight, his eyes lighting up in a way I 
 didn't remember. ' It's many a day since I've met with any one 
 near ray old form.' 
 
 'Then suppose we have a game or two,' says Mr. Knightley, 
 'after dinner or supper, whichever we choose to call it I have 
 cards ; they luckily came up the other day. In the meantime 
 you will find the claret \ cry fair, and this cold wild turkey — I 
 shot a brace last Thursday — is not to be despised.' 
 
 We had a rattling good feed, and no mistake, whatever it was. 
 The turkey was a grand bird, and weighed 21 lb., he told us. 
 The cook had sent in some hot potatoes, and chaps like us that 
 had been riding, walking, and fighting for twenty hours right 
 on end had just the sort of appetite that a bird of that kmd 
 deserved. He was as fat as butter, too. They feed on dandelion 
 
352 ROBBERY UXDER ARilS tha? 
 
 seeds at that time of the year. It gives 'em a sort of gamy 
 flavour such as no other bird, wild or tame, has. To my liking 
 the wild turkey beats the black duck even. He's the best game 
 bird that flies in the bush. 
 
 Mr. Knightley, too, now his wife was safe on her way to 
 Bathurst, and things seemed going well, was full of fun, and 
 kept us all going. He helped everybody twice over, and wouldn't 
 hear of any one keeping the bottle standing. The night was 
 close rather, and we were all that thirsty it went down like 
 mother's milk. Wall and Hulbert got pleasant enough and 
 joined in, now that Moran was out of the way. He was snoring 
 in a back room, and, like a man in the deadhouse of a bush 
 shanty, not likely to wake before sunrise. Mr. Knightley told 
 us some out-and-out good yams, and Hulbert and Wall swore 
 that if they'd known he was such a good sort they'd never have 
 thought of sticking up the place. He said he had been quite 
 mistaken about them, and that another time he should know 
 better than to volunteer for work that was not part of his duty. 
 By that time the claret had gone round pretty often ; and with- 
 out being screwed we'd all had our tongues loosened a bit. 
 
 After that we lit our pipes, and we three began to play all- 
 fours and euchre, sometimes one pair, sometimes another. As 
 for Mr. Knightley and Starlight, they got out a curious filigree 
 sort of a little card-table and began to play some outlandish 
 game that I didn't know, and to look very serious over it. 
 
 They had notes for counters, and I could see, as I looked over 
 every now and then, that each man was doing all he knew to 
 best the other. Sometimes one had the show ; sometimes the 
 other. We got tired and had another smoke and turned in. 
 The beds were snug and comfortable. Mr. Knightley showed us 
 where to go, and we wanted a good night's rest bad enough. 
 
 Just before I turned in I went up to the table. They looked 
 as keen at it as if they'd just begun, and I heard Starlight say, 
 ' I owe you a hundred now. I'll play you double or quits.' So I 
 left them to it. I could see they were not on for bed just then. 
 Both men were cool enough, but I could see that Starlight (and 
 I'd never known him touch a card before) was one of those men 
 that would never rise from the table as long as he had a shilling 
 left, and would stake everything ho had in the world upon the 
 turn of a card. 
 
 We all slept sound, but most of us were up at sunrise. It 
 doesn't do for chaps in our line to be caught napping, and the 
 police might have got wind where we were at work. We had 
 our horses to look to, and to give a look round in a general way 
 to see if things were right. 
 
 Starlight and Mr Knightley didn't turn out, they took it 
 easy, perhaps they'd been up later than us ; anyhow, they didn't 
 show till breakfast, when they both made pretty fair time over 
 the eatables. 
 
 My word ! it was a breakfast, though we'd got a bit tired 
 
XLV KOBBERY UNDER ARMS 353 
 
 waiting for it. The old cook had hashed up the turkey ; it was 
 stunning, almost better than the day before. Then bacon and 
 eggs, grilled steak, fresh bread and butter, coffee and tea, water- 
 cresses. Really, I thought we never should stop. It was lucky 
 the police didn't come, or we shouldn't have done much in the 
 fighting line, or the runawav either. As it turned out^ Sir Fer- 
 dinand wasn't so very far on the line, but he took another road. 
 He never had any luck somehow in following us up, though he 
 had some first-rate chances. Moran was off his feed, and wouldn't 
 come in. He took a nip and walked down to the creek. We 
 were all glad enough to get shut of him. 
 
 After breakfast and a turn round the stables, blest if Star- 
 light and Mr. Knightley didn't have out the cards again, and at 
 it they went as fresh and keen as ever. We didn't know what 
 in the world to do with ourselves till it was time to start to nde 
 out to the Black Stump, where we were to meet the doctor and 
 collar the £5(X). They didn't waste a minute of their time, till 
 about half- past twelve Starlight puts down his cards very gently, 
 and says he — 
 
 * I'm afraid we have no more time to spare. I've enjoj^ed the 
 play more than I have done anything for years. I leave you 
 £100 now in notes, und you must take my I O U for the balance. 
 What bank shall I pay it into?' 
 
 'The Australian, says Mr. Knightley. 'At your convenience, 
 of course.' 
 
 * Within a month,' says Starlight, bowing. * And now a glass 
 of wine and a biscuit, it's time to be off.' 
 
 We had something as good, nearer the mark than that, and 
 Moran sat down too, and played a good knife and fork. He'd 
 come to, after his booze, and was ready for anv fresh villainy, 
 as usual. He didn't let on to be nastv, but ne looked sulky 
 enough, and I saw his eye fixed on Mr. Knightley and Starlight 
 now and then as if he'd have given a good deal to have had them 
 where they hadn't so many at their backs. 
 
 2 A 
 
CHArTER XLVl 
 
 We ate well and drank better still at the lunch, although we 
 had such a regular tuck-out at breakfast time. Mr. Knightley 
 wouldn't hear of any of us shirking our liquor, and by the time 
 we'd done all hands were pretty well on. Moran himself began 
 to look pleasant, or as good a sample of it as I'd ever seen in 
 him. Mr. Knightley could get round the devil himself, I believe. 
 I never saw his equals at that business : and this particular 
 time he M^as in great feather, seeing that he was likely to get 
 out of an ugly business all right. He was as sure of the £500 
 in notes being there at the appointed hour as he was of the sun 
 setting that particular evening. 
 
 *1 think it's a fair thing,' says Starlight at last, looking at 
 his watch. Mr. Knightley wasn't the first to speak, no fear. 
 ' Take us all our time to get to the Black Stump. We shall have 
 to ride, too.' Moran and Wall got up and fetched their horses. 
 Mr. Kniglitley's was led up by one of his men. He was a big 
 handsome roan, in top condition, and the man was riding a 
 black horse with a tan muzzle that looked a trifle better, if 
 anything. Mr. Knightley turned out in boots and breeches, 
 with a gold fox's head on his scarf, swell hunting fashion, as 
 they do it at home, Starlight said. 
 
 When Starlight's horse came up he was as lame as a tree, 
 couldn't put his foot to the ground ; got a kick or a strain, or 
 trod on a glass bottle or something. Anyhow he had only three 
 legs that he could rise a move out of. Starlight looked rather 
 glum. He wasn't his second best or his third best either. All 
 the same, a horse is a horse, and I never saw the man yet that 
 a lame horse didn't put out a bit. 
 
 'Confound it,' says he, 'what a nuisance ! It's just the way 
 with these infernal half-bred brutes; they always let me down 
 at the wrong time.' 
 
 * Look here, old fellow,' says Mr. Klnightley, * leave him behind 
 and take this black horse the boy's on ; he's one of the finest 
 hacks you ever crossed. I refused sixty guineas for him the 
 other day from Monringer.' 
 
 'Thanks, very much,' says Starlight, brightening up a bit; 
 
I 
 
 CHAP. XLVi ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 356 
 
 * but I hardly like to derive you of hinL Won't you want h^Tn 
 
 yourself ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, I can manage -vrithout him,' says Mr. Knightley. ' III let 
 you have him for fitty and allow you ten f>onnds for your screw. 
 You can add it on to your I O U, and pay it in with the other.' 
 
 We all laughed at this, and Moran said if he was dealing with 
 Mr. Knightley he'd get him a pound or two cheaper. But Star- 
 light aaid, very serious like, that the arrangement would suit 
 him very well So he had his saddle shifted, and the groom led 
 back the bay and turned him loose in the p>adclock. 
 
 We mounted then, and it looked as if we were all matched for 
 a race to the Black Stump. Moran had a good horse, and when 
 he set him going in the first bit of thick tim her we came to, it took 
 a man, I teU you, to keep him in sight. Starlight made the black 
 horse hit out in a way that must have h)een a trifle strange to him 
 unless he'd been in training lately. As for Mr. Knightley, he took 
 it easy and sailed away on one side with Joe Wall and me. He 
 laved it out cool to the last, and wasn't going to hurry himself 
 or anybody. 
 
 Hali-an-nour before sundown we rode up to the Black Stump 
 It was a rum-looking spot, but everybody knew it for miles round. 
 There was nothing like it anywhere handy. It was within a 
 reasonable distance of Bathurst, and not so far from a place 
 we could make to, where there was good shelter and hiding too, 
 if we were pushed. 
 
 There were two or three roads led up to it, and crossed there 
 — one from Bathurst, one to Turon, and another straight into 
 the forest country, which led range by range to Nulla Moun- 
 tain. We could see on a good way ahead, and, though there was 
 no one at the tree when we came, a single horseman was riding 
 alons the road for Bathurst. We all drew rein round the stump. 
 It had been a tremendous big old ironbark tree — nobody knew 
 how old, but it had had its top blown otf in a thunderstorm, and 
 the carriers had lighted so many fires against the roots of it that 
 it had been killed at last, and the sides were as black as a steamer's 
 funnel After a bit we could make out the doctor's short-tailed, 
 mousy mare and him pvowdering along at a sort of hand gallop. 
 
 When he came up close, he took oti' his hat and made a bow. 
 ' Chentlemen of the roat, I sahide you,' he says, ' You haf kebt 
 your bromise to the letter, and you wiU fint that Albert von 
 Schiller has kept his. Hauptman ! ' says he to Starlight, 'I 
 delifer to you the ransom of dies wothy chentlsman and his 
 most excellend and hoch besahltes laty, who has much recovered 
 from her fadigues, and I demant his rreetom.' 
 
 'Well done, most trust- repaying and not-ever- to- be-entirely- 
 forgotten herald,' says Starlight, ' I hand over to these worthy 
 free companions the frank-geld ; isn't that the term ? — and when 
 they have counts it (for they won't take your word or mine), 
 the Graf here — most high-born and high-be-seeming, but uncom- 
 monly-near-ending his glorious career magnate — will be restored 
 
858 ROBBERY imDER ARMS chap. 
 
 to you. Very pleasant company we've found him. I should 
 like to have my revenge at picquet, that's all.' 
 
 While this was going on Starlight had collared the bundle of 
 notes from the doctor, and chucked it over quite careless-like to 
 Moran. ' There it is for you,' says he. * You can diA-ide it 
 between you. Dick and I stand out this time ; and you can't 
 say you've done badiy.' 
 
 Moran didn't say anything, but he and Wall got off their 
 horses and sat down on their heels — native fashion. Then they 
 turned to, counting out the notes one by one. They were aU 
 fivers — 30 it took some time — as they neither of 'em weren't very 
 smart at figures, and after they'd got out twenty or thirty they'd 
 get boxed, like a new hand counting sheep, and have to begin 
 all over again. It must have been aggravating to Mr. Knightley, 
 and he was waiting to be let go, in a manner of speaking. He 
 never showed it, but kept smoking and yarning with Starlight, 
 pointing out how grand the sun was just a-setting on the Bulga 
 Mountains — just for all the world as if he'd given a picnic, and 
 was making himself pleasant to the people that stayed longest. 
 
 At long last they'd got to the end of the conning, and divided 
 the notes. Moran tied his up in a bunch, and rolled 'em in his 
 poncho ; but Wall crammed his into his pocket and made 'email 
 stick out like a boy that's been stealing apples. When they 
 mounted their horses, Mr. Knightley shook hands with me and 
 Starlight. Then he turns round to Moran and Wall — ' We're 
 parting good friends after all's said and done,' he says. * Just as 
 well matters have been settled this way. Come, now, in cool 
 blood, ain't you rather glad, Moran ? ' 
 
 ' Dashed if I know,' growls he. ' All I know is, you're deuced 
 well out of it ; your luck mayn't be so good another time.' 
 
 'Nor yours either, my friend,' says ^ir. Knightley, drawing 
 up his bridle-rein. ' I had only a snap-shot at you when that 
 bullet went through your poncho, or you'd be lying alongside of 
 Daly. However, I needn't waste my breath talking to that 
 brute,' he says to Starlight. ' I know well all I owe to you and 
 Dick Marston here. Some day I may repay it.' 
 
 ' You mean what I owe you,' says Starlight, turning it off 
 with a laugh. 'Never fear, you'l) find that paid to your credit 
 in the bank. We have agents in all sorts of places. Good-bye, 
 and a safe ride home. My respectful compliments to Mrs. 
 Knightley. Perhaps you'd better follow the doctor now.' The 
 old gentleman had got tired waiting, and ridden on slow and easy. 
 
 Two or three weeks after, Starlight and I were taking a ride 
 towards the Bogan Road, not that we was on for anything par- 
 ticular, but just having a turn round for want of something else 
 to do, when we saw a big mob of cattle coming along, with 
 three or four stock-riders behind 'em. Then we met a loaded 
 dray and team ir: front, that had rations and swags and a tent. 
 The driver asked us if we knew a good place to camp. He was 
 a talking sort of chap, and we yarned away with him for a bit 
 
XLVi ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 857 
 
 He told Hs how the boss was behind in a dogcart and tandem, 
 with two led horses besides. The cattle were going to take up 
 a new run he'd bought on the Lower Bogan, an out-and-out 
 wild place ; but he'd got the country cheap, and thought it 
 would pay in the end. He was going ahead after a stage or 
 two, but just now he was camping v/ith them. 
 
 'My word, he's well in, is the cove,' says the horse-driver; 
 ' he's got half-a-dozen stations besides this one. He'll be one or 
 the richest men in Australia yet.' 
 
 After we saw the cattle (about a thousand head) we thought 
 it would be a middling day's work to 'stick up' the cove and 
 
 Eut him tlirough. Going to form a new station, he'd very like 
 ave cash about, as lie'd have to pay for a lot of things on the 
 nail iust at hrst. If he was such a swell too, he'd have a gold 
 watch and perhaps a few more trilles. Anyhow, he was good 
 for the day's expenses, and we thought we'd try it on. 
 
 So we passed the cattle and rode quieily along the rotid till 
 we saw his dogcart coming ; then we stopped inside a yarran 
 scrub, just as he came by — a square-built man he seemecf to be, 
 muffled up in a big rough coat. It was a cool morning. We 
 rode up sharpish, and showed our revolvers, singing out to him to 
 'bail up.' He pulled up quick and stared at us. So we did at him. 
 Then the three of us burst out laughing — regular roared again. 
 
 Who should it he but old George Storefield. 
 
 ' Well, this is a prime joke,' says he. ' I knew you were out 
 somewhere on this road • but I never thought I should live to be 
 stuck up by you, Dick Marston.' 
 
 I looked foolish. It was rather a stunner when you come to 
 think of it, 
 
 ' I beg a thousand pardons,' says Starlight. * Ridiculous mis- 
 take. Want of something to occupy our time. " For Satan 
 finds some mischief still," etc. Isn't that the way the hymn 
 runs ? Wonderfully true, isn't it 1 You'll accept our apologies, 
 Mr. Storefield, I trust. Poor Dick here will never get over it.' 
 
 ' How was I to know ? Why, George, old man, we thought it 
 was the Governor turned squatter, or old Billy Wentworth him- 
 self. Your trade pays better than ours, let alone being on the 
 square. Well, shake hands ; we'll be oif. You won't tell the 
 girls, there's a good fellow, will you ? ' 
 
 I can't promise,' says old George; 'it's too good a joke.' 
 Here he laughed a good one. ' It isn't often a man gets stuck 
 up by his friends like this. Tell you what; come and have 
 some lunch, and we'll talk it over.' 
 
 His man rode up then with the spare horse. LuckUy, he was 
 a good way behind, as fellows will keep when they're following 
 a trap, so that they can't be any good when they're v.anted. In 
 this case it was just as well. He hadn't seen anything. 
 
 ' Hobble the horses out and put on their nose-bags, Williams,* 
 oays he, 'and then get out the lunch. Put the things under 
 that tree.' 
 
g68 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. xlvi 
 
 They took out the horses, and the chap got out a basket with 
 cold beef and bread and half a tongue and a bottle of good 
 whisky and water- bag. 
 
 We sat do\rn on the grass, and as ^e'd been riding since sun- 
 rise we did pretty well in the feed line, and had a regular good 
 bit of fun. I never thought old Qoorge had so much go in him; 
 but good times had made him twice the man he used to be. 
 
 After a bit he sends the groom down to the Cowall to water 
 the horses, and, says he — 
 
 'Captain, you'd better come and manage Willaroon down there, 
 withDick for stockman, There'safortune in it, and it'sagood way 
 off yet. Nobody would think of looking for you there. You're a 
 new chum, j ust out from home, you know. Plenty of spare coun try. 
 I'll send you some cattle to start you on a new run after a bit.' 
 
 * If we could throw our past behind us, I'd do it, and thank God 
 on my knees,' said Starlight. *It would make me almost a happy 
 man again. But why think of that or any other honest life in this 
 colony now ? We've debarred ourselves from it now and for ever. 
 Our only hope is in another land — America — if we can get away. 
 We shan't be long here now; we're both sick of this accursed work.' 
 
 *The sooner the better,' says George, taking his hand and 
 giving it a hearty grip. * And, look here, you work your way 
 quietly down to Willaroon. That's my place, and I'll give you 
 a line across to the Queensland border. From there you can 
 get over to Townsville, and it's easy to sail from there to the 
 islands or any port out of reach of harm from here.' 
 
 ' We'll tackle it next month if we're alive,' says I. So we parted. 
 
 Not long after this we got a letter from Jim. He'd heard all 
 about the way to do it from a man he'd met in Melbourne that 
 had worked his way down overland from the North. He said 
 once you were there, or near there, there was little or no chance 
 of being interfered with. Jeanie was always in a fright every 
 day Jim went away lest he might be taken and not let come 
 back. So she was always keeping him up to the mark, making 
 him inquire here and look out there until he got a bit of infor- 
 mation which told him what he wanted. 
 
 This man that worked in the store with him was a fast sort 
 of card, who had been mate of a brig cruising all about and 
 back to Sydney with sandalwood, beche-de-mer, and what they 
 call island trade. 
 
 Well, the captain of the craft, who was part owner, had 
 settled in his mind that he'd trade regular with San Francisco 
 now, and touch at Honolulu going and coming. He was to be 
 back at Gladstone in about three months, and then start for 
 California straight away. 
 
 This was the very thing, just made to suit us aD to pieces. 
 If we could make out to one of the Queensland northern ports 
 it would be e^>sy enough to ship under different names. Once 
 in America, we d be in a new world, and there'd be nothing to 
 stop na from leading & iiew lifa 
 
CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 When we got the notion into our heads, we set to work to 
 oarry it out. We didn't want to leave /Vileen and mother 
 behind. So it was settled that 1 was to go over and see them, 
 and try and persuade them to go down to Melbourne and stop 
 with Jeanie after Jim had started. 
 
 Then, if we all got safe over to San Francisco, Jeanie and 
 they could come over by the tirst sliip that saile«l. There was 
 no down upon them, so they could do anything they liked. The 
 main thing was to get Jim off safe and me and Starlight. After 
 that the rest might come along when tliey pleased. As for dad, 
 he was to take his own road ; to go and stay as he chose. It 
 wasn't much use trying to make him do anytliing else. But he 
 was more like to stop at the old Hollow than anywhere else. It 
 wouldn't have seemed home to him anywhere else, even where 
 he was born, I believe. 
 
 The first thing of all was to go to the old place and see 
 mother and Aileen. They were both back at the old cottage, 
 and were a bit more comfortable now. Greorge Storetield had 
 married a lady — a real lady, as Aileen said — and, though she 
 was a nice, good-tempered young woman as ever wa.s, Aileen, of 
 course, wouldn't stay there any longer. She thought home was 
 the best place after all. 
 
 We took a couple of days figuring it out at the Hollow. Star- 
 light had a map, and we plotted it out, and marked all the 
 stages which could be safely made — went over all the back 
 tracks and cross-country lines ; some we had travelled before, 
 and others of which we knew pretty well from hearsay. 
 
 After we'd got all this cut and dry, I started away one 
 beautiful sunshiny morning to ride ONer to Eocky Flat. I 
 remember the day as well as yesterday, because I took notice of 
 it at the time, and had better cause to remember it before all 
 was over. Everything looked so lovely a5 I began to clear the 
 foot hills of Nulla Mountain. The birds seemed to chirp and 
 whistle gayer than they ever did before. The dewdrops on the 
 gi*ass and all the twigs and shoots of the trees looked as if it was 
 covered with diamonds and rubies as the sun began tc- sliine 
 
360 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 and melt some of them. My horse stepped along limber and 
 free. ' O Lord,' I says to myself out aloud, ' what a happy 
 cove I might be if I could start fresh — knowing what I know — 
 and not having all these things against me ! ' 
 
 When I got on to the tableland above Rocky Flat I took a 
 good look at the whole place. Everything was as quiet and 
 peaceful as if nothing had ever happened within miles of it — as 
 if I hadn't had Goring's handcufis on me— as if Jim hadn't had 
 the bullets whistling round him, and risked his life on an un- 
 bridled horse — as if the four dead men had not lain staring up 
 to the sky in the gully up yonder for days before they were 
 found and buried. 
 
 But now it looked as if only two or three people had ever 
 been there from the beginning of the world. The wild ducks 
 swam and splashed in the little waterhole above the house. Two 
 or three of the cows were walking down to the creek, as quiet 
 and peaceable as you please. There was some poultry at the 
 back, and the little garden was done up that nicely as it hadn't 
 been for many a day. 
 
 After I'd pretty well settled in my own mind that there was 
 no one anext or anigh the old place, I drew up Vjy degrees, bit 
 by bit, and sneaked across the creek. I was just making for the 
 barn when I saw two horsemen pop up sudden round the back 
 of the house and ride towards the front gate. I saw with half 
 an eye they were Sir Ferdinand Morringer and a trooper. 
 
 Lucky for me they were looking up the gully instead of my 
 way, and, though my heart nearly stood still. I rode as hard as 
 I could lick for the gate of the barn, which was betwixt me and 
 them. They never looked round. They were too much taken 
 up with watching the spot where Hagan and his lot were 
 found. I had just time to chevy straight into the barn and 
 pull off my saddle and bridle and hide under the hay when they 
 shifted full towards where I'd been and then hung up their 
 horses. The trooper tied his to a dead Vjranch of a tree, and 
 then went moving about. I was mortally afraid of his 
 stumbling against something and spoiling the whole affair. 
 
 It seems Sir Ferdinand had never given up the notion of our 
 turning up at Rocky Flat some day or other ; so he used to take 
 a turn himself that way every now and again on the chance, 
 and a very good chance it nearly turned out to be. Besides 
 this, it seems since he'd heard of her being at the ball at Turon 
 he'd taken a great fancy to Aileen, and used to talk to her as 
 much as she'd let him, when she was at George Storefield's and 
 any other place where he met her. He wouldn't have had much 
 chance of saying tlie second word, only he was a good-natured, 
 amusing sort, and always as respectful to her as if she'd been a 
 lady. Besides, Aileen had a kind of fancy that it might make 
 things no worse for us if she was civil to him. Any way, sha 
 thought, as women will do, that she might get something out 
 of him perhaps once in a way that would be of use to us. I 
 
XLvii EOBBEEY UNDER ARMS 361 
 
 don't believe as it -vould make a scrap of difference one way or 
 the other. And, like people who try to be too clever, she was 
 
 fretty near being caught in her own trap this time. Not that 
 blame the poor thing, she did all for the best, and would have 
 given the eyes out of her head, I believe, to have done us real 
 good, and seen us clear of all our troubles. 
 
 Well, she brings a chair out on the verandah, and Sir Ferdi- 
 nand he sat down on a bench there for half-an-hour, talking away 
 and laughing, just as gentlemen will to pretty girls, no matter 
 who they are. And I could see Aileen look up and laugh now 
 and then, pleased like. She couldn't help it. And there was I 
 stuck in the confounded bam among the straw all the time 
 looking out through one of the cracks and wondering if he was 
 ever going to clear out. Sometimes I thought the trooper, who 
 was getting tired of dodging about doing nothing, couldn't be 
 off seeing my horse's tracks leading slap into the barn door 
 But he was thinking of something else, or else wasn't mucli in 
 the tracking line. Some men would see a whole annv of fresh 
 tracks, as plain as print, right under their noses ana wouldn't 
 drop down to anytning. 
 
 However, last of all I saw him unhitch his horse and take the 
 bridle on his arm, and then Aileen put on her hat and walked 
 up to the top of the ridge along the stony track with him. 
 Then I saw him mount and start otr at a rattling good bat along 
 the road to Turon and the trooper after him. 1 felt all right 
 again then, and watched Aileen come .slowly down the road 
 again with her head down, quite thoughtful like, very different 
 from the way she went up. She didn't stop at the house, but 
 walked straight down to the barn and came in at the door. I 
 wondered what she would do when she saw my horse. But she 
 didn't start, only said — 
 
 ' You may come out now, Dick ; I knew you were here. 1 
 saw you ride in just as Sir Ferdinand and the trooper came 
 
 'So that's why you were making yourself so pleasant,' says I 
 laughingly. 'I mustn't tell Starlight, I suppose, or we shall be 
 having a new yarn in the newspapers — "Duel between Sir 
 Ferdinand Morringer and Captain Starlight."' 
 
 She laughed too, and then looked sad and serious like again. 
 
 'I wonder if we shall ever li.ive an end to this wretched hide- 
 and-seek work, God knows I would do anything that an honest 
 girl could do for you boys and him, but it sometimes looks dark 
 enough, and I have dreadful fears that all will be in vain, and 
 that we are fated to death and ruin at the end.' 
 
 ' Come, come, don't break down before the time,' I said. ' It's 
 been a close shave, though ; but Sir Ferdinand won't be back 
 for a bit, so we may as well take it easy. I've got a lot to say 
 CO you. 
 
 ' He said he wouldn't be back tliis way till Friday week,' says 
 she. * He has an escort to see to then, and he expected to be at 
 
862 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 Stony Creek in a couple of hours from this. He'll have to lide 
 for it.' 
 
 We walked over to the house. Neither of us said anything 
 for a bit. Mother was sitting in her old chair by the lire knitting. 
 Many a good pair of woollen socks she'd sent us, and many's the 
 time we'd had call to bic«s her and her knitting — as we sat our 
 horses, night after night, in a perishing frost, or when the rain 
 set in that run of wet winters we had, when we'd hardly a dry 
 stitch on us by the week together, when we had enough of them 
 and the neck wrappers, I expect plenty of others round about 
 were glad to get 'em. It was partly for good nature, for mother 
 was always a kind-hearted poor sou! as ever was, and would 
 give away the shoes oil her feet — like most Irish people I've met 
 — to any one that wanted them worse than herself, and partly 
 for the ease it gave her mind to bo always doing something 
 steady like- ^fother hadn't book-learning, and didn't always 
 understand the things Aileen read to her. She was getting too 
 old to do much in the house now. But her eyes were wonder- 
 ful good still, and this knitting was about the greatest pleasure 
 she had left in the world. If anything had happened to stop 
 her from going on with that, I don't believe she would have 
 lived a month. 
 
 Her poor old face brightened up wlien she seen me, and for a 
 few minutes you'd have said no thought of trouble could come 
 anigh her. Then the tears rolled down her cheeks, and I could 
 see her lips moving, though she did not speak the words. 1 
 knew what she was doing, and if that could have kept us right 
 we'd never have gone wrong in the world. But it was to be^ 
 I suppose. 
 
 Mother was a deal older-looking, and couldn't move about 
 as well as she did, Aileen said she'd often sit out in the sun for 
 an hour together and watch her walking up the garden, or 
 putting up the calves, and carrying in the water from the creek, 
 and say nothing. Sometimes she thought her mind was going 
 a bit, and then again she'd seem as sensible as ever she was. 
 To-day, after a bit, she came round and talked more and asked 
 about the neighbours, seemed more curious like, than she'd done. 
 Aileen said, for many a long day. 
 
 ' You must have something to eat, Dick,' says Aileen ; * it's a 
 long ride from — from where we know — and what with one 
 thing and another I daresay you've an appetite. Let me see 
 what there is. Mrs. Storenel(f sent us over a quarter of veal 
 from the farm yesterday, and we've plenty of bacon of our own. 
 Mother and I hve half our time on it and the eggs. Pm making 
 quite a fortune by the butter lately. These diggings are wonder- 
 fid places to send up the price or everything we can grow.' 
 
 So she got out the frying-pan, and she and I and mother had 
 some veal chops, with a slice or two of bacon to give it a flavour. 
 My word ! they were good after a forty-mile ride, and we'd 
 had nothing but corned beef in the Hollow lately. Fresh batter 
 
XLvn ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 868 
 
 &nd milk too ; it was a treat. We had co^rs enough at the 
 Hollow, bat we didn't bother ourseJrea milting ; bread and beef 
 and tea, with a glass of grc^ now and then, wae the general run 
 of oar grub. 
 
 We had a talk about the merry time at the Turon races, 
 and Aileen laughed in spite of herself at the thought of Star- 
 light walking down the ballroom U) be introduced to her, and 
 being taken up to all the swell people of the place. ' He looked 
 grander than any of them, to my fancv,' said she; 'and oh! 
 what a cruel shame it seems that he should erer have done what 
 keeps him from going among hLs equals aa he was bom to do. 
 Then I should never have seen him. I suppose, and a thousand 
 times better too. I'd give up every hoi-e of seeing him again 
 in this world, Gk)d knows how cheerfully, if it would serve him 
 or help his escape.' 
 
 * I'm down here now to see you about the same escape,' I 
 said ; and then I told her about Jim's letter, and what he said 
 alx)ut the mate of the ship. She listened for a good whde 
 patiently, with her hand in mine, like we used to sit in old days, 
 when we were young and happy and alive — alive, not dead men 
 and women walking about and making believe to live. So I 
 told her how we made it up to meet somewhere near the Queens- 
 land border. Jim to come up the Murray from Melbourne, and 
 so on to the Darling, and we to make across for the Lower Bogan. 
 If we could carry tliis out all right — and it looked pretty likelj 
 — the rest of the game would be easy ; and once on blue water 
 — O my God, what new creatures we should all be ! 
 
 Aileen threw her arms round my neck and sobbed and cried 
 like a child ; she couldn't speak for a bit, and when she looked 
 up her eyes seemed to have a different kind of look in them — a 
 far-away, dreamy sort of light from what I'd ever noticed in 
 them. 
 
 * It may come about,' she said, * Dick. Tve prayed whole 
 nights through and vowed ray life to the Blessed Virgin. She 
 may accept the service of my years that are to come. It may 
 be permitted after all the sins of our people.' 
 
 After this she dried her eyes and went to her room for a bit, 
 while I had a quiet, easy sort of talk with mother, she saying 
 a word or two now and then, and looking at me most of the 
 time, as if that was enough without talking. 
 
 Then Aileen came out of her room with her habit and hat on. 
 * Run up my horse, Dick,' she say.^, ' and I'll take you over to see 
 Greorge Storefield's new placa A ride will do me good, and I 
 daresay you're not tired.' 
 
 I caught her horse and saddled him for her, and off we went 
 down the old track we knew so well all our lives. 
 
 I told her all about our lark with old George, and how good 
 he'd been through it all ; besides promising to give us a lift 
 through his country when we made the grand start. She said 
 it was just like him — that he was the kindest soul in the world. 
 
364 ROBBEEY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 and the most thoughtful. The new Mrs. Storefield had bceii 
 very ciWl and friendly to her, and told her she knew George's 
 feeling towards her, and respected it. But Aileen never could 
 feel at home in the grand new house now, and only would go to 
 see old Mrs, Storefield, who still lived in the family cottage, 
 and found it the best suited to her. So we yarned away till we 
 got in sight of the place. When I saw the new two-story 
 stone house I was regular struck all of a heap. 
 
 Old Greorge had got on in the world and no mistake. He'd 
 worked early and late, always been as steady as a rock, and had 
 looked ahead instead of taking his pleasure straight off when 
 he got the first few hundred pounds together. He'd seen fat 
 cattle must be dear and scarce for years to come. Noticed, too, 
 that however cheap a far-away bit of country was held, some- 
 times bought for £200 or £300, it always rose in value year by 
 year. So with store cattle. Now and again they'd fall to 
 nothing. Then he'd buy a whole lot of poor milkers' calves 
 about Burrangong, or some of those thick places where they 
 never fattened, for £1 a head or less, and send them away to 
 his runs in the Lachian. In six months you wouldn't know 
 'em. They'd come down well-grown fat cattle in a year or two, 
 and be worth their £6 or £8 a head. 
 
 The same way wnth land ; he bought up all the little bits of 
 allotments with cottages on them round Paramatta and Windsor 
 way and Campbelltown — all them old-fashioned sleepy old 
 places near Syanev, for cash, and cheap enough. The people 
 that had them, ana had lived a pokey life in them for many a 
 year, wanted the money to go to the diggings with, and quite 
 right too. Still, and all this land was rising in value, and 
 George's children, if he had any, would be among the richest 
 people in the colony. 
 
 After he'd married Miss Oldham — they were Hawkesbury 
 people, her grandfather, old Captain Oldham, was one of the 
 officers in the first regiment that came out — he didn't see why 
 he shouldn't have as good a house as any one else. So he had a 
 gentleman up from Sydney that drew plans, and he had a real 
 stone house built, with rooms upstairs, and furniture to match, 
 a new garden, and a glasi? house at the side, for all the world 
 like some of them grand places in Darling Point, near 
 Sydney. 
 
 Aileen wouldn't go in, and you may be sure I didn't want to, 
 but we rode all round the place, a little way off, and had a real 
 good look at everything. There vvasn't a gentleman in the 
 country had better outbuildings of all sorts. It was a real tip- 
 top place, good enough for the Governor himself if he came to 
 live up the country. All the old fencing had been knocked 
 down, and new raiUngs and everything put up. Seme of the 
 scraggy trees had been cleared avra^y, and all the dead wood 
 burned. I never thought the old place could have showed out 
 the way it did. But money can do a lot. it ain't everything 
 
XLvn ROBBEEY UNDER AEMS 865 
 
 in this world. But there's precious little it won't get you. and 
 things must be very bad it won't mend. A man must have 
 very little sense if he don't see as he gets older that character 
 ana money are the two things he's got to be carefuUest of in 
 this world. If he's not particular to a shade about either or 
 both of 'em, he'll find his mistake. 
 
 After we'd had a good look round and seen the good well- 
 bred stock in the paddocks, the growing crops all looking first- 
 rate, everything well fed and hearty, showing there was no 
 stint of grub for anything, man or beast, we rode away from 
 the big house entrance and came opposite the slip-rails on the 
 flat tliat led to the old cottage. 
 
 'Wouldn't you like to go in juat for a minute, Dick?' saya 
 Aileen. 
 
 I knew what she was thinking of. 
 
 I was half a mind not, but then something seemed to draw 
 me, and I was off my horse and had the slip-rail down before 
 I knew where I was. 
 
 We rode up to the porch just outside the verandah where 
 George's father had planted the creeping roses ; big clusters of 
 bloom they used to have on 'em when I was a boy. He showed 
 'em to me, I remember, and said what fine climbers they were. 
 Now they were all over the porch, and the verandah, and the 
 ro<jf of the cottage, all among the shingles. But }<[rs. Storefield 
 wouldn't have 'em cut because her old man had planted 'em. 
 She came out to see us, 
 
 'Well, Ailie, child,' says she, 'come along in, don't sit there 
 on your horse. ^Mio's this you've got with you ? Oh ! it's you, 
 Dick, is it '/ My eves ain't as good as they were. Well, come 
 alon^in too. You re on the wrong road, and worse '11 come of 
 it. But come along in, I'm not going to be the one to hunt 
 you. I remember old times when you were a little toddling 
 chap, as bold as a lion, and no one dreamt you'd grow up to be 
 the wild chap you are. Gracey's inside. I think. She's as big 
 a fool about ye as ever.' 
 
 I very near broke down at this. I could stand hard usage, 
 and send back as good as I got ; but this good old woman, that 
 had no call to think anything of me, but that I had spoded her 
 daughter's chance of marrying well and respectably — when she 
 talked to me this way, I came close up to making a fool of myself. 
 
 We walked in. Gracey was sewing away in the little parlour, 
 where there always u.sed to be a nosegay when I was a boy, and 
 it was that clean and neat I was afraid to go into it, and never 
 easy till I got out again. There she sat as sober-looking and 
 steady as if she'd been there for five yeai^s, and meant to be 
 for five years more. She wasn't thinking of anybody coming, 
 but when she looked up and saw me her face changed all of 
 a sudden, and she jumped up and dropped her work on the 
 floor. 
 
 ' Why, whatever brings you he! e, Dick ? ' she said. ' Don't 
 
366 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap, xlvk 
 
 you know it's terribly dangerous t Sir Ferdinand is always 
 about here now. He stayed at Gieorge's new house last night. 
 Wasn't hft at Rocky Flat to-day?' 
 
 ' Yes, but he won't be back for a week. He told Aileen here 
 he wouldn't.' Here I looked at them both. 
 
 'Aileen 'a carrying on quite a flirtation with Sir Ferdinand,' 
 says Gracey. ' I don't know what some one else would say if 
 he saw everything.' 
 
 ' Doesn't he talk to any one when he comes here, or make 
 himself pleasant 1 ' I said. * Perhaps there's more than one in 
 the game.' 
 
 ' Perhaps there is,' says Gracey ; ' but he thinks, I believe, 
 that he can get something out of us girls about you and your 
 goings on, and where you plant ; and we think we're quite' as 
 clever as he is, and might learn something useful too. So 
 that's how the matter lies at present. Are you going to be 
 jealous V 
 
 ' Not a bit in the world,' I said, * even if I had the right. I'll 
 back you two, as simple as you look, against any inspector of 
 police from here to South Australia.' 
 
 After this we began to talk about other things, and I told 
 Gracey all about our plans and intentions. She listened very 
 quiet and steady to it all, and then she said she thought some- 
 thing might come of it. Anyhow, she would go whenever I 
 sent for her to come, no matter where. 
 
 'What Pve said to you, Dick, I've said for good and alL It 
 may be in a month or two, or it may be years and years. But 
 whenever the time comes, and we have a chance, a reasonable 
 chance, of living peaceably and happily, you may depend upon 
 my keeping my word if Im alive.' 
 
 We three had a little more talk together, and Aileen and I 
 mounted and rode home. 
 
 It was getting on dusk when we started. They wanted us to 
 stop, but I daren t do it. It was none too safe as it was, and it 
 didn't do to throw a chance away. Besides, I didn't want to be 
 seen hanging about George's place. There was nobody likely to 
 know about Ailt^en and me riding up together and stopping 
 half -an -hour • but if it came to spending the evening, there was 
 no saying who might have ears and eyes open. At home I 
 could have my horse ready at a minute's warning, and be oflf 
 like a shot at the first whisper of danger. 
 
 So off we went. We didn't ride very fast back. It was many 
 a day since we had ridden over that ground together side by 
 sida It might be many a day, years perhaps, before we did 
 the same thing again. Perhaps never ! Who was to know 1 
 In the risks of a life like mine, I might never come back — never 
 set eyes again upon the sister that would have given her life for 
 mine ! Never watch the stars glitter through the forest-oak 
 branches, or hear the little creek ripple over the slate bar as it 
 did to-night 
 
CHAPTER XLVm 
 
 Wk rode along the old track very quiet, talking about old times 
 — or mostly saying nothing, thinking our own thoughts- 
 Something seemed to put it into my head to watch every turn 
 in the track — every tree and bush by the roadside — every sound 
 in the air — every star in the sky. Aileen rode along at last with 
 her head droop^id down as if she hadn't the heart to hold it up. 
 How hard it must have sefmed to her to think she didn't dare 
 even to ride with her own brother in the light of day without 
 starting at every bush that stirred — at every footstep, horse or 
 man, that fell on her e^r ! 
 
 There wasn't a breath of air that night. Not a leaf stirred — 
 QOt a bough moved of all the trees in the forest that we rode 
 through. A 'possum might chatter or a night-owl cry out, but 
 there wasn't any other sound, except the ripple of the creek 
 over the stones, that got louder and clearer as we got nearer 
 Rocky Flat. There was nothing like a cloud in the sky even. 
 It wasn't an over light night, but the stars shone out like so 
 many tireballs, and it was that silent any one could almost have 
 fancied they heard the people talking in the house we left, 
 though it was miles away. 
 
 * I sometimes wonder,' Aileen says, at last, rai.sing up her 
 head, * if I had been a man whether I should have done the same 
 things you and Jim have, or whether I should have lived honestly 
 and worked steadily like George over there. I think I should 
 have done so, I really do ; that nothing would have tempted me 
 to take what was not my own — or to — to — do other things. I 
 don't think it is in my nature somehow.' 
 
 'I don't say as you would, Ailie,' I put in ; 'but there's many 
 things to be thought of when you come to reckon what a boy 
 sees, and how he's brought up in the bush. It's diiferent with 
 girls — though I've known some of them that were no great 
 shakes either, and middling handy among the clearskins too.' 
 
 ' It's hard to say,' she went on, more as if she was talking to 
 herself than to me ; * I feel that Bad example — love of pleasure 
 — strong temptation — evil company — all these are heavy weights 
 to drag down men's souls to helL Who knows whether I Bhould 
 
368 ROBBERY UXDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 have been better than the thousands, the millions, that have 
 fallen, that have taken the broad road that leads to destruction. 
 Oh ! how dreadful it seems to think that when once a man has 
 sinned in some ways in this world there's no turning back — no 
 hope — no mercy — only long bitter years of prison life — worse 
 than death ; or, if anything can be worse, a felon's death ; a 
 doom dark and terrible, dishonouring to those that die and to 
 those that liva Oh that my prayers may avail — not my 
 prayers only, but my life's service — my life's service.' 
 
 Next morning I was about at daybreak and had my horse 
 fed and saddled up vrith the bridle on his neck, ready all but 
 slipping the bit into his mouth, in case of a quick start. I went 
 and helped Aileen to milk her cows, nine or ten of them there 
 were, a fairish morning's work for one girl ; mothering the 
 calves, bailing up, leg-roping, and all the rest of it. We could 
 milk well, all three of us, and mother too, when she was younger. 
 Women are used to cattle in Ireland, and England too. The 
 men don't milk there, I hear tell. That wouldn't work here. 
 Women are scarce in the regular bush, and though they'll milk 
 for their own good and on their own farms, you'll not get a girl 
 to milk, when she's at service, for anybody else. 
 
 One of the young cows was a bit strange with me, so I had 
 to shake a stick at her and sing out ' Bail up ' pretty rough 
 before she'd put her head in. Aileen smiled something like her 
 old self for a minute, and said — 
 
 ' That comes natural to you now, Dick, doesn't it ? ' 
 
 I stared for a bit, and then burst out laughing. It was a 
 rum go, wasn't it? The same talk for cows and Christians. 
 That's how things get stuck into the talk in a new country. 
 Some old hand like father, as had been assigned to a dairy 
 settler, and spent all his mornings in the cowyard, had taken 
 to the bush and tried his hand at sticking up people. TV"hen 
 they came near enough of course he'd pop out from behind a 
 tree or a rock, with his old musket or a pair of pistols, and when 
 he wanted 'em to stop ' Bail up, d — yer,' would come a deal 
 quicker and more natural-like to his tongue than ' Stand.' So 
 ' bail up ' it was from that day to this, and there'll have to be a 
 deal of change in the ways of the colonies and them as come 
 from 'em before anything else takes its place, between the man 
 that's got the arms and tiie man that's got the money. 
 
 After we'd turned out the cows we put the milk into the 
 little dairy. How proud Jim and I used to be because we dug 
 out the cellar part, and built the sod wall round the slabs ! 
 Father put on the thatch ; then it was as cool and clean as ever. 
 Many a good drink of cold milk we had there in the summers 
 that had passed away. Well, well, it's no use thinking of those 
 sort of things. They're dead and gone, like a lot of other things 
 and people — like I shall be before long, if it comes to that. 
 
 We had breakfast pretty comforta.ble and cheerful. Mother 
 looked pleased and glad to see me once more, and Aileen had got 
 
xLTiu ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 369 
 
 on her old face again, and was partly come round to her old 
 ways. 
 
 After breakfast Aileen and I went into the garden and had a 
 long talk over the plan we had chalked out for getting away to 
 Queensland. I got out a map Starlight had made and showed 
 her the way we were going to head, and why he thought it more 
 likely to work than he had done before. I was to make my 
 way down the Macquarie and across by Duck Creek, George's 
 station, Willaroon ; start from there with a mob of cattle to 
 Queensland as drover or anything that would suit my book. 
 
 Jim was to get on to one of the Murray River boats at Swan 
 Hill, and stick to her till he got a chance to go up the Darling 
 with an Adelaide boat to Bourke. He could get across from 
 there by Cunnamulla towards Kockhamnton, and from there we 
 were safe to tind plenty of vessels hound for the islands or San 
 Francisco. We had hardly cared where, as far as that goes, as 
 long aa we got cle^r away from our own country. 
 
 As soon as Jt-anie got a word from Jim that he'd sailed and 
 was clear of Australia, shed write up to Aileen, who was to go 
 down to Melbourne, and take mother with her. They could 
 stop with Jeanie until they got a message from San Francisco 
 to say he'd safely arrived there. After that they could start by 
 the first steamer. They'd have money enough to take their 
 passages and something handsome in cash when they got to 
 land. 
 
 Aileen agreed to it all. but in a curious sc»rt of way. 'It 
 looked well,' she said, 'and might be carried out, particularly as 
 we were all going to work cautiously and with such a lot of 
 preparation.' Everything that she could do would be d^ne, we 
 mignt be sure ; but though she had prayed and sought aid from 
 the Blessed Virgin and the saints — fasting and on her bare 
 knees, night after night — she had not been able to get one gleam 
 of consolation. Everything looked very dark, and she ha<i a 
 terrible feeling of anxiety and dread about the carrying it out. 
 But she didn't want to shake my courage, I could see ; so she 
 listened and smiled and cheered me up a bit at the end, and I 
 rode away, thinking there was a good show for us after aLL 
 
 I got back to the Hollow right enough, and for once in a way 
 it seemed as if the luck was on our side. Maybe it was going 
 to turn — who was to know 1 There had been men who had 
 been as deep in it as any of us that had got clean away to other 
 -countries and lived safe and comfortable to the day of their 
 death — didn't die so soon either — lived to a good round age, and 
 had wives and children round them that never knew but what 
 they'd been as good as the best. That wouldn't be our case* 
 but still if we once were able to put tiie sea between us ana 
 our old life the odds would be all in our favour instead of being 
 a hundred to one tliat we weren't placed and no takers. 
 
 Starlight was glad enough to see me back, and like every- 
 thing he tackled, had been squaring it all for our getting away 
 
 2 B 
 
370 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap 
 
 with head and hand. "We wanted to take everything with us 
 that could do us any good, naturally. Father and he had made 
 it right with some one they knew at Turon to take the gold and 
 give them a price for it — not all it was worth, but something 
 over three-fourths value. The rest he was to keep for his share, 
 for trouble and risk. There wa.s some risk, no doubt, in dealing 
 with us, but all the gold that was bought in them days wasn't 
 square, not by a lot. But there was no way of swearing to it. 
 Gold was gold, and once it was in the banks it was lumped up 
 with the rest. There was a lot of things to be thought of before 
 we regularly made a move for good and all ; but when you 
 make up your mind for a dart, it's wonderful how things shape. 
 We hadn't much trouble dividing the gold, and what cash there 
 was we could whack easy enough. There was the live stock 
 that was running in the Hollow, of course. We couldn't well 
 take them with us, except a few of the horses. We made a deal 
 at last with father for them. He took my share and Starlight's, 
 and paid us in cash out of his share of the notes. All we 
 wanted was a couple of horses each, one to carry a pack, one to 
 ride. 
 
 As for dad, he told us out, plump and plain, that he wasn't 
 going to shift. The Hollow was good enough for him, and 
 there he was going to stop. If Jim and I ana Starlight chose 
 to try and make blank emigrants of ourselves, well and good. 
 He didn't see as they'd have such a rosy time getting over to 
 these new townships on the other side. We might get took in, 
 and wish we was back again before all was said and done. But 
 some people could never let well alone. Here we had every- 
 thing that any man in his senses could wish for, and we wasn't 
 contented. Every one was going to cut away and leave him ; 
 he'd be all by himself, with no one but the dog for company, 
 and be as miserable as a bandicoot ; but no one cared a blank 
 brass farden about that. 
 
 'Come with us, governor,' says Starlight, 'have a cruise 
 round the world, and smell salt water again. You've not been 
 boxed up in the bush all your life, though you've been a goodish 
 while there. Make a start, and bring old Crib too.' 
 
 ' I'm too old and getting stiff in the j'ints,' says dad, brighten- 
 ing up a bit, 'or I don't say as I wouldn't. Don't mind my 
 growling. But I'm bound to be a bit lonely like when you are 
 all drawed off the camp. No ! take your own way and I'll take 
 mine.' 
 
 ' Next Monday ought to see us off,' says Starlight. ' We have 
 got the gold and cash part all right. I've had that money naid 
 to Kniglitley's credit in the Australian Bank I promised Lim, 
 and got a receipt for it.' 
 
 "That's just like yer,' says father, 'and a rank soft thing for 
 a man as has seen the world to drop into. Losin' yer share of 
 the five hundred quid, and then dropping a couple of hundred 
 not-es afc one gamble, besides buying a horse yer could have 
 
» 
 
 \ 
 
 XLTiii ROBBEEY UNDER ARMS 371 
 
 took lor nothing. He'll never bring twenty pound again, 
 neither.' 
 
 'Always pay my play debts,' says Starlight. 'Always did, 
 and always will. As for the horse — a bargain, a bargain.' 
 
 'And a dashed bad bargain too. Why didn't ye turn parson 
 instead of taking to the bush '? ' says father, with a grin. 
 ' Dashed if I ain't seen some parsons that could give you odds 
 and walk round ye at horse dealin'.' 
 
 'You take your own way, Ben, and I'll take mine,* says 
 Starlight rather fierce, and then father left oflf and went to do 
 something or other, while us two took our horses and rode out. 
 We hadn't a long time to be in the old Hollow now. It had 
 been a good friend to us in time of need, and we was sorry in a 
 kind of way to leave it. We were going to play for a big stake, 
 and if we lost we shouldn't have another throw in. 
 
 Our horses were in great buckle now ; they hadn't been 
 doing much lately. I had the one I'd brought with me, and a 
 thoroughbred brown horse that had been broken in the first 
 season we came there. 
 
 Starlight was to ride Rainbow, of course, and he had great 
 picking before he made up his mind what to choose for second 
 nor.se. At last he pitched upon a thoroughbred bay mare 
 named Locket that had been stolen from a mining township the 
 other side of the country. She was the fastest mare they'd 
 over bred — sound, and a weight-carrier too. 
 
 'I think I'll take Locket after all,' says he, after thinking 
 about it best part of an hour. ' She's very fast and a stayer. 
 Good tempered too, and the old horse has taken up with her. 
 It will be company for him.' 
 
 'Take your own way,' I said, 'but I wouldn't chance her. 
 She's known to a lot of jockey-boys and hangers-on. They 
 could swear to that white patch on her neck among a thousand.' 
 
 ' If you come to that, Rainbow is not an every-day horse, and 
 I can't leave him behind, can I ? I'll ship him, if I can, that's 
 more. But it won't matter mucli, for well have to take back 
 tracks all the way. You didn't suppose we were to ride along 
 the mail road, did you 1 ' 
 
 'I didn't suppose anything,' says I, * but that we were going 
 to clear out the safest way we could. If we're to do the sweU 
 business we'd better do it apart, or else put an advertisement 
 into the Turon Star that Starlight, Marston, and Co. are giving 
 up business and going to leave the district, all accounts owing 
 to be sent in by a certain date.' 
 
 'A first-rate idea,' says he. 'I'm dashed if I don't do it. 
 There's nothing like making one's exit in good form. How 
 savage i^Iorringer will be ! Thank you for the hint, Dick.' 
 
 There was no use ta,]king to him when he got into this sort 
 of humour. He was the most mad, reckless character I ever 
 came across, and any kind of checking only seenied to make 
 him worse. So I left him alone, for fear he should want to do 
 
372 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 something more venturesome still, and went on with my pack- 
 ing and getting ready for the road. 
 
 We fixed up to start on the Monday, and get as far away the 
 first couple of days as we could manage. We expected to get a 
 good start by making a great push the first day or two, and, as 
 the police would be thrown on the scent in a way we settled — 
 and a good dodge it was — we should have all the more time to 
 be clear of New South Wales before they regularly dropped 
 that we were giving them leg bail for it. 
 
 The Sunday before Starlight started away by himself, taking 
 a couple of good horses with him — one he led, and a spare 
 saddle too. He took nothing but his revolver, and didn't say 
 where he was going, but I pretty well guessed to say good-bye 
 to Aileen. Just as he started he looked back and says — 
 
 * I'm going for a longish ride to-day, Dick, but I shall be here 
 late if I'm back at all. If anything happens to me my share of 
 what there is I give to her, if she will take it. If not, do the 
 best you can with it for her benefit.' 
 
 He didn't take W^arrigal with him, which I was sorry for, as 
 the half-caste and I didn't hit it well together, and when we 
 were by ourselves he generally managed to do or say something 
 he knew I didn't like. I kept my hands ofi' him on account of 
 Starlight, but there was many a time my fingers itched to be at 
 him, and I could liardly keep from knocking some of the sulki- 
 ness out of him. This day, somehow, I was not in the best of 
 tempers myself. I had a good lot on my mind. Starting away 
 seems always a troublesome, bothering sort of thing, and if a 
 man's at all inclined to be cranky it'll come out then. 
 
 Next day we were going to start on a long voyage, in a 
 manner of speaking, and whether we should have a fair wind 
 or the vessel of our fortune would be wrecked and we go down 
 with it no one could say. This is hcA it happened. One of the 
 horses was bad to catch, and took a little trouble in the yard. 
 Most times Warrigal was quiet enough with 'em, but when he 
 got regular into a rage he'd skin a horse aUve, I really believe. 
 Anyhow, he began to hammer the colt with a roping-pole, and 
 as the yard was that high that no beast could jump it he had 
 him at his mercy. I wouldn't have minded a lick or two, but 
 he went on and on, nearly knocking the poor brute down 
 every time, till I could stand it no longer, and told him to 
 drop it. 
 
 He gave me some saucy answer, until at last I told him Pd 
 make him. He dared me, and I rushed at him. I believe he'd 
 have killed me that minute if he'd had the chance, and he made 
 a deuced good offer at it. 
 
 He stuck to his roping-stick — a good, heavy -ended gum 
 sapling, six or seven feet long — and as I came at nim he struck 
 at my head with such vengeance that, if it had caught me fair. 
 I should never have kicked. I made a spring to one side, and 
 it hit me a crack on the shoulder that wasn't a good thing in 
 
ZLTiu ROBBERY UNDER ARMS g78 
 
 itself. I was in at him before he could raise his hands, and let 
 him have it right and left. 
 
 Down he went and the stick atop of him. He was np again 
 like a wild cat, and at me hammer and tonga — but he hadn't the 
 weight, though he was quick and smart with his hands. I drew 
 off and knocked him clean off hia pins. Then he saw it wasn't 
 good enough, and gave it best, 
 
 'Never mind, Dick Marston,' says he, as he walked off; and 
 he fixed his eyes on me that savage and deadly -looking, with 
 the blood running down his face, that I couldn't help shivering 
 a bit, ' youll pay for this. I owe it you and Jim, one apiece,' 
 
 'Confound you,' I said, 'it's all your own fault. Why 
 couldn't you stop ill-using the horse 1 You don't like being hit 
 yourpelf. How do you think he likes ii ? ' 
 
 ' What business that of yours 1 ' he said. ' You mind your 
 work and I'll mind mine. This is the worst days work you've 
 done this year, and so 1 tell you.' 
 
 He went awav to his gunyah then, and except doing one or 
 two things for Starlight would not lift his hand for any one 
 that day. 
 
 I was sorry for it when I came to think, I daresay I might 
 have got him round with a little patience and humbugging. 
 It's always a misUike to lose your temper and make enemies ; 
 there's no knowing what harm they may do ye. People like us 
 oughtn't to throw away a chance, even with a chap like Warri- 
 gal. Besides, I knew it would vex Starlight, and for his sake I 
 would have given a trifle it hadn't happened- However, I didn't 
 see how Warrigal could do me or Jim any harm without hurt- 
 ing him, and I knew he'd have cut off his hand rather than any 
 harm should come to Starlight that he could help. 
 
 So I got ready. Dad and I had our tea together pretty com- 
 fortable, and had a longish talk. The old man was rather down 
 in the mouth for him. He said he somehow didn't expect the 
 fakement to turn out well, ' Y'^ou're going away,' he said, ' from 
 where you're safe, and there's a many things goes against a 
 man in our line, once he's away from his own beat. You never 
 know how you may be given away. The Captain's all right 
 here, when he's me to look after him, though he does swear at 
 me sometimes ; but he was took last time. He was out on his 
 own hook, and it's my belief hell be took this time if he isn't 
 very careful. He's a good man to fight through things when 
 once he's in the thick of 'em, but he ain't careful enough to keep 
 dark and close when the play isn't good. You draw along 
 steady by yourself till you meet Jim — that's my advice to ye.' 
 
 'I mean to do that. I shall work my way down to old 
 Gleorge's place, £.nd get on with stock or something till we all 
 meet at Cunnamulla. After that there ain't much chance of 
 these police here grabbing us.' 
 
 * Unless you're followed up,' says the old man. ' I've known 
 chaps to go a deuce of & way, once they got on the track, and 
 
374 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap 
 
 there's getting some smart fellows among 'em now — native-bom 
 chaps as'U be as good at picking up the tracks as you and Jim.' 
 
 'Well, we must take our chance. I'm sorry, for one thing, 
 that I had that barney with Warrigal. It was all his fault. 
 But I had to give him & hardish crack or two. He'd turn dog 
 on me and Jim, and in a minute, if he saw his way without 
 hurting Starlight.' 
 
 * He can't do it,' sa.ys dad ; ' it's sink or swim with the lot of 
 you. And he dursn't either, not he,' says father, beginning to 
 growl out his words. ' If I ever heard he'd given away any one 
 in the lot I'd have his life, if I had to poleaxe him in George 
 Street. He knows me too.' 
 
 We sat yarning away pretty late. The old man didn't say 
 it, but I made out that he was sorry enough for that part of his 
 life which had turned out so bad for us boys, and for mother 
 and Aileen. Bad enough he was in a kind of way, old dad, but 
 he wasn't all bad, and I believe if he could have begun again 
 and thought of what misery he was going to bring on the lot of 
 us he would never have gone on the cross. It was too late, too 
 late now, though, to think of that. 
 
 Towards morning I heard the old dog growl, and then the 
 tramp of a horse's feet. Starlight rode up to the fire and let hi.« 
 horse go, then walked straight into his corner and threw him- 
 self down without speaking. He had had a precious long ride, 
 and a fast one by the look of his horse. The other one he had 
 let go as soon as he came into the Hollow ; but none of the 
 three would be a bit the worse after a few hours' rest. The 
 horses, of course, were spare ones, and not wanted again for a 
 bit. 
 
 Next morning it was 'sharp's the word,' and no mistake. I 
 felt a deal smarter on it than yesterday. When you've fairly 
 started for the road half the journey's done. It's the thinking 
 of this and forgetting that, and wondering whether you haven't 
 left behind the t'other thing, that's the miserablest part of 
 going a journey ; when you're once away, no matter what's left 
 behind, you can get on some way or other. 
 
 We didn't start so over and above early, though Starlight 
 was up as fresh as paint at sunrise, you'd thought he hadn't 
 ridden a yard the day before. Even at the very last there's a 
 lot of things to do and to get. Bui we all looked sHppy and 
 didn't talk much, so that we got through what we had to do, 
 and had all the horses saddled and packed by about eight 
 o'clock. Even Warrigal had partly got over his temper. Of 
 course I told Starlight about it. He gave him a good rowing, 
 and told him he deserved another hammering, which he had a 
 good mind to give him, if we hadn't been starting for a journey. 
 Warrigal didn't say a word to him. He never did. Starlight 
 told me on the quiet, though, he was sorry it happened, ' though 
 it's the rascal's own fault, and served him right. But he's a 
 revengeful beggar/ he says, ' and that he would play you some 
 
xLviii ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 375 
 
 dog's trick if he wasn't afraid of me, you may depend your 
 life on.' 
 
 * Now,' says he, ' we must make our little arrangements. I 
 shall be somewhere about Cunuamulla by the end of this 
 month ' (it was only the first week). ' Jim knows that we are 
 to meet there, and if we manage that all right I think the 
 greatest part of the danger will be over. I shall get right 
 across by Bandaloo to the back blocks of the West Eogan 
 country, between it and the Lachlan. There are tracks through 
 the endless mallee scrub, only known to the tribes in the neigh- 
 bourhood, and a few half-castes like Warrigal, that have been 
 stock-riding about them. Sir Ferdinand and his troopers might 
 just as well hunt for a stray Arab in the deserts of the 
 Euphrates. If I'm alive-— mind you, alive — I'll be at Cunna- 
 mulla on the day I mean. And now, good-bye, old fellow. 
 Whatever my sins have been, I've been true to you and your 
 
 Feople in the past, and if Aileen and I meet across the seas, ae 
 hope, the new life may partly atone for the old one.' 
 
CHAPTEK XLIX 
 
 HLe shook hands with me and dad, threw his leg over Rainbow, 
 took Locket's bridle as if he was going for an easy day's ride, 
 and cantered off'. 
 
 Warrigal no<ided to both of us, then brought his pack-horse 
 up level, and followed up. 
 
 ' There goes the Captain,' says father. * It's hard to say if 
 we'll ever see him again. I shan't, anyhow, nor you either, 
 maybe. Somehow I've had a notion coming over me this good 
 while as my time ain't going to be long. It don't make no odds, 
 neither. Life ain't no great chop to a man like me, not when 
 he gets the wrong side o' sixty, anyhow. Mine ain't been such 
 a bad innings, and I don't owe much to any man. I mean as 
 I've mostly been square with them that's done me a bad turn. 
 No man can say Ben Marston was ever back'ard in that way ; 
 and never will be, that's more. No ! them as trod on me felt 
 my teeth some day or other. Eh, old man '? ' Crib growled. 
 He understood things regular like a Christian, that old dog did. 
 'xlnd now you're a-goin' off and Jim's gone — seems only t'other 
 day as you and he was little toddlin' chaps, runnin' to meet me 
 when I come home from work, clearin' that fust paddock, and 
 telling me mammy had the tea ready. Perhaps I'd better ha' 
 stuck to the grubbin' and clearin' after all. It looked slow 
 work, but it paid better than this here in the long-run.' Father 
 turns away from me then, and walks back a step or two. Then 
 he faces me. *Dash it, boy, what ere ye waitin' for? Shake 
 hands, and tell Jim the old man han't forgot him yet.' 
 
 It was many a day since I'd felt father's hand in kindness . 
 he didn't do them sort of things. I held out mine and his 
 fingers closed on it one minute, like a vice — blest if I didn't ex- 
 pect to feel the bones grate agin one another ; he was that 
 strong he hardly knew his own strength, I believe. Then he 
 sits down on the log by the fire. He took out his pipe, but 
 somehow it wouldn't light. * Good-bye, Crib,' says I. The old 
 dog looked at me for a bit, wagged his tail, and then went and 
 sat between dad's knees. I took my horse and rode away slow- 
 ish. I felt all dead and alive like when I got near the turn in 
 
CRAy. XLEx ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 877 
 
 the track. I looked back and seen the dog and him just the 
 same, I started both hoiaes ther. I never set eyes on him 
 again. Poor old dad ! 
 
 I wasn't verj gay for a bit, but I had a good horse under me, 
 another alongside, a smartish lot of cash in notes and gold, some 
 bank deposits too, and all the world Ix-fore me. My dart now" 
 was to make my way to Willaroon and look sharp about it. }>[y 
 chance of getting through was none too good, but 1 settled to 
 ride a deal at night and camp by day. I began to pick up my 
 spirits after I got on the roaa that led up the mountain, and to 
 look ahead to the time when I might call myself my own man 
 again. 
 
 Next day after that I was at Willaroon. I could have got 
 there overnight, but it looked better to camp near the place and 
 come next morning. There I was all right. The overseer wa.s 
 a reasonable sort of man, and I found old George had been as 
 good as his word, and left word if a couple of men like me and 
 Starlight came up we were to bo put on with the next mob of 
 cattle that were going to Queensland. He did a store cattle 
 trade with the far-out squatters that were stocking up new 
 country in Queensland, and it paid him very well, as nearly 
 everything did that he touched. We were to find our own 
 horses and be paid bo much a week — three pounds, I think — 
 and so on. 
 
 As luck would have it, there was a biggish mob to start in a 
 week, and road hands being scarce in that part the overseer 
 was disappointed that my mate, as he called him, hadn't come 
 on, but Isaid he'd gone another track. 
 
 * WelL he'll hardly get such wages at any other job,* says he, 
 *and if 1 was Mr. Storeneld I wouldn't hire him again, not if he 
 wanted a billet ever so bad.' 
 
 * I don't suppose he will,' says I, ' and serves him quite right 
 too.' 
 
 I put my horses in the paddock — there was wild oats and 
 crowsfoot knee-high in it —and helped the overseer to muster 
 and draft. He gave me a fresh horse, of course. \Mien he saw 
 how handy I was in the yard he got quite shook on me, and, says 
 he — 
 
 ' By George, youVe just the chap the boss wants to send out 
 to some new country he's going to take up in Queensland. 
 What's your name? Now I think of it he didn't tell 
 me.' 
 
 •William Turner,' says L 
 
 'Very well, William,' says he, 'you're a dashed good man, I 
 can see, and I wish I could pick up a few more like you. Blessed 
 if I ever saw such a lot of duffers in my life as there are on this 
 side. I've hardly seen a man come by that's worth his grub. 
 You couldn't stop till the next mob starts, I suppose 1. I'd make 
 it worth your while.' 
 
 ' I couldn't well this time,' says I ; ' my mate's got a friend 
 
378 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap I 
 
 out north just from home, and we're tied to time to meet him. 
 But if I come back this way I'll put in a year with you.' 
 
 ' Well, an offer's an offer,' says he. * I can't say more, but I 
 think you'll do better by stopping on here.' 
 
 I got away with the cattle all right, and the drover in charge 
 was told to do all he could for me. The overseer said I was as 
 good as two men, and it was ' Bill ' here and ' William ' there all 
 the time till we were off. I wasn't sorry to be clear away, for 
 of course any day a trooper might have ridden up and asked 
 questions about the horses, that were a little too good for a 
 working drover. 
 
 Besides, I'd had a look at the papers, and I saw that Starlight 
 had been as good as his word, in the matter of the advertisement. 
 Sure enough, the Turon Star and a lot of other papers had, on 
 the same day, received the same advertisement, with a pound 
 note enclosed, and instructions to insert it four times. 
 
 NOTICK 
 
 To all whom it may concern. 
 
 The Messrs. ilarston Brothers and Co., being about to leave the dis- 
 trict, request that all accounts against them may be sent to the Police 
 Camp, Turon, addressed to the care of Sir Ferdinand Morringer, whose 
 receipt will be a sufficient discharge. 
 
 For the firm, 
 
 Staklight. 
 
 I couldn't have believed at first that he'd be so mad. But 
 after a bit I saw that, like a lot of his reckless doings, it wasn't 
 so far out after all. 
 
 All the papers had taken it up as usual and though some of 
 them were pretty wild at the insult offered to the Government 
 and so gel, I could see they'd most of them come to think it was 
 a blind of some sort, meant to cover a regular big touch that we 
 were going in for, close by home, and wanting to throw the 
 police off the scent once more. If we'd really wanted to make 
 tracks, they said, this would be the last thing we'd think of 
 doing. Bit by bit it was put about as there should be a care- 
 fully laid plot to stick up all the banks in Tm"on on the same 
 day, and make a sweep of all the gold and cash. 
 
 I laughed when I saw this, because I knew that it was agreed 
 upon between Aileen and Gracey that, about the time we were 
 fairly started, whichever of them saw Sir Ferdinand first should 
 allow it to be fished out of her, as a great secret, that we were 
 working up to some tremendous big affair of this sort, and 
 which was to put the crown on all our other doings. To make 
 dead sure, we had sent word to Billy the Boy (and some money 
 too) to raise a sham kind of sticking-up racket on the other side 
 of the Turon, towards Bathurst way. He wa^ to frighten a few 
 small people that would be safe to talk about it, and make out 
 that all the bush-rangers in the country were camped about there 
 
TLa ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 379 
 
 This was the sort of work that the young villain regularly went 
 in for and took a pleasure in, and by the way the papers put it 
 in he had managed to frighten a lot of travellers and roadside 
 publicans out of their senses most. 
 
 As luck would have it. Wall and Hulbert and Moran had been 
 working up towards Mudgee lat«l^ and stuck up the mail, and 
 as Master Billy thought it a great lark to ride about with them 
 with a black mask on, people began to think the gangs hat! joined 
 again and that some big thing, they didn't know what, was 
 really on the cards. So a lot of police were telegraphed for, and 
 the Bathurst superintendent came down, all in a hurry, to the 
 Turon, and in the paj^ers nothing went down but telegrams and 
 yams about bush-rangers. They didn't know what the country 
 was coming to : all the sober-going people wishing they^d never 
 got an ounce oi gold in Australia, and every little storekeeper 
 along the line that had £100 in his cash-box hiding it every 
 night and afraid of seeing us ride up every time the dogs barked. 
 
 All the time we were heading for Cunnamulla, and leaving 
 New South Wales behind us hand over hand. 
 
 The cattle, of course, couldn't travel very fast ; ten or twelve 
 miles a day was enough for them. I could have drowned myself 
 in the creeks as we went crawling alon^ sometimes, and I that 
 impatient to get forward. Eighty miles it was from Cunna- 
 mulla to the Queensland border. Once we were over that we'd 
 have to be arrested on warrant, and there were lots of chaps, 
 like us, that were ' wanted,' on the far-out north stations. Once 
 we sighted the waters of the Warrego we should feel ourselves 
 more than half free. 
 
 Then there was Jim, poor old Jim ! He wrote to say he was 
 just starting for Melbourne, and very queer he felt about leav- 
 ing his wife and boy. Sucli a fine little chap as he'd grown too. 
 He'd just got his head down, he said, and taken to the pulling 
 (he meant working) like our old near-side poler, and he was as 
 happy as a king, going home to Jeanie at night, and having his 
 three pounds every Saturday. Now he was going away ever 
 so far by land and sea, and God knows when he might see 
 either of 'em again. If it wasn't for the fear he had of being 
 pitched upon by the police any day, and the long sentence he 
 was sure to get, he'd stay where he was. He wasn't sure whether 
 he wouldn't do so now. 
 
 After that Aileen had a letter, a short one, from Jeanie. Jim 
 had gone. She had persuaded him for the sake of the boy, 
 though both their hearts were nearly broken. She didn't know 
 whether she'd done right. Perhaps she never might see him 
 again. The poor fellow had forfeited his coach fare once, and 
 come back to st-ay another day with her. When he did go he 
 looked the picture of misery, and something told her it was their 
 last parting. 
 
 Well, we struck the river about ten miles this side of Cunna- 
 mulla, where there was a roadside inn, a small, miserable kind 
 
880 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS olav. 
 
 of place, just one of those half-shanties, half-public-houses, fit 
 for uothing but to trap bushmen, and where the bad grog kills 
 more men in a year than a middling break -out of fever. 
 
 Somewhere about here I expected to hear of the other two. 
 We'd settled to meet a few miles one side or the other of the 
 t/ownship. It didn't much matter which. So I began to look 
 about in case I might get word of either of 'em, even if they 
 didn't turn up to the time. 
 
 Somewhere about dinner time (twelve o'clock) we got the 
 cattle on to the river and let 'em spread over the flat. Then 
 the man in charge rode up to the mn, the Traveller's Rest, a 
 pretty long rest for some of 'em (as a grave here and there with 
 tour panels of shickery two- rail fence round it showed), and 
 shouted nobblers round for us. 
 
 While we was standing up at the bar, waiting for the cove to 
 serve it out, a flash-looking card he was, and didn't hurry him- 
 self, up rides a tall man to the door, hangs up his horse, and 
 walks in. He had on a regular town rig — watch and chain, 
 leather valise, round felt hat, like a chap going to take charge 
 of a store or something. I didn't know him at first, but directly 
 our eyes met I saw it was old Jim. We didn't talk — no fear, 
 and my boss asked him to join us, like any other stranger. 
 Just then in comes the landlady to sharpen up the man at the 
 bar. 
 
 ' Haven't you served those drinks yet. Bob 1 ' she sings out. 
 ' Why, the gentlemen called for them halt-an-hour ago. I never 
 saw such a slow-going crawler as you are. You'd never have 
 done for the Turon boys.' 
 
 We all looked at her — not a bad-looking woman she'd been 
 once, though you could see she'd come down in the world and 
 been knocked about a bit. Surely I knew her voice 1 I'd seen 
 her before — why, of course — 
 
 She was quicker than I was. 
 
 ' Well, Dick ! ' says she, pouring out all the drinks, taking the 
 note, and rattling down the change on the counter, all in a 
 minute, same as I'd often seen her do before, ' this is a rough 
 shop to meet old friends in, isn't it? So you didn't know me, 
 eh ? We're both changed a bit. You look pretty fresh on it. 
 A woman loses her looks sooner than a man when she goes to 
 the bad. And Jim too,' she goes on ; ' only to fancy poor old 
 Jim turning up here too ! One would think you'd put it up to 
 meet at the township on some plant of that sort.' 
 
 It was Kate, sure enough ! How in the world did ever she 
 get here 1 I knew she'd left the Turon, and that old MuUockson 
 had dropped a lot of his money in a big mining company he'd 
 helped to float, and that never turned out gold enough to pay 
 for the quicksilver in the first crushing. We'd heard afterwards 
 that he'd died and she'd married again ; but I never expected to 
 see her brought down so low as tins — not but what we'd known 
 many a woman that started on the diggings with silks ftnd 
 
XLLX ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 881 
 
 satins and a big house and plate-glass windows brought down 
 tc a cotton gown and a bark shanty before half-a-dozen years 
 were over. 
 
 Jim and I both looked queer. The men began to laugh. 
 Any one could see we ^vere both in a fi_x. Jim spoke first. 
 
 ' Are you sure you're not making a mistake, missis ? ' says he, 
 looking at her very quiet-like. 'Take care what you say.' 
 
 He'd better have held his tongue. I don't know whether she 
 really intended to give us away. I don't think she did alto- 
 gether ; but with them kind of women it's a regular toss up 
 whether they'll behave reasonable or not. When they're once 
 started, 'specially if they think they've not been treated on the 
 square, they can t stop themselves. 
 
 'Take care what I say ! ' she breaks out, rising her voice to a 
 scream, and looking as if she'd jump over the bar-counter and 
 tear the eyes out of me. * Why should 1 take care ? It's you, 
 Dick Marston, you double-faced treacherous dog that you are, 
 that's got a thousand pounds on your head, that has cause to 
 care, and you, Jim Marston, that's in the same reward, and both 
 of you know it. Not that I've anything against you, Jim. 
 You're a man, and always was. I'll say that for you.' 
 
 'And you're a woman,' groans out poor Jim. 'That's the 
 reason you can't hold your infernal tongue, I suppose.' 
 
 Kate had let the cat out of the bag now and no mistake. You 
 should have seen the drover and his men look at us when they 
 found thoy had the famous bush-rangers among them that they^d 
 all heard so much about this years past. Some looked pretty 
 serious and some laughed. The drover spoke first 
 
 ' Bush-ranger here or bush-ranger there,' he says, ' I'm going to 
 lose a dashed good man among cattle ; and if this chattering 
 fool of a woman had held her tongue the pair of ve might have 
 come on with the cattle till they were deliverecl. Now I'm a 
 man short, and haven't one as I can trust on a pinch. I don't 
 think any more of you, missis,' he says, ' for being so dashed 
 ready to give away your friends, supposing they liad been on 
 the cross.' 
 
 But Kate didn't hear. She had fallen down in a kind of fit, 
 and her husband, coming in to see what the row was about, 
 picked her up, and stood looking at us with his mouth 
 open, 
 
 'Look here, my man,' says I, 'your wife's taken me and this 
 gentleman,' pointing to Jim, ' for some people she knew before 
 on the diggings, and seems to have got rather excited over it. 
 If it was worth our while to stay here, we'd make her prove it. 
 You'd better get her to lie down, and advise her, when she comes 
 to, to hold her tongue, or you might be made to suffer by it.' 
 
 ' She's a terror when she's put out, and that's God's truth,' 
 says the chap ; and starting to drag her over to one of the bit-s 
 of back bedrooms. 'It's all right, I daresay. She will keep 
 meddling with what don't consam her. I (fon't care who yer 
 
382 KOBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 are or what yer are. If you knowed her afore, I expect ye'll 
 think it best to clear while she's unsensible like.' 
 
 ' Here's a shout all round for these men here/ says I, throwing 
 a note on the bar. ' Never mind the change. Good-bye, chaps. 
 This gentleman and I have some business together, and there's 
 no bush -ranging in it, you may take my word,' 
 
 We all left then. The men went back to their cattle. Jim 
 rode quietly along the road to Cunnamulla just like any other 
 traveller. I went down and saddled up my horse. I'd got 
 everything I wanted in my swag, so I'd left the other horse at 
 Willaroon. 
 
 ' Never mind the settlement,' says I to the drover. * I'U be 
 coming back to the station after I've finished my business in 
 Queensland, and we can make up the account then.' 
 
 The overseer looked rather doubtful. 
 
 ' This seems rather mixed,' says he. ' Blest if I understand it. 
 That woman at the pub seems half off her head to me. I can't 
 think two quiet-looking chaps like you can be the Marstons. 
 You've been a thundering good road hand anyhow, and I wish 
 you luck.' 
 
 He shook hands with me. I rode off and kept going along 
 the road till I overtook Jim. 
 
 \Vhen I'd gone a mile or two there was Jim riding steadily 
 along the road, looking very dull and down-like, just the way 
 he used to do when he was studying how to get round a job of 
 work as he wasn't used to. He brightens up a bit when he sees 
 me, and we both jumped off, and had a good shake-hands and a 
 yarn. I told him about mother and Aileen, and how I'd left 
 dad all by himself. He said Jeanie and the boy were all right, 
 but of course he'd never heard of 'em since, and couldn't help 
 feeling dubersome about meeting her again, particular now this 
 blessed woman had dropped across us, and wouldn't keep her 
 mouth shut. 
 
 'As sure as we've had anything to do v/ith her, bad luck's 
 followed up,' says Jim ; * I'd rather have faced a trooper than 
 seen her face again.' 
 
 ' She can't do much now,' says L ' We're across the border. 
 I wonder where Starlight is — whether he's in the township or 
 not 1 As soon as we meet him we. can make straight for the 
 ship.' 
 
 ' He's there now,' says Jim. ' He was at Kate's last night.' 
 
 * How do you know that ? ' 
 
 ' I heard her mutter something about it j ust when she went 
 into that fit, or whatever it was. Devilment, I think. I never 
 saw such a woman ; and to think she's my Jeanie's sister ! ' 
 
 ' Never mind that, Jim. These things can't be helped. But 
 what did she say 1 ' 
 
 'Something like this : "He thought I didn't know him, pass- 
 ing himself off as a gentleman. Warrigal, too. Kate Morrison's 
 eyes are too sharp for that, as he'll find out." ' 
 
xLix ROBBERY UKDER ARMS 888 
 
 ' Think she'll give us a^vay again, Jim 1 ' 
 
 ' God only knows. She mightn't this time, unless she wants 
 to smother you altogether, and don't mind who she hurts along 
 with you.' 
 
 * There's one good thing in it,' says I j ' there's no police nearer 
 than Trielgerat, and it's a long day's ride to them. We made it 
 all right before we left the Turon. All the police in the country 
 is looking for us on the wrong road, and will be for a week or 
 two yet.' 
 
 Then I told liim about Aileen putting Sir Ferdinand on the 
 wrong lay, and he said what a clever girl she was, and had as 
 much pluck and sense as two or three men, * A deal more than 
 we've ever showed, Dick,' says he, * and that's not saying much 
 either.' 
 
 He laughed in his quiet v.-ay when he heard about Starliglit's 
 advertisement in the Turon Star^ and said it was just like him. 
 
 'He's a wonderful clever fellow, the Captain. I've often 
 thought when I've been by myself in Melbourne, sitting quiet, 
 smoking at night, and turning all these things over, that it's a 
 wonder he don't shoot himself when he thinks of what he is and 
 the man he ought to be.' 
 
 ' He's head enough to take us safe out of this dashed old 
 Sydney side,' says ], 'and land us in another country, where 
 we'll be free and happy in spite of all that's come and gone. If 
 he does that, we've no call to throw anything up to him.' 
 
 'Let him do that,' says Jim, 'and I'll be his servant to the 
 day of ray death. But I'm afeard it isn't to l>e any more than 
 going to heaven right off. It's too good, somehow^ to come true ; 
 and yet what a thing it is to be leading a working honest life 
 and be afraid of no man ! I was very near like that in Mel- 
 bourne, Dick,' he says ; 'you've no notion what a grand thing it 
 was — M'hen I'd done my week's work, and used to walk about 
 with Jeanie and her boy on Sundays, and pass the time of day 
 with decent square coves that I knew, and never dreamed I was 
 different ; then the going home peaceful and contented to our 
 own little cottage ; I tell you, Dick, it was heaven on earth. 
 No wonder it regular broke my heart to leave it.' 
 
 'We're close up to the township now,' says I. 'This wire 
 fence and the painted gate ain't more than a couple of miles off, 
 that chap said at the inn. I wish there was a fire-stick in it, 
 and I'd never gone inside a door of it. However, that says 
 nothing. We've got to meet Starlight somehow, and there's no 
 use in riding in together. You go in first, and I'll take a wheel 
 outside the house and meet you in the road a mile or two ahead. 
 Where's your pistol ? I must have a look at mine. I had to roll 
 it up in my swag, and it wants loading.' 
 
 ' Mine's a good tool,' says Jim, bringing out a splendid-look- 
 ing revolver — one of these new Dean and Adams's. ' I can make 
 prime shooting at fifty yards ; but I hope to God I shan't want 
 to use it.' 
 
384 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ciiap. 
 
 'There's no fear yet a bit,' says 1 ; *but its as well to be 
 ready. I'll load before we go any farther.' 
 
 I loaded and put her back in the belt. We were just going 
 to push on when we heard the sound of galloping, and round a 
 patch of scrub comes a horseman at full speed. When he sees 
 us he cuts off the road and comes towai*ds us. 
 
 There was only one horse that earned himself like that, even 
 when he was pulling double. We spotted him the same second. 
 Rainbow and kstariight on him ! What in thunder makes him 
 ride like that ? 
 
 When he came closer we saw bv his face that something was 
 up. His eyes had the gloomy, dull fire in them that put me in 
 mind of the first time I saw him when he came back wounded 
 and half dead to the Hollow. 
 
 ' Don't stop to talk, boys,' he sings out, without stopping, 
 ' but ride like the devil. Head to the left. That infernal Wam- 
 gal has laid the police on your track, Dick. They were seen at 
 Willaroon ; may be up at any minute.' 
 
 ' Where's Warrigal now 1 ' I said, as we all took our horses by 
 the head and made for a patch of dark timber we could see far 
 out on the plain. 
 
 * He dropped when I fired at him,' says Starlight ; ' but 
 whether the poor beggar's dead or not I can't say. It isn't my 
 fault if he betrays any one again.' 
 
 ' How did it come out 1 ' 
 
 ' I was tired of waiting at that confounded hotel — not a soul 
 to speak to. I rode back as far as Kate's, just to see if you had 
 passed. She didn't know me a bit.' 
 
 'The deuce she didn't ! Why, she broke out on me and Jim. 
 Said something about you and Warrigal too.' 
 
 ' Wonderful creatures, women,' says he, thoughtful -like ; * and 
 yet I used to think 1 understood them. No time to do anything, 
 though.' 
 
 'No ; the nearest police station's a day off. I'd give a trifle 
 to know who's after us. How did you find out Warrigal's 
 doubling on me ? not that it matters now ; d — n him ! ' 
 
 ' When I talked about going back he was in a terrible fright, 
 and i-aised so many objections that I saw he had some reason 
 for it ; so I made him confess.' 
 
 ' How did he do it ? ' 
 
 'After we'd passed Dandaloo, and well inside the West Bogan 
 scrubs, he picked up a blackfellow that had once been a tracker ; 
 gave him a pound to let them know at the police camp that you 
 were making out by Willaroon.' 
 
 ' I knew he had it in for me,' said I ; ' but I depended on his 
 not doing anything for fear of hurting you.' 
 
 * So I thought, teo ; but he expected you'd be trapped at 
 Willaroon before there would be time for you to catch me up. 
 If he hadn't met that Jemmy Wardell, I daret^ay he wouldn't 
 have thought of it. When he told me I wa? in such an infernal 
 
XLra ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 885 
 
 rage that I fired point blank at him ; didn't wait to see whether 
 he was dead or ahve, and rode straight back here to warn you. 
 I was just in time — eh, Jim, old man ? Why, you look so respect- 
 able they'd never have known you. Why aidn't you stay where 
 you were, James ? ' 
 
 ' I wish to God I had ! ' says poor old Jim. ' It's too late to 
 think of that now.' 
 
 We hadn't over much time for talking, and had to range up 
 close to do it at all at the pace we were going. We did our best, 
 and must have ridden many a mile before dark. Then we kept 
 going through the night. Starlight was pilot, and by the com- 
 pass lie carried we were keeping something in a line with the 
 road. But we missed Warrigal in the night work, and more 
 than once I suspected we were going round and not keeping a 
 straight course. 
 
 We didn't do badly after all, for we struck the main road at 
 daylight and made out that we were thirty miles the other side 
 of Cuiinamulla, and in the right direction. The worst of it was, 
 like all short cuts and night riding, we'd taken about twice as 
 much out of our horses as we need have done if we'd been cer- 
 tain of our line. 
 
 ' This ought to be Murrynebone Creek,' says Starlight, * by 
 the look of it,' when we came to a goodish broad bit oi water. 
 ' The crossing place is boggy, so they told me at the hotel We 
 may as well pull up for a spell. We're in Queensland now, that's 
 one comfort. 
 
 It took us all we knew to get over ; it was a regular quick- 
 sand. Rainbow never got flustered if he was up to the neck in 
 a bog, but my horse got frightened and plunged, so that I had 
 to jump off. Jim's horse was a tritle better, but he hadn't much 
 to spare. We weren't sorry to take the bridles out of their 
 mouths and let them pick a bit on the flat when we got safe 
 over. 
 
 We didn't unsaddle our horses — no fear ; we never did that 
 only at night ; not always then. We took the bits out of their 
 mouths, and let them pick feed round about, with the bridle 
 under their feet, stockhorse fashion. They were all used to it, 
 and you'd see 'em put their foot on a rein, and take it off again, 
 regular as if they knew all about it. We could run full pelt and 
 catch 'em all three in a minute's notice ; old Rainbow would 
 hold up his head when he saw Starlight coming, and wait for 
 him to mount if there was a hundred horses galloping past. 
 Lucky for him, he'd done it scores of times ; once on his back 
 there was no fear of any other horse overhauling him, any more 
 than a coolie dog or a flying doe kangaroo. 
 
 Pretty well settled it came to be amongst us that we should 
 be well into Queensland before the police were handy. Star- 
 light and Jim were having a pitch about the best way to get 
 aboard one of these pearling craft, and how jolly it would be. 
 The captains didn't care two straws what sort of passengers they 
 
 30 
 
886 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 took aboard so long as they had the cash and were willing to 
 give a hand when they were wanted. 
 
 We were just walking towards the horses to make a fresh 
 start, when Starlight puts up his hand. We all listened- There 
 was no mistaking the sound we heard — horses at speed, and 
 mount^xi men at that. We were in a sort of angle. W e couldn't 
 make back over the infernal boggy creek we'd just passed, and 
 they seemed to be coming on two sides at once. 
 
 ' By ! they're on us,' says Starlight ; and he cocks his 
 
 rifle, and walks over quite cool to the old horse. ' Our chance, 
 boys, is to exchange shots, and ride for it. Keep cooL don't 
 waste your fire, and if we can drop a couple of them we may 
 slip them yet.' 
 
 We hadn't barely time to get to our horses, when out of the 
 timber they came — in two lots — three on each side. Police, 
 sure enough ; and meeting us. That shook us a bit. How the 
 devil did they get ahead of us after the pace we'd ridden the 
 last twenty-four hours, too f When they came close we could 
 see how it was. Sir Ferdinand and three troopers on one side ; 
 Inspector Goring, with two more, on the left ; while outside, not 
 far from the lead, rode Sir Watkin, the Braid wood black tracker 
 —the best hand at that work in the three colonies, if you could 
 keep him sober. 
 
 Now we could see why they took us in front. He had kept 
 out wide when he saw the tracks were getting hot, so as to come 
 in on the road ahead of us, and meet us full in the teeth. 
 
 He had hit it oflf well this time, blast him ! We couldn't 
 make back on account of the creek, and we had double our 
 number to fight, and good men too, before we could break 
 through, if we could do that. 
 
 Our time was come if we hadn't the devil's own luck ; but we 
 had come out of as tight a place before, and might do it 
 again. 
 
 When they were within fifty yards Sir Ferdinand calls out, 
 'Surrender ! It's no use, men,' says he ; *I don't want to shoot 
 you down, but you must see you re outnumbered. There's no 
 disgrace in yielding now.' 
 
 'Come on!' says Sta,rlight ; 'don't waste your breath! 
 There's no man here will be taken aUve,' 
 
 With that, Goring lets drive and sends a bullet that close by 
 my head I put my hand up to feel the place. All the rest bangs 
 a '■vay, black tracker and all. I didn't see Sir Ferdinand's pistol 
 smoke. He and Starlight seemed to wait. Then Jim and 1 fires 
 steady. One trooper drops badly hit, and my man's horse fell 
 like a log and penned his rider under him, which was pretty 
 nigh as good, 
 
 ' Steady does it,' says Starlight, and he makes a snap shot at 
 the tracker, and breaks his right arm. 
 
 ' Three men spoiled,' says he ; ' one more to the good and we 
 may charge.' 
 
XLix ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 887 
 
 Just as he said this the trooper that was underneath the dead 
 horse crawls from under him, the oif side, and rests his rifle on 
 his wither. Starlight had just mounted when every rifle and 
 pistol in the two parties was tired at one volley. We had drawn 
 closer to one another, and no one seemed to think of cover. 
 
 Rainbow rears up, gives one spring, and falls backward with 
 a crash. I thought Starlight was crushed underneath him, shot 
 through the neck and flank as he was, but he saved himself 
 somehow, and stood with his hand on Kainbow's mane, when 
 the old horse rose again all right, head and tail well up, and as 
 steady as a rock. The blood was pouring out of his neck, but 
 he didn't seem to care two straws about it You could see his 
 nostril spread out and hia eye looking twice aa big and 
 fiery. 
 
 Starlight rests his rifle a minute on the old horse's shoulder, 
 and the man that had fired the shot fell over with a kick. 
 Something hits me in the ribs like a stone, and another on the 
 right arm, which drops down just as I was aiming at a young 
 fellow with light hair that had ridden pretty close up, under a 
 myall tree. 
 
 Jim and Sir Ferdinand let drive straight at one another the 
 same minute. They both meant it this time. Sir Ferdinand's 
 hat turned part round on his head, but poor old Jim drops for- 
 ward on his face and tears up the grass with his hands. I know 
 what that sign meant. 
 
 Goring rides straight at Starlight and calls on him to sur- 
 render. He had his rifle on his hip, but he never moved. 
 There he stood, with his hand on the mane of the old horse. 
 * Keep back if you're wise, Goring,' says he, as quiet and steady 
 as if he'd been cattle-drafting. ' I don't wailt to have your blood 
 on my head ; but if you must ' 
 
 Goring had taken so many men in his day that he was got 
 over confident- like. He thought Starlight would give in at the 
 last moment or miss him in the rush. My right arm was broken, 
 and now that Jim was down we might both be took, which 
 would be a great crow for the police. Anyhow, he was a man 
 that didn't know what fear was, and he chanced it. 
 
 Two of the other troopers fired point blank at Starlight as 
 Goring rode at him, and both shots told. He never moved, but 
 just lilted his rifle as the other came up at the gallop. Goring 
 threw up his arms, and rolled ofi* his horse a dying man. 
 
 Starlight looked at him for a minute. 
 
 ' We're quits,' he says • ' it's not once or twice either you've 
 pulled trigger on me. I Knew this day would come.' 
 
 Then he sinks down slowly by the side of the old horse and 
 leans against his fore leg, Rainbow standing quite steady, only 
 tossing his head up and down the old way. I could see, by the 
 stain on Starlight's mouth and the blood on his breast, he'd been 
 shot through the lungs. 
 
 I waa badly hit too, and going in the head, though I didn't 
 
388 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS CHAP, 
 
 feel it so much at the time. I began to hear voices like in a 
 dream ; then my eyes darkened, and I fell like a log. 
 
 When I came to, all the men was off their horses, some round 
 Goring — him they lifted up and propped against a tree ; but he 
 was stone dead, an; one could see. Sir Ferdinand was on his 
 knees beside Starlight, talking to him, and the other saying a 
 word now and then, quite composed and quiet-like. 
 
 ' Close thing, Morringer, wasn't it ? ' I heard him say. ' You 
 were too quick for us ; another day and we'd been out of 
 reach.' 
 
 ' True enough. Horses all dead beat ; couldn't raise a re- 
 mount for love or money.' 
 
 ' Well, the game's up now, isn't it 1 I've held some good cards 
 too, but they never told, somehow. I'm more sorry for Jim — 
 and — that poor girl, Aileen, than I am for myself.' 
 
 * Don't fret — there's a good fellow. Fortune of war, you 
 know. Anything else 1 ' 
 
 Here he closed his eyes, and seemed gone ; but he wakes up 
 again, and begins in a dreamy way. His words came slowly, 
 but his voice never altered one bit. 
 
 ' I'm sorry I fired at poor Warrigal now. No dog ever was 
 more faithful than he has been to me all through till now ; but 
 I was vexed at his having sold Dick and poor Jim.' 
 
 'We knew we should find you here or hereabouts without 
 that,' says Sir Ferdinand. 
 
 ' How was that ? ' 
 
 'Two jockey-boya met you one night at Calga gate ; one of 
 them recognised Locket by the white patch on her neck. He 
 wired to us at the next station.' 
 
 ' So you were right, after all, Dick. It was a mistake to take 
 that mare. I've always been confoundedly obstinate \ I admit 
 that. Too late to think of it now, isn't it ? ' 
 
 ' Anything else I can do ? ' says Sir Ferdinand. 
 
 ' Give her this ring,' he pulls it off his finger, ' and you'll see 
 Maddie Barnes gets the old horse, won't you ? Poor old Rain- 
 bow ! I know she'll take care of him ; and a promise is a 
 promise.' 
 
 * All right. He's the property of the Govei'nment now, you 
 know ; but I'll square it somehow. The General won't object 
 under the circumstances.' 
 
 Then he shuts his eyes for a bit. After a while he calk 
 out — 
 
 ' Dick ! Dick Marston.' 
 
 'I'm here,' says L 
 
 ' If vou ever leave this, tell Aileen that her name was the laust 
 word 1 spoke — the very last. She foresaw this day ; she told me 
 so. I've had a queer feeling too, this week back. Well, it's over 
 now. I don't know that Pm sorry, except for others. I say, 
 Morringer, do you remember the last pigeon match you and I 
 shot in, at Hurlingham 1 ' 
 
XLIX ROBBERY UNDER ARMS S89 
 
 ' ^^Tiy^ good Grod ! ' saj^s Sir Ferdinand, bending down, and 
 looking into his face. 'It can't be ; yes, by Jove, it is 
 
 He spoke some name I couldn't catch, but Starlight put a 
 
 3 — 
 
 Say you won't t ' 
 
 finger on his lips, and whispers— 
 'You won't tell, will you ? 
 
 The other nodded. 
 He smiled just like his old self. 
 
 ' Poor Aileen ! ' he saya, quite faint His head fell back 
 Starlight was dead ! 
 
CHAPTER L 
 
 The breath was hardly out of him when a horse comes tearing 
 through the scrub on to the little plain, with a man on his back 
 that seemed hurt bad or drunk, he rolled in his saddle so. The 
 head of him was bound up with a white cloth, and what you 
 could see of it was dark -looking, with bloodstains on it. I 
 knew the figure and the seat on a horse, though I couldn't see 
 his face. He didn't seem to have much strength, but he was 
 one of those sort of riders that can't fall otf a horse, that is 
 unless they're dead. Even then you'd have to pull him down. 
 I believe he'd hang on somehow like a dead 'possum on a 
 branch. 
 
 It was Warrigal ! 
 
 They all knew him when he came close up, but none of the 
 troopers raised their pieces or thought of stopping him. If a 
 dead man had rode right into the middle of us he'd have looked 
 like that. He stopped his horse, and slipped off on his feet 
 somehow. 
 
 He'd had a dreadful wound, any one could see. There was 
 blood on the rags that bound his head all up, and being round 
 his forehead and over his chin it made him look more and more 
 like a corpse. Not much you could see, only his eyes, that were 
 burning bright like two coals of fire. 
 
 Up to Starlight's body he goes and sits himself down by it. 
 He takes the dead man's head into his lap, looks down at the 
 face, and bursts out into the awf ullest sort of crying and lament- 
 ing I ever heard of a living man. I've seen the native women 
 mourning for their dead with the blood and tears running down 
 their faces together. I've known them sit for days and nights 
 without stirring from round a corpse, not taking a bite or sup 
 the whole time. I've seen white people that's lost an only 
 child that had, maybe, been all hie ana spirits an hour before. 
 But in all my life I have never seen no man, nor woman neither, 
 show such regular right-down grief as Warrigal did for his 
 master — the only human creature he loved in the wide world, 
 and him lying stiff on the ground before him. 
 
 He lif ta up the dead face and wipes the blood from the lips 
 
CHAP, t ROBBERY UNDER ARMS Ml 
 
 80 careful . talks to it in his own language (or leastways his 
 mother's) Hke a woman over a child. Then he sobbed and 
 groaned and shook all over as if the very life was going out of 
 him. At last he lays the head very soft and gentle down on the 
 ground and looks round. Sir Ferdinand gives him his hand- 
 kerchief, and he lavs it over the face. Then he turns away from 
 the men that stood round, and got up looking that despairing 
 and wretched that I couldn't help pitying him, though he was 
 the cause of the whole thing as far as we could see. 
 
 Sudden as a flash of powder he pulls out a small revolver — a 
 Derringer — Starlight gave him once, and holds it out to me, 
 butt -end first. 
 
 * You shoot me, Dick Marston ; you shoot me quick,' he says. 
 'It's all my fault. I killed him — I killed the Captain. I want 
 to die and go with him to the never-never country parson tell 
 us akKDut — up there ! ' 
 
 One of the troopers knocked his hand up. Sir Ferdinand 
 gave a nod, and a pair of handculis were slipped over his 
 wrists. 
 
 * You told the police the way I went ? ' says L ' It's all come 
 out of that.' 
 
 'Thought they'd grab you at Willaroon,' says he, looking at 
 me quite sorrowful with his dark eyes, like a child. ' If you 
 hadn t knocked me down that last time, Dick Marston, I'd 
 never have done nothing to you nor Jim. I forgot about the 
 old down. That brought it all back again. I couldn't help it, 
 and when I see Jimmy Wardell I thought they'd catch you and 
 no one else.' 
 
 ' Well, you've made a clean sweep of the lot of us, Warrigal,' 
 says I, ' |X)or Jim and all. Don't you ever show yourself to the 
 old man or go back to the Hollow, if vou get out of this.' 
 
 ' He's dead now. I'll never hear him speak again,' says he, 
 looking over to the figure on the grass. ' What's the odds about 
 me ? ' 
 
 I didn't hear any more ; I must have fainted away again. 
 Things came into my head about being taken in a cart back to 
 Cunnamulla, with Jim lying dead on one side of me and Star- 
 light on the other. I was only half -sensible, I expect. Some- 
 times I thought we were alive, and another time that the three 
 of us were dead and going to be buried. 
 
 What makes it worse I ve seen that sight so often since — the 
 fight on the plain and the end of it alL Just like a picture it 
 comes back to me over and over again, sometimes in broad day, 
 as I sit in my cell, in the darkest midnight, in the early dawn. 
 
 It rises before my eyes — the bare plain, and the dead men 
 lying where they fell ; Sir Ferdinand on his horse, with the 
 troopers standing round ; and the half-caste sitting with Star- 
 light's head in his lap, rocking himself to and fro, and crying 
 and moaning like a woman that's lost her child. 
 
392 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS CHAP. 
 
 I can see Jim, too — lying on his face with his hat rolled off 
 and both arms spread out wide. He never moved after. And 
 to think that only the day before he had thought he might see 
 his wife and child again ! Poor old Jim ! If I shut my eyes 
 they won't go away. It will be the last sight I shall see in this 
 world before — before I'm 
 
 The coroner of the district held an inquest, and the jury 
 found a verdict of 'justifiable homicide by Sir Ferdinand 
 Morringer and other members of the police force of New South 
 Wales in the case of one James Marston, charged with robbery 
 under arms, and of a man habitually known as "Starlight," 
 but of whose real name there was no evidence before the jury.' 
 As for the police, it was wilful murder against us. Warrigal 
 and I were remanded to Turon Court for further evidence, and 
 as soon as we were patched up a bit by the doctor — for both of 
 us looked like making a die of it for two or three weeks — we 
 were started on horseback with four troopers overland all the 
 way back. We went easy stages — we coulan't ride any way fast 
 — both of us handcuffed, and our horses led. 
 
 One day, about a fortnight after, as we were crossing a river, 
 Warrigal's horse stopped to drink. It was a swim in the middle 
 of the stream, and the trooper, who was a young chap just from 
 the dep6t, let go his leading rein for a bit. Warrigal had been 
 as quiet as a lamb all the time, and they hadn't a thought of 
 his playing up. I heard a splash, and looked round ; his 
 horse's head was turned to the bank, and, before the trooper 
 could get out of the river, he was into the river scrub and away 
 as fast as his horse could carry him. Both the troopers went 
 after him, and we waited half-an-hour, and then went on to the 
 next police station to stop till they came back. 
 
 Next day, late, they rode in with their horses regularly done 
 and knocked up, leading his horse, but no Warrigal. He had 
 got clear away from them in the scrub, jumped off his horse 
 when they were out of sight, taken off his boots and made a 
 straight track for the West Bogan scrub. There was about as 
 much chance of running him down there as a brumbie with a 
 day's start or a wallaroo that was seen on a mountain side the 
 week before last. I didn't trouble my head that much to think 
 whether I was glad or sorry. What did it matter ? What did 
 anything matter now 1 The only two men I loved in the world 
 were dead ; the two women I loved best left forsaken and dis- 
 graced ; and I — well, I was on my way to be hanged ! 
 
 I was taken along to Turon and put into the gaol, there to 
 await my trial. They didn't give me much of a chance to W51t, 
 and I wouldn't have taken it if they had. I was dead tired of 
 my life, and wouldn't have taken my liberty then and there if 
 theyd given it me. All I wanted was to have the whole thing 
 done and over without any more bother. 
 
 It all passed like a dream. The court was crowded till there 
 wasn't standing room, every one wanting to get a look at Dick 
 
 i 
 
L ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 898 
 
 Marston, the famous bush-ranger. The evidence didn't take so 
 very long. I was proved to have been seen with the rest the day 
 the escort was robbed ; the time the four troopers were ^ot. I 
 was suspected of being concerned in Hagan's party's death, 
 and half-a-dozen other things. Last of all, when Sub-Inspector 
 Goring was killed, and a trooper, besides two others badly 
 wounded, 
 
 I was sworn to as being one of the men that fired on the 
 police. I didn't hear a gre&t deal of it, but 'livened up when 
 the judge put on his black cap and made a speech, not a very 
 long one, telling about the way the law was set at naught by 
 men who had dared to infest the highways of the land and roD 
 peaceful citizens with arms and violence. In the pursuit of 
 gain by such atrocious means, blood had been shed, and murder, 
 wilful murder, had been committed. He would not further 
 allude to the deeds of blood with which the prisoner at the bar 
 stood charged. The only redeeming feature in his career had 
 been brougnt out by the evidence tendered in his favour by the 
 learned counsel who defended him. He had fought fairly when 
 opposed by the police force, and he had on more than one occa- 
 sion acted in concert with the robber known as Starlight, and 
 the brother James Marston, both of whom had fallen in a 
 recent encounter, to protect from violence women who were 
 helpless and in the power of his evil companions. Then the 
 judge pronounced the sentence that I, Richard Marston, was to 
 be taken from the place whence I came, and there hanged by 
 the neck until I was dead. * And might Grod have mercy upon 
 my soul ! ' 
 
 My lawyer had beforehand argued that although I had been 
 seen in the company of persons who had doubtless compassed 
 the unlawfully slaying or the Queen's lieges and peace officers, 
 yet no proof had been brought before the court that day that 
 I had wilfully killed any one. ' He was not aware,' would his 
 Honour remark, 'that any one had seen me fire at any man, 
 whether since dead or aUve. He would freely admit that I 
 had been seen in bad company, but that fact would not suffice 
 to hang a man under British rule. It was therefore incum- 
 bent on the jury to bring in a verdict for his client of " not 
 guilty."' 
 
 But that cock wouldn't fight. I was found guilty by the 
 jury and sentenced to death by the judge. I expect I was 
 taken back without seeing or hearing to the gaol, and I found 
 myself alone in the condemned cell, with heavy leg-irons — worn 
 forihe first time in my life. The rough and tumble of a bush- 
 ranger^s life was over at last, and this was the finish up. 
 
 For the first week or two I didn't feel anything particular. 
 I was hardly awake. Sometimes I thought I must be dreaming 
 — that this man, sitting in a cell, quiet and dull-looking, witn 
 heavy irons on his limbs, could never be Dick Marston, the 
 shearer, the stock-rider, the gold-miner, the bush-ranger. 
 
894 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS OHlp. 
 
 This was the end — the end — the end ! I used to call it ont 
 sometimes louder and louder, till the warder would come in to 
 see if I had gone mad. 
 
 Bit by bit I came to my right senses. I almost think I felt 
 sharper and clearer in my head than I had done for ever so 
 long. Then I was able to realise the misery I had come down 
 to after all our blowing and roving. This was the crush-yard 
 and no gateway. I was safe to be hanged in six weeks, or 
 thereabouts — hanged like a dog ! Nothing could alter that, and 
 I didn't want it if it could. 
 
 And how did the others get on, those that had their lives 
 bound up with ours, so that we couldn't be hurt without their 
 bleeding, almost in their hearts ? — that is, mother's bled todea'h, 
 at any rate ; when she heard of Jim s dea'h and my being taken 
 it broke her heart clean ; she never held her head up after. 
 Aileen told me in her letter she used to nurse his baby and cry 
 over him aU day, talking about her dear boy Jim. She was 
 laid in the burying-ground at St. Kilda. As to Aileen, she had 
 long vowed herself to the service of the Virgin. She knew that 
 she was committing sin in pledging herself to an earthly love. 
 She had been punished for her sin by the death of him she 
 loved, and she hatd settled in her mind to go into the convent 
 at Soubiaca, where she should be aVjle to wear out her life in 
 prayer for those of her blood who still lived, as well as for the 
 souls of those who lay in the little burying-ground on the 
 banks of the far Warrego. 
 
 Jeanie settled to stop in Melbourne. She had money enough 
 to keep her comfortable, and her boy would be brought up in a 
 different style from his father. 
 
 Aa for Gracey, she sent me a letter in which she said she 
 was like the bird that could only sing one song. She would 
 remain true to me in Life and death. George was very kind, 
 and would never allow any one to speak harshly of his former 
 friends. We must wait and make the best of it. 
 
 So I was able, you see, to get bits of news even in a con- 
 demned cell, from time to time, about the outside world. I 
 learned that Wall and Hulbert and Moran and another fellow 
 were still at large, and following up their old game. Their 
 time, Like ours, was drawing short, though. 
 
 Well, this has been a thundering long yarn, hasn't it ? All 
 my whole life I seem to have lived over again. It didn't take 
 so long in the telling : it's a month to-day since I began. And 
 this life itself has reeled away so quick, it hardly seems a dozen 
 vears instead of seven-and-twenty since it began. It won't 
 last much longer. Another week and it will be over. There's 
 a fellow to be strung up before me, for murdering his wife. 
 The scoundrel, I wonder how he feels ? 
 
 Tve had visitors too ; some I never thought to see inside this 
 gaol w&IL One day who should come in bat Mr. Falkland 
 
1 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 895 
 
 and his daughter. There was a vonng gentleman with them 
 that they told me was an English lord, a baronet, or something 
 of that sort, and was to be married to Miss Falkland. She 
 stood and looked at me with her big innocent eyes, so pitiful 
 and kind-like. I could have thrown myself down at her feet. 
 Mr. Falkland talked away, and asked me about this and that. 
 He seemed greatly interested- When I told him about the last 
 fight, and of poor Jim being shot dead, and Starlight dying 
 alongside the old horse, the tears came into Miss Falkland's 
 eyes, and she cried for a bit. quite feeling and natural 
 
 Mr. Falkland asked me all about the robbery at Mr. Knight- 
 ley's, and took down a lot of things in his pocket-book. I 
 wondered what he did that for. 
 
 When they said good-bye Mr. Falkland shook hands with me, 
 and said ' he hoped to be able to do some good for me, but not 
 to build anything on the strength of it.' 
 
 Then Miss Falkland came forward and held out her beautiful 
 hand to me — to me, aa sure as you live — like a regular thorough- 
 bred angel, as she always was. It very nigh cooked me. I felt 
 so queer and strange, I couldn't have spoken a word to save my 
 life. 
 
 Sir Greorge, or whatever his name was, didn't seem to fancy 
 it over much, for he said — 
 
 'You colonists are strange people. Our friend here may 
 think himself highly favoured-' 
 
 Miss Falkland turned towards him and held up her head, 
 looking like a queen, as she was, and says she — 
 
 ' If you had met me in the last place where I saw this man 
 and his brother, you wotdd not wonder at my avowing my 
 gratitude to both of them. I should despise myself if I did not. 
 Poor Jim saved my life on one occasion, and on another, but far 
 more dreadful day, he — but words, mere words, can never 
 express my deep thankfulness for his noble conduct, and were 
 he here now I would tell him so, and give him my hand, if aD 
 the world stood by.' 
 
 Sir George didn't say anything after that, and she swept out 
 of the cell, followed by Mr. Falkland and him. It was just as 
 well for him to keep a quiet tongue in his head. I expect she 
 was a great heiress as well as a great beauty, and people of that 
 sort, I've found, mostly get listened to when they speak. When 
 the door shut 1 felt as if I'd aeen the wings of an angei flit 
 through it, and the prison grew darker and darker like the 
 place of lost souls. 
 
CHAPTER LI 
 
 One day I was told that a lady wanted to see me. When the 
 door of the cell opened who should walk in but Aileen ! I 
 didn't look to have seen her. I didn't bother my head about 
 who was coming. What did it matter, as I kept thinking, who 
 came or who went for the week or two that was to pass before 
 the day 1 Yes, the day, that Thursday, when poor Dick 
 Marston would walk over the threshold of his cell, and never 
 walk over one again. 
 
 The warder — him that stopped with me day and night — 
 every man in the condemned cell has to be watched like that — 
 stepped outside the door and left us together. We both looked 
 at one another. She was dressed all in black, and her face was 
 that pale I hardly knew her at first. Then she said, ' Oh, Dick 
 — my poor Dick ! is this the way we meet ? ' and flings herself 
 into my arms. How she cried and sobbed, to be sure. The 
 tears ran down her cheeks like rain, and every time the leg- 
 irons rattled she shook and trembled as if her heart was 
 breaking. 
 
 I tried to comfort her ; it was no use. 
 
 ' Let me cry on, Dick,' she said ; ' I have not shed a tear since 
 I first heard the news — the miserable truth that has crushed all 
 our vain hopes and fancies ; my heart has nearly burst for want 
 of relief. This will do me good. To think — to think that this 
 should be the end of all ! But it is just ! I cannot dare to 
 doubt Heaven's mercy. What else could we expect, living m 
 we all did — in sin — in mortal sin 1 I am punished rightly ' 
 
 She told me all about poor mother's death. She never held 
 up her head after she heard of Jim's death. She never said a 
 hard word about any one. It was God's will, she thought, and 
 only for His mercy things might have gone worse. The only 
 pleasure she had in her last days was in petting Jim's boy. He 
 was a fine little chap, and had eyes like his father, poor old 
 Jim ! Then Aileen broke down altogether, and it was a whUe 
 before she could speak again- 
 
 Jeanie was the same as she had been from the first, only so 
 quiet they could hardly know how much she felt She wouldn't 
 
C7HAP. LI ROBBEKY UXDER ARMS 397 
 
 leave the little cottage where she had been so happy with Jim, 
 and liked to work in the chair opposite to where Jim used to 
 sit and smoke his pipe in the evenings. Most of her friends 
 Uved in ^lelboume, and she reckoned to stay there for the rest 
 of her life. 
 
 As to father, they had never heard a word from him — hardly 
 knew whether he was dead or alive. There was some kind of 
 report that Warrigal had been seen making towards Nulla 
 Mountain, looking very weak and miserable, on a knocked-up 
 horse ; but they did not know whether it was true or false. 
 
 Poor Aileen stopped till we were all locked up for the night. 
 She seemed as if she couldn't bear to leave ma She had no 
 more hope or tie in life, she said. I was the only one of her 
 people she was likely to see again, and thi« was the last time — 
 the last time. 
 
 ' Ob, Dick ! oh, my poor lost brother,' she said, * how clearly 
 I seem to see all things now. Why could we not do so before 1 
 I have had my sinful worldly dream of happiness, and death 
 has ended it. When I he^rd of his death ana Jim's my heart 
 turned to stone. All the strength I have shall be given to 
 religion from this out. I can ease my heart and mortify the 
 flesh for the good of my souL To God — to the Holy Virgin — 
 who hears the sorrows of such as me, I can pray day and night 
 for their souls' welfare — for mine, for yours. Ana oh, Dick ! 
 think when that day, that dreadful day, comes that Aileen is 
 praying for you — will pray for you till her own miserable life 
 ends. And now gooa-bye ; we shall meet on this earth no 
 more. Pray — say that you will pray — pray now that we may 
 meet in heaven.' 
 
 She half drew me to my knees. She knelt down herself on 
 the cold stone floor of the cell ; and I — well — I seemed to 
 remember the old davs when we were both children and used to 
 kneel down by motner's bed, the three of us, Aileen in the 
 middle and one of us boys on each side. The old time came 
 back to me, and I cried like a child. 
 
 I wasn't ashamed of it ; and when she stood up and said, 
 ' Good-bye, — good-bye, Dick,' I felt a sort of rushing of the blood 
 to my head, and all my wounds seemed as if they would break 
 out again. 1 very near fell down, what with one thing and 
 another. I sat myself down on my bed, and I hid my face in 
 my hands. \Vhen I looked up she was gone. 
 
 After that, day after day went on and I scarcely kept count, 
 until somehow 1 found out it was the last week. They partly 
 told me on the Sunday. The parson — a good, straight, manly 
 man he was — he had me told for fear I should go too close up to 
 it, and not have time to prepare. 
 
 Prepare ! How was a man like me to prepare ? Fd done 
 everything I'd a mind to for years and years. Some good things 
 —some bad — mostly bad. How was I to repent ? Just to say I 
 
898 EOBBEEY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 was sorry for them. I wasn't that particular sorry either — that 
 was the worst of it. A deal of the old life was dashed good fun, 
 and I'd not say, if I had the chance, that I wouldn't do just the 
 same over again. 
 
 Sometimes I felt as if I ought to understand what the parson 
 tried to hammer into my head ; but I couldn't do anything but 
 make a jumble of it. It came natural to me to do some things, 
 and I did them. If I had stopped dead and bucked at father^s 
 wanting me and Jim to help duff those weaners, I really believe 
 all might have come right. Jim said afterwards he'd made up 
 his mind to have another try at getting me to join with George 
 Storefield in that fencing job. After that we could have gone 
 into the outside station work with him — just the thing that 
 would have suited the pair of us ; and what a grand finish we 
 might have made of it if we ran a waiting race: and where 
 were we now 1 — Jim de^, Aileen dead to the woria, and me to 
 be hanged on Thursday, poor mother dead and broken-hearted 
 before her time. We couldn't have done worse. We might, we 
 must have, done better. 
 
 I did repent in that sort of way of all we'd done since that 
 first wrong turn. It's the wrong turn-off that makes a man lose 
 his way ; but as for the rest I had only a dull, heavy feeling 
 that my time was come, and I must make the best of it, and 
 meet it like a man. 
 
 So the day came. The last day ! What a queer feeling it 
 was when I lay down that night, that I should never want to 
 sleep again, or try to do it. That I had seen the sun set — 
 leastways the day grow dark — for the last time ; the very last 
 time. 
 
 Somehow I wasn't that much in fear of it as you might 
 think ; it was strange like, but made one pull himself together 
 a bit. Thousands and millions of people had died in all sorts of 
 ways and shapes since the beginning of the world. Why shouldn'* 
 I be able to go through with it like another ? 
 
 I was a long time lying and thinking before I thought of 
 sleeping. All the small, teeny bits of a man's life, as well as 
 the big, seemed to come up before me as I lay there — the first 
 things I could recollect at Rocky Flat ; then the pony ; mother 
 a youngish woman ; father always hard-looking, but so ditierent 
 from what he came to be afterwards. Aileen a little girl, with 
 her dark hair falling over her shoulders ; then a grown woman, 
 riding her own horse, and full of smiles and fun ; then a pjale, 
 weeping woman all in black, looking like a mourner at a funeral. 
 Jim too, and Starlight — now galloping along through the forest 
 at night — laughing, drinking, enjoying themselves at Jonathan 
 Barnes's, with the bright eyes of Bella and Maddif? shining with 
 fun and deviknent. 
 
 Then both of them lying dead at the flat by Marry nebone 
 Creek — Starlight with the half-caste making his wild moan 
 over him ; Jim, quiet in death as in life, lying in the grass, 
 
U ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 399 
 
 looking as if he had slid off his horse in that hot weather to 
 take a banje ; and now, no get away, the rope — the hang- 
 man ! 
 
 I must have gone to sleep, after all, for the snn was shining 
 into the cell when I stirred, and I could see the chains on my 
 ankles that I had worn all these weary weeks. How could I 
 sleep ? but I had, for all that. It was daylight * more than that 
 — sunrise. I listened, and, sure enough, 1 heard two or three of 
 the bush-birds calling. It reminded me of being a boy again, 
 and listening to the birds at dawn just before it was time to get 
 up. When I was a boy ! — was I ever a boy ? How long was it 
 ago — and now — O my Gkxl, my God ! That ever it should 
 have come to this ! What am I waiting for to hear now ? The 
 tread of men ; the smith that knocks the irons otf the limbs that 
 are so soon to be as cold as the jangling chains. Yes ! at last I 
 hear their footsteps — here they come ! 
 
 The warder, the blacksmith, the parson, the head gaoler, iust 
 as I expected. The smith begins to cut the rivets. Somehow 
 they none of them looked so solemn as I expected. Surely when 
 a man is to be killed by law, choked to death in cold blood, 
 people might look a bit serious. Mind you, I believe men ought 
 to be hanged. I don't hold with any of that rot that them as 
 commits murder shouldn't pay for it with their own Lives. It's 
 the only way they can pay for it, and make sure they don't do 
 it again. Some men can stand anything but the rope. Prison 
 walls don't frighten them ; but Jack Ketch does. They can't 
 gammon him. 
 
 * Knock off his irons quick,' says Mr. Fairleigh, the parson ; 
 'he will not want them again just yet.' 
 
 *I didn't think you would make a joke of that sort, sir,' says 
 I. * It's a little hard on a man, ain't it ? But we may as well 
 take it cheerful, too.' 
 
 *Tell him all, Mr. Strickland,' he says to the head gaoler. *I 
 see he can bear it now.' 
 
 ' Prisoner Richard Marston,' says the gaoler, standing up 
 before me, 'it becomes my duty to inform you that, owing to 
 representations made in your favour by the Hon. Mr. Falkland, 
 the Hon. Mr. Storetield, and other gentlemen who have inter- 
 ested themselves in your case, setting forth the facts that, 
 although mixed up with criminals and known to be present 
 when the escort and various other cases of robbery under arms 
 have taken place, wherein life has been taken, there is no dis- 
 tinct evidence of your ha\T.ng personally taken life. On the 
 other hand, in several instances, yourself, with the late James 
 Marston and the deceased person known as Starlight, have aided 
 in the protection of life and property. The Grovemor and the 
 Executive Council have therefore graciously been pleased to 
 commute your sentence of death to that of fifteen years' im- 
 prisonment.' 
 
400 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS chap. 
 
 When I came to I was lying on my blankets in a different 
 cell, as I could see by the shape of it. The irons didn't rattle 
 when I moved. I was surprised when I looked and saw they 
 were took off Bit by bit it all came back to me. I was not to 
 be hanged. My life was saved, if it was worth saving, by the 
 two or three good things we'd done in our time, and almost, I 
 thought, more for poor old Jim's sake than my own- 
 Was I glad or sorry now it was all over ? 1 hardly knew. 
 For a week or two I felt as if they'd better have finished me 
 off when I was ready and ha' done with me, but after a while 
 I began to feel different. Then the gaoler talked to me a 
 bit. He never said much to prisoners, and what he said he 
 meant. 
 
 'Prisoner Marston,' says he, * you'd better think over your 
 situation and don't mope. Make up your mind like a man. 
 You may have friends that you'd like to hve for. Pull yourself 
 together and face your sentence like a man. You're a young 
 man now, and you won't be an old one when you're let out. If 
 your conduct is uniformly good you'll be out in twelve years. 
 Settle yourself to serve that — and you're a lucky man to have 
 no more — and you may have some comfort in your life 
 yet.' 
 
 Then he went out. He didn't wait to see what effect it had 
 on me. If I wasn't a fool, he thought to himself, I must take it 
 in : if I was, nothing would do me any good, 
 
 1 took his advice, and settled myself down to think it over. 
 It was a good while — a weary lot of years to wait, year by year 
 — but, still, if I got out in twelve years I should not be so out 
 and out broke down after all — not much over forty, and there's 
 a deal of life for a man sometimes after that. 
 
 And then I knew that there would be one that would be true 
 to me anyhow, that would wait for me when I went out, and 
 that would not be too proud to join in her life with mine, for 
 all that had come and gone. Well, this might give me strength. 
 I don't think anything else could, and from that hour I made up 
 my mind to tackle it steady and patient, to do the best I could, 
 and to work out my sentence, thankful for the mercy that had 
 been showed me, and, if ever a man was in this world, resolved 
 to keep clear of all cross ways for the future. 
 
 So I began to steady myself and tried to bear it the best way 
 I could. Other men were in for long sentences, and they seemea 
 to be able to keep alive, so why shouldn't 1 1 Just at the first I 
 wasn't sure whether I could. Year after year to be shut up 
 there, with the grass growin' and the trees wavin' outside, and 
 the world full of people, free to walk or ride, to work or play, 
 people that had wives and children, and friends and relations — 
 it seemed awfuL That I should be condemned to live in this 
 shut-up tomb all those long, weary years, and there was nothing 
 else for it. I couldn't eat or sleep at first, and kept starting up 
 at night, thinking they was coming for me to carry me oS to 
 
LI ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 401 
 
 the gallows. Then I'd dream that Jim and Starlight was alive, 
 and that we'd all got out of gaol and were riding through the 
 bush at night to the Hollow again. Then I'd wake up and 
 know they were dead and I was here. Time after time I've 
 done that, and I was that broken down and low that I burst out 
 crying like a child. 
 
 S9 
 
CHAPTER LIT 
 
 The months went on till I began to think it was a long time 
 since anything had been heard of father. I didn't expect to 
 have a letter or anything, but I knew he must take a run out- 
 side now and again ; and so sure as he did it would come to my 
 ears somehow. 
 
 One day I had a newspaper passed in to me. It was against 
 the regulations, but I did get it for all that, and this was the 
 first thing I saw : — 
 
 STRANGE DISCOVERY IN THE TURON DISTRICT. 
 
 A remarkable natural formation, leading to curioua results, waa laat 
 week accidentally hit upon by a party of prospectors, and by them made 
 known to the police of the district. It may tend to solve the doubts 
 which for the last few years have troubled the pubUc at large with respect 
 to the periodical disappearance of a certain gang of bush-rangers now 
 broken up. 
 
 Accident led the gold miners, who were anxious to find a practicable 
 track to the gullies at the foot of Nulla Mountain, to observe a narrow 
 winding way apparently leading over the brow of the precipice on its 
 western face. To their surprise, half hidden by a fallen tree, they dis- 
 covered a difficult but practicable track down a gully which finally opened 
 out into a broad well -grassed valley of considerable extent, in which cattle 
 and horses were grazing. 
 
 No signs of human habitation were at first visible, but after a patient 
 search a cave in the eastern angle of the range was discovered. Fnes had 
 been lighted habitually near the mouth, and near a log two saddles and 
 bridles — long unused — lay in the tall grass. Hard by was stretched the 
 body of a man of swarthy complexion. Upon examination the skull was 
 found to be fractured, as if by some blunt instrument. A revolver of small 
 size lay on his right side. 
 
 Proceeding to the interior of the care, which had evidently been used 
 as a dwelling for many years past, they came upon the cor]:)9e of another man, 
 in a sitting posture, propped up against the wall. One arm rested upon an 
 empty spirit-keg, beside which were a tin pannikin and a few rude cooking 
 utensils. At his feet lay the skeleton of a dog. The whole group had 
 evidently been dead for a considerable time. Further search revealed 
 l&rge supplies of clothes, saddlery, arms, and ammunition — all placed in 
 
CHAP. LU ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 40S 
 
 receafies of the o&re — bs^dea other Articles which would appe&r to have 
 been deposited in that secure receptacle many years since. 
 
 As may be imagined, a large amount of interest, and eren excitement, 
 was caused when the circumstances, as reported to the police, became 
 generally known. A number of our leading citizens, together with many 
 of the adjoining station holders, at once repaired to the spot. No diffi- 
 culty was felt in identifying the bodies as those of Ben Marston, the father 
 of the two bush-rangers of that name, and of Warrigal, the half-caste 
 follower always seen in attendance upon the chief of the gang, the cele- 
 brated Starlight. 
 
 How the last members of this well-known, long-dreaded gang of free- 
 booters had actually perished can only be conjectured, but taking the 
 ■urroundLng circumstances into consideration, and the general impression 
 abroad that Warrigal was the means of putting the poGce upon the track 
 of Richard Marston, which led indirectly to the death of his master and of 
 James Marston, the most probable solution would seem to be that, after a 
 deep carouse, the old man had taxed Warrigal with his treachery and 
 brained him with the American axe found close to the body. He had 
 apparently then shot himself to avoid a lingering death, the bullet found 
 in his body having been probably fired by the half-caste as he was advancing 
 upon him axe in hand. 
 
 The dog, well known by the name of Crib, was the property and 
 constant oompanion of Ben Marston, the innocent accomplice in many of 
 his most daring stock-raids. Faithful unto the end, with the deep, un- 
 calculating love which shames so often that of man, the dumb follower 
 had apparently refused to procure food for himself, and pined to death at 
 the feet of his dead master. Though the philanthropist may regret the 
 untimely and violent end of men whose courage and energy fitt^ them 
 for better things, it cannot be denied that the gain to society far exceedi 
 the loss. 
 
 When the recesses of the Hollow were fully explored, traces of rude but 
 apparently successful gold workings were found in the creeks which run 
 through this romantic valley — long as invisible as the fabled gold cities of 
 Mexico. 
 
 We may venture to assert that no great time will be suffered to elapse 
 ere the whole of the alluvial will be taken up, and the Terrible Hollow, 
 which some of the older settlers assert to be its real name, will re-echo 
 with the sound of pick and shovel ; perhaps to be the means of swelling 
 those escorts which its former inhabitants so materially lessened. 
 
 With regard to the stock pasturing in the vaDey, a puzzling problem 
 presented itself when they came to be gathered up and yarded. The ad- 
 joining settlers who had suffered from the depredations of the denizens of 
 the Hollow were gladly expectant of the recovery of animals of great 
 value. To their great disappointment, only a small number of the very 
 aged bore any brand which could be sworn to and legally claimed. The 
 more valuable cattle and horses, evidently of the choicest quality and the 
 highest breeding, resembled very closely individuals of the same breed 
 stolen from the various proprietors. But they were either unbranded or 
 branded with a letter and numbers to which no stock-owners in the 
 district could lay claim. 
 
 Provoking, as well as perplexing, was this unique state of matters — 
 wholly without precedent. For instance, Mr Rouncival and his stnd- 
 groom could almost have sworn to the big slashing brown mare, the image 
 of the long-lost celebrity Termagant, with the same crooked bl&se down 
 
404 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohat. 
 
 the face, the suae legs, the sune high croup and peculiar way of carrying her 
 head. She corresponded exactly Li age to the date on which the grand 
 thoroughbred mare, juat about to bring forth, had disappeared from Bunta- 
 gong. No reasonable doubt existed as to the identity of this valuable animal, 
 followed as she was by several of her progeny, equally aristocratic in 
 appearance. Still, as these interesting individuals had never been seen 
 by their rightful owners, it was impossible to prove a legal title. 
 
 The same presumptive certainty and legal incompleteness existed con- 
 cerning Mr. Bowe's short-horns (as he averred) and lllr. ^awson's Devons. 
 
 'Thou art lo naar and yet so far,' 
 
 as a provoking stock-rider hummed. Finally, it was decided by the 
 officials in charge to send the whole collection to the public pound, when 
 each proprietor might become possessed of his own, with a good and law- 
 ful title in addition — for ' a consideration ' — and to the material benefit of 
 the Government coffers. 
 
 So it was this way the poor old Hollow was dropped on bo, 
 and the well-hidden secret blown for ever and ever. Well, it 
 had been a good plant for us and them as had it before our 
 time. I don't expect there'll ever be such a place again, take it 
 all round. 
 
 And that was the end of father ! Poor old dad ! game to the 
 last. And the dog, too ! — wouldn't touch bit or sup after the 
 old man dropped. Just like Crib that was ! Often and often I 
 used to wonder what he saw in father to be so fond of him. He 
 was about the only creature in the wide world that was fond of 
 dad — except mother, perhaps, when she was young. She'd 
 rather got wore out of her feelings for him, too. But Crib stuck 
 to him to his end — faithful till death, as some of them writing 
 coves says. 
 
 And Warrigal ! I could see it all, sticking out as plain as a 
 fresh track after rain. He'd come back to the Hollow, like a 
 fool — in spite of me warning him — or because he had nowhere 
 else to go. And the first time dad had an extra glass in his 
 head he tackled him about giving me away and being the means 
 of the other two's death. Then he'd got real mad and run at 
 him with the axe. Warrigal had fired as he came up, and hit 
 him too ; but couldn't stop him in the rush. Dad got in at 
 him, and knocked his brains out there and then. Afterwards, 
 he'd sat down and drank himself pretty weU blind ; and then, 
 finding the pains coming on him, and knowing he couldn't live, 
 finished himself off with his own revolver. 
 
 It was just the way I expected he would make an ending. 
 He couldn't do much all alone in his line. The reward was a 
 big one, and there would be always some one ready to earn it. 
 Jim and Starlight were gone, and 1 was as good as dead. There 
 wasn't much of a call for him to keep alive. Anyhow, he died 
 game, and paid up all scores, as he said himself. 
 
 I don't know that there's much more for me to say. Here I 
 
Ln ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 405 
 
 am boxed up, like a scrubber in a' pound, year aft«r year — and 
 years after that — for I don't know how long. However, O my 
 Grod ! how ever shall I stand it t Here I lie, half my time in a 
 place where the sun never shines, locked up at five o'clock in my 
 cell, and the same door with never a move in it till six o'clock 
 next morning. A few hours' walk in a prison yard, with a 
 warder on the wall with a gtin in his hand overhead. Ther 
 locked up again, Sundays and week-days, no difference. Some 
 times I think they'd better have haneed me right off If I feel 
 all these things now Tve only been a lew months doing my sen- 
 tence, how about next year, and the year after that, and so on. 
 and so on 1 Why, it seems as if it would mount up to more than 
 a man's life — to ten lives — and then to think how easy it might 
 all have been saved. 
 
 There's only one thing keeps me alive : only for that Fd have 
 starved to death for want of haWng the heart to eat or drink 
 either, or else have knocked my brains out against the wall 
 when one of them low fits came over me. That one thing's the 
 thought of Gracey Storefield. 
 
 She couldn't come to me, she wrote, just yet, but she'd come 
 within the month, and I wasn't to fret about her, because 
 whether it was ten years or twentv years if she was alive she'd 
 meet me the day after I was free, let who will see her. I must 
 be brave and keep up my spirits tor her sake and Aileen's, who, 
 though she was dead to the world, would hear of my being out, 
 and would always put my name in her prayers. Neither she 
 nor 1 would be so very old, and we might have many years of 
 life reasonably happy yet in spite of all that had happ>ened. So 
 the less I gave way and made myself miserable, the younger I 
 should look and feel when I came out. She was sure 1 repented 
 truly of what I had done wrong in the past ; and she for one, 
 and George — good, old, kind George — had said he would go bail 
 that I would be one of the squarest men in the whole colony for 
 the future. So I was to live on, and hope and pray Gk>d to 
 lighten our lot for her sake. 
 
 It must be years and years since that time as I last wrote 
 about. Awful long and miserable the time went at first ; now 
 it don't go so slow somehow. I seemed to have turned a comer. 
 How long is it? It must be a hundred years. I have had 
 different sorts of feelings. Sometimes I feel ashamed to be 
 alive. I think the man that knocked his head against the wall 
 of his cell the day he was sentenced and beat his brains out in 
 this very gaol had the best of it. Other times I take things 
 quite easy, and feel as if I could wait quite comfortable and 
 patient-like till the day came. But — will it ? Can it ever come 
 that I shall be a free man again 1 
 
 People have come to see me a many times, most of them the 
 first year or two I was in. Aft^r that they seemed to forget 
 me, aud get tired of coming. It didn't make much odds 
 
406 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohai 
 
 But on© visitor I had regular after the first month or two. 
 Gracey^ poor Gracey, used to come and see me twice a year 
 She said it wouldn't do her or me any good to come oftener, 
 and George didn't want her to. But them two times she always 
 comes, and, if it wasn't for that, I don't think I'd ever have got 
 through with it. The worst of it was, I used to be that low and 
 miserable after she went, for days and days after, that it was 
 much as I could do to keep from giving in altogether. After 
 a month was past I'd begin to look forward to the next time. 
 
 When I'd aone over eleven years — eleven years ! how did I 
 ever do it 1 but the time passed, and passed somehow— I got word 
 that they that I knew of was making a try to see if I couldn't 
 be let out when I'd done twelve years. My regular sentence 
 was fifteen, and little enough too. Anyhow, they knock off a 
 year or two from most of the long-sentence men's time, if 
 they've behaved themselves well in gaol, and can show a good 
 coDduct ticket right through. 
 
 Well, I could dfo that. I was too low and miserable to fight 
 much when I went in ; besides, I never could see the pull of 
 kicking up rows and giving trouble in a place like that. 
 They've got you there fast enoagh, and any man that won't be 
 at peace himself, or let others be, is pretty sure to get the worst 
 of it. I'd seen others try it, and never seen no ^ood come of it. 
 It's like a dog on the chain that growls and bites at all that 
 comes near him. A man can take a sapling and half kill him. 
 and the dog never gets a show unless he breaks his chain, and 
 that don't happen often. 
 
 Well, I'd learned carpentering and had a turn at mat-making 
 and a whole lot of other things. They kept me from thinking, 
 as I said before, and the neater I did 'em and the more careful 
 I worked the better it went with me. As for my mats, I came 
 quite to be talked about on account of 'em. I drew a r-egular 
 good picture of Rainbow, and worked it out on a mat with 
 difierent-coloured thrums, and the number of people who came 
 to see that mat, and the notice they took of it, would surprise 
 any one. 
 
 When my twelve years was within a couple of months or so 
 of being up I began to hear that there was a deal of in-and-out 
 sort of work about my getting my freedom. Old George 
 Storefield and Mr. Falkland — both of 'em in the Upper House 
 —and one or two more people that had some say with the 
 Government, was working back and edge for me. There was a 
 party on the other side that wasn't willing as I should lose a 
 day or an hour of my sentence, and that made out I ought to 
 have been hanged ' right away,' as old Arizona Bill would have 
 said when I was first taken. Well, I don't blame any of 'em for 
 that ; but if they could have known the feelings of a man that's 
 done a matter of twelve years, and thinks he might — yes, might 
 — smell the fresh air and feel the grass under his feet in a week 
 or two — weU, they'd perhaps consider a bit 
 
Ln ROBBEKY UNDER ARMS 407 
 
 Whatever way it came out I couldn't say, but the big man of 
 the Government people at that time — the Minister that had his 
 say in all these sort of things — took it into his head that I'd 
 had about enough of it, if I was to be let out at all : that the 
 steel had been pretty well taken out of me, and that rrom what 
 he knew of my people and so on, I wasn't likely to trouble the 
 Government again. And he was right. All I wanted was to 
 be let out a pardoned man, that had done bad things, and 
 helped in worse ; but had paid — and paid dear, God knows — 
 for every pound he'd got crooked and every day he'd wasted in 
 cross work. If I'd been sent back for them tnree ye^rs, I do 
 r'aly believe something of dad's old savage blood would have 
 come uppermost in me, and I'd have turned reckless and 
 revengeiul like to my life's end. 
 
 Anyhow, as I said before, the Minister — he'd been into the 
 gaol and had a look once or twice — made up his mind to back 
 me right out ; and he put it so before the Governor that he 
 gave an order for my pardon to be made out, or for me to be 
 discharged the day my twelve years was up, and to let ofi" the 
 othfr three, along of my good behaviour in the gaol, and all the 
 rest of it. 
 
 This leaked out somehow, and there was the deuce's own 
 barney over it. \Mien some of the Parliament men and them 
 sort of coves in the country that never forgives anybody heard 
 of it they began to buck, and no mistake. You'd have thought 
 every bush-ranger that ever had been shopped in New South 
 Wales had been hanged or kept in gaol till he died ; nothing 
 but petitions and letters to the papers ; no end of bobbery. 
 The only paper that had a word to say on the side of a poor 
 devil like me was the Turon Star. He said that ' Dick Marston 
 and his brother Jim, not to mention Starlight (who paid his 
 debts at any rate, unlike some people he could name who had 
 signed their names to this petition), had worked manly and true 
 at the Turon diggings for over a year. They were respected by 
 all who knew them, and had they not been betrayed by a 
 revengeful woman might have Lived thenceforth a life of 
 industry and honourable dealing. He, for one, upheld the 
 decision of the Chief Secretary. Thousands of the Turon 
 miners, men of worth and intelligence, would do the same.' 
 
 The Governor hadn't been very long in the colony, and they 
 tried it on all roads to get him to go back on his promise to me. 
 They began bullying, and flattering, and preaching at him if 
 such a notorious criminal as Richard Marston was to be allowed 
 to go forth with a free pardon after a comparatively short — 
 short, think of that, short ! — imprisonment, what a baa example 
 it will be to the rising generation, and so on. 
 
 They managed to put the thing back for a week or two till I 
 was nearly drove mad with fretting, and being doubtful which 
 way it would ga 
 
 Lucky for me it was, and for some other people as well, the 
 
408 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS ohap. 
 
 Governor was one of those men that takes a bit of trouble and 
 considers over a thing before he says yes or no. When he says 
 a thing he sticks to it. When he goes foi'ward a step he puts 
 his foot down, and all the blowing, and cackle, and yelping in 
 the world won't shift him. 
 
 Whether the Chief Secretary would have taken my side if 
 he'd known what a dust the thing would have raised, and how 
 near his Ministers — or whatever th^ call 'em — was to going 
 out along with poor Dick Marston, I can't tell. Some people 
 say he wouldn't. Anyhow, he stuck to his word ; and the 
 Governor just said hed given his decision about the matter, 
 and he hadn't the least intention of altering it — which showed 
 he knew something of the world, as well as intended to be true 
 to his own opinions. The whole thing blew over after a bit, 
 and the people of the country soon found out that there wasn't 
 such another Governor (barrin' one) as the Queen had the 
 sending out of. 
 
 The day it was all settled the head gaoler comes to me, and 
 says he, ' Richard Marston, the Governor and Council has been 
 graciously pleased to order that you be discharged from her 
 Majesty's gaol upon the completion of twelve years of imprison- 
 ment ; the term of three years' further imprisonment being 
 remitted on account of your uniform good conduct while in the 
 said gaoL You arc now free ! ' 
 
 I heard it all as if it had been the parson reading out of a 
 book about some other man. The words went into my ears and 
 out again. I hardly heard them, only the last word, free — free 
 — free ! What a blessed word it is ! I couldn't say anything, 
 or make a try to walk out. I sat down on my blankets on the 
 floor, and wondered if I was going mad. The head gaoler 
 walked over to me, and put his hand on my shoulder. He was 
 a kind enough man, but, from being * took in ' so often, he was 
 cautious. ' Coma Dick,' he says, * pull yourself together. It's 
 a shake for you, i daresay, but you'U be all right in a day or so. 
 I believe you'll be another man when you get out, and give the 
 lie to these fellows that say you'll be up to your old tricks in a 
 month. I'll back you to go straight ; if you don't, you're not the 
 man I take you for.' 
 
 I got up and steadied myself. *I thank you with all my 
 
 heart, Mr. ,' I said. *I'm not much of a talker, but you'll 
 
 see, you'll see; that's the best proof. The fools, do they think 
 I want to come back here ? I wish some of them had a year 
 of it.' 
 
 As soon as there was a chance of my going out, I had been 
 allowed to * grow,' as they call it in there. That is, to leave ofi 
 having my face scraped every morning by the prison barber 
 with his razor, that was sometimes sharp and more times rough 
 enough to rasp the skin off you, particularly if it was a cold 
 morning. My hair was let alone, too. My clothes — the suit I 
 waus taken in twelve years ago — had been washed and cleaned 
 
Lii EOBBERY UNDER ARMS 409 
 
 and folded up, and put away and numbered in a room with a lot 
 of others. I remember I'd got 'em new just before I started 
 away from the Hollow. They was brought to me, and very weU 
 tliey looked, too. I never had a suit that lasted that long 
 before. 
 
 That minds me of a yam I heard at Jonathan Barnes's one 
 day. There was a young chap that they used to call * Liverpool 
 Jack' about then. He was a free kind of fellow, and good- 
 looking, and they all took to him. He went away rather sudden, 
 and they heard nothing of him for about three years. Then he 
 came back, and as it was the busy season old Jonathan put him 
 on, and gave him work. It was low water with him, and he 
 seemed glad to get a job. 
 
 When the old man came in he says, ' Who do you think came 
 up the road to-day 1 — Liverpool Jack. He looked rather down 
 on his luck, so 1 gave him a job to mend up the bam. He's a 
 handy fellow. I wonder he doesn't save more money. He's a 
 careful chap, too.' 
 
 ' Careful,' says Maddie. * How do ve make that out ? ' 
 
 ' Why.' says Jonathan, ' I'm dashed if he ain't got the same 
 suit of clothes on he had when he was here three years age' 
 
 The old man didn't tumble, but both the girls burst out 
 laughing. He'd been in the jug all the time ! 
 
 i dressed myself in my own clothes — how strange it seemed 
 — even to the boots^ and then I looked in the glass. I hadn't 
 done that lately. I regularljr started back ; I didn't know my- 
 self ; I came into prison a big, stout, brown-haired chap, full of 
 life, and able to jump over a dray and bullocks almost. I did 
 once jump clean over a pair of polers for a lark. 
 
 And how was I going out ? A man with a set kind of face, 
 neither one thing nor the other, as if he couldn't be glad or 
 sorry, with a hxed staring look about the eyes, a half- yellowish 
 skin, with a lot of wrinkles in it, particularly about the eyes, 
 and gray hair. Big streaks of gray in the hair of the head, and 
 as for my beard it was white — white. I looked like an old man, 
 and walked like one. What was the use of my going out at 
 all? 
 
 When I went outside the walls by a small gate the head 
 gaoler shook hands with me. ' You're a free man now, Dick,' 
 he says, ' and remember this — no man can touch you. No man 
 has the right to pull you up or lay a finger on you. You're as 
 independent as the best gentleman in the land so long as you 
 keep straight. Remember that. I see there's a friend waiting 
 for you.' 
 
 Sure enough there was a man that I knew, and that lived 
 near Rocky Flat He was a quiet, steady-going sort of farmer, 
 and never would have no truck with us in our flash times. He 
 was driving a springcart, with a good sort of horse in it. 
 
 * Come along with me, Dick,' says he. ' I'm going your way, 
 and I promised George Stoit>lieid I'd c&li and give you a lift 
 
410 EOBBERY UNDER ARMS orap. 
 
 home, Pm glad to see ron ont again, and there's a few more 
 
 round Eocky Flat that's the same.' 
 
 We had a long drive — many a mile to go before we were near 
 home. I couldn't talk ; I didn't know what to say, for one 
 thing. I could only feel aa if I was being driven along the road 
 to heaven after coming from the other place. I couldn't help 
 wondering whether it was possible that I was a free man going 
 back to life and friends and happiness. Was it possible 1 
 Could I ever t>e happy again ? Surely it must be a dream that 
 would all melt away, and I'd wake up as I'd done hundreds of 
 times and find myself on the floor of the cell, with the bare 
 walla all round me. 
 
 ^Tien we got nearer the old place I began to feel that queer 
 and strange that I didn't know which way to look. It was 
 coming on for spring, and there'd been a middling drop of rain, 
 seemingly, that had made the grass green and everything look 
 grand. What a time had passed over since I thought whether 
 it was spring, or summer, or winter ! It didn't make much odds 
 to me in there, only to drive me wild now and again with 
 thinkin' of what was goin' on outside, and how I was caged up 
 and like to be for months and years. 
 
 Things began little by little to look the way they used to do 
 long and long ago. Now it was an old overhanging limb that 
 had arched over the road since we were boys ; then there was a 
 rock with a big kurrajong tree growing near it. When we came 
 to the turn ofi' where we could see Nulla Mountain everything 
 come back to me. I seemed to have had two lives ; the old one — 
 then a time when I was dead, or next door to it — now this new 
 life. I felt as if I was just born, 
 
 ' Well get down here now,' I said, when we came near the 
 dividing fence ; ' it ain't far to walk. That's your road.' 
 
 Til run you up to the door,' says he, 'it isn't far ; you ain't 
 used to walking much.' 
 
 He let out his horse and we trotted through the paddock up 
 to the old hut. 
 
 * The garden don't look bad,' says he. ' Them peaches always 
 used to bear well in the old man's time, and the apples and quinces 
 too. Some one's had it took care on and tidied up a bit There, 
 you've got a friend or two left, old man. And Tm one, too,' 
 says he, putting out his hand and giving mine a shake. * There 
 ain't any one in these parts asH cast it up to you as long as you 
 keep straight. You can look 'em all in the face now, and by- 
 gones 11 be bygones.' 
 
 Then he touched up his horae and rattled off before I could 
 so much as say * Thank ye.' 
 
 I walked through the garden and sat down in the verandah on 
 one of the old bench^ There was the old place, mighty little 
 altered considering. The hut had been mended up from time 
 to time — now a slab and then a sheet of bark — else it would have 
 been down long enough ago. The garden had been dug up, ^nd 
 
tn ROBBERY UNDER ARMS 411 
 
 the trees trimmed year by year. A hinge had been pat on the 
 old gate, and a couple of slip-rails at the paddock. The potato 
 patch at the bottom of the garden was sown, and there were 
 vegetables coming on in the old beds. Some one had looked 
 after the place ; of course, I knew who it wa«. 
 
 It began to get coldish, and I pulled the latch — it was there 
 just the same — and went intx) the old room. I almost expected 
 to see mother in her chair, and father on the stool near the fire- 
 
 Elace, where he used to sit and smoke his pip>e. Aileen's was a 
 ttle low chair near mother's. Jim and I used to be mostly 
 in the verandah, unle&s it was very cold, and then we used to 
 lie down in front of the fire — that is, if dad was away, as he 
 mostly was. 
 
 The room felt cold and dark as I looked in. So dreadful 
 lonely, too, I almost wished I was back in the gaoL 
 
 When I looked round again I could see things had been left 
 ready for me, so as I wasn't to find myself bad off the first 
 night. The fire was all made up ready to light, and mat-ches on 
 the table ready. The kettle was filled, and a basket close handy 
 with a leg of mutton, and bread, butter, eggs, and a lot of things 
 — enough to last me a week. The bedroom had been settled 
 up too, and there was a goc>d, comfortable bed ready for any 
 tired man to turn into. Better than all, there was a letter, 
 signed ' Your own Gracey,' that made me think I might have 
 some life left worth living yet. 
 
 I lit the fire, and after a bit made shift to boil some tea ; and 
 after Fd finished what little I could eat I felt better, and sat 
 down before the fire to consider over things. It was late enough 
 — midnight — before I turned in. I couldn't sleep then j but at 
 last I must have dropped ofi^ because the sun was shining into 
 the room, through the old window with the broken shutter, 
 when I awoke. 
 
 At first I didn't think of getting up. Then I knew, all of a 
 sudden, that I could open the door and go out. I was in the 
 garden in three seconds, listening to the birds and watching the 
 clouds rising over Nulla Mountain. 
 
 That morning, after breakfast, I saw two people, a man and 
 a woman, come riding up to the garden gate. I knew who it 
 was as far as I could see 'em — George Storefield and Gracey. 
 He lifted her down, and they walked up through the garden I 
 went a step or two to meet them. She ran forward and threw 
 herself into my arms. George turned away for a bit. Then I 
 put her by, and told her to sit down on the verandah while I 
 had a talk with Greorge. He shook hands with me, and said he 
 was glad to see me a free man again. * I've worked a bit, and 
 got others to work too,' says he ; ' mostly for her, and partly for 
 your own sake, Dick. I can't forget old times. Now you're 
 your own man again, and I won't insult you by saving I hope 
 yocll keep go ; I know it, nz cnre ai we stand here. 
 
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