. . . . .
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.
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.'
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.