Daylight broke when we were close up to the Black Range, safe enough,
a little off the line but nothing to signify. Then we hit off the track
that led over the Gap and down into a little flat on a creek that ran
the same way as ours did.
Jim had managed for father and Warrigal to meet us somewhere near here
with fresh horses. There was an old shepherd's hut that stood by itself
almost covered with marsh-mallows and nettles. As we came down the steep
track a dog came up snuffing and searching about the grass and stones as
if he'd lost something. It was Crib.
'Now we're getting home, Jim,' says Starlight. 'It's quite a treat to
see the old scamp again. Well, old man,' he says to the dog, 'how's all
getting on at the Hollow?' The dog came right up to Rainbow and rubbed
against his fetlock, and jumped up two or three times to see if he could
touch his rider. He was almost going to bark, he seemed that glad to see
him and us.
Dad was sitting on a log by the hut smoking, just the same as he was
before he left us last time. He was holding two fresh horses, and we
were not sorry to see them. Horses are horses, and there wasn't much
left in our two. We must have ridden a good eighty miles that night, and
it was as bad as a hundred by daylight.
Father came a step towards us as we jumped off. By George, I was that
stiff with the long ride and the cold that I nearly fell down. He'd got
a bit of a fire, so we lit our pipes and had a comfortable smoke.
'Well, Dick, you're back agin, I see,' he says, pretty pleasant for him.
'Glad to see you, Captain, once more. It's been lonesome work--nobody
but me and Jim and Warrigal, that's like a bear with a sore head half
his time. I'd a mind to roll into him once or twice, and I should too
only for his being your property like.'
'Thank you, Ben, I'll knock his head off myself as soon as we get
settled a bit. Warrigal's not a bad boy, but a good deal like a Rocky
Mountain mule; he's no good unless he's knocked down about once a month
or so, only he doesn't like any one but me to do it.'
'You'll see him about a mile on,' says father. 'He told me he'd be
behind the big rock where the tree grows--on the left of the road. He
said he'd get you a fresh horse, so as he could take Rainbow back to the
Hollow the long way round.'
Sure enough after we'd just got well on the road again Warrigal comes
quietly out from behind a big granite boulder and shows himself. He was
riding Bilbah, and leading a well-bred, good-looking chestnut. He was
one of the young ones out of the Hollow. He'd broken him and got him
quiet. I remembered when I was there first spotting him as a yearling. I
knew the blaze down his face and his three white legs.
Warrigal jumps off Bilbah and throws down the bridle. Then he leads the
chestnut up to where Starlight was standing smoking, and throws himself
down at his feet, bursting out crying like a child. He was just like
a dog that had found his master again. He kept looking up at Starlight
just like a dog does, and smiling and going on just as if he never
expected to see such a good thing again as long as he lived.
'Well, Warrigal,' says Starlight, very careless like, 'so you've brought
me a horse, I see. You've been a very good boy. Take Rainbow round
the long way into the Hollow. Look after him, whatever you do, or I'll
murder you. Not that he's done, or anything near it; but had enough
for one ride, poor old man. Off with you!' He changed the saddle, and
Warrigal hopped on to Bilbah, and led off Rainbow, who tossed his head,
and trotted away as if he'd lots to spare, and hadn't had twelve hours
under saddle; best part without a halt or a bait. I've seen a few good
'uns in my time, but I never saw the horse that was a patch on Rainbow,
take him all round.
We pushed on again, then, for ten miles, and somewhere about eight
o'clock we pulled up at home--at home. Aileen knew we were coming, and
ran out to meet us. She threw her arms round me, and kissed and cried
over me for ever so long before she took any notice of Starlight, who'd
got down and was looking another way. 'Oh! my boy, my boy,' she said, 'I
never thought to see you again for years. How thin you've got and pale,
and strange looking. You're not like your old self at all. But you're
in the bush again now, by God's blessing. We must hide you better next
time. I declare I begin to feel quite wicked, and as if I could fight
the police myself.'
'Well spoken, Miss Marston,' said Starlight, just lifting his hat and
making a bit of a bow like, just as if she was a real lady; but he was
the same to all women. He treated them all alike with the same respect
of manner as if they were duchesses; young or old, gentle or simple--it
made no odds to him. 'We must have your assistance if we're to do any
good. Though whether it wouldn't be more prudent on your part to cut us
all dead, beginning with your father, I shouldn't like to say.'
Aileen looked at him, surprised and angry like for a second. Then she
says--
'Captain Starlight, it's too late now; but words can never tell how I
hate and despise the whole thing. My love for Dick got the better of my
reason for a bit, but I could----Why, how pale you look!'
He was growing pale, and no mistake. He had been ill for a bit before
he left Berrima, though he wouldn't give in, and the ride was rather too
much for him, I suppose. Anyhow, down he tumbles in a dead faint. Aileen
rushed over and lifted up his head. I got some water and dabbed it over
him. After a bit he came to. He raises himself on his elbows and looks
at Aileen. Then he smiles quietly and says--
'I'm quite ashamed of myself. I'm growing as delicate as a young lady. I
hope I haven't given you much trouble.'
When he got up and walked to the verandah he quite staggered, showing he
was that weak as he could hardly walk without help.
'I shall be all right,' he said, 'after a week's riding again.'
'And where are you going when you leave this place?' she asked. 'Surely
you and my brothers never can live in New South Wales after all that has
passed.'
'We must try, at all events, Miss Marston,' Starlight answered, raising
up his head and looking proud. 'You will hear something of us before
long.'
We made out that there was no great chance of our being run into at the
old place. Father went on first with Crib. He was sure to give warning
in some way, best known to father himself, if there was any one about
that wasn't the right sort. So we went up and went in.
Mother was inside. I thought it was queer that she didn't come outside.
She was always quick enough about that when we came home before, day or
night. When I went in I could see, when she got up from her chair, that
she was weak, and looked as if she'd been ill. She looked ever so much
older, and her hair was a lot grayer than it used to be.
She held out her arms and clung round my neck as if I'd been raised from
the dead. So I was in a kind of a way. But she didn't say much, or ask
what I was going to do next. Poor soul! she knew it couldn't be much
good anyway; and that if we were hunted before, we'd be worse hunted
now. Those that hadn't heard of our little game with the Momberah cattle
would hear of our getting out of Berrima Gaol, which wasn't done every
day.
We hadn't a deal of time to spare, because we meant to start off for the
Hollow that afternoon, and get there some time in the night, even if
it was late. Jim and dad knew the way in almost blindfold. Once we got
there we could sleep for a week if we liked, and take it easy all roads.
So father told mother and Aileen straight that we'd come for a good
comfortable meal and a rest, and we must be off again.
'Oh! father, can't Dick and Jim stop for a day?' cries out Aileen. 'It
does seem so hard when we haven't seen Dick for such a while; and he
shut up too all the time.'
'D'ye want to have us all took the same as last time?' growls father.
'Women's never contented as I can see. For two pins I wouldn't have
brought them this way at all. I don't want to be making roads from this
old crib to the Hollow, only I thought you'd like one look at Dick.'
'We must do what's best, of course,' said poor Aileen; 'but it's
hard--very hard on us. It's mother I'm thinking of, you know. If you
knew how she always wakes up in the night, and calls for Dick, and cries
when she wakes up, you'd try to comfort her a bit more, father.'
'Comfort her!' says dad; 'why, what can I do? Don't I tell you if we
stay about here we're shopped as safe as anything ever was? Will that
comfort her, or you either? We're safe today because I've got telegraphs
on the outside that the police can't pass without ringing the bell--in
a way of speaking. But you see to-morrow there'll be more than one lot
here, and I want to be clean away before they come.'
'You know best,' says Aileen; 'but suppose they come here to-morrow
morning at daylight, as they did last time, and bring a black tracker
with them, won't he be able to follow up your track when you go away
to-night?'
'No, he won't; for this reason, we shall all ride different ways as soon
as we leave here. A good while before we get near the place where we all
meet we shall find Warrigal on the look-out. He can take the Captain in
by another track, and there'll be only Jim and I and the old dog, the
only three persons that'll go in the near way.'
'And when shall we see--see--any of you again?'
'Somewheres about a month, I suppose, if we've luck. There's a deal
belongs to that. You'd better go and see what there is for us to eat.
We've a long way and a rough way to go before we get to the Hollow.'
Aileen was off at this, and then she set to work and laid a clean
tablecloth in the sitting-room and set us down our meal--breakfast, or
whatever it was. It wasn't so bad--corned beef, first-rate potatoes,
fresh damper, milk, butter, eggs. Tea, of course, it's the great drink
in the bush; and although some doctors say it's no good, what would
bushmen do without it?
We had no intention of stopping the whole night, though we were tempted
to do so--to have one night's rest in the old place where we used to
sleep so sound before. It was no good thinking of anything of that kind,
anyhow, for a good while to come. What we'd got to do was to look out
sharp and not be caught simple again like we was both last time.
After we had our tea we sat outside the verandah, and tried to make the
best of it. Jim stayed inside with mother for a good while; she didn't
leave her chair much now, and sat knitting by the hour together. There
was a great change come over her lately. She didn't seem to be afraid
of our getting caught as she used to be, nor half as glad or sorry about
anything. It seemed like as if she'd made up her mind that everything
was as bad as it could be, and past mending. So it was; she was right
enough there. The only one who was in real good heart and spirits was
Starlight. He'd come round again, and talked and rattled away, and made
Aileen and Jim and me laugh, in spite of everything. He said we had all
fine times before us now for a year or two, any way. That was a good
long time. After that anything might happen. What it would be he neither
knew nor cared. Life was made up of short bits; sometimes it was hard
luck; sometimes everything went jolly and well. We'd got our liberty
again, our horses, and a place to go to, where all the police in the
country would never find us. He was going in for a short life and
a merry one. He, for one, was tired of small adventures, and he was
determined to make the name of Starlight a little more famous before
very long. If Dick and Jim would take his advice--the advice of a
desperate, ill-fated outcast, but still staunch to his friends--they
would clear out, and leave him to sink or swim alone, or with such
associates as he might pick up, whose destination would be no great
matter whatever befell them. They could go into hiding for a while--make
for Queensland and then go into the northern territory. There was new
country enough there to hide all the fellows that were 'wanted' in New
South Wales.
'But why don't you take your own advice?' said Aileen, looking over at
Starlight as he sat there quite careless and comfortable-looking, as if
he'd no call to trouble his head about anything. 'Isn't your life worth
mending or saving? Why keep on this reckless miserable career which you
yourself expect to end ill?'
'If you ask me, Miss Marston,' he said, 'whether my life--what is left
of it--is worth saving, I must distinctly answer that it is not. It is
like the last coin or two in the gambler's purse, not worth troubling
one's head about. It must be flung on the board with the rest. It might
land a reasonable stake. But as to economising and arranging details
that would surely be the greatest folly of all.'
I heard Aileen sigh to herself. She said nothing for a while; and then
old Crib began to growl. He got up and walked along the track that
led up the hill. Father stood up, too, and listened. We all did except
Starlight, who appeared to think it was too much trouble, and never
moved or seemed to notice.
Presently the dog came walking slowly back, and coiled himself up again
close to Starlight, as if he had made up his mind it didn't matter.
We could hear a horse coming along at a pretty good bat over the hard,
rocky, gravelly road. We could tell it was a single horse, and more than
that, a barefooted one, coming at a hand-gallop up hill and down dale
in a careless kind of manner. This wasn't likely to be a police trooper.
One man wouldn't come by himself to a place like ours at night; and no
trooper, if he did come, would clatter along a hard track, making row
enough to be heard more than a mile off on a quiet night.
'It's all right,' says father. 'The old dog knowed him; it's Billy the
Boy. There's something up.'
Just as he spoke we saw a horseman come in sight; and he rattled down
the stony track as hard as he could lick. He pulled up just opposite
the house, close by where we were standing. It was a boy about fifteen,
dressed in a ragged pair of moleskin trousers, a good deal too large
for him, but kept straight by a leather strap round the waist. An old
cabbage-tree hat and a blue serge shirt made up the rest of his rig.
Boots he had on, but they didn't seem to be fellows, and one rusty spur.
His hair was like a hay-coloured mop, half-hanging over his eyes, which
looked sharp enough to see through a gum tree and out at the other side.
He jumped down and stood before us, while his horse's flanks heaved up
and down like a pair of bellows.
'Well, what's up?' says father.
'My word, governor, you was all in great luck as I come home last night,
after bein' away with them cattle to pound. Bobby, he don't know a
p'leeceman from a wood-an'-water joey; he'd never have dropped they was
comin' here unless they'd pasted up a notice on the door.'
'How did you find out, Billy?' says father, 'and when'll they be here?'
'Fust thing in the morning,' says the young wit, grinning all over his
face. 'Won't they be jolly well sold when they rides up and plants by
the yard, same as they did last time, when they took Dick.'
'Which ones was they?' asks father, fillin' his pipe quite
business-like, just as if he'd got days to spare.
'Them two fellers from Bargo; one of 'em's a new chum--got his hair cut
short, just like Dick's. My word, I thought he'd been waggin' it from
some o' them Gov'ment institoosh'ns. I did raly, Dick, old man.'
'You're precious free and easy, my young friend,' says Starlight,
walking over. 'I rather like you. You have a keen sense of humour,
evidently; but can't you say how you found out that the men were her
Majesty's police officers in pursuit of us?'
'You're Cap'n Starlight, I suppose,' says the youngster, looking
straight and square at him, and not a bit put out. 'Well, I've been
pretty quick coming; thirty mile inside of three hours, I'll be bound.
I heard them talking about you. It was Starlight this and Starlight that
all the time I was going in and out of the room, pretending to look for
something, and mother scolding me.'
'Had they their uniform on?' I asked.
'No fear. They thought we didn't tumble, I expect; but I seen their
horses hung up outside, both shod all round; bits and irons bright.
Stabled horses, too, I could swear. Then the youngest chap--him with the
old felt hat--walked like this.'
Here he squared his shoulders, put his hands by his side, and marched up
and down, looking for all the world like one of them chaps that played
at soldiering in Bargo.
'There's no hiding the military air, you think, Billy?' said Starlight.
'That fellow was a recruit, and had been drilled lately.'
'I d'no. Mother got 'em to stay, and began to talk quite innocent-like
of the bad characters there was in the country. Ha! ha! It was as good
as a play. Then they began to talk almost right out about Sergeant
Goring having been away on a wrong scent, and how wild he was, and how
he would be after Starlight's mob to-morrow morning at daylight, and
some p'leece was to meet him near Rocky Flat. They didn't say they was
the p'leece; that was about four o'clock, and getting dark.'
'How did you get the horse?' says Jim. 'He's not one of yours, is he?'
'Not he,' says the boy; 'I wish I had him or the likes of him. He
belongs to old Driver. I was just workin' it how I'd get out and
catch our old moke without these chaps being fly as I was going to
talligrarph, when mother says to me--
'“Have you fetched in the black cow?”
'We ain't got no black cow, but I knowed what she meant. I says--
'“No, I couldn't find her.”
'“You catch old Johnny Smoker and look for her till you do find her, if
it's ten o'clock to-night,” says mother, very fierce. “Your father'll
give you a fine larrupin' if he comes home and there's that cow lost.”
'So off I goes and mans old Johnny, and clears out straight for here.
When I came to Driver's I runs his horses up into a yard nigh the angle
of his outside paddock and collars this little 'oss, and lets old Johnny
go in hobbles. My word, this cove can scratch!'
'So it seems,' says Starlight; 'here's a sovereign for you, youngster.
Keep your ears and eyes open; you'll always find that good information
brings a good price. I'd advise you to keep away from Mr. Marston, sen.,
and people of his sort, and stick to your work, if I thought there was
the least earthly chance of your doing so; but I see plainly that you're
not cut out for the industrious, steady-going line.'
'Not if I know it,' said the boy; 'I want to see life before I die.
I'm not going to keep on milling and slaving day after day all the year
round. I'll cut it next year as sure as a gun. I say, won't you let me
ride a bit of the way with ye?'
'Not a yard,' says father, who was pretty cranky by this time; 'you
go home again and put that horse where you got him. We don't want old
Driver tracking and swearing after us because you ride his horses; and
keep off the road as you go back.'
Billy the Boy nodded his head, and jumping into his saddle, rode
off again at much about the same pace he'd come at. He was a regular
reckless young devil, as bold as a two-year-old colt in a branding-yard,
that's ready to jump at anything and knock his brains out against a
stockyard post, just because he's never known any real regular hurt or
danger, and can't realise it. He was terrible cruel to horses, and would
ruin a horse in less time than any man or boy I ever seen. I always
thought from the first that he'd come to a bad end. Howsoever, he was
a wonderful chap to track and ride; none could beat him at that; he
was nearly as good as Warrigal in the bush. He was as cunning as a
pet dingo, and would look as stupid before any one he didn't know, or
thought was too respectable, as if he was half an idiot. But no one
ever stirred within twenty or thirty miles of where he lived without our
hearing about it. Father fished him out, having paid him pretty well for
some small service, and ever after that he said he could sleep in peace.
We had the horses up, ready saddled and fed, by sundown, and as soon as
the moon rose we made a start of it. I had time for a bit of a talk
with Aileen about the Storefields, though I couldn't bring myself to say
their names at first. I was right in thinking that Gracey had seen me
led away a prisoner by the police. She came into the hut afterwards with
Aileen, as soon as mother was better, and the two girls sat down beside
one another and cried their eyes out, Aileen said.
George Storefield had been very good, and told Aileen that, whatever
happened to us or the old man, it would make no difference to him or
to his feelings towards her. She thanked him, but said she could never
consent to let him disgrace himself by marrying into a family like
ours. He had come over every now and then, and had seen they wanted for
nothing when father and Jim were away; but she always felt her heart
growing colder towards him and his prosperity while we were so low down
in every way. As for Gracey, she (Aileen) believed that she was in love
with me in a quiet, steady way of her own, without showing it much, but
that she would be true to me, if I asked her, to the end of the world,
and she was sure that she could never marry any one else as long as
I lived. She was that sort of girl. So didn't I think I ought to do
everything I could to get a better character, and try and be good enough
for such a girl? She knew girls pretty well. She didn't think there was
such another girl in the whole colony, and so on.
And when we went away where were we going to hide? I could not say about
particular distances, but I told her generally that we'd keep out of
harm's way, and be careful not to be caught. We might see her and mother
now and then, and by bush-telegraphs and other people we could trust
should be able to send news about ourselves.
'What's the Captain going to do?' she said suddenly. 'He doesn't look
able to bear up against hardship like the rest of you. What beautiful
small hands he has, and his eyes are like sleeping fires.'
'Oh, he's a good deal stronger than he looks,' I said; 'he's the
smartest of the lot of us, except it is dad, and I've heard the old man
say he must knock under to him. But don't you bother your head about
him; he's quite able to take care of himself, and the less a girl like
you thinks about a man like him the better for her.'
'Oh, nonsense,' she said, at the same time looking down in a
half-confused sort of way. 'I'm not likely to think about him or any one
else just now; but it seems such a dreadful thing to think a man like
him, so clever and daring, and so handsome and gentle in his ways,
should be obliged to lead such a life, hunted from place to place
like--like----'
'Like a bush-ranger, Ailie,' I said, 'for that'll be the long and short
of it. You may as well know it now, we're going to “turn out”.'
'You don't say that, Dick,' she said. 'Oh! surely you will never be so
mad. Do you want to kill mother and me right out? If you do, why not
take a knife or an axe and do it at once? Her you've been killing all
along. As for me, I feel so miserable and degraded and despairing at
times that but for her I could go and drown myself in the creek when I
think of what the family is coming to.'
'What's the use of going on like that, Aileen?' I said roughly. 'If
we're caught now, whatever we do, great or small, we're safe for years
and years in gaol. Mayn't we as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb? What
odds can it make? We'll only have bolder work than duffing cattle and
faking horse-brands like a lot of miserable crawlers that are not game
for anything more sporting.'
'I hear, I hear,' says sister, sitting down and putting her head in her
hands. 'Surely the devil has power for a season to possess himself of
the souls of men, and do with them what he will. I know how obstinate
you are, Dick. Pray God you may not have poor Jim's blood to answer for
as well as your own before all is done. Good-bye. I can't say God bless
you, knowing what I do; but may He turn your heart from all wicked
ways, and keep you from worse and deadlier evil than you have committed!
Good-night. Why, oh why, didn't we all die when we were little
children!'