TOM PAGDIN GOES GUNNING.
Tom Pagdin’s crooked forefinger closed on the trigger. The sharp
cr-r-rack of the Winchester was answered by a howl of pain from Jean
Petit.
The bullet had penetrated the fleshy part of his arm.
Tom wrenched back the lever, ejected the smoking shell, slid another
cartridge out of the magazine into the barrel, and lifted the rifle to
his shoulder again.
Petit, taken by surprise, had pulled up short.
The unexpected had happened!
“Shoot him in the stummick!” yelled Dave. “Shoot him in the stummick,
Tom!”
The love of war is in our Australian youth. When first the Colonial
troops rode on to the veldt, seasoned British veterans admitted this.
The first mate had armed himself with a paddle, and was standing behind
his chief waving his clubbed oar above his head in a state of great
excitement. He shouted defiance at Petit, and wildly urged Tom to kill
the latter without benefit of clergy.
George Chard and Dan Creyton, hearing the shot and the shouting, were
running in the direction of the boat.
Tom covered Petit with the Winchester.
They were not twenty yards apart.
The expression on the convict’s face as he grasped the situation would
under ordinary circumstances have turned the pirates cold.
But a bush boy of thirteen with a loaded Winchester at full cock and a
grievance such as Tom Pagdin was labouring under, had to be reckoned with.
Bang! went the rifle.
Petit leaped into the air like a kangaroo which had been shot through the
body by a Martini, and sprang into the scrub.
At the same moment Dan and George broke into sight through the jungle.
“After him!” yelled Tom.
He re-charged his rifle as he ran, with Dave close at his heels.
“Look out!” cried Dave, frantically waving and shouting to the two
strangers. “Head him off!”
At that moment Petit, twice wounded, desperate, and murderous, hurled
himself upon Dan and attempted to seize his shot gun.
Dan was an athlete, but this unexpected attack took him at a
disadvantage. He stumbled, caught his foot in a vine, and fell backwards.
The gun was loaded with number six shot in both barrels.
Dan Creyton’s hand was on the triggers and as he went down the two
charges exploded, tearing out the twigs and scattering green perforated
leaves in the air overhead.
As Dan Creyton fell, George threw himself upon Petit.
The frenzied convict fought and struggled like a mad lion.
He was more than a match for them both. Besides, this unexpected
development of a morning’s peaceful sport had taken them completely by
surprise.
They did not know whether their assailant was an escaped lunatic, a
murderer, or a law-abiding citizen, who was labouring under an impression
that he had struck an island of homicides. The question was, who was
justified? They had heard the shots fired and the shouting, but they were
absolutely ignorant of the meaning of it all.
However, the average Anglo-Saxon does not pause to reason about things
when he is attacked—he hits out.
They struggled with the escapee, who knew his only chance of making
things even was to get possession of a gun. Escape from the island, his
instinct told him, had been cut off. He was in a tight place, wounded
and must kill and smash a way out. One murder more or less did not
matter to him. He fought for a little longer life, a few hours’ further
liberty—that was all. He bled, but he did not feel his wounds. Tom’s
bullets had not hit him in any vital part of the body.
Dan Creyton was stunned by the force of the fall, by the weight of the
aggressor, and by Petit’s rapid blows.
[Illustration: Trapped at last.
_Tom Pagdin, Pirate._
_Page 179._]
The convict shook himself free from them as an infuriated boar will shake
off a brace of dogs, seized the empty fowling piece by the muzzle, and
swung it aloft to club out George Chard’s brains.
George, piecing rapid events together afterwards, remembered that a
wild-eyed youth, armed with Dan’s rifle, suddenly appeared on the scene,
followed by a red-headed youth waving an oar.
The boys sprang out of the scrub right behind Petit. George, whose head
was in a whirl, declared that the red-headed boy brought the oar down
with all the strength he was capable of on the convict’s neck, and that
the gun flew out of the latter’s hands, and the stock struck him (George)
on the side of the head.
The next minute the other boy was holding the muzzle of a smoking rifle
to the prostrate convict’s ear, and inviting Dan and George to get up and
bind that person, and making all sorts of statements and charges against
the prostrate man’s history and character.
“Get the painter out of the boat!” cried Tom to Dave. “Move as much as
an eye-lid,” he observed to Petit, “an’ I’ll shoot the top of your skull
acrost the bloomin’ river!”
Petit was dazed. He did not offer to move.
“There’s ten shots in her yet,” Tom informed the prostrate foe, “an’ I’m
too close to miss yer. I’ve got a little account with yer, any’ow. That
knife ain’t no good to you no more,” he added sarcastically, “I got a
better kind of knife to-day.”
He pressed the muzzle of the rifle closer against Petit’s ear to assure
him that he was stating facts.
The argument was convincing. Petit looked perfectly diabolical, but he
did not offer to put Tom’s repeated promises of blowing his head off to
the test.
Dave came running back from the boat, breathless, with the painter in his
hand.
“Make a slip knot in it,” ordered Tom, who had assumed control of the
proceedings. It was his hand, and he meant to see it played.
“Put his hands behind his back!” he ordered, “draw it tight!”
George found himself obeying, without further question, the orders of the
strange wild-looking youth, who seemed to have good and valid reasons for
all he was saying and doing.
“Tighter!” cried the pirate captain; “draw it as tight as it will go.
Don’t be afraid of hurtin’ him!”
“No,” said Dave who was buzzing round; “don’t trouble about him, he
didn’t trouble about us, nor anybody else.”
“Now, Sour Krout,” cried Tom, when he had seen the murderer’s hands
securely bound behind his back, “I’m goin’ to walk be’ind yer with this
Winchester till I see you into the lock-up.”
Dan Creyton, recovering from his stupor, sat up on the leaves. The whole
thing looked like a dream to him. He was trying to collect events and
identities. George was on his knees beside him, inquiring if he were hurt.
“No,” said Dan slowly; “not hurt much; I think no bones broken. But what
is it? What’s all this about? Somebody fell on me, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” said Tom, grimly; “somebody did. If you knew as much about him as
we do you’d reckon you was lucky you ain’t got a knife in your neck.”
“He would, too,” corroborated Dave, “only I see ’im drop it when you
fired the first shot.”
“I must ’a’ hit him then,” said Tom, in a glad voice. “I knowed I
couldn’t ’a’ missed him clean at that distance. Why it wasn’t more’n
fifty yards at the outside, an’ I killed a wallaby with a pea-rifle at
fifty five.”
“Yes,” said Dave, “he’s hit on the arm; see the blood on his shirt.”
Petit scowled.
“What is the meaning of all this?” demanded Dan Creyton, rising painfully
to his feet.
Petit broke into a torrent of words. He declared, in rapid, broken
English, that he had been attacked by the two boys—they were his children
by adoption. They had run away, he was following them; they had turned
upon him, fired at him, and wounded him in two places. He had leaped
upon the strangers not knowing where he was going or what he was doing,
thinking, too, that they had joined the attack. He was innocent of all
things. Let them release him at once; dreadful punishment would be meted
out to them if they persisted. It was murder, outrage, against the law of
the country. Would these gentlemen countenance such things? Compel that
boy to remove the firearm; it might go off—then they would all be hung
for murder. Let them untie the bonds at once.
“Hold on!” interrupted Tom Pagdin, turning to George and Dan. “I got
something to say, too. I got,” he began, stepping back three or four
paces, but still aiming at Petit’s head, “that is, me an’ my mate, ’as
got to turn Queen’s evidence. We got to do it some time, so we might as
well do it at onct an’ have done with it.”
“Say,” he went on, “have either of you chaps got a Bible on you?”
George shook his head. Dan regarded Tom with an air of attention, almost
of respect. With returning perception he saw that there was something
important behind all this—that some mystery was going to be cleared
up, and instinctively he connected the group before him with the bank
robbery—the murder, perhaps.
“No,” said Dan, humouring the boy, “neither of us carry Testaments about
with us when we go shooting. Couldn’t you swear on something else?”
“Yes,” said Tom, after a moment’s thought. “We might swear on a knife.
Gimme that sheath knife.”
Tom took the knife in one hand and held the rifle towards Petit with the
other.
“It’s a private oath,” he exclaimed. “Come here an’ swear on it Dave; we
got to before we can break the other oath we took up the river.”
Tom solemnly turned the haft of the knife to Dave’s heart and swore him
to tell the truth, and then Dave did the same thing to Tom, repeating the
elaborate oath which they had concocted on the island after the murder.
“Now,” said the pirate captain, aiming steadily at the convict all the
time he was talking, “you begin at the beginning, Dave, and I’ll back you
up.”
“It’s this way,” began Dave, keeping a wary eye on Petit, and looking now
and then at his mate to see if he was going right. “Me an’ Tom run away
from home because we got whaled. We reckoned to do a bit o’ piratin’ down
the river—piratin’ and odd jobs that turned up. We found a boat, Tom, he
was captain, an’ I was first mate.”
“I found ’er floating up the Broadstream one mornin’,” explained Tom.
“She’s hid in the lantana now. _He_ took her away from us and hid her.
You kin go an’ see her if you don’t believe us.”
“Go on,” said Dan, picking up his gun and re-loading it. “We’ll see all
about everything afterwards.”
“We was hid in the lantana,” resumed Dave, “the night we ran away from
home, an’ we heard this German feller an’ another feller talkin’.”
Petit started.
“Keep still, Sour Krout!” admonished Tom. “I told you there was ten shots
in this rifle, didn’t I.”
“You shoot ’im in the stummick, Tom,” enjoined Dave, stepping back, “if
he tries to get at me.”
“Don’t you fret! He won’t never get within three yards of you!” replied
Tom, “I’ll down him the first step he takes!”
“Well, we was hid in the scrub,” resumed Dave, speaking quickly, “an’ we
heard ’im an’ another cove plannin’ to rob a bank!”
Dave paused to consult Tom with his eye.
“Go on!” cried Dan and George, eagerly.
Tom nodded.
“Go on,” he said. “Tell the whole truth, an’ nothink but the truth,
so-’elp-you. We’ve turned Queen’s evidence. They can’t tech us; besides,
we had nothink to do with it. We only seen it.”
“We heerd ’em plannin’ to rob the bank,” resumed Dave, “an’ we was
frightened. We hid on an island next day, intendin’ to come an’ get our
boat an’ go down the river; but these coves knowed where the boat was,
and they came next night and took it, and did the robbery.
“How do you know they did the robbery?” asked George Chard, eagerly.
“We was there when they came back with the boat,” replied Dave, watching
Petit closely.
“Yes,” said Tom, taking up the story; “it was an awful rainy night first,
but the storm cleared off before twelve o’clock, and they brought the
money back with them, and——”
“How do you know?” cried George and Dan, in one breath.
“We see it. It was in a canvas bag. Keep cool, Sour Krout! There’s ten
shots in ’er—ten lovely shots, an’——”
“Never mind him,” said Dan Creyton, cocking his gun, “it will be bad for
him if he attempts anything.”
“That’s right,” said Tom, giving Dan a look of gratitude and friendship,
“an’ if you see what we see you wouldn’t ’esitate about it neither. We
was layin’ in the scrub when they came back with the money what they
robbed from the bank. They had a lantern—keep quiet Sour Krout; she’s
got ten shots in ’er, yet I tell yer—an’ they went to bury the money.
Leastwise, this cove gammoned they ought to do it. Then—keep quiet, Sour
Krout; you’ll do that onct too often—then we seen——”
Tom paused to admonish the Frenchman once more.
“We seen him do it!!”
“Yes,” said Dave, solemnly; “we seen him do it! Both of us!”
“What?” asked Dan. “What was it he did?”
“Keep yer eye on him,” said Tom. “He’s a cold-blooded murderer an’ a
robber, an’ worse! He killed his mate with a knife, that’s what he done!”
Petit’s face was a study in hate and rage.
“Keep cool, Sour Krout,” observed Tom, grimly. “You’ve had your innings.
Yesterday we was your prisoners. You ’ad the upper hand, you did, and
you treated me an’ Dave bad. That was your picnic, and me and Dave was
invited. Now this is our picnic, an’ we’ve invited you!”
Dave proceeded to do a nervous war dance round the captive.
“Yah!” he cried. “Twice yesterday an’ once this mornin’ you offered to
cut our throats didn’t yer?”
“After we see this cove murder his mate,” explained Tom and Dan, “we was
frightened to go an’ tell. We thought he’d lay for us an’ kill us, too.
So we came down the river in our boat an’ landed here; but he’d got here
before we did some how or another, an’ he ketched us and took the boat
from us, an’ drawed it up in the scrub so’s we couldn’t get away. He said
he’d cut our throats with his knife if we didn’t do what he told us to,
and we was frightened. We never let on to him we knowed what he done. We
was goin’ to swim for it when we see you come in the boat. He was just
goin’ to collar that boat an’ get away when he remembered about the money
he stole, an’ went back for it. It’s a lucky thing he did. Me an’ Dave
might a been dead now only he forgot that money.”
“The money!” exclaimed George. “Where is it now?”
“I dunno,” said Tom; “unless he dropped it by the tree when I fired at
him first.”
“I took your rifle out of the boat and fired at him,” he added,
apologetically, “because if I hadn’t got the rifle he’d have bloomin’
well got it, an’ it’s my opinion he’d a cleared the whole camp out afore
he’d a stopped!”
“See what you missed, Sour Krout!” cried Dave, using the paddle as a
jumping pole, and leaping about in a delirium of derisive joy.
Petit ground his teeth savagely and glared at his captors.
“Wouldn’t you like to be loose!” yelled Dave, who was more or less
hysterical. “Wouldn’t you like me to untie you! Yah!”
Dan turned to George:
“Let us go and see if the money is really there!” he said.
“It’s there!” cried Dave. “I see him drop it when Tom fired! You wait!”
The excited first mate made a bolt into the scrub, and returned in a few
minutes heavily laden.
“There!” he cried, triumphantly, throwing the canvas bag containing the
plunder of the Bulk and Bullion on the ground at Dan Creyton’s feet. “Now
you’ll believe what we say is true!”
“There does not seem to be any reason for doubting it,” observed Dan,
“in view of the evidence before us. George, you’d better take charge of
the B. and B. property for the present. This looks like a providential
coincidence for you!”
“It looks,” replied George, in a bewildered way, “like a story out of a
book!”
“My young friend,” remarked Dan to Tom Pagdin, “you had better allow me
to uncock that rifle; there is a danger of it going off at present.”
“No,” said Tom, positively, “I’m goin’ to keep this rifle to his hind
ear; I ain’t goin’ to trust him, now, after we’ve put him away.”
“No,” said Dave, “we ain’t goin’ to trust him—not more’n six inches from
the barrel, anyway.”
“Well,” said Dan with a dry smile, “as you seem to be the leader of the
party, you will be good enough to say what we are going to do next?”
“Will he be hung?” asked Tom in an anxious voice.
“I am not prepared to pronounce judgment,” replied Dan; “but if the
statements you have just made fit with certain facts I have in my mind,
the case will probably present important developments.”
“I don’t understand all that,” replied Tom; “but I reckon the best thing
to do is to give this cove in charge!”
“A very reasonable suggestion, my young friend,” observed Dan. “How will
you proceed to do it?”
“I’ll show you,” said Tom, with the air of a general. “You let your mate
take his gun an’ go with Dave for our boat, and bring her round the
Island ’longside yours.”