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.