Robbery Under Arms
by Rolf Boldrewood [T.A.Browne]
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
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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 bigger deposit-receipt in the bank
where we 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 careful with his money, which a poor 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. They 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 stinting 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 fair 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 blacksmith 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. Rainbow 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 with 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 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 Pounds. There was the King of Meroo nugget,
weighing 157 oz.; and another one that only scaled 71 oz. seemed
hardly worth picking up after the others, only 250 Pounds 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,
rippling and gurgling over the stones, the silent, dark forest all round
on every side; and on moonlight nights the moon shining over Nulla Mountain,
dark and overhanging all the valley, as if it had been sailing
in the clear sky over it ever since the beginning 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 we went into Bargo, 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!
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-tables 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 troopers clanking 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 thing's certain; Jim and I would 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 wonder 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.
However, we'd a deal better have kept to the bulldog's motter, `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 could 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 fine 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 still be
a little happiness left us, for all that was come and gone.
Ah! if things would only work out that way.

Well, more 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 night. Kate 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 daytime. 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 behaviour allowed. A goldfield is 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, Swedes,
Danes, Norwegians, Russians, Italians, Greeks, Jews, Spaniards, Frenchmen,
Maltese, Mexicans, Negroes, Indians, Chinamen, New Zealanders, English, Irish,
Scotch, Welsh, Australians, Americans, Canadians, Creoles, gentle and simple,
farmers and labourers, squatters and shepherds, lawyers and doctors.
They were all alike for a bit, all pretty rich; none poor, or likely to be;
all workers and comrades; nobody wearing much better 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 starting 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 start for home
the very moment they had made a fair thing. How were any police in the world
to keep the run of a few men that had been in trouble before
among such a mixed-up mob?

Now and then we managed to get a talk with Starlight 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 meet 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 living and working among the diggers that we could pass
for diggers anywhere.

`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 introduced.
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 I, 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; `never mind her. Jeanie's coming up
to be married to me next month, and Kate's getting so fond of you again
that there's no fear of her letting the cat out.'

`That's 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 as 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 28

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'd better give him up and set her mind on somebody else.
Girls that was anyway good-looking and kept themselves proper and 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?

But Jim had got one of his obstinate fits. He said we were 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. Poor old Jim! I really believe
he'd made up his mind to go straight from the very hour
he was buckled to Jeanie; and if he'd only had common luck
he'd have been as square and right as George Storefield 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 was 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 drove 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. Next thing we saw
was the Commissioner 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 of people,
some of them very wild and lawless, principally by moral influence,
though, of course, I have the Government to fall back upon.
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. That'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?'

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 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 difference, 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 anything
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 swells
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
that'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 born for it she was.
I couldn't help seeing whose fault it was that she'd been kept back
and was now obliged 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,
looking just the same as the very first evening we met Kate and her
on the St. Kilda 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 feelings afterwards. They might `get over it', as people call it;
but that's a sort of healing over a wound. It don't always 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 explanation
Jim was completely whitewashed of course. It had always happened to him,
and I suppose always would. He was a man born to be helped 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 was near the bar,
Kate 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 they could go and live quietly together. She would cook his meals
and mend his clothes, and they would come into town on Saturday 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 had a right
to sell his goodwill and improvements.

Jim gave him his price and took everything, even to the bits of furniture.
They weren't much, but a place looks awful 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 -- that is, the iron building that did duty for one.
It had all been carted up from Melbourne -- framework, 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 couple.
Jeanie was quietly dressed in plain white silk. She had on a veil;
no ornaments 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 breaking 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 stiffness 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
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 angry with Jim. He was one of 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 church who had heard
of the wedding and come to see us. I saw Starlight and the two Honourables,
dressed up as usual, besides the Commissioner and the camp officers;
and 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 they'd got their riding habits on,
and Bella had the watch and chain Starlight had given her.
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
looking 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. Nobody took much notice of poor 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 toss,
and I saw her pride 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 all kinds of things. But I knew better.
She wouldn't peach, poor thing! Still, I saw that more than one or two
knew who we were and all 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 him
and wanted to have a look at him. Next to the Commissioner and the P.M.,
the Inspector of Police is the biggest man 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 he pleases.
He can arrest a man on suspicion and keep him in gaol for a month or two.
He can have him remanded 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. All he has to say is:
`There was a mistake in the man's identity;' or, `Not sufficient proof.'
Anything 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 often is,
he's run after a good deal and can hold his head as high as he pleases.
There's a bit of risk sometimes 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 foamed 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 Ingersoll,
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, you'll 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 glad to see Sir Ferdinand. We'd heard of him before
from Goring and the other troopers; but he'd been on duty in another district,
and hadn't come in our way.

One evening we were all sitting smoking and yarning in the big room
of the hotel, and Jim, for a wonder -- we'd been washing up -- when we saw
one of the camp gentlemen come in, and a strange officer 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 'yur twistin' your necks at
like a flock of geese in a corn patch? How d'ye fix it that a lord's better'n
any other man?'

`He's a bit different, somehow,' I says. `We're not goin' 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 durn my old buckskins if I can see why you Britishers
sets up idols and such and worship '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 as 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 Ferdinand (we could hear) asked him how many months he'd been out
in the colony, and how he liked it?

Starlight said 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 wonder the field has not shaken some of that cussed foolishness out of him
by this time.'

Chapter 29

Jim and his 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 Ironbarks, a horse-stealing match,
a fight at a dance-house, or a big law case. Accidents and offences
happened every 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 Melbourne and clear out. Should we ever be able
to manage that? It seemed getting nearer, nearer, like 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 fixed 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 and 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 pipe now,
and we'd only seen him once up 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 potatoes we weren't the only ones.
No, not by a lot. There never was a richer patch of alluvial, 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? 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 go in for some big foolish row, and we 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 and 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-and-half bad, like a good many more in this world.
They're partly tempted into doing wrong by opportunity, and kept back
by circumstances from getting into the straight track afterwards.
But on every goldfield there's scores and scores of men
that always hurry off 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 living 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 them a wide berth, and helped to run them down when they'd committed
any crime, they 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 week
in a strong express waggon -- something like a Yankee coach,
with leather springs and a high driving seat; so that four horses
could be harnessed. One of the police sergeants 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 leaked 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.
Then 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 Government 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 contained 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 ourselves
than as we had of breaking into the Treasury in Sydney by night.
But those who knew used to say that if 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 Government
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 Moran 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. Warrigal'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 put in a kind of fixed locker
underneath the middle of the coach. He saw where the troopers sat
before and behind, and I'll be bound came away with a wonderful good
general idea of how the escort travelled, and of a good 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 off 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 bushman, 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 saw 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, as we walked on our homeward 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? What 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 live 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 'em, they're better than men, though.
I'll never go back on that.

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 forgiven for our sins
and allowed, by God's mercy, to lead a new life. She quite believed
in our leaving 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 can 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,
Arizona 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 all 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 handsome 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 always going
in dread of it. So Jim and I were always mighty civil to her,
and I really thought she'd improved a lot lately and turned out
a much nicer woman than I thought she could be.

We used to talk 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 wished she hadn't been in such a hurry and married as she had.
Then she'd crack up Jeanie, and say how true and constant 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,
if things had turned out different, she'd have been a different woman,
and any man she really loved would never have had no call to complain.
Of course I knew what all this meant, but thought I could steer clear
of coming to grief over 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 she'd found out that we were going
to Melbourne. 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 breaking.
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, pard, have yer fixed it up to take that young woman along
when you pull up stakes?'

`No,' 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?' he said, speaking very low, as he always did,
and taking the cigar out of his mouth -- Bill 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 can't 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 off 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?'

`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's bound to close on yer
and lift yer ha'r if she can.'

`Why, how do you know what she's likely to do?'

`I've 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 Bill 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 Melbourne and away from the diggings.
She was afraid of many of the people she saw, and didn't like others.
She was terrified 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 all chance of delay and drawback.

Chapter 30

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-reflector 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 all 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 claim
went to Arizona Bill and his mate. We had no call to be ashamed of the money
that stood to our 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. Kilda beach again that she could hardly sleep or eat
as the time drew near.

Friday night came; everything had been settled. It was the last night
we should either 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 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 Mullockson,
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 and seated herself
near me on the sofa I heard the clock strike twelve, and most of the men
who were walking about the hall began to clear out.

Somehow, when you've been living at a place for a goodish while,
and done well there, and had 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.
What's the use of money to a man if he smashes his hip and has to walk
with a crutch all his days? I've seen a miner with a thousand a month
coming in, but he'd been crushed pretty near to death with a fall of earth,
and about half of him was dead. What's a good dinner to a man
that his doctor only allows him one slice of meat, a bit of bread,
and some toast and water? I've seen chaps like them, and I'd sooner a deal
be the poorest splitter, slogging away with a heavy 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 and the diggings afterwards. Hard work, high pay,
good friends that would stick to a man back and edge, and a safe country
to lie 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.

Well, of course, Kate and I got talkin' and talkin', first about the diggings,
and then about other things, till we got to old times in Melbourne,
and she began to look miserable and miserabler 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, we'll 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 -- fine 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 you 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 herself -- `will you take me with you
when you go for good and all? I'm ready to follow you round the world.
Don't be afraid of my temper. No woman that ever lived ever did more
for the man she loved than I'll do for you. If 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. You know I had cause, hadn't I, Dick?
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 the week --
to be yours, and yours only, as long as I live.'

I didn't think there was that much of the loving nature about her.
She used to vex me by being hard and uncertain when we were courting.
I knew then she cared about me, and I hadn't a 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 my shoulder
when she finished. I took her over to the sofa, and made her sit down
by the side of me.

`Kate,' I said, `this won't do. There's neither rhyme nor reason about it.
I'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,
and everybody's thoughts will be turned our way. We'll be clean bowled --
the 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 me? 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.
You've got a good husband, that's proud of you and gives you everything
you can think of. You took him yourself, and you're bound to stick to him.
Besides, think of poor 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.'

If 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, and it wasn't over bright. I talked away,
and last of all she came round to my way of thinking; at any rate
not to want to clear off from the old man now, but to wait till I came back,
or till I wrote to her.

`You are right, Dick,' she said at last, `and you show your sense
in talking the way you have; though, if you loved as I do,
you could not do it. But, once more, there's no other woman
that you're fonder of than me? It isn't that that makes you so good?
Dick Marston good!' and here she laughed bitterly. `If I thought that
I should go mad.'

What was I to do? I could not tell her that I loved 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 so.

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 me the way out, though the outer door of the hall was left open
night and day. It was a way we had at the Turon; no one troubled themselves
to be particular about such trifles as furniture and so on.
There was very little small robbery there; it was not worth while.
All petty stealers were most severely punished into the bargain.

As I stood up to say good-bye a small note dropped out of my breast-pocket.
It had shifted somehow. Kate always had an eye like a hawk. With one spring
she 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 gazed at me for a moment with a face from which every trace of expression
had vanished, except that of the most devilish fury and spite --
the face of an evil spirit more than of a woman; and then she walked
slowly away. I couldn't help 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.
That 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 been strolling up Main Street
a couple of hours ago? 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 her? Would she come right, kiss,
and make friends, and call herself a madwoman -- a reckless fool --
as she'd often done before? No; she was in bitter earnest this time.
It did not pay to be slack in making off. Once we had been caught napping,
and once was enough.

The first thing to do was to warn Jim -- poor old Jim, snoring away,
most like, and dreaming of taking the box-seat for himself and Jeanie
at the agent's next morning. It seemed cruel to wake him,
but it would 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.'

`You dress yourself, Jim,' I said, `as quick as you can.
Put on your hat and come with me; there's something up.'

`My God!' says Jim, `what is it? I'm a rank coward now I've got Jeanie.
Don't go and tell me we've got to cut and run again.'

`Something like it,' I said. `If it hasn't come to that yet,
it's not far off.'

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-morrow, 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 off and through the country like a wild dog once more.
If that infernal Kate has given us away, by George, I could go and kill her
with my own hand! 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 I've 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 Jeanie. So there's evens as well as odds. The thing is,
what are we to do now?'

`Dashed if I know. I feel stupid about tackling the bush again;
and what can I do with 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 from him, and make tracks for the Hollow
as soon as I can. You'd better leave Jeanie here and do the same.'

Jim groaned, but said nothing. He wrung my hands till the bones
seemed to crack, and walked away without a word. We knew it was a chance
whether we should meet again.

I walked on pretty quick till I came to the flat where
Arizona Bill and his mates had their 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 digging 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 from ours, and there was a bit
of broken ground between, so that I thought I was safe
in having a word with them before I cleared for Barnes's place,
though I took care not to go near our own camp hut. I walked over,
and was making straight for the smallest hut, when a rough voice hailed me.

`Hello! stranger, ye came darned near going to h--l with your boots on.
What did yer want agin that thar cabin?'

I saw then that in my hurry I had gone stumbling against a small hut
where they generally put their gold when the party had been washing up
and had more than was safe to start from camp with. In this they always put
a grizzled old hunter, about whom the yarn was that he never went to sleep,
and could shoot anything a mile off. It was thought a very unlikely thing
that any gold he watched would ever go crooked. Most people considered him
a deal safer caretaker than the escort.

`Oh! it's you, is it?' drawled Sacramento Joe. `Why, what's doin'
at yer old camp?'

`What about?' said I.

`Wal, Bill and I seen three or four half-baked vigilantes
that call themselves police; they was a setting round the hut
and looked as if they was awaiting for somebody.'

`Tell 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 face 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 eventuated.
Is that so?'

`Yes. I want your help.'  I told him shortly all I could tell him
in the time.

     .   .   .   .   .

He listened quietly, and made no remark for a time.

`So 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 Australia, but I never reckoned on their bein'
men like you and Jim. So the muchacha went back on yer -- snakes alive!
I kinder expected 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.
I'll 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?'

`I'm 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. Yer 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.'

`Go slow, then. Wait here; you'll want suthin, may be, on the peraira.
If ye do, boy! Jim made good shootin' with this, ye mind.
Take it and welcome; it'll mind ye of old Arizona Bill.'

He handed me a beautifully finished little repeating rifle,
hardly heavier than a navy revolver, and a small bag of cartridges.

`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 we 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 under which a deal of gold had been found.
Easy enough to cross here on a kind of natural ford. We had many a time
walked over on Sundays and holidays for a little kangaroo-shooting
now and then. It was here Jim one day, when we were all together
for a ramble, surprised the Americans by his shooting
with the little Ballard rifle.

As I crossed there was just moon enough to show the deep pools
and the hurrying, tearing waters of the wild river, foaming 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 slate rock, and a narrow track
in and out between. If I had light enough to find this and get to the top --
the country was terribly rough for a few miles, with the darkness coming on --
I should be pretty well out of reach by daylight.

I had just struck the track when I heard voices and a horse's tramp
on the other 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 hill track faster than I had done for many a day,
and when I got to the top stopped to listen, but could hear nothing.
The moon had dropped suddenly; the forest was as black as pitch.
You couldn't see your hand before you.

I knew that I was safe now, if a hundred men were at my heels,
till daybreak at any rate. I had the two sides of the gully to guide me.
I could manage to make to the farm where the sorrel was at grass
with a lot of other 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 bluff,
partly to get breath and partly to take a last look at old Turon.

Below lay the goldfield clearly marked out by hundreds of camp-fires
that were still red and showed bright in the darkened sky.
The course of the river was marked by them, in and out,
as most of the shallow diggings had followed the river flats.
Far back the fires glowed against the black forest,
and just before the moon fell I could catch the shine of the water
in the deeper reaches of the river.

It was the very picture of what I'd 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 revolver would go off. It was never quiet on Turon diggings,
day or night.

Well, there they all were, tents and diggers, claims and windlasses,
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 leaving 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 31

I got to Bates's paddocks about daylight, and went straight up to the hut
where the man lived that looked after it. Most of the diggers that cared
about their horses paid for their grass 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 with them, and when I said I'd come for Bill's sorrel
he thought it likely enough, and got out the saddle and bridle.
I tipped him well, and went off, telling him I was going to Wattle Flat
to look at a quartz-crushing plant that was for sale.
I accounted for coming up so early by saying I'd lost my road,
and that I wanted to get to Wattle Flat sharp, as another chap wished
to buy the plant. I cut across the range, kept the sun on my right hand,
and pushed on for Jonathan's. I got there early, and it's well I did.
I rode the sorrel hard, but I knew he was pretty tough,
and I was able to pay for him if I killed him. I trusted to leaving him
at Jonathan's, and getting a fresh horse there. What with the walk
over the bluff and the forest, having no sleep the night before,
and the bother and trouble of it all, I was pretty well used up.
I was real glad to see Jonathan's paddock fence 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?'

`No; but Billy the Boy's just rode up. I hear him a-talkin' to the gals.
He knows if anybody does. I'll take the old moke and put him in the paddock.
I can let you have a stunner.'

`All right; I'll go in and have some breakfast. It's as much as I dare
stop at all now.'

`Why, Dick Marston, is that you? No, it can't be,' said both girls together.
`Why, you look like a ghost. He doesn't; he looks as if he'd been at a ball
all night. Plenty of partners, Dick?'

`Never mind, Dick,' says Maddie; `go and make yourself comfortable
in that room, and I'll have breakfast for you while you'd let a cow
out of the bail. We don't forget our friends.'

`If all our friends were as true as you, Maddie,' I said, rather down-like,
`I shouldn't be here to-day.'

`Oh! that's it, is it?' says she; `we're only indebted to somebody's
laying the traps on -- a woman of course -- for your honour's company.
Never mind, old man, I won't hit you when you're down. But, I say,
you go and have a yarn with Billy the Boy -- he's in the kitchen.
I believe the young imp knows something, but he won't let on to Bell and I.'

While the steaks were frying -- and they smelt very good, bad as I felt --
I called out Master Billy and had a talk with him. I handed him a note
to begin with. 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
in information, let alone a pound.

Billy had grown a squarish-set, middle-sized chap; his hair wasn't so long,
and his clothes were better; his eye was as bright and bold-looking.
As he stood tapping one of his boots with his whip, he looked
for all the world like a bull-terrier.

`My colonial oath, Dick, you're quite the gentleman -- free with your money
just the same as ever. You takes after the old governor;
he always paid well if you told him the truth. I remember him
giving me a hidin' when I 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 sinful.
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 p'leece 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,
and Jim's long legs tied underneath. I was gatherin' cattle, I was.
I drew some up just for a stall, and had a good look.'

`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 I'd 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? Suppose they come this way.'

`Not they. They split and 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 neighbourhood
he was born in. He's not much good anywhere else. He's like a blackfellow
outside of his own `tauri'. He's at sea. But within twenty or thirty miles
of where he was born 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 to have had
her tongue torn out first, let alone go open-mouthed at it. But mightn't you
have come down here from the Turon on Sundays and holidays now and then,
and had a yarn with us all?'

`Of course we ought, and we 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 have to be 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 rough ride in than trousers, and I wanted the poncho
to keep the Ballard rifle under. It wouldn't do to have it in your hand
all the time.

As we rode along I settled upon the way I'd try and set poor Jim free.
Bad off as I was myself I couldn't bear to see him chained up, and knew
that he was going for years and years to a place more wicked and miserable
than he'd ever heard of.

After riding 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 enough. Here's the prisoner's horse, see how he stumbled?
and this road they're bound to go till they cross the Stony point,
and get into Bargo Brush, near a creek.'

We had plenty of time by crossing a range and running a blind creek down
to be near the place where the troopers must pass as they crossed
the main creek. We tied up the horses a hundred yards' distance behind us
in the forest, and I made ready to rescue Jim, if it could be managed anyhow.

How was it to be done? I could depend on the rifle carrying true
at short ranges; but I didn't like the notion of firing at a man
behind his back, like. I hardly knew what to do, when all of a sudden
two policemen showed up at the end of the track nearest the creek.

One man was a bit in front -- riding a fine horse, too. The next one
had a 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 Jim ever looked miserable for so long
since he was born. Whatever 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.

When I saw that, my mind was made up. I couldn't let them
take him away to his death. I could see he wouldn't live a month.
He'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 purpose. He drops off his saddle like a dead man. The next minute
Billy the Boy raises the most awful corroboree of screams and howls,
enough for a whole gang of bush-rangers, if they went in
for that sort of thing. He emptied four chambers of his revolver
at the leading trooper right away, and I fired at his horse.
The constable 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 distance,
and then we unbound poor Jim, set his feet at liberty, and managed
to dispose of the handcuffs. Jim's face began to look more cheerful,
but he was down in the mouth again when he saw the wounded man.
He began at once to do all he could for him. We stopped a short distance
behind the brush, which had already helped us well.

Jim propped up the poor chap, whose life-blood was flowing red
through the bullet-hole, and made him as comfortable as he could.
`I must take your horse, mate,' he says; `but you know
it's only the fortune of war. A man must look after himself.
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 could make our own way from there,
and so we sent off our scout, telling him to ride to the nearest township
and say he'd seen a trooper lying badly wounded by the Bargo Brush roadside.
The sooner he was seen to, the better chance he'd have.

Jim brightened up considerably after this. He told me how he'd gone back
to say good-bye to Jeanie -- how the poor girl went into fits,
and he couldn't leave her. By the time she got better
the cottage was surrounded by police; there was no use being shot down
without a chance, so he gave himself up.

`My word, Dick,' he said, `I wished for a bare-backed horse,
and a deep gully, then; but it wasn't to be. There was no horse handy,
and I'd only have been carried into my own place a dead man
and frightened the life out of poor Jeanie as well.'

`You're worth a dozen dead men yet, Jim,' I said. `Keep up your pecker,
old man. We'll 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 like.
`We're that fond of one another, Dick, that I couldn't hardly bear her
out of my sight, and now I'll be months and months and months
without a look at her pretty face, where I've never seen anything yet
but love and kindness. Too good for me she always was;
and what have I brought her to? My God! Dick, I wish you'd shot me
instead of the constable, poor devil!'

`Well, you wasn't very far apart,' I says, chaffing like.
`If that old horse they put you on had bobbed forward level with him
you'd have got plugged instead. But it's no use giving in, Jim.
We must stand up to our fight now, or throw up the sponge.
There's no two ways about it.'

We rattled on then without speaking, and never cried crack
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 and meat the girls had put up for me at Jonathan's.
I'd never thought of it before. When I took the parcel
out of the pocket of my poncho I thought it felt deuced heavy,
and there, sure enough, was one of those shilling flasks of brandy
they sell for chaps to go on the road with.

Brandy ain't a good thing at all times and seasons, and I've seen
more than one man, or a dozen either, that might just as well
have sawed away at their throats with a blunt knife as put the first glass
to their lips. But we was both hungry, thirsty, tired, miserable,
and pretty well done and beaten, though we hadn't had time to think about it.
That drop of brandy 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.
We'd two minds to camp on the mountain, but we might have been followed up,
hard as we'd ridden, and we didn't like to throw a chance away.
We didn't want the old man to laugh at us, and we didn't want to do
any more time in Berrima -- not now, anyhow. We'd been living
too gay and 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 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 us he knew it was right,
and begins to feel for his pipe. First thing father always did as soon as
any work or fighting or talking was over was to get out his pipe and light it.
He didn't seem the same man without it.

`So you've found your way back again, have ye?' he says. `Why, I thought you
was all on your way to Californy 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?'

Jim was standing by, sayin' nothing, while I was taking off
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?' says father, rather quick, almost as if he was
fond of him, and had some natural feeling -- sometimes I raly think he had --
`been any shooting?'

`Yes; not at him, though. Tell you all about it in the morning.
He's eaten nothing, and we've been 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. When I looked out there was the old man sitting on the log
by the fire, smoking. What was a deal more curious, I saw the half-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 no other than Starlight.

Chapter 32

I'd settled in my mind that it couldn't be any one else, when he sat up,
yawned, and looked round as if he had not been away from the old place a week.

`Ha! Richard, here we are again! "Feeds the boar in the old frank?"
The governor told me you and Jim had made back. Dreadful bore, isn't it?
Just when we'd all rubbed off the rust of our bush life
and were getting civilised. I feel very seriously ill-treated, I assure you.
I have a great mind to apply to the Government for compensation.
That's the worst of these new inspectors, they 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?'

`The faithful Warrigal, as usual, gave me timely warning, and brought a horse,
of course. He will appear on the Judgment Day leading Rainbow,
I firmly believe. Why he should be so confoundedly anxious about my welfare
I can't make out -- I can't, really. It's his peculiar form of mania,
I suppose. We all suffer from some 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 about,
partly to see me, and partly about another matter that your father
laid him on about. He was standing about near the Prospectors' Arms,
late on Friday night, doing nothing and seeing everything, as usual,
when he noticed Mrs. Mullockson run out of the house like a Bedlamite.
"My word, that missis big one coolah!" was his expression, and made 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
so extremely fond of -- well -- studying the female character,
you should carry on the pursuit more discreetly. Just see
what this miscalculation has cost your friends!'

`Confound her! She's a heartless wretch, and I hope she'll die in a ditch.'

`Exactly. Well, she knocked, 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 I tell you,
and don't stand there like a fool."

`She waited a bit. Then, Warrigal says, out came Sir Ferdinand, very polite.
"What can I do for you," says he, "Mrs. Mullockson?"

`"Should you like to know where the Marstons 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 -- officially, I mean, of course.
I shall never forget your kindness. Thanks, a thousand times."

`"Don't thank me," she says, and she burst out crying, and goes slowly
back to the hotel.

`Warrigal had heard quite enough. He rips over to 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?
The chances are against it.

`I had all kinds of trouble to tell them I was going away with Warrigal,
and yet not to tell too much.

`"What the dickens," says Clifford, "can you want, going away
with this familiar of yours at this hour of the night?
You're like the fellow in Scott's novel (`Anne of 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?"

`"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, I'll write you a line,
and as I shook hands with them -- two regular trumps, if ever there were any
in the world -- I had a kind of notion 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?"

`"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 notorious over the three colonies, and New Zealand to boot --
your intimate friend and partner for the last nine months!'

`"You perfectly amaze me," says Clifford. "But can't you be mistaken?
Is your information to be depended upon?"

`"Mine came from a jealous woman," says Sir Ferdinand. "They may generally
be depended upon for a straight tip. But we're losing time.
When did he leave the claim, and which way did he go?"

`"I have no idea which way he went," says Clifford. "He did not say,
but he left about an hour since."

`"On foot or on horseback?"

`"On horseback."

`"Any one with him?"

`"Yes, another horseman."

`"What was he like?"

`"Slight, dark man, youngish, good-looking."

`"Warrigal the half-caste! By George! warrants out for him also,"
says Sir Ferdinand. "On a good horse, of course, with an hour's start.
We may give up the idea of catching him this time. Follow him up
as a matter of form. Good-bye, Clifford. You'll hear news of your friend
before long, or I'm much mistaken."

`"Stop, Sir Ferdinand, you must pardon me; but I don't exactly understand
your tone. The man that we knew by the name of Frank Haughton may be,
as you say, an escaped criminal. All I know is that he lived with us
since we came here, and that no fellow could have behaved
more truly like a man and a gentleman. As far as we are concerned,
I have a material guarantee that he has been scrupulously honest.
Do you mean to hint for one moment that we were aware of his previous history,
or in any way mixed up with his acts?"

`"If I do, what then?" says Sir Ferdinand, laughing.

`"The affair is in no way ludicrous," says Clifford, very stiff and dignified.
"I hold myself to 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 whenever I resign my appointment
as Inspector of Police for the colony of New South Wales.
The Civil Service regulations do not permit 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 afternoon, 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 suppose we'll have to go on the old lay; they won't let us alone
when we're doing fair work and behaving ourselves like men.
They must take the consequences, 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 mistake
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 I?"  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 mind what our line was to be.
One thing was certain: there would be more row made about us than ever.
We should have all the police in the country worried and barked at
by the press, the people, the Government, and their superior officers
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. Every one would be tried that we had ever been known
to be friendly with. A special body of men could be told off to make a dart
to any spot they might get wind of near where we had been last seen.

We had long talks and barneys over the whole thing -- sometimes by ourselves
with Starlight, sometimes with father. A long time it was before we settled
upon any regular put-up bit of work to do.

Sooner or later we began to see the secret of the Hollow would be found out.
There was no great chance in the old times with only a few
shepherds and stock-riders wandering through the bush, once in a way
straggling over the country. But now the whole colony swarmed with miners,
who were always prospecting, as they called it -- that is, looking out
for fresh patches of gold. Now, small parties of these men -- bold, hardy,
experienced chaps -- would take a pick and shovel, a bucket, and a tin dish,
with a few weeks' rations, and scour the whole countryside.
They would try every creek, gully, hillside, and river bed. If they found
the colour of gold, 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 fortnight,
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 nothing.

If we went outside there were ten times more men looking out for us than ever,
ten times more chance of our being tracked or run down than ever.
That we knew from the newspapers. How did we see them? Oh, the old way.
We sent out our scout, Warrigal, and he got our letters and papers too,
from a `sure hand', as Starlight said the old people in the English wars
used to say.

The papers were something to see. First he brought us in a 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 Starlight.

`Pleasing way of drawing attention to a gentleman's private residence,'
says Starlight, smiling first and looking rather grim afterwards.
`Never mind, boys, they'll increase that reward yet, by Jove!
It will have to be a thousand a piece if they don't look a little sharper.'

We laughed, and dad growled out --

`Don't seem to have the pluck, any on 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 what this paper says.
"Turon Star"! What a godsend to it!

                                `BUSH-RANGERS!

                      `STARLIGHT AND THE MARSTONS AGAIN.

`The announcement will strike our readers, if not with
the most profound astonishment, certainly with considerable surprise,
that these celebrated desperadoes, for whose apprehension
such large sums have been offered, for whom the police in all the colonies
have made such unremitting search, should have been discovered in our midst.
Yet such is the case. On this very morning, from information received,
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 shareholders were popularly known as "the three Honourables",
it being rumoured that both Mr. Clifford and Mr. Hastings were entitled
to that prefix, if not to a more exalted one.

`With characteristic celerity, however, the famous outlaw had shortly before
quitted the place, having received warning and been provided with a fast horse
by his singular retainer, Warrigal, a half-caste native of the colony,
who is said to be devotedly attached to him, and who has been seen
from time to time on the 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 unwilling
to leave his home, and lingered too long for prudence.

`While rejoicing, as must all good citizens, at the discovery of evil-doers
and the capture of one member of a band of notorious criminals, we must state
in fairness and candour that their conduct has been, while on the field
as miners, free from reproach in every way. For James Marston,
who was married but a short while since to a Melbourne young lady
of high personal attractions and the most winning amiability,
great sympathy has been expressed by all classes.

So much for the "Star". Everybody is sorry for you, old man,' he says to Jim.
`I shouldn't wonder if they'd make you a beak if you'd stayed there
long enough. I'm afraid 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 startled
by the discovery of the notorious gang of bush-rangers,
Starlight and the Marstons, domiciled in the very heart of the diggings,
attired as ordinary miners, and -- for their own purposes possibly --
leading the laborious lives proper to the avocation. They have been
fairly successful, and as miners, it is said, have shown themselves
to be manly and fair-dealing men. We are not among those who care
to judge their fellow-men harshly. It may be that they had resolved
to forsake the criminal practices which had rendered them
so unhappily celebrated. James Marston had recently married
a young person of most respectable family and 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,
Richard 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 police respecting all three men.
We are not at present aware of the source from which the clue was obtained.
Suffice it to say that Sir Ferdinand Morringer 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 "ame damnee", a half-caste named Warrigal, had been
observed on the field the day before. By him he was doubtless furnished
with a warning, and the horse upon which he left his abode shortly before
the arrival of Sir Ferdinand. The elder Marston had also eluded the police.
But James Marston, hindered possibly by domestic ties, was captured
at his cottage at Specimen Gully. For him sympathy has been
universally expressed. He is regarded rather as a victim
than as an active agent in the many criminal offences
chargeable to the account of Starlight's gang.

`Since writing the above we have been informed that trooper Walsh,
who with another constable was escorting James Marston to Bargo Gaol,
has been brought in badly wounded. The other trooper reports
that he was shot down and the party attacked by persons concealed
in the thick timber near Wild Horse Creek, at the edge of Bargo Brush.
In the confusion that ensued the prisoner escaped. It was at first thought
that Walsh was fatally injured, but our latest report
gives good hope of his recovery.

`We shall be agreeably surprised if this be the end and not the commencement
of a series of darker tragedies.'

Chapter 33

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 speaking. 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. As for Jim, we were bound to do
something or other, if it was only to keep him from going melancholy mad.
I never seen any man changed more from what he 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, and 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.
Always ready to laugh or chaff or go on with monkey tricks like a boy.
Now it was all the other way with him. He'd sit grizzling and smoking
by himself all day long. No getting a word out of him. The only time
he seemed to brighten up was once when he got a letter from Jeanie.
He took it away into the bush and stayed hours and hours.

From never thinking about anything or caring what came uppermost,
he seemed to have changed all on the other tack and do nothing but think.
I'd seen a chap in Berrima something like him for a month or two;
one day he manned the barber's razor and cut his throat. I began to be afraid
Jim would go off his head and blow his brains out with his own revolver.
Starlight himself got to be cranky and restless-like 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 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.
I've been fighting against the notion the whole time we've been here,
but the devil and your old dad (who's a near relative, I believe)
have been too strong for us. Of course, you know what it's bound to be?'

`I suppose so. I know when dad was away last week he saw that beggar
and some of his mates. They partly made it up awhile 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.
`Captain 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 himself 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 fixed it for good.

We were to stick up the next monthly gold escort. That was all.
We knew it would be a heavy one and trusted to our luck to get clear off
with the gold, and then take a ship for Honolulu or San Francisco.
A desperate chance; but we were desperate men. We had tried to work
hard and honest. We had done so for 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.

They wouldn't have us that way, and now they must take us across the grain,
and see what they would gain by that. So it happened we went out one day
with 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 smoking 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, just 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 father 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 him, 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 the mouth, don't he, though?'

`It would be all the better for you if you'd joined some other body,
you young scamp,' I said. `Who told you to come here? I've half a mind
to belt you home again to your mother;' and I walked towards him.

`No, you won't, Dick 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 as much right to turn out as you have. What odds is it to you
what I do?'

I looked rather foolish at this, and Moran and Burke began to laugh.

`You'd better set up a 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, that's grinning behind you,
I'll make some of ye laugh on the wrong side,' I said.

`Come on,' drawls Moran, taking off his coat, and walking up;
`I'd like to have a smack at you before you go into the Church.'

We should have been at it 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 man 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.
What'll it be worth a man, and where are we going to divide?
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 growlin' 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. We'll pick one of ourselves,
and whatever he says we'll bind ourselves to do -- life or death.
Is that it, boys?'

`Yes, yes, that's the only way,' came from all hands.

`Now, the next thing to work 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. You know who I mean;
but I don't want ye to choose him or any man because I tell you. I propose
Starlight for captain if he'll take it, and them that don't believe me
let '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 about what YOU'RE bred for;
nobody'll take 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 was done after a bit, and the end of it was ten votes for Starlight
and two or three for Moran, who looked savage and sulkier than ever.

When this was over Starlight walked over from where he was standing,
near me and Jim, and faced the crowd. He drew himself up a bit,
and looked round as haughty as he used to do when he walked up the big room
at the Prospectors' Arms 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 hats.
`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 sounded to me and Jim
as if it was a different man talking, or the devil in his likeness.
`Now mind this before we go: you don't quite know me;
you will by and by, perhaps. When I take command of this gang,
for this bit of work or any other, my 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 'em.

Chapter 34

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 Melbourne, where she'd gone.
It seems she'd got her money from the bank -- Jim's share of the gold --
all right. She was a saving, careful little woman, and she told him
she'd enough to keep them both well for four or five years, anyhow.
What she wanted him to do was to promise that he'd never be mixed up
in any more dishonest work, and to come away down to her at once.

`It was the easiest thing in the world,' she said, `to get away from Melbourne
to England or America. Ships were going every day, and glad to take any man
that was strong and willing to work his passage for nothing;
they'd pay him besides.'

She'd met one or two friends down there as would do anything
to help her and him. If he would only get down to Melbourne
all would yet be well; but she begged and prayed him, if he loved her,
and for the sake of the life she hoped to live with him yet,
to come away from his companions and take his own Jeanie's advice,
and try and do nothing wrong for the future.

If Jim had got his letter before we made up matters, just at the last
he'd have chucked up the sponge and cleared out for good and all.
He 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 leaving off with. Another thing, we'd been all used
to having what money we wanted lately, and we none of us fancied
living like poor men again in America or anywhere else.
We hadn't had hardly a scrap from Aileen since we'd come back this last time.
It wasn't much odds. She was regular broken-hearted; you could see it
in every line.

`She had been foolish enough to hope for better things,' she said;
`now she expected nothing more in this world, and was contented
to wear out her miserable life the best way she could. If it wasn't that
her religion told her it was wrong, and that mother depended on her,
she'd drown herself in the creek before the door. She couldn't think
why some people were brought into this miserable world at all. Our family
had been marked out to evil, and the same fate would follow us to the end.
She was sorry for Jim, and believed if he had been let take his own road
that he would have been happy and prosperous 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 people' (bad people -- well, every one thinks
their own crow the blackest) `that the 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.
I knew the writing; there was no more. I could see what Gracey meant,
and wished over and over again that I had the chance of going straight,
as I'd wished a thousand times before, but it was too late, too late!
When the coach is running down hill and the break's off,
it's no use trying to turn. We had all our plan laid out and settled
to the smallest thing. We were to meet near 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. We were all
in great buckle and very fit, certainly. I don't think I ever felt better
in my life. There must be something out-and-out spiriting in a real battle
when a bit of a scrimmage like this sent our blood boiling through our veins;
made us feel as if we weren't plain Dick and Jim Marston,
but regular grand fellows, in a manner of speaking. What fools men are
when they're young -- and sometimes after that itself -- to be sure.

We started at daylight, and only stopped once on the road
for a bite for ourselves and to water the horses, so that we were
in good time. We brought a little corn with us, just to give
the horses something; they'd be tied up for hours and hours
when we got to the place pitched on. They were all there before us;
they hadn't as good horses by a long chalk as we had,
and two of their packers were poor enough. Jim and I were riding ahead
with Starlight a little on the right of us. When the fellows saw Rainbow
they all came crowding round him as if he'd been a show.

`By George!' says Burke, `that's a horse worth calling a horse, Captain.
I often heard tell of him, but never set eyes on him before. I've two minds
to shake him and leave you my horse and a share of the gold to boot.
I never saw his equal in my life, and I've seen some plums too.'

`Honour among -- well -- bush-rangers, eh, Burke?' says Starlight cheerily.
`He's the right sort, isn't he? We shall want good goers to-night.
Are we all here now? We'd better get to business.'

Yes, they were all there, a lot of well-built, upstanding chaps,
young and strong, and fit to do anything that a man could do
in the way of work or play. It was a shame to see them there
(and us too, for the matter of that), but there was no 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 bit to come.

After that our horses and the two packers were left behind
with Warrigal and father, close enough for hearing, but well
out of the way for seeing; it was behind a thick belt of timber.
They tied up some to trees and short-hobbled others, keeping them all
so as to be ready at a moment's notice. Our men hid themselves behind
rocks and stumps on the high side of the road so as they could see well,
and had all the shadow on their side. Wall and Hulbert and their lot
had their mob of horses, packers, and all planted away, and two young fellows
belonging to their crowd minding them.

We'd been ready a good bit when a cove comes tearing up full bat.
We were watching to see how he shaped, and whether he looked likely
to lay on the police, when I saw it was Billy the Boy.

`Now I call this something like,' says he, pulling up short:
`army 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?
Ain't yer gallied the least little bit? They're a-comin'!'

`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.
I'll clear out to the back for a bit. I want 'em to think
I come up 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 hill. We knew the Turon sergeant of police
that drove, a tall man with a big black beard down to his chest.
He had been in an English dragoon regiment, and could handle the ribbons
above a bit. He had a trooper alongside him on the box with his rifle
between his knees. Two more were in the body of the drag.
They had put their rifles down and were talking and laughing,
not expecting anything sudden. Two more of the mounted men rode in front,
but not far. The couple behind were a good way off. All of a sudden
the men in front came on the trees lying across the road.
They pulled up short, and one of them jumped down and looked to see
if anything could be done to move them. The other man held his horse.
The coach drove up close, so that they were bunched up pretty well together.

`Who the devil has been doing that?' sung out the sergeant.
`Just as if the road isn't bad enough without these infernal lazy
scoundrels of 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-day,
by the tracks. They're up to no good!'

`Fire!'

The order was given in Starlight's clear, bold voice.
Just like a horn it sounded. You might have heard it twice as far off.
A dozen shots followed the next second, making as much row as fifty
because of the way the 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 sergeant 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 badly.
So when the two troopers came up full gallop from the back
they found us cutting the traces of the team, that was all plunging like mad,
and letting the horses go.

We opened fire at them directly they showed themselves;
of course they couldn't do much in the face of a dozen men,
all well armed and behind good cover. They kept it up for a bit
till one of their horses was hit, and then made tracks for Turon
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 enough
for half-a-dozen; so we looked a big crowd -- that all the men
were shot dead, wounded, or taken prisoners, and that a strong force
had better be 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 educated 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 of 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 jiffy. It was every man for himself now.
We waited a bit to help them with their swag; it was awful heavy.
We told them that their pack-horses would never carry it
if there was anything of a close run for it.

`Suppose you think you've got the only good horse in the country,
Dick Marston,' says 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?'

`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 him after Patsey was done for,
and kept him till he died of old age), `but he's in no condition.
I'm talking of the pack-horses; they're not up to much, as you'll find out.'

We didn't want to rush off at once, for fear the other fellows
might say something afterwards if anything happened cross.
So we saw them make a fair start for a spot on Weddin Mountain,
where they thought they were right. We didn't think we could be caught
once we made tracks in earnest. After a couple or three hours' riding
we should be pretty safe, and daylight would see us at the Hollow.

We stopped, besides, to do what we could for the wounded men.
They were none of them regularly done for, except the sergeant.
One man was shot through the lungs, and was breathing out blood
every now and then. We gave them some brandy and water,
and covered them all up and left them as comfortable as we could.
Besides that, we sent Billy the Boy, who couldn't be 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 Rainbow now,
swinging along with that beautiful bounding style of going he had,
snorting now and then and sending out his legs as if one hundred miles,
more or less, was nothing. His head up, his 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'd 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 before daylight, too.
The strangeness and the chance of being followed kept us up, else I believe
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 if 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
till well on in the afternoon.

When I looked round I saw the dog sleeping at Jim's feet, old Crib.
He never left father very far, so of course the old man must be home,
or pretty close up. I was that 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 35

`We 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 bit, 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? But we'll hear soon.'

`How shall we hear anything? Nobody'll be mad enough to show out of here
for a bit.'

`I could get word here,' says father, `if there was a police barrack
on the top of Nulla Mountain. I've done it afore, and I can do it again.'

`Well, I hope it won't be long, for I'm pretty full up of this
staying-at-home business in the Hollow. It's well enough for a bit,
but it's awful slow when you've too much of it.'

`It wouldn't be very slow if we was all grabbed and tried for our lives,
Mr. Dick Marston. Would 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 Moran, and their lot
will have their turn first,' I said, and with that I walked off,
for I saw the old man had been drinking a bit after his night's work,
and that always started his temper the wrong way. There was
no doing anything with him then, as I knew by long experience.
I was going to ask him where he'd put the gold, but thought it best
to leave that for some other time.

By and by, when we all turned out and had some breakfast,
we took a bit of a walk by ourselves and talked it over.
We could hardly think it was all done and over.

`The gold escort stuck up. Fourteen thousand ounces of gold taken.
Sergeant Hawkins shot dead. The robbers safe off with their booty.'

This is the sort of thing that we were sure to see in all the papers.
It would make a row and no mistake. It was the first time such a thing
had been thought of, much less carried out `to rights', as father said,
`in any of the colonies.'  We had the five thousand ounces of gold,
safe enough, too. That was something; whether we should be let enjoy it,
or what chance we had of getting right away out of the country,
was quite another matter. We were all sorry for Sergeant Hawkins,
and would have been better pleased if he'd been only wounded like the others.
But these sorts of things couldn't be helped. It was the fortune of war;
his luck this time, ours next. We knew what we had to expect.
Nothing would make much difference. `As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.'
We were up to our necks in it now, and must fight our way out
the best 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 Starlight, or that he told him not to do.

We had good reason, then, to think ourselves safe as long as we had
such a place to make for whenever we were in danger or had done a stroke.
We had enough in gold and cash to keep us comfortable in any other country --
provided we could only get there. That was the rub. When we'd got
a glass or two in our heads we thought it was easy enough
to get across country, or to make away one by one at shearing time,
disguised as swagsmen, to the coast. But when we thought it over carefully
in the mornings, particularly when we were a bit nervous after the grog
had died out of us, it seemed a rather blue 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 hair, and so on of every one of us.
If a suspicious-looking man was seen or heard of within miles
the telegraph wires could be set to work. He could be met, stopped,
searched, and overhauled. What chance would any of us have then?

`Don't flatter yourselves, my boy,' Starlight said, when we'd got
the length of thinking how it was to be done, `that there's any little
bit of a chance, for a year or two at any rate, of getting away.
Not a kangaroo rat could hop across from one scrub to another
if there was the least suspicion upon him without being blocked or run into.
Jim, old man, I'm sorry for you, but my belief is we're quartered here
for a year or two certain, and the sooner we make up our minds to it
the better.'

Here poor old Jim groaned. `Don't you think,' he said, quite timid-like,
`that about shearing-time a man might take his chance,
leading an old horse with a swag on, as if he wanted to get shearing
in some of the big down-the-river sheds?'

`Not a bit of it,' says Starlight. `You're such a good-looking,
upstanding chap that you're safe to be pulled up and made answer for yourself
before you'd get fifty miles. If you rode a good horse
they'd think you were too smart-looking for a regular shearer,
and nail you at once.'

`But I'd take an old screw with a big leg,' pleaded Jim.
`Haven't I often seen a cove walking and leading one just to carry
his blankets and things?'

`Then they'd know a chap like you, full of work and a native to boot,
ought to have a better turn-out -- if it wasn't a stall.
So they'd have you for that.'

`But there's Isaac Lawson and Campbelltown. You've seen them.
Isaac's an inch taller than me, and the same cut and make.
Why shouldn't they shop them when they're going shearing?
They're square enough, and always was. And Campbelltown's
a good deal like Dick, beard and all.'

`Well, I'll bet you a new 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 well as dozens of others. That will show
how close the search will be.'

`I don't care,' says Jim, in his old, obstinate way, which he never put on
except very seldom. `I'll go in a month or two -- police or no police.
I'll make for Melbourne if there was an army of soldiers
between me and Jeanie.'

We had to settle where the gold was to be hid. After a lot of talk
we agreed to keep one bag in a hole in the side of the wall of the cave,
and bury the others in the place where we'd found old Mr. Devereux's box.
His treasure had laid many a year safe and sound without anybody touching it,
and we thought ours might do the same. Besides, to find it
they must get into the Hollow first. So we packed it out bag by bag,
and made an ironbark coffin for it, and buried it away there,
and put some couch-grass turfs on it. We knew they'd soon grow up,
and nobody could tell that it hadn't always been covered up
the same as the rest of the old garden.

It felt pretty hard lines to think we shouldn't be able to get away
from this lonely place after the life we'd led the last year; but Starlight
wasn't often wrong, and we came to the same way of thinking ourselves
when we looked at it all round, steady and quiet like.

We'd been a week or ten days all by ourselves, horse-breaking, fishing,
and shooting a bit, thinking how strange it was that we should have
more than 20,000 Pounds in gold and money and not be able
to do anything with it, when dad, sudden like, said he'd go out himself
and get some of the newspapers, and perhaps a letter or two if any came.

Starlight laughed at him a bit for being foolhardy, and said
we should hear of his being caught and committed for trial.
`Why, they'll know the dog,' says he, `and make him give evidence in court.
I've known that done before now. Inspector Merlin nailed a chap
through his dog.'

Father grinned. `I know'd that case -- a sheep-stealing one.
They wanted to make out Brummy was 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.'

`How did his master like it?'

`Oh! Brummy? He looked as black as the ace of spades.
He'd have made it hot for that dorg if he could ha' got at him.
But I suppose he forgived him when he came out.'

`Why 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 saw father's old mare brought up, though, and saddled,
and knowed quite well what that meant. He never rode her unless he was going
out of the Hollow.

`I believe that dog could stick up a man himself as well as some fellows
we know,' says Starlight, `and he'd do it, too, if your father
gave him the word.'

     .   .   .   .   .

While we were taking it easy, and except for the loneliness of it as safe
as if we had been out of the country altogether, Moran and the other fellows
hadn't quite such a good time of it. They were hunted from pillar to post
by the police, who were mad to do something to meet the chaff
that was always being cast up to them of having a lot of bush-rangers
robbing and shooting all over the country and not being able to take them.
There were some out-of-the-way places enough in the 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, and it's not a life that can be worked on the cheap,
I can tell you, as we often found out. Money comes easy in our line,
but it goes faster still, and a man must never be short of a pound or two
to chuck about if he wants to keep his information fresh, and 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 country
where they were known to some other place where they weren't expected.
Having out-and-out good hacks, and being all of them chaps
that had been born in the bush and knew it like a book,
it was wonderful how they managed to rob people at one place one day,
and then be at some place a hundred miles off the next. Ever so many times
they came off, and they'd call one another Starlight and Marston, 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 they'd got about 'em,
and no one was allowed to stir till sundown, for fear they should send word
to the police. Then the gang went off, telling them to stay where they were
for an hour or else they'd come back and shoot them.

This would be on the western road, perhaps. Next day a station
on the southern road, a hundred and twenty miles off,
would be robbed by the same lot. Money and valuables taken away,
and three or four of the best horses. Their own they'd leave behind
in such a state that any one could see how far and fast they'd been ridden.

They often got stood to, when they were hard up for a mount,
and it was this way. The squatters weren't alike, by any manner of means,
in their way of dealing with them. Many of them had lots of fine
riding-horses in their paddocks. These would be yarded some fine night,
the best taken and ridden hard, perhaps returned next morning,
perhaps in a day or two.

It was pretty well known who had used them, but nothing was said;
the best policy, some think, is to hold a candle to the devil,
especially when the devil's camped close handy to your paddock,
and might any time sack your house, burn down your woolshed and stacks,
or even shoot at your worshipful self if he didn't like the way
you treated him and his imps.

These careful respectable people didn't show themselves too forward either
in giving help or information to the police. Not by no means.
They never encouraged them to stay when they came about the place,
and weren't that over liberal in feeding their horses,
or giving them a hand in any way, that they'd come again in a hurry.
If they were asked about the bush-rangers, or when they'd been last seen,
they were very careful, and said as little as possible.

No one wonders at people like the 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 burn a house down
just for the pleasure of seeing how the owner looked when it was lighted.

Starlight used to say he despised men that tried to
save themselves cowardly-like more than he could say,
and thought them worse than the bush-rangers themselves.
Some of them were big people, too.

But other country gentlemen, like Mr. Falkland, were quite
of a different pattern. If they all acted like him
I don't think we should any of us have reigned as long as we did.
They helped and encouraged the police in every possible way.
They sent them information whenever they had received any worth while.
They lent them horses freely when their own were tired out and beaten.
More than that, when bush-rangers were supposed to be in the 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
all they knew to get away. He was a native of the country, like themselves,
a first-class horseman and tracker, a hardy, game sort of a chap
that thought nothing of being twenty-four hours in the saddle,
or sitting under a fence watching for the whole of a frosty night.

Well, he was pretty close to Moran once, who had been out by himself;
that close he ran him he made him drop his rifle and ride for his life.
Moran never forgave him for this, and one day when they had all been
drinking pretty heavy he managed to persuade Wall, Hulbert, Burke, and Daly
to come with him and stick up Whitman's house.

`I sent word to him I'd pay him out one of these fine days,' he drawled out,
`and he'll find that Dan Moran can keep his word.'

He picked a time when he knew Whitman was away at another station.
I always thought Moran was not so game as he gave himself out to be.
And I think if he'd had Whitman's steady eyes looking at him,
and seeing a pistol in his hand, he wouldn't have shot as straight
as he generally did when he was practising at a gum tree.

Anyhow, they laid it out all right, as they thought,
to take the place unawares. They'd been drinking at a flash kind of inn
no great way off, and when they rode up to the house it seems 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 devil 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 was coming.

Chapter 36

When we found that by making darts and playing hide and seek with 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 I. `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
going towards Mr. Whitman's, at Darjallook. I don't know, but I expect
they're going to play up a bit there, because of his following them up
that time the police nearly got Moran.'

`What makes you think that? 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 Moran knew Mr. Whitman was away at the Castlereagh 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
they'll burn the place down 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 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 I'll 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 off 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 an 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.
Get 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 Starlight.

`There!' says Warrigal, pointing to something we couldn't see if we'd looked
for a month. `Bin gone that way. That one track Moran's horse. 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.
`You 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 flower-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 brandy 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 Miss 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, but stifled-like,
as if she tried to choke it back as much as she could.

Burke 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. Whitman was sitting crouched up in a chair 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 off her. She was sitting
on the sofa against the wall, quite upright, with her hands before her,
and her eyes looking half proudly, half miserable, 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.

`Yer'd better sing now,' he drawls out, `unless ye want me
to come and make you. I know you girls wants coaxing sometimes.'

Poor Miss Mary breaks out at once into some kind of a song --
the pitifullest music ever you listened to. Only I wanted to wait a bit,
so as to come in right once for all, I'd 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 Weddin 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. I'm regular shook on the polka. You 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 jolly,
and the young ladies ain't on for a hop; are ye, miss?' and he looked over
at the youngest Miss Whitman, who 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 Moran. `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 that 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 helped to make the evening pass pleasant at Darjallook
afore it was burned.'

Anything 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 steps
Jim sprang past me, and raised his pistol.

`Drop her!' he shouts to Moran; `you hound! Leave go Miss Falkland,
or by the living God I'll blow your head off, Dan Moran, before you can lift
your hand! How dare you touch her, you cowardly dog!'

Moran 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 Starlight 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 rising on his feet,
feeling for the revolver that wasn't in his belt (and 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 strength. I thought his brains was knocked out,
dashed if I didn't. I heard Moran's head sound against the stone wall
with a dull sort of thud; and on the floor he drops like a dead man --
never made a kick. By George! we all thought he had killed him.

`Stash that, now,' says Burke; `don't touch him again, Jim Marston.
He's got as much as 'll do him for a bit; and I don't say
it don't 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 Hulbert?'

`They went to yard the horses.'

`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 I'll have none of this sort of work if I'm to be captain,
and you're all sworn to obey me, mind that. I'll 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'll wait behind.'

They blundered out, taking Moran with them, who seemed quite stupid like,
and staggered as he walked. He wasn't himself 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 unhappily was not able to restrain.
I have had 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 policemen
in plain clothes, had not come in, goodness only knows
what would have become of us.'

`I am afraid you are labouring under some mistake, my dear 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 Whitman, in spite of all their terror and anxiety,
were so tickled by the idea of their mother mistaking
Starlight and the Marstons for Sir Ferdinand and his troopers
that they began to laugh, not but what they were sober enough
in another minute.

Miss Falkland got up then and walked forward, looking just the way
her father used to do. She spoke to Starlight first.

`I have never seen you before, but I have often heard 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.
Whatever may be your future career, whatever the fate that your wild life
may end in, always believe there are those who 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 Whitman 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.

`You, poor old Jim,' she said, and she took hold of his brown hand and held it
in her own, `I 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? 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?'

`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 --
why don't all of you contrive to get away somehow from this hateful 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. We'll do what we can, but we'll 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.'

She shook hands heartily with me and Jim, but when she came to Starlight
he raised her hand quite respectful like and just touched it with his lips.
Then he bowed low to them all and walked slowly out.

When we got to the public-house, which wasn't far off, 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 clear of the place.

`It's a mercy you went over, Captain,' says he; `there'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-dozen road scrimmages,
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?'

`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. He'll be back
afore morning.'

`How d'ye know that?'

`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 when we got back to Jonathan'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
Moran was there and 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 just sat there and let her talk to him. He smiled
in a serious kind of way when she ran over to him first;
but, instead of a good-looking girl, it might have been his grandmother
for all he seemed to care.

`You're a regular old image, Jim,' says she. `I hope none of my other friends
'll 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? You wouldn't see me
trod upon; d'ye think you would, now? I'd stand up for you, I know,
if you was bested anywhere.'

`My dear Maddie,' says Starlight, `James 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 with 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 monotony
occasionally assails the honeymoon. Variety is the salt of life,
I begin to think. Some of these fine 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 invite,'
says Starlight.

`Will you, though?' she said. `Wouldn't it be fun? 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. Jim's asleep, I believe,
this half hour.'

Chapter 37

This bit of a barney, of course, made bad blood betwixt 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 Starlight; 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 back 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 fit 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,
and 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 the manhunting trade, with us for game,
either for the fun of it or for the reward. That reward means the money
paid for our blood. WE DON'T LIKE IT. It may seem curious, but we don'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 Pounds,
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 grabbed in the long run trying to make into the old home.
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 there 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 the 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-duffing lay of their own.
They were pretty hard up; and Moran after 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 yarn with them about cattle and horses 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
what 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.

Well, it seems on this particular day they'd been into the little township,
and I suppose got an extra glass of grog. Anyhow, 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, splashing 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 like 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 Marston girl ought to think so much of herself,
considerin' 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, and 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 track 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 'll 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 was 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 where 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 goes stumbling and dragging himself like up the gully, and they,
cocksure of getting him, closing up and shooting quicker and quicker,
when just as he jumps down the Black Gully 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 the bank and turn to the left
along the creek channel, throwing 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
they'd been hunting after for weeks and weeks. They held up their pistols,
but they didn't seem to have much notion of using them --
particularly when they found father had rounded on 'em too,
and was standing a bit away on the side looking very ugly
and with his revolver held straight at 'em.

`Give in! Put down your irons,' says Moran, `or by ----,
we'll 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 off 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,' says 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?' says he, in his drawling way.

`No,' says the poor chap, `I don't think I do.'

`But I 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 Moran -- a prisoner serving
a long sentence there -- seven days' solitary on bread and water
for what you called disobedience of orders and insolence?'

`Yes, I do remember now. I'd forgotten your face. I was only doing my duty,
and I hope you won't bear any malice.'

`It was a little thing to you, maybe,' says Moran; `but if you'd had to do
seven long days and long cold nights in that devil's den, you'd 'a thought
more about it. But you will now. My turn's come.'

`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 I'd been let. But fellows like you are enough to turn any man
into a devil if they've got him in their power.'

`Well, I'm in your power now,' says he. `Let's see how you'll shape.'

`I don't like ye any the worse for being cheeky,' says Moran,
`and standing up to me, but it'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 I'd 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 I've 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. You 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 Rocky Flat.
We took Warrigal with us, and followed 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 eyes 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 pleeceman fire at him and all about, and him break back
alonga gully.'

`Any of 'em come back?' says Jim.

`Bale! me see um tent-dog tied up. Cake alonga fireplace, all burn to pieces.
No come home last night. I b'lieve shot 'em old man longa gully.'

`Come along, boys,' says Starlight, jumping into his saddle.
`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 sand, like a book.

`Your old fader run likit Black Gully. Two 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 leaf.'

Here he picked up a dried gum leaf, which had on the upper side
a dark red spot, 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 and had time to get pretty sick of it.

`That near side one Moran's horse, pigeon-toes; me know 'em,' says Warrigal.
`Off side one Daly's roan horse, new shoes on. You see 'um hair,
rub himself longa tree.'

`What the blazes were they doing hereabouts?' says Starlight.
`This begins to look complicated. Whatever 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. Ride on, boys.'

We said nothing to each other, but rode along as fast as Warrigal
could follow the line. 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 buckets, 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 something was going to happen,
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 we 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 blankets were all thrown about.
Anyhow, there was a kettle on the fire, which was gone out;
and more than that, there was 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, which we all knew.

`You see um crow? 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 'em 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 George! they've got the old man,' says Jim. `Come on, Dick.
I never thought poor old dad would 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 his own ground.'

Chapter 38

We all pulled up at the side of the gully or dry 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 ourselves,
but guessed they were Hagan and his lot. How else did they come there?
and how could dad have shot them all by himself, 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?
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 of 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 Starlight; 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 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?'

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 fust-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 thinking 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 men; 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 policeman
and newspaper reporter in the country will be up at Black Gully.
When 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 to lay them on
without hurting himself.'

`All right. Warrigal knows a way of communicating with him;
I'll send him off at once. And now the sooner we're at the Hollow
the better for everybody.'

We rode all night. 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 trailing
on the ground. There was a lot of blood on the saddle 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 we'd 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, boys,
and we'll soon see what's the matter with him.'

We took his waistcoat and shirt off -- 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 that play at bowls must expect to get rubbers. They've come off
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 him,
as far as we could make out, under the breast on the right-hand side.

`That looks like a good-bye shot,' 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? 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 home,' 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 old 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. Bring me a taste of grog, will ye;
I'm a'most dead with thirst. Where did I come from last, I wonder?
Oh, I seem to know now. Settling accounts with that ---- dog
that insulted my gal. Moran got square with t'other. 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?'

`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 his 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? 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 work 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
with 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.

No; once he'd started there was no fear of him not scoring somehow or other.
Whatever Starlight told him to do, day or night, foul weather or fair,
afoot or on horseback, that thing was done if Warrigal was alive to do it.

What 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 nurse 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, and 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 dad, 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 early (he wouldn't stop behind)
with a nice, well-bred little horse that had shone a bit at country races
for her to ride on. We waited there a goodish while, we lying down
and our horses hung up not far off 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 anything.

Whatever 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 all the time she was kissing him
with her arms round his neck; 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. It'll 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! shall we ever know
a moment's peace and happiness in this world again? 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 ahead 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, half 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,' says 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.'

`Of course he is; where else should he be? Why don't you lead on, Dick?'

`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 girl does break her neck, or her heart either?'

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 raving and screaming out inside dreadful.
Starlight wasn't nigh hand anywhere. He had walked off when Warrigal
came home, and left him to watch the old man.

`He been like that all the time, Warrigal?'

`No! Captain say big one sleep. Him give him medicine like;
then wake up 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 father 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 he'll be smiling and sensible, looking so honest all the time.
Next day a knock on the head 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 clearskins, 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 been before, if that was possible; but it didn't matter much to us.
We were pretty tired ourselves that night, and so we got Aileen
all she wanted, and left her alone with him.

While we were away to meet her some one had taken the trouble
to put up a bit of a partition, separating that part of the cave
from the other; it was built up of stone -- there was plenty about --
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 39

Towards morning father went into a heavy sleep; he didn't wake
till the afternoon. Poor Aileen was able to get a doze and change her dress.
After breakfast, while we were having a bit of a chat, in walks Starlight.
He bowed to Aileen quite respectful, 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 only for poor father's being so bad
I could delight in the life here.'

`How do you find your father?'

`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 giving 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 anybody but myself.
He seems so weak now; a little neglect might kill him.'

`Pardon me, Miss Marston; you overrate the danger. Depend 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 sighed) `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.

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 something 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 him. 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-war'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, of 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 fresh 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 that 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 before 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 different 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 time
he ever spoke to her in that way. We never heard 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 rides all over the place, from one end
to the other. It did her good, and we went to every hole and corner 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 the old hermit
had lived 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 Rainbow that day, and, my word,
they made a splendid pair.

She'd dressed herself up that afternoon just a little bit more than common,
poor thing, and put a bit of pink ribbon on and trimmed 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 look on the ground. We rode pretty fast always,
and it brought a bit of colour to her face. The old horse
got pulling and prancing a bit, though he was that fine-tempered
he'd carry 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 was 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 heavy stocking (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 was
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 pleasant, easy-going way.
You'd think he hadn't 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 horse arching his neck,
and spinning along under her as light as a greyhound, and as smooth as oil.
It was something like a pleasant ride. 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 luminary, the moon; you'll see her
before we get home. We're her sworn votaries and worshippers, you know.'

We had to 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 the other; but there was
old Rainbow always in the lead, playing with his bit and arching his neck,
and going with Aileen's light 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 smoke 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
before he was regularly on his pins again, and going about as he did
before he was hit. His right arm was a bit stiff, too;
it used to pain and make him swear awful now and again.
Anyhow, Aileen made us that comfortable and happy while she was there,
we didn't care how long he took getting well.

Those were out and out the pleasantest days we ever spent in the Hollow --
the best time almost Jim and I had had since we were boys. Nearly every day
we rode out in the afternoon, and there wasn't a hole or corner,
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 Aileen used to make Rainbow walk and amble his best,
so that all the rest of us, 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 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 strange 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, peaceful life, too. Why can't we keep on for ever like this,
and shut out the wicked, sorrowful world altogether?'

`Quite of your opinion, Miss Marston; why should we ever change?'
says Starlight, who was 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 fellow, and I don't wonder.
You are one of those natures that never change, Jim; and if you don't
get away soon, or see some chance of rejoining her, you will die.
How you are to do it I don't 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?
It is an Australian Decameron without the naughty stories.'

`Do you know, sometimes I really think I am enjoying myself,' said Aileen,
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 had 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 lived.

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 company
while it lasted, 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 hours with his hands before him and never say
a word to any one. I saw Aileen watch him when he looked like that,
not that she ever said anything, but pretended to take it
as a matter of course.

Other times he'd be just as much the other way. He'd read to her,
and he had a good many books, poetry, and all kinds of things stowed away
in the part of the cave he 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 words.
And he could talk once he was set agoing. I never saw a man
that could come up to him.

Aileen wasn't one of those sort of girls 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 marry at all. And she used to say
she didn't think she ever would. She never seemed to trouble her head
about the thing at all, but I always 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 softness 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 had 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?
`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 reflections. 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 walk together
just as 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 he 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 tremendous 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 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 year or two at earliest,
and many things were sure to happen in the meanwhile.
So we let all 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 (George'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 tried 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 risen 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 good sort of fellow,
that has his head screwed on the right way, and don't push himself forward
too much, they'll 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 different people and get different notions --
not but what he was always kind and friendly in his way to Aileen and mother,
and would have been to us if he'd ever seen us. But all his new friends
were different kind of people, and after a bit, Aileen said,
we'd only be remembered as people he'd known when he was young,
and soon, when the old lady died, we'd be asked into the kitchen
and not into the parlour. 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 be to remind Gracey of the time
they threshed the oats out together at Rocky Flat. 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 childish 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 good 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 after 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 better 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 and 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 40

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 wife and daughter,
and if he'd got into trouble, to 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 I said so.
I'd no call to have done the things I have, or left home
because it wasn't tidy and clean and a welcome 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 us got off;
it was better going up than coming down, and it would have tired Aileen out
at the start to walk up. So the horses had to do their climbing.
It didn't matter much to 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 if 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 planted. The two little river-like silver threads 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 nightfall coming on.

`Good-bye, old Hollow!' Aileen called out, waving her hand.
`Everything looks bright and beautiful except the mountain.
How gloomy it appears, as if it held some dreadful secret -- doesn't it?
Ah! what a pleasant time it has been for me. Am I the same Aileen Marston
that went in there a few weeks since? 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 rest.'

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. What it would be, or when it would come,
we none of us could tell.

Starlight and Aileen rode together most of the way, and talked a good deal,
we could see. Before we got to the stockyard 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 find some way to get down to her
this spring, if he could manage it any road.

`If I'm above ground, tell her I'll be with her,' says poor old Jim,
`before Christmas. If she don't see me then I'll 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 your wife yet.'

Then 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 I'm going to say.'  Then she told me all that was in her heart
about Starlight. He and she had made it up that if he could get away
to a foreign country she would join him there, and take mother with her.
There was to be no marrying or love-making unless they could carry out
that plan. Then she told me that she had always had the same sort of feeling
towards him. `When 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.'

`I'll take the odds,' says she, holding up her head. `I'm willing 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 I'd 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-whisper, and then
she looks up stern and angry-like. `When is this list of horrible things
to stop?'

`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. I'm not a child. I will know.'

`You remember the man that was rude to you at Rocky Flat,
and father and he fired 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.

`Why, 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 himself. But we saw them all four
lying stretched out.'

She put down her head and never spoke more till we parted.

     .   .   .   .   .

We turned back, miserable enough all of us, God knows.
After having Aileen to make the place bright and pleasant and cheer us all 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,
and 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 off.

Dad answers at last. `I don't say but what other lads
would have suited better if they'd come off, but most things goes contrary
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 that matter, every one of us is working for Government on the same road.
But the gal's a good gal, and if she's set her fancy on you I won't block her.
You'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'. I'll crawl over
to old Davy'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 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's 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 everything ready,
and by three o'clock we were off -- all three of us, and never in better heart
in our lives -- for a bit of fun or devilment; 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 knowing 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?'

`Why, Hagan's business, of course,' 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 remember the night we were here last?'

`Of course we do, Captain, quite well. Weren't you going
to dance at Bella's wedding and all? 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?
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 I prophesy 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 find a way of passing him on to Victoria.
I've known more than one or two, or half-a-dozen either,
that has been put through the same way.'

`For God's sake, Mad, lay me on!' says poor Jim, `and I'll 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;
so I'll do what I can to help you to your wife and pickaninny.'

`We must get you into the police force, Maddie,' says Starlight,
`or make you a sort of inspector, unattached, if you're so clever at managing
these little affairs. But what's the idea?'

`Well,' says she, settling herself in a chair, spreading 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.

`Oh! you know him,' says Maddie, looking down, `he's a great friend of mine,
a steady-going, good-conducted chap, and he's a little -- you understand --
well, shook on me. I could persuade him a bit, that is ----'

`I don't doubt that at all,' says I.

`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 as clear
as your beautiful eyes. Jim is to shave his 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 bad can be with the sandy blight,' says Maddie,
`wears green goggles, poor old gentleman. He'll never know nothing,
and he'll be able to swear up for Jim if the police pull him anywhere
this side of the Murray.'

We'd told 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 paid to him in cash that night -- Jim to pay his own expenses
as he went, the same as he was to do himself. Of course she could get
the money from old Jonathan. A word from us then was worth a deal more
than that'd come 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 difference, but as it was, it was as much as the poor old chap,
she believed, could see there was a driver at all. His eyes was
bound up mostly; he had a big shade over 'em, and was half the night
swabbing 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, for 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 talk 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 own 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 horses 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 corner 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 up with our crowd at all.
But he was regular shook on Maddie, and she went at him 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. Watson, 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 practising 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 hands 'em over to Jim, rough great-coat and all --
up to his chin and down to his toes.

Joe takes Jim's togs. They fitted 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 good 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, sir, time's up,'
just to liven him up a bit. Joe kept away down at the stable.

Well, presently out comes the old chap, with a veil on and his green 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 away they go. We rose a bit of a cheer.
Maddie waved her handkerchief out of the window. Jim looked round and raised
his whip. That was the last sight any of us had of him for many a day.
Poor old Jim!

Chapter 41

We hadn't been long at home, 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, 9 st. 8 lb.,' I said, `with Dick Marston
to lead him up to the judge's box. How will that wash?
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, and 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, God knows. Fancy running our horses
and going to the ball under the noses of the police -- the idea is 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 shouldn't be here;
but I'm not such a dashed fool as all that comes to.'

`My mind is made up, Richard -- I have decided irrevocably.
Of course, you needn't come, if you see 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!' I said. `I've no doubt you'll try; but you might as well try
to pull down the walls of Berrima Gaol with a hay-rake.
You'll make Sir Ferdinand's fortune, that's all. He always said
he'd die happy if he could only bag you and the Marstons.
He'll be made Inspector-General of Police.'

Starlight smiled in his queer, quiet way.

`If he doesn't rise to the top of the tree until he takes me
-- alive, I mean -- he'll 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 dodges to work it to rights. He certainly was wonderful 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,
with Warrigal and the dog for company.

`Warrigal goes with me -- might want him,' says Starlight.
`You're losing your nerve, governor. Perhaps you'd like
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 to 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 them ready
in case we had to clear at short notice.

`And who was to enter Rainbow and look after him?'

`Couldn't we get old Jacob Benton; he's the best trainer I've 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 all the more likely to keep sober for a month.'

`The very man,' I said. `He can ride the weight, and train too.
But we can't have him here, surely!'

`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 he's 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 over 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 meals till he'd got him
near the mark. He could ride, too, and was an out-and-out judge of pace.

When we'd regular chalked it out about entering 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 steady work till then. From what he was told of the horse
he expected he would carry any weight he was handicapped for
and pull 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 till 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 place.

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 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 accidents. I went to a little place I knew,
where I put up my horse -- could be quiet there, and asked no questions.
Starlight, 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 him.

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 I knew that her eyes
were sharp enough to spy me out whatever disguise I had on;
and even if she 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 themselves 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 I 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,
had 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 condition,
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 money
and meant something. My name was Mr. Bromford, and I lived at Petersham,
near Sydney.

The day before the races there was a lot of excitement in the town.
Strangers kept pouring in from 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?' 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 Wideview, 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 knack of 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 I 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 crowded
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
as was going on at Turon that day.

About eleven o'clock 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 the road was covered with horsemen,
traps of every kind and sort, every horse and mare in the whole district.

Most of the miners went in four-horse coaches and 'buses
that were plying all day long from the town and back; very few walked.
The country people mostly 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, perhaps, 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 Aileen
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 I saw the Dawsons' drag
come up the straight, with four upstanding ripping bay horses
in top condition, and well matched. There was 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 anything but horses and dogs, and lived 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 my 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 I. `It might 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 blackfellows too.'

I went off then, and had a laugh to myself. I was pretty middling certain
it was Billy the Boy and Warrigal. Starlight had wrote the note
before we started, only I didn't think they'd be game
to deliver it themselves.

Now the police was away, all but a couple of young fellows
-- I went and had a look to make sure -- 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 enjoy ourselves.
I did, I know; though you'd think, as we carried 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 themselves
than many a man has 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 Governor'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 started 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 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 affair -- 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 thanks 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 add,
so much refinement and gentlemanly feeling. Speaking for himself,
he had never expected, considering his being a total stranger,
to be welcomed so cordially and entertained so handsomely,
more particularly at the mess of her Majesty's goldfields officials,
whose attention on this occasion they might be assured he would never forget.
He would repeat, 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 Mr. 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 be 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 manage 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 music struck up,
and the first dance began. That left the seats pretty bare,
and between listening to the music and looking at the people,
and thinking I was back again at the old claim and passing half-an-hour
at a dance-house, I didn't mind the door so much till I heard somebody
give a sort of sigh not very far off, and I looked towards the door
and saw two women sitting between 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 death,
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?
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 come.
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 Wideview,
and has been hand-and-glove with all the swells. I 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 Mr. Jones?'

`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 happiness like this.'

Gracey said nothing, but looked down, and Aileen kept turning 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 42

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. I don't care what they say, there is such 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 fall down in a faint or bring herself
to people's notice by the wild, earnest, sad way she looked at him.
However he'd got his clothes and the rest of it that fitted him
like as if they'd been grown for him, I couldn't think. But of course
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, I 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, we'll 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 was a deal shorter than he ever wore it (except in one place),
and he'd 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, and the steward asked
the favour of Aileen's name, and then begged, by virtue of his office,
to present Lieutenant Lascelles, a gentleman 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 stopping
where we were, and running terrible risks every day and every hour.
It was the old story over again; but I felt better for it,
and really meant to try and cut loose from all this cross work.
We hadn't too much time. Aileen was 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 is? What'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
she 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.'

`Really, now?' says Starlight, putting up his eyeglass.
`I begin to think I must write a book. I'm falling upon adventures 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.'

It was a fine, large room, and the band, mostly Germans, 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 Maddie,
wherever 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 I could hear them
passing their remarks and admiring both of 'em 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 a 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 good crowd was sure to be at Bella Barnes's wedding
next day. It was fixed for two o'clock, so as not to interfere
with the races. The 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 had a note or a fiver
laid it out on one horse or another.

Rainbow 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 his ways and notions,
so we 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 Rainbow,
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.

`What's the fun of having him under canvas?' I said.
`Who ever heard of a horse being trained in a tent before? --
not but what he looks first-chop.'

`I've seen horses trained in more ways than one,' says he,
`and I can wind 'em up, in the stable and out of it, as mighty 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.
Now this here's an excitable hoss in a crowd.'

`Is he?' I said. `Why, he's as cool and steady as an old trooper when ----'

`When powder's burning and bullets is flying,' says the old chap,
grinning again; `but this here's a different crowd.
When he's got a training saddle and seven or eight stone up,
and there's two or three hundred horses rattling about
this side on 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?'

`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?'

`Right to a hounce,' 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, though,
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 Aileen 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 the field 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,
so they hadn't far to go. By and by, as the crowd moved that way,
Starlight says to the Commissioner --

`Where 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 as the young people
are well known on the field and popular. Bella Barnes and her sister
are very fine 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 young lady,' says he, `will you permit me to escort you up the aisle?
The bride appears to have preceded you.'

He offered 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 arm 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 word, 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?'

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 must be related to 'em;
and the church being choke-full they shunted us on to the place
inside the rails, where we found ourselves drafted into the small yard
with the bridegroom, the bride, the parson, and all that mob.

There wasn'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 well,
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 they wanted was a little more
colour like, and between the hurry for time and Bella getting married,
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 off first-rate.
The bridegroom was a hardy-looking, upstanding young chap
that looked as if work was no trouble to him. Next to a squatter
I think a Government surveyor'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 few 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, `I wish 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. We could see the stones shine.
It was a diamond ring, every one could see. Then the Commissioner
steps forward and begs to be permitted the same privilege,
which made Bella laugh and blush a bit. Directly after
Mr. Chanewood, who had stood quiet enough alongside of his wife,
tucked her arm inside of his and walked away down the church,
as if he thought this kind of thing was well enough in its way,
but couldn't be allowed to last all day.

When they got into the carriage and drove off the whole church was cleared,
and they got such a cheer as you might have heard at Tambaroora.
The parson was 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.

Starlight slipped away in the crowd from his 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.
`I 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.'

`My 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 both 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 was 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
you'll have your head knocked off. They're a rum lot to deal with,
I can tell you.'

`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.
Rainbow 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 1,
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. Why don't the old varmint show up?'

This was what I heard about and round, and we began to get uneasy ourselves,
for fear that something might have happened to him 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 after the other,
having their 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 his 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 some times than others.
She'd wasted no time anyhow.

She was mounted on a fine, tall, upstanding chestnut,
and Joe Moreton was riding alongside of her on a good-looking bay,
togged out very superior also. Maddie was in one of her larking 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 pretend 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 Maddie; `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?' says Joe.

`That's a secret at present,' says she; `but you'll know some day, when you're
a bit older, if you behave yourself. He's Mr. Jacob Benton's Darkie now,
and you bet on him 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 like me,' says Maddie. `So mind that,
Joe Moreton.'

Just as she spoke there was a stir in the crowd, and old Jacob
came along across the course leading a horse with a sheet on,
just as easy-going as if he'd a day to spare. One of the stewards
rode up to him, and asked him what he meant by being so late.

The old chap pulls out his watch. `You'll stick to your advertised time,
won't you? I've time to weigh, time to pull off this here sheet
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 distance or so
from the stand, where they was to start, the course 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 just 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 both 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,
he hadn't many backers.

Chapter 43

Mr. Dawson drove pretty near the stand then, and they all stood up
in the drag. I went back to Aileen and Gracey Storefield.
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!
How muscle and sinew strain as they pretty near fly through the air!
No wonder us 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 downright 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. Bronzewing has it -- Bronzewing.
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,
passed 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.

Starlight jumps off the drag and leads the old horse into the weighing yard.
The steward says `Dismount.'  No fear of old Jacob getting down before
he heard that. He takes his saddle in his lap and gets into the scales.
`Weight,' says the clerk. Then the old fellow mounts and rides past
the judge's box. `I declare Mr. Benton's horse Darkie
to be the winner of the Turon Grand Handicap, Bronzewing 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 --
so 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, `nobody here
knows this horse, where he was bred, or anything about him.
Such a grand 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 sale at present,' says old Jacob, looking like a cast-iron image.
`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, perhaps 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.'

`I'll go you halves if you like,' says Starlight. `I weally believe 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 sight of Turon in twenty minutes.

Starlight hails a cabby (he told me this afterwards) and gets him
to drive him over to the inn where he was staying, telling 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.

Just as it was getting dark, and the last race just run,
back comes Sir Ferdinand and all the police. They'd ridden hard,
as their horses showed, and Sir Ferdinand (they say) didn't look
half as good-natured as he generally did.

`You've lost a great meeting, Morringer,' says the Commissioner.
`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?' 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?' says Sir Ferdinand.
Here he brings out a crumpled bit of paper, written on --

  If sur firdnand makes haist back heel be in time to see Starlite's Raneboe
  win the handy capp.                  BILLY THE BOY.

`I firmly believe that young scoundrel, who will be hanged yet,
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 a place,
Sir Ferdinand, for you on the chance.'

`One moment, pardon me. Who's your friend?'

`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.

`There's a tent down there near the creek, I think you said, Dawson.
Bring up the racehorse you find there, and any one in charge.'

`And now I think I'll drive in with you, Dawson' (dismounting,
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 agreeable.'

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 gone, and there was nothing to be got out of him
as to who had taken him or which way he had gone. Nobody 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 night, 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 hundred 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 well?
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 by this time,
and the Commissioner! As for the Dawsons, they'll make a joke of it.
Fancy my dining at the camp! It's about the best practical joke
I ever carried out, and I've been in a good many.'

`The luckiest turn we've ever had,' says I. `I never expected
to see Gracey and Aileen there, much less to 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? -- 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? 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 Starlight 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 papers when they get
all these different characters played by one chap, and that man the Captain?'
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!' 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 --
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 stack of that
in case we wanted to keep a horse in -- which we did sometimes.
In the daytime he was loose in the yard. After 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 letters 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 it, as well as the little `Turon Star' and the `Banner'.

Was it true that the police had again been hoodwinked, justice derided,
and the law set at defiance by a gang of ruffians 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,
so obliterated, that robbers and murderers could find safe harbourage,
trustworthy friends, and secret intelligence? 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 with a broadside.
Let us see what the "Star" says. I had a bet with the editor,
and paid it, as it happened. Perhaps he'll temper justice with mercy.
Now for a start: --

That we have had strong casts from time to time and exciting performances
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 personages
have ere now graced our provincial 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 metropolitan stage. But our "jeune premier" in one sense
has eclipsed every darling of the tragic or the comic muse.

Where is there a member of the profession who could have sustained 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 head --
with the 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 us 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 gentlemen,
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 turns 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 Starlight --
"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 introduced himself as Mr. Lascelles, 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 concerned! We shall never, never cease to recall
the humorous side of the whole affair. Why, we ourselves, our august
editorial self, actually had a bet in the stand with the audacious pretender,
and won it, too. Did he pay up? Of course he did. A "pony", to wit,
and on the nail. He does nothing by halves, "notre 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 "cause celebre".
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 --
  
      "'Tis pity of him, too," he cried;
      "Bold can he speak, and fairly ride;
      I warrant him a warrior tried."
  
It is in the interests of justice, doubtless, that thou be hunted down,
and expiate by death-doom the crimes which thou and thy myrmidons
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 rarest bird -- golden ovaried?
We trow not. Get thee to the wilderness, and repent thee of thy sins.
Why should we judge thee? Thou hast, if such dubious donation may avail,
an editor's blessing. Depart, and "stick up" no more.

Well done, the "Turon Star"!' says Starlight, after he read it all out.
`I call that very fair. There's a flavour of good feeling
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 all, and that men think so.'

`Do you 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 44

`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 temporary 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 protection -- as a farce.
This latter fiasco will probably confirm the idea with the public at large.
We, unlike a contemporary, have no morbid sympathy with crime --
embroidered or otherwise; our wishes, as loyal subjects,
are confined to a short shrift and a high gallows 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 eyes, `because I was
a blind, ignorant dog when I was young, as had never been taught nothing,
and knowed nothing, not so much as him there' (pointing to Crib),
`for he knows what his business is, and I didn't. I was thrashed and starved,
locked up in a gaol, chained and flogged after that,
and 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 backards 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 Government people to gaol me,
and iron me, and flog me. Was that justice? Any man's sense 'll tell him
it wasn't. It's been them and me for it since I got my liberty,
and if I had had a dozen lives they'd all have gone the 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 Government, and everybody almost
that was straightgoing and honest. He'd been at it a good many 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 kept 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 dropped 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, and he put two and two together,
and very nearly dropped on us, as I said before, two or three times.
We heard, too, that he should say he'd never rest till he had
Starlight and the Marstons, 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 blowing 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 commissioners
in a general way. But he wasn't an officer of police,
and we 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 foolish 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 off 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 in our broadside and open a door to let us in.

The lot fell upon Patsey Daly. `Good-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. Anyhow I'll try for 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 dead 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, where he could see to fire at a top window
close by where the doctor and Mr. Knightley 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 hard pressed inside, and had to fire 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 fire was too hot for us to stand 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