Robbery Under Arms
by Rolf Boldrewood [T.A.Browne]
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
Go to Part 2 of 2

A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia

By Rolf Boldrewood
(Pseudonym of Thomas Alexander Browne)

Author of `The Miner's Right', `The Squatter's Dream',
`A Colonial Reformer', etc.

Preface to New Edition

I dedicate this `ower true tale' of the wilder aspects of Australian life
to my old comrade R. Murray Smith, late Agent-General in London
for the colony of Victoria, with hearty thanks for the time and trouble
he has devoted to its publication. I trust it will do no discredit
to the rising reputation of Australian romance. But though presented
in the guise of fiction, this chronicle of the Marston family
must not be set down by the reader as wholly fanciful or exaggerated.
Much of the narrative is literally true, as can be verified
by official records. A lifelong residence in Australia may be accepted
as a guarantee for fidelity as to local colour and descriptive detail.
I take this opportunity of acknowledging the prompt and liberal
recognition of the tale by the proprietors of the `Sydney Mail',
but for which it might never have seen the light.

ROLF BOLDREWOOD.

117 Collins Street West,
  Melbourne, 12th December 1888.

Robbery Under Arms

by Rolf Boldrewood
(Pseudonym of Thomas Alexander Browne)

Chapter 1

My name's Dick Marston, Sydney-side native. I'm twenty-nine years old,
six feet in my stocking soles, and thirteen stone weight.
Pretty strong and active with it, so they say. I don't want to blow
-- not here, any road -- but it takes a good man to put me on my back,
or stand up to me with the gloves, or the naked mauleys.
I can ride anything -- anything that ever was lapped in horsehide --
swim like a musk-duck, and track like a Myall blackfellow.
Most things that a man can do I'm up to, and that's all about it.
As I lift myself now I can feel the muscle swell on my arm
like a cricket ball, in spite of the -- well, in spite of everything.

The morning sun comes shining through the window bars;
and ever since he was up have I been cursing the daylight, cursing myself,
and them that brought me into the world. Did I curse mother,
and the hour I was born into this miserable life?

Why should I curse the day? Why do I lie here, groaning;
yes, crying like a child, and beating my head against the stone floor?
I am not mad, though I am shut up in a cell. No. Better for me if I was.
But it's all up now; there's no get away this time; and I, Dick Marston,
as strong as a bullock, as active as a rock-wallaby,
chock-full of life and spirits and health, have been tried for bush-ranging
-- robbery under arms they call it -- and though the blood
runs through my veins like the water in the mountain creeks,
and every bit of bone and sinew is as sound as the day I was born,
I must die on the gallows this day month.

Die -- die -- yes, die; be strung up like a dog, as they say.
I'm blessed if ever I did know of a dog being hanged, though,
if it comes to that, a shot or a bait generally makes an end of 'em
in this country. Ha, ha! Did I laugh? What a rum thing it is
that a man should have a laugh in him when he's only got
twenty-nine days more to live -- a day for every year of my life.
Well, laughing or crying, this is what it has come to at last.
All the drinking and recklessness; the flash talk and the idle ways;
the merry cross-country rides that we used to have, night or day,
it made no odds to us; every man well mounted, as like as not
on a racehorse in training taken out of his stable within the week;
the sharp brushes with the police, when now and then a man was wounded
on each side, but no one killed. That came later on, worse luck.
The jolly sprees we used to have in the bush townships,
where we chucked our money about like gentlemen, where all the girls
had a smile and a kind word for a lot of game upstanding chaps,
that acted like men, if they did keep the road a little lively.
Our `bush telegraphs' were safe to let us know when the `traps'
were closing in on us, and then -- why the coach would be `stuck up'
a hundred miles away, in a different direction, within twenty-four hours.
Marston's gang again! The police are in pursuit! That's what we'd see
in the papers. We had 'em sent to us regular; besides having the pick of 'em
when we cut open the mail bags.

And now -- that chain rubbed a sore, curse it! -- all that racket's over.
It's more than hard to die in this settled, infernal, fixed sort of way,
like a bullock in the killing-yard, all ready to be `pithed'.
I used to pity them when I was a boy, walking round the yard,
pushing their noses through the rails, trying for a likely place to jump,
stamping and pawing and roaring and knocking their heads
against the heavy close rails, with misery and rage in their eyes,
till their time was up. Nobody told THEM beforehand, though!

Have I and the likes of me ever felt much the same, I wonder,
shut up in a pen like this, with the rails up, and not a place
a rat could creep through, waiting till our killing time was come?
The poor devils of steers have never done anything but ramble off the run
now and again, while we -- but it's too late to think of that.
It IS hard. There's no saying it isn't; no, nor thinking what a fool,
what a blind, stupid, thundering idiot a fellow's been,
to laugh at the steady working life that would have helped him up,
bit by bit, to a good farm, a good wife, and innocent little kids about him,
like that chap, George Storefield, that came to see me last week.
He was real rightdown sorry for me, I could tell, though Jim and I
used to laugh at him, and call him a regular old crawler of a milker's calf
in the old days. The tears came into his eyes reg'lar like a woman
as he gave my hand a squeeze and turned his head away.
We was little chaps together, you know. A man always feels that, you know.
And old George, he'll go back -- a fifty-mile ride, but what's that
on a good horse? He'll be late home, but he can cross the rock ford
the short way over the creek. I can see him turn his horse loose
at the garden-gate, and walk through the quinces that lead up to the cottage,
with his saddle on his arm. Can't I see it all, as plain as if I was there?

And his wife and the young 'uns 'll run out when they hear father's horse,
and want to hear all the news. When he goes in there's his meal
tidy and decent waiting for him, while he tells them about
the poor chap he's been to see as is to be scragged next month.
Ha! ha! what a rum joke it is, isn't it?

And then he'll go out in the verandah, with the roses growin'
all over the posts and smellin' sweet in the cool night air. After that
he'll have his smoke, and sit there thinkin' about me, perhaps, and old days,
and what not, till all hours -- till his wife comes and fetches him in.
And here I lie -- my God! why didn't they knock me on the head
when I was born, like a lamb in a dry season, or a blind puppy --
blind enough, God knows! They do so in some countries, if the books say true,
and what a hell of misery that must save some people from!

Well, it's done now, and there's no get away. I may as well make
the best of it. A sergeant of police was shot in our last scrimmage,
and they must fit some one over that. It's only natural.
He was rash, or Starlight would never have dropped him that day.
Not if he'd been sober either. We'd been drinking all night
at that Willow Tree shanty. Bad grog, too! When a man's half drunk
he's fit for any devilment that comes before him. Drink! How do you think
a chap that's taken to the bush -- regularly turned out, I mean,
with a price on his head, and a fire burning in his heart night and day --
can stand his life if he don't drink? When he thinks of what
he might have been, and what he is! Why, nearly every man he meets
is paid to run him down, or trap him some way like a stray dog
that's taken to sheep-killin'. He knows a score of men, and women too,
that are only looking out for a chance to sell his blood on the quiet
and pouch the money. Do you think that makes a chap mad and miserable,
and tired of his life, or not? And if a drop of grog will take him
right out of his wretched self for a bit why shouldn't he drink?
People don't know what they are talking about. Why, he is that miserable
that he wonders why he don't hang himself, and save the Government
all the trouble; and if a few nobblers make him feel as if he might have
some good chances yet, and that it doesn't so much matter after all,
why shouldn't he drink?

He does drink, of course; every miserable man, and a good many women
as have something to fear or repent of, drink. The worst of it is
that too much of it brings on the `horrors', and then the devil,
instead of giving you a jog now and then, sends one of his imps
to grin in your face and pull your heartstrings all day and all night long.
By George, I'm getting clever -- too clever, altogether, I think.
If I could forget for one moment, in the middle of all the nonsense,
that I was to die on Thursday three weeks! die on Thursday three weeks!
die on Thursday! That's the way the time runs in my ears
like a chime of bells. But it's all mere bosh I've been reading
these long six months I've been chained up here -- after I was committed
for trial. When I came out of the hospital after curing me of that wound
-- for I was hit bad by that black tracker -- they gave me some books to read
for fear I'd go mad and cheat the hangman. I was always fond of reading,
and many a night I've read to poor old mother and Aileen
before I left the old place. I was that weak and low, after I took the turn,
and I felt glad to get a book to take me away from sitting, staring,
and blinking at nothing by the hour together. It was all very well then;
I was too weak to think much. But when I began to get well again
I kept always coming across something in the book that made me
groan or cry out, as if some one had stuck a knife in me.
A dark chap did once -- through the ribs -- it didn't feel so bad,
a little sharpish at first; why didn't he aim a bit higher?
He never was no good, even at that. As I was saying, there'd be
something about a horse, or the country, or the spring weather --
it's just coming in now, and the Indian corn's shooting after the rain,
and I'LL never see it; or they'd put in a bit about the cows
walking through the river in the hot summer afternoons;
or they'd go describing about a girl, until I began to think
of sister Aileen again; then I'd run my head against the wall,
or do something like a madman, and they'd stop the books for a week;
and I'd be as miserable as a bandicoot, worse and worse a lot,
with all the devil's tricks and bad thoughts in my head,
and nothing to put them away.

I must either kill myself, or get something to fill up my time till the day --
yes, the day comes. I've always been a middling writer,
tho' I can't say much for the grammar, and spelling, and that,
but I'll put it all down, from the beginning to the end,
and maybe it'll save some other unfortunate young chap
from pulling back like a colt when he's first roped, setting himself against
everything in the way of proper breaking, making a fool of himself generally,
and choking himself down, as I've done.

The gaoler -- he looks hard -- he has to do that, there's more than one or two
within here that would have him by the throat, with his heart's blood running,
in half a minute, if they had their way, and the warder was off guard.
He knows that very well. But he's not a bad-hearted chap.

`You can have books, or paper and pens, anything you like,' he said,
`you unfortunate young beggar, until you're turned off.'

`If I'd only had you to see after me when I was young,' says I ----

`Come; don't whine,' he said, then he burst out laughing.
`You didn't mean it, I see. I ought to have known better.
You're not one of that sort, and I like you all the better for it.'

     .   .   .   .   .

Well, here goes. Lots of pens, a big bottle of ink, and ever so much
foolscap paper, the right sort for me, or I shouldn't have been here.
I'm blessed if it doesn't look as if I was going to write copies again.
Don't I remember how I used to go to school in old times;
the rides there and back on the old pony; and pretty little Grace Storefield
that I was so fond of, and used to show her how to do her lessons.
I believe I learned more that way than if I'd had only myself to think about.
There was another girl, the daughter of the poundkeeper,
that I wanted her to beat; and the way we both worked, and I coached her up,
was a caution. And she did get above her in her class. How proud we were!
She gave me a kiss, too, and a bit of her hair. Poor Gracey!
I wonder where she is now, and what she'd think if she saw me here to-day.
If I could have looked ahead, and seen myself -- chained now like a dog,
and going to die a dog's death this day month!

Anyhow, I must make a start. How do people begin when they set to work
to write their own sayings and doings? There's been a deal more doing
than talking in my life -- it was the wrong sort -- more's the pity.

Well, let's see; his parents were poor, but respectable. That's what
they always say. My parents were poor, and mother was as good a soul
as ever broke bread, and wouldn't have taken a shilling's worth
that wasn't her own if she'd been starving. But as for father,
he'd been a poacher in England, a Lincolnshire man he was,
and got sent out for it. He wasn't much more than a boy, he said,
and it was only for a hare or two, which didn't seem much.
But I begin to think, being able to see the right of things a bit now,
and having no bad grog inside of me to turn a fellow's head upside down,
as poaching must be something like cattle and horse duffing --
not the worst thing in the world itself, but mighty likely to lead to it.

Dad had always been a hard-working, steady-going sort of chap,
good at most things, and like a lot more of the Government men,
as the convicts were always called round our part, he saved some money
as soon as he had done his time, and married mother, who was
a simple emigrant girl just out from Ireland. Father was a square-built,
good-looking chap, I believe, then; not so tall as I am by three inches,
but wonderfully strong and quick on his pins. They did say
as he could hammer any man in the district before he got old and stiff.
I never saw him `shape' but once, and then he rolled into a man
big enough to eat him, and polished him off in a way that showed me
-- though I was a bit of a boy then -- that he'd been at the game before.
He didn't ride so bad either, though he hadn't had much of it
where he came from; but he was afraid of nothing, and had a quiet way
with colts. He could make pretty good play in thick country,
and ride a roughish horse, too.

Well, our farm was on a good little flat, with a big mountain in front,
and a scrubby, rangy country at the back for miles. People often asked him
why he chose such a place. `It suits me,' he used to say, with a laugh,
and talk of something else. We could only raise about enough
corn and potatoes, in a general way, for ourselves from the flat;
but there were other chances and pickings which helped to make the pot boil,
and them we'd have been a deal better without.

First of all, though our cultivation paddock was small,
and the good land seemed squeezed in between the hills,
there was a narrow tract up the creek, and here it widened out
into a large well-grassed flat. This was where our cattle ran,
for, of course, we had a team of workers and a few milkers when we came.
No one ever took up a farm in those days without a dray and a team,
a year's rations, a few horses and milkers, pigs and fowls,
and a little furniture. They didn't collar a 40-acre selection,
as they do now -- spend all their money in getting the land
and squat down as bare as robins -- a man with his wife and children
all under a sheet of bark, nothing on their backs, and very little
in their bellies. However, some of them do pretty well,
though they do say they have to live on 'possums for a time.
We didn't do much, in spite of our grand start.

The flat was well enough, but there were other places in the gullies
beyond that that father had dropped upon when he was out shooting.
He was a tremendous chap for poking about on foot or on horseback,
and though he was an Englishman, he was what you call a born bushman.
I never saw any man almost as was his equal. Wherever he'd been once,
there he could take you to again; and what was more,
if it was in the dead of the night he could do it just the same.
People said he was as good as a blackfellow, but I never saw one
that was as good as he was, all round. In a strange country, too.
That was what beat me -- he'd know the way the creek run,
and noticed when the cattle headed to camp, and a lot of things
that other people couldn't see, or if they did, couldn't remember again.
He was a great man for solitary walks, too -- he and an old dog he had,
called Crib, a cross-bred mongrel-looking brute, most like
what they call a lurcher in England, father said. Anyhow, he could do
most anything but talk. He could bite to some purpose, drive cattle or sheep,
catch a kangaroo, if it wasn't a regular flyer, fight like a bulldog,
and swim like a retriever, track anything, and fetch and carry,
but bark he wouldn't. He'd stand and look at dad as if he worshipped him,
and he'd make him some sign and off he'd go like a child that's got a message.
Why he was so fond of the old man we boys couldn't make out.
We were afraid of him, and as far as we could see he never patted
or made much of Crib. He thrashed him unmerciful as he did us boys.
Still the dog was that fond of him you'd think he'd like to die for him
there and then. But dogs are not like boys, or men either -- better, perhaps.

Well, we were all born at the hut by the creek, I suppose,
for I remember it as soon as I could remember anything.
It was a snug hut enough, for father was a good bush carpenter,
and didn't turn his back to any one for splitting and fencing,
hut-building and shingle-splitting; he had had a year or two at sawing, too,
but after he was married he dropped that. But I've heard mother say
that he took great pride in the hut when he brought her to it first,
and said it was the best-built hut within fifty miles.
He split every slab, cut every post and wallplate and rafter himself,
with a man to help him at odd times; and after the frame was up,
and the bark on the roof, he camped underneath and finished every bit of it
-- chimney, flooring, doors, windows, and partitions -- by himself.
Then he dug up a little garden in front, and planted a dozen or two
peaches and quinces in it; put a couple of roses -- a red and a white one --
by the posts of the verandah, and it was all ready for his pretty Norah,
as she says he used to call her then. If I've heard her tell
about the garden and the quince trees and the two roses once,
I've heard her tell it a hundred times. Poor mother! we used to get round her
-- Aileen, and Jim, and I -- and say, `Tell us about the garden, mother.'
She'd never refuse; those were her happy days, she always said.
She used to cry afterwards -- nearly always.

The first thing almost that I can remember was riding the old pony, 'Possum,
out to bring in the milkers. Father was away somewhere,
so mother took us all out and put me on the pony, and let me have a whip.
Aileen walked alongside, and very proud I was. My legs stuck out straight
on the old pony's fat back. Mother had ridden him up when she came --
the first horse she ever rode, she said. He was a quiet little old roan,
with a bright eye and legs like gate-posts, but he never fell down with
us boys, for all that. If we fell off he stopped still and began to feed,
so that he suited us all to pieces. We soon got sharp enough
to flail him along with a quince stick, and we used to bring up the milkers,
I expect, a good deal faster than was good for them.
After a bit we could milk, leg-rope, and bail up for ourselves,
and help dad brand the calves, which began to come pretty thick.
There were only three of us children -- my brother Jim, who was two years
younger than I was, and then Aileen, who was four years behind him.
I know we were both able to nurse the baby a while after she came,
and neither of us wanted better fun than to be allowed to watch her,
or rock the cradle, or as a great treat to carry her a few steps.
Somehow we was that fond and proud of her from the first
that we'd have done anything in the world for her. And so we would now
-- I was going to say -- but that poor Jim lies under a forest oak
on a sandhill, and I -- well, I'm here, and if I'd listened to her advice
I should have been a free man. A free man! How it sounds, doesn't it?
with the sun shining, and the blue sky over your head,
and the birds twittering, and the grass beneath your feet!
I wonder if I shall go mad before my time's up.

Mother was a Roman Catholic -- most Irishwomen are; and dad was a Protestant,
if he was anything. However, that says nothing. People that don't talk much
about their religion, or follow it up at all, won't change it for all that.
So father, though mother tried him hard enough when they were first married,
wouldn't hear of turning, not if he was to be killed for it,
as I once heard him say. `No!' he says, `my father and grandfather,
and all the lot, was Church people, and so I shall live and die.
I don't know as it would make much matter to me, but such as my notions is,
I shall stick to 'em as long as the craft holds together.
You can bring up the girl in your own way; it's made a good woman of you,
or found you one, which is most likely, and so she may take her chance.
But I stand for Church and King, and so shall the boys,
as sure as my name's Ben Marston.'

Chapter 2

Father was one of those people that gets shut of a deal of trouble
in this world by always sticking to one thing. If he said he'd do
this or that he always did it and nothing else. As for turning him,
a wild bull half-way down a range was a likelier try-on.
So nobody ever bothered him after he'd once opened his mouth.
They knew it was so much lost labour. I sometimes thought
Aileen was a bit like him in her way of sticking to things.
But then she was always right, you see.

So that clinched it. Mother gave in like a wise woman, as she was.
The clergyman from Bargo came one day and christened me and Jim --
made one job of it. But mother took Aileen herself in the spring cart
all the way to the township and had her christened in the chapel,
in the middle of the service all right and regular, by Father Roche.

There's good and bad of every sort, and I've met plenty that were no chop
of all churches; but if Father Roche, or Father anybody else,
had any hand in making mother and Aileen half as good as they were,
I'd turn to-morrow, if I ever got out again. I don't suppose
it was the religion that made much difference in our case,
for Patsey Daly and his three brothers, that lived on the creek higher up,
were as much on the cross as men could be, and many a time
I've seen them ride to chapel and attend mass, and look as if
they'd never seen a `clearskin' in their lives. Patsey was hanged afterwards
for bush-ranging and gold robbery, and he had more than one man's blood
to answer for. Now we weren't like that; we never troubled the church
one way or the other. We knew we were doing what we oughtn't to do,
and scorned to look pious and keep two faces under one hood.

By degrees we all grew older, began to be active and able to do
half a man's work. We learned to ride pretty well -- at least,
that is we could ride a bare-backed horse at full gallop
through timber or down a range; could back a colt just caught and have him
as quiet as an old cow in a week. We could use the axe and the cross-cut saw,
for father dropped that sort of work himself, and made Jim and I
do all the rough jobs of mending the fences, getting firewood,
milking the cows, and, after a bit, ploughing the bit of flat
we kept in cultivation.

Jim and I, when we were fifteen and thirteen -- he was bigger for his age
than I was, and so near my own strength that I didn't care
about touching him -- were the smartest lads on the creek, father said --
he didn't often praise us, either. We had often ridden over to help
at the muster of the large cattle stations that were on the side of the range,
and not more than twenty or thirty miles from us.

Some of our young stock used to stray among the squatters' cattle,
and we liked attending the muster because there was plenty of
galloping about and cutting out, and fun in the men's hut at night,
and often a half-crown or so for helping some one away
with a big mob of cattle or a lot for the pound. Father didn't go himself,
and I used to notice that whenever we came up and said we were
Ben Marston's boys both master and super looked rather glum, and then appeared
not to think any more about it. I heard the owner of one of these stations
say to his managing man, `Pity, isn't it? fine boys, too.'
I didn't understand what they meant. I do now.

We could do a few things besides riding, because, as I told you before,
we had been to a bit of a school kept by an old chap that had once seen
better days, that lived three miles off, near a little bush township.
This village, like most of these places, had a public-house
and a blacksmith's shop. That was about all. The publican kept the store,
and managed pretty well to get hold of all the money that was made
by the people round about, that is of those that were `good drinking men'.
He had half-a-dozen children, and, though he was not up to much,
he wasn't that bad that he didn't want his children to have the chance
of being better than himself. I've seen a good many crooked people in my day,
but very few that, though they'd given themselves up as a bad job,
didn't hope a bit that their youngsters mightn't take after them.
Curious, isn't it? But it is true, I can tell you. So Lammerby,
the publican, though he was a greedy, sly sort of fellow, that bought things
he knew were stolen, and lent out money and charged everybody two prices
for the things he sold 'em, didn't like the thought of his children
growing up like Myall cattle, as he said himself, and so he fished out this
old Mr. Howard, that had been a friend or a victim or some kind of pal of his
in old times, near Sydney, and got him to come and keep school.

He was a curious man, this Mr. Howard. What he had been or done
none of us ever knew, but he spoke up to one of the squatters
that said something sharp to him one day in a way that showed us boys
that he thought himself as good as he was. And he stood up straight
and looked him in the face, till we hardly could think he was the same man
that was so bent and shambling and broken-down-looking most times.
He used to live in a little hut in the township all by himself.
It was just big enough to hold him and us at our lessons.
He had his dinner at the inn, along with Mr. and Mrs. Lammerby.
She was always kind to him, and made him puddings and things when he was ill.
He was pretty often ill, and then he'd hear us our lessons at the bedside,
and make a short day of it.

Mostly he drank nothing but tea. He used to smoke a good deal
out of a big meerschaum pipe with figures on it that he used to show us
when he was in a good humour. But two or three times a year
he used to set-to and drink for a week, and then school was left off
till he was right. We didn't think much of that. Everybody, almost,
that we knew did the same -- all the men -- nearly all, that is --
and some of the women -- not mother, though; she wouldn't have touched
a drop of wine or spirits to save her life, and never did to her dying day.
We just thought of it as if they'd got a touch of fever or sunstroke,
or broke a rib or something. They'd get over it in a week or two,
and be all right again.

All the same, poor old Mr. Howard wasn't always on the booze,
not by any manner of means. He never touched a drop of anything,
not even ginger-beer, while he was straight, and he kept us all going
from nine o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon,
summer and winter, for more than six years. Then he died, poor old chap --
found dead in his bed one morning. Many a basting he gave me and Jim
with an old malacca cane he had with a silver knob to it. We were all
pretty frightened of him. He'd say to me and Jim and the other boys,
`It's the best chance of making men of yourselves you ever had,
if you only knew it. You'll be rich farmers or settlers,
perhaps magistrates, one of these days -- that is, if you're not hanged.
It's you, I mean,' he'd say, pointing to me and Jim and the Dalys;
`I believe some of you WILL be hanged unless you change a good deal.
It's cold blood and bad blood that runs in your veins,
and you'll come to earn the wages of sin some day. It's a strange thing,'
he used to say, as if he was talking to himself, `that the girls are so good,
while the boys are delivered over to the Evil One, except a case
here and there. Look at Mary Darcy and Jane Lammerby,
and my little pet Aileen here. I defy any village in Britain
to turn out such girls -- plenty of rosy-cheeked gigglers --
but the natural refinement and intelligence of these little damsels
astonishes me.'

Well, the old man died suddenly, as I said, and we were all very sorry,
and the school was broken up. But he had taught us all
to write fairly and to keep accounts, to read and spell decently,
and to know a little geography. It wasn't a great deal,
but what we knew we knew well, and I often think of what he said,
now it's too late, we ought to have made better use of it.
After school broke up father said Jim and I knew quite as much
as was likely to be any good to us, and we must work for our living
like other people. We'd always done a pretty fair share of that,
and our hands were hard with using the axe and the spade,
let alone holding the plough at odd times and harrowing, helping father
to kill and brand, and a lot of other things, besides getting up
while the stars were in the sky so as to get the cows milked early,
before it was time to go to school.

All this time we had lived in a free kind of way -- we wanted for nothing.
We had plenty of good beef, and a calf now and then. About this time
I began to wonder how it was that so many cattle and horses
passed through father's hands, and what became of them.

I hadn't lived all my life on Rocky Creek, and among some of
the smartest hands in that line that old New South Wales ever bred,
without knowing what `clearskins' and `cross' beasts meant,
and being well aware that our brand was often put on a calf
that no cow of ours ever suckled. Don't I remember well the first calf
I ever helped to put our letters on? I've often wished I'd defied father,
then taken my licking, and bolted away from home. It's that very calf
and the things it led to that's helped to put me where I am!

Just as I sit here, and these cursed irons rattle whenever I move my feet,
I can see that very evening, and father and the old dog
with a little mob of our crawling cattle and half-a-dozen head of strangers,
cows and calves, and a fat little steer coming through the scrub
to the old stockyard.

It was an awkward place for a yard, people used to say; scrubby and stony
all round, a blind sort of hole -- you couldn't see till you were right
on the top of it. But there was a `wing' ran out a good way
through the scrub -- there's no better guide to a yard like that --
and there was a sort of track cattle followed easy enough once you were round
the hill. Anyhow, between father and the dog and the old mare he always rode,
very few beasts ever broke away.

These strange cattle had been driven a good way, I could see.
The cows and calves looked done up, and the steer's tongue was out --
it was hottish weather; the old dog had been `heeling' him up too,
for he was bleeding up to the hocks, and the end of his tail was bitten off.
He was a savage old wretch was Crib. Like all dogs that never bark
-- and men too -- his bite was all the worse.

`Go and get the brands -- confound you -- don't stand there
frightening the cattle,' says father, as the tired cattle,
after smelling and jostling a bit, rushed into the yard.
`You, Jim, make a fire, and look sharp about it. I want to brand
old Polly's calf and another or two.'  Father came down to the hut
while the brands were getting ready, and began to look at the harness-cask,
which stood in a little back skillion. It was pretty empty;
we had been living on eggs, bacon, and bread and butter for a week.

`Oh, mother! there's such a pretty red calf in the yard,' I said,
`with a star and a white spot on the flank; and there's a yellow steer
fat enough to kill!'

`What!' said mother, turning round and looking at father with her eyes staring
-- a sort of dark blue they were -- people used to say mine and Jim's
were the same colour -- and her brown hair pushed back off her face,
as if she was looking at a ghost. `Is it doing that again you are,
after all you promised me, and you so nearly caught -- after the last one?
Didn't I go on my knees to ye to ask ye to drop it and lead a good life,
and didn't ye tell me ye'd never do the like again? And the poor
innocent children, too, I wonder ye've the heart to do it.'

It came into my head now to wonder why the sergeant and two policemen
had come down from Bargo, very early in the morning, about three months ago,
and asked father to show them the beef in his cask, and the hide
belonging to it. I wondered at the time the beast was killed
why father made the hide into a rope, and before he did that
had cut out the brand and dropped it into a hot fire. The police saw
a hide with our brand on, all right -- killed about a fortnight.
They didn't know it had been taken off a cancered bullock,
and that father took the trouble to `stick' him and bleed him
before he took the hide off, so as it shouldn't look dark.
Father certainly knew most things in the way of working on the cross.
I can see now he'd have made his money a deal easier, and no trouble of mind,
if he'd only chosen to go straight.

When mother said this, father looked at her for a bit
as if he was sorry for it; then he straightened himself up,
and an ugly look came into his face as he growled out --

`You mind your own business; we must live as well as other people.
There's squatters here that does as bad. They're just like
the squires at home; think a poor man hasn't a right to live.
You bring the brand and look alive, Dick, or I'll sharpen ye up a bit.'

The brand was in the corner, but mother got between me and it,
and stretched out her hand to father as if to stop me and him.

`In God's name,' she cried out, `aren't ye satisfied
with losing your own soul and bringing disgrace upon your family,
but ye must be the ruin of your innocent children?
Don't touch the brand, Dick!'

But father wasn't a man to be crossed, and what made it worse
he had a couple of glasses of bad grog in him. There was an old villain
of a shanty-keeper that lived on a back creek. He'd been there
as he came by and had a glass or two. He had a regular savage temper,
father had, though he was quiet enough and not bad to us when he was right.
But the grog always spoiled him.

He gave poor mother a shove which sent her reeling against the wall,
where she fell down and hit her head against the stool, and lay there.
Aileen, sitting down in the corner, turned white, and began to cry,
while father catches me a box on the ear which sends me kicking,
picks up the brand out of the corner, and walks out, with me after him.

I think if I'd been another year or so older I'd have struck back --
I felt that savage about poor mother that I could have gone at him myself --
but we had been too long used to do everything he told us; and somehow,
even if a chap's father's a bad one, he don't seem like other men to him.
So, as Jim had lighted the fire, we branded the little red heifer calf first
-- a fine fat six-months-old nugget she was -- and then three bull calves,
all strangers, and then Polly's calf, I suppose just for a blind.
Jim and I knew the four calves were all strangers, but we didn't know
the brands of the mothers; they all seemed different.

After this all was made right to kill a beast. The gallows was ready rigged
in a corner of the yard; father brought his gun and shot the yellow steer.
The calves were put into our calf-pen -- Polly's and all --
and all the cows turned out to go where they liked.

We helped father to skin and hang up the beast, and pretty late it was
when we finished. Mother had laid us out our tea and gone to bed with Aileen.
We had ours and then went to bed. Father sat outside and smoked
in the starlight. Hours after I woke up and heard mother crying.
Before daylight we were up again, and the steer was cut up and salted
and in the harness-cask soon after sunrise. His head and feet
were all popped into a big pot where we used to make soup for the pigs,
and by the time it had been boiling an hour or two there was no fear
of any one swearing to the yellow steer by `head-mark'.

We had a hearty breakfast off the `skirt', but mother wouldn't touch a bit,
nor let Aileen take any; she took nothing but a bit of bread and a cup of tea,
and sat there looking miserable and downcast. Father said nothing,
but sat very dark-looking, and ate his food as if nothing was the matter.
After breakfast he took his mare, the old dog followed; there was no need
to whistle for him -- it's my belief he knew more than many a Christian --
and away they went. Father didn't come home for a week --
he had got into the habit of staying away for days and days together.
Then things went on the old way.

Chapter 3

So the years went on -- slow enough they seemed to us sometimes --
the green winters, pretty cold, I tell you, with frost and hail-storms,
and the long hot summers. We were not called boys any longer, except by
mother and Aileen, but took our places among the men of the district.
We lived mostly at home, in the old way; sometimes working pretty hard,
sometimes doing very little. When the cows were milked and the wood chopped,
there was nothing to do for the rest of the day. The creek was that close
that mother used to go and dip the bucket into it herself, when she
wanted one, from a little wooden step above the clear reedy waterhole.

Now and then we used to dig in the garden. There was reaping and corn-pulling
and husking for part of the year; but often, for weeks at a time,
there was next to nothing to do. No hunting worth much --
we were sick of kangarooing, like the dogs themselves, that as they grew old
would run a little way and then pull up if a mob came, jump, jump, past them.
No shooting, except a few ducks and pigeons. Father used to laugh
at the shooting in this country, and say they'd never have poachers here --
the game wasn't worth it. No fishing, except an odd codfish,
in the deepest waterholes; and you might sit half a day without a bite.

Now this was very bad for us boys. Lads want plenty of work,
and a little play now and then to keep them straight. If there's none,
they'll make it; and you can't tell how far they'll go when they once start.

Well, Jim and I used to get our horses and ride off quietly in the afternoon,
as if we were going after cattle; but, in reality, as soon as we were
out of sight of mother, to ride over to that old villain,
Grimes, the shanty-keeper, where we met the young Dalys,
and others of the same sort -- talked a good deal of nonsense and gossip;
what was worse played at all-fours and euchre, which we had learned
from an American harvest hand, at one of the large farms.

Besides playing for money, which put us rather into trouble sometimes,
as we couldn't always find a half-crown if we lost it,
we learned another bad habit, and that was to drink spirits.
What burning nasty stuff I thought it at first; and so did we all!
But every one wanted to be thought a man, and up to all kinds of wickedness,
so we used to make it a point of drinking our nobbler, and sometimes
treating the others twice, if we had cash.

There was another family that lived a couple of miles off,
higher up the creek, and we had always been good friends with them,
though they never came to our house, and only we boys went to theirs.
They were the parents of the little girl that went to school with us,
and a boy who was a year older than me.

Their father had been a gardener at home, and he married a native girl
who was born somewhere about the Hawkesbury, near Windsor.
Her father had been a farmer, and many a time she told us how sorry she was
to go away from the old place, and what fine corn and pumpkins they grew;
and how they had a church at Windsor, and used to take
their hay and fruit and potatoes to Sydney, and what a grand place Sydney was,
with stone buildings called markets for people to sell
fruit and vegetables and poultry in; and how you could walk down
into Lower George Street and see Sydney Harbour, a great shining
salt-water plain, a thousand times as big as the biggest waterhole,
with ships and boats and sailors, and every kind of strange thing upon it.

Mrs. Storefield was pretty fond of talking, and she was always fond of me,
because once when she was out after the cows, and her man was away,
and she had left Grace at home, the little thing crawled down to the waterhole
and tumbled in. I happened to be riding up with a message for mother,
to borrow some soap, when I heard a little cry like a lamb's, and there was
poor little Gracey struggling in the water like a drowning kitten,
with her face under. Another minute or two would have finished her,
but I was off the old pony and into the water like a teal flapper.
I had her out in a second or two, and she gasped and cried a bit,
but soon came to, and when Mrs. Storefield came home she first cried over her
as if she would break her heart, and kissed her, and then she kissed me,
and said, `Now, Dick Marston, you look here. Your mother's a good woman,
though simple; your father I don't like, and I hear many stories about him
that makes me think the less we ought to see of the lot of you the better.
But you've saved my child's life to-day, and I'll be a friend
and a mother to you as long as I live, even if you turn out bad,
and I'm rather afraid you will -- you and Jim both --
but it won't be my fault for want of trying to keep you straight;
and John and I will be your kind and loving friends as long as we live,
no matter what happens.'

After that -- it was strange enough -- but I always took
to the little toddling thing that I'd pulled out of the water.
I wasn't very big myself, if it comes to that, and she seemed to have
a feeling about it, for she'd come to me every time I went there,
and sit on my knee and look at me with her big brown serious eyes
-- they were just the same after she grew up -- and talk to me
in her little childish lingo. I believe she knew all about it,
for she used to say, `Dick pull Gracey out of water;' and then she'd
throw her arms round my neck and kiss me, and walk off to her mother.
If I'd let her drown then, and tied a stone round my neck
and dropped through the reeds to the bottom of the big waterhole,
it would have been better for both of us.

When John came home he was nearly as bad as the old woman,
and wanted to give me a filly, but I wouldn't have it, boy as I was.
I never cared for money nor money's worth, and I was not going to be paid
for picking a kid out of the water.

George Storefield, Gracey's brother, was about my own age.
He thought a lot of what I'd done for her, and years afterwards
I threatened to punch his head if he said anything more about it.
He laughed, and held out his hand.

`You and I might have been better friends lately,' says he;
`but don't you forget you've got another brother besides Jim --
one that will stick to you, too, fair weather or foul.'

I always had a great belief in George, though we didn't get on over well,
and often had fallings out. He was too steady and hardworking altogether
for Jim and me. He worked all day and every day, and saved
every penny he made. Catch him gaffing! -- no, not for a sixpence.
He called the Dalys and Jacksons thieves and swindlers, who would be
locked up, or even hanged, some day, unless they mended themselves.
As for drinking a glass of grog, you might just as soon ask him
to take a little laudanum or arsenic.

`Why should I drink grog,' he used to say -- `such stuff, too, as you get
at that old villain Grimes's -- with a good appetite and a good conscience?
I'm afraid of no man; the police may come and live on my ground
for what I care. I work all day, have a read in the evening,
and sleep like a top when I turn in. What do I want more?'

`Oh, but you never see any life,' Jim said; `you're just like
an old working bullock that walks up to the yoke in the morning
and never stops hauling till he's let go at night. This is a free country,
and I don't think a fellow was born for that kind of thing and nothing else.'

`This country's like any other country, Jim,' George would say,
holding up his head, and looking straight at him with his steady gray eyes;
`a man must work and save when he's young if he don't want to be
a beggar or a slave when he's old. I believe in a man enjoying himself
as well as you do, but my notion of that is to have a good farm,
well stocked and paid for, by and by, and then to take it easy,
perhaps when my back is a little stiffer than it is now.'

`But a man must have a little fun when he is young,' I said.
`What's the use of having money when you're old and rusty,
and can't take pleasure in anything?'

`A man needn't be so very old at forty,' he says then,
`and twenty years' steady work will put all of us youngsters
well up the ladder. Besides, I don't call it fun getting half-drunk
with a lot of blackguards at a low pothouse or a shanty,
listening to the stupid talk and boasting lies of a pack of loafers and worse.
They're fit for nothing better; but you and Jim are. Now, look here,
I've got a small contract from Mr. Andrews for a lot of fencing stuff.
It will pay us wages and something over. If you like to go in with me,
we'll go share and share. I know what hands you both are
at splitting and fencing. What do you say?'

Jim, poor Jim, was inclined to take George's offer. He was that good-hearted
that a kind word would turn him any time. But I was put out
at his laying it down so about the Dalys and us shantying and gaffing,
and I do think now that some folks are born so as they can't do without
a taste of some sort of fun once in a way. I can't put it out clear,
but it ought to be fixed somehow for us chaps that haven't got
the gift of working all day and every day, but can do two days' work in one
when we like, that we should have our allowance of reasonable fun and pleasure
-- that is, what we called pleasure, not what somebody thinks
we ought to take pleasure in. Anyway, I turned on George rather rough,
and I says, `We're not good enough for the likes of you, Mr. Storefield.
It's very kind of you to think of us, but we'll take our own line
and you take yours.'

`I'm sorry for it, Dick, and more sorry that you take huff at an old friend.
All I want is to do you good, and act a friend's part. Good-bye --
some day you'll see it.'

`You're hard on George,' says Jim, `there's no pleasing you to-day;
one would think there were lots of chaps fighting how to give us a lift.
Good-bye, George, old man; I'm sorry we can't wire in with you;
we'd soon knock out those posts and rails on the ironbark range.'

`You'd better stop, Jim, and take a hand in the deal,' says I
(or, rather, the devil, for I believe he gets inside a chap at times),
`and then you and George can take a turn at local-preaching
when you're cut out. I'm off.'  So without another word
I jumped on to my horse and went off down the hill, across the creek,
and over the boulders the other side, without much caring where I was going.
The fact was, I felt I had acted meanly in sneering at a man
who only said what he did for my good; and I wasn't at all sure
that I hadn't made a breach between Gracey and myself,
and, though I had such a temper when it was roused that all the world
wouldn't have stopped me, every time I thought of not seeing that girl again
made my heart ache as if it would burst.

I was nearly home before I heard the clatter of a horse's feet,
and Jim rode up alongside of me. He was just the same as ever,
with a smile on his face. You didn't often see it without one.

I knew he had come after me, and had given up his own fancy for mine.

`I thought you were going to stay and turn good,' I said. `Why didn't you?'

`It might have been better for me if I had,' he said,
`but you know very well, Dick, that whatever turns up,
whether it's for good or evil, you and I go together.'

We looked at one another for a moment. Our eyes met. We didn't say anything;
but we understood one another as well as if we had talked for a week.
We rode up to the door of our cottage without speaking. The sun had set,
and some of the stars had come out, early as it was, for it was late autumn.
Aileen was sitting on a bench in the verandah reading,
mother was working away as usual at something in the house.
Mother couldn't read or write, but you never caught her sitting
with her hands before her. Except when she was asleep I don't think
she ever was quite still.

Aileen ran out to us, and stood while we let go our horses,
and brought the saddles and bridles under the verandah.

`I'm glad you're come home for one thing,' she said. `There is a message
from father. He wants you to meet him.'

`Who brought it?' I said.

`One of the Dalys -- Patsey, I think.'

`All right,' said Jim, kissing her as he lifted her up
in his great strong arms. `I must go in and have a gossip with the old woman.
Aileen can tell me after tea. I daresay it's not so good that it won't keep.'

Mother was that fond of both of us that I believe, as sure as I sit here,
she'd have put her head on the block, or died in any other way
for either of her boys, not because it was her duty,
but glad and cheerful like, to have saved us from death or disgrace.
I think she was fonder of us two than she was of Aileen.
Mothers are generally fonder of their sons. Why I never could see;
and if she thought more of one than the other it was Jim.
He was the youngest, and he had that kind of big, frolicsome,
loving way with him, like a Newfoundland pup about half-grown.
I always used to think, somehow, nobody ever seemed to be able
to get into a pelter with Jim, not even father, and that was a thing
as some people couldn't be got to believe. As for mother and Aileen,
they were as fond of him as if he'd been a big baby.

So while he went to sit down on the stretcher, and let mother
put her arms round his neck and hug him and cry over him,
as she always did if he'd been away more than a day or two,
I took a walk down the creek with Aileen in the starlight,
to hear all about this message from father. Besides, I could see
that she was very serious over it, and I thought there might be
something in it more than common.

`First of all, did you make any agreement with George Storefield?' she said.

`No; why should I? Has he been talking to you about me?
What right has he to meddle with my business?'

`Oh, Dick, don't talk like that. Anything that he said
was only to do you a kindness, and Jim.'

`Hang him, and his kindness too,' I said. `Let him keep it
for those that want it. But what did he tell you?'

`He said, first of all,' answered poor Aileen, with the tears in her eyes,
and trying to take hold of my hand, `that he had a contract
for fencing timber, which he had taken at good prices, which he would share
with you and Jim; that he knew you two and himself could finish it
in a few weeks, and that he expected to get the contract for the timber
for the new bridge at Dargo, which he would let you go shares in too.
He didn't like to speak about that, because it wasn't certain;
but he had calculated all the quantities and prices,
and he was sure you would make 70 or 80 Pounds each before Christmas.
Now, was there any harm in that; and don't you think it was very good of him
to think of it?'

`Well, he's not a bad fellow, old George,' I said, `but he's a little too fond
of interfering with other people's business. Jim and I are quite able
to manage our own affairs, as I told him this evening, when I refused
to have anything to do with his fencing arrangement.'

`Oh, Dick, did you?' she said. `What a pity! I made sure
Jim would have liked it so, for only last week he said
he was sick and tired of having nothing to do -- that he should soon lose
all his knack at using tools that he used to be so proud of.
Didn't he say he'd like to join George?'

`He would, I daresay, and I told him to do as he liked.
I came away by myself, and only saw him just before we crossed the range.
He's big enough and old enough to take his own line.'

`But you know he thinks so much of you,' she groaned out,
`that he'd follow you to destruction. That will be the end of it,
depend upon it, Dick. I tell you so now; you've taken to bad ways;
you'll have his blood on your head yet.'

`Jim's old enough and big enough to take care of himself,' I said sulkily.
`If he likes to come my way I won't hinder him; I won't try to persuade him
one way or the other. Let him take his own line; I don't believe
in preaching and old women's talk. Let a man act and think for himself.'

`You'll break my heart and poor mother's, too,' said Aileen,
suddenly taking both my hands in hers. `What has she done but love us
ever since we were born, and what does she live for? You know she has
no pleasure of any kind, you know she's afraid every morning she wakes
that the police will get father for some of his cross doings;
and now you and Jim are going the same wild way, and what ever --
what ever will be the end of it?'

Here she let go my hands, and sobbed and cried as if she was a child again,
much as I remember her doing one day when my kangaroo dog killed
her favourite cat. And Aileen was a girl that didn't cry much generally,
and never about anything that happened to herself; it was always about
somebody else and their misfortunes. She was a quiet girl, too,
very determined, and not much given to talking about what she was going to do;
but when she made up her mind she was sure to stick to it. I used to think
she was more like father than any of us. She had his coloured hair and eyes,
and his way of standing and looking, as if the whole world
wouldn't shift him. But she'd mother's soft heart for all that,
and I took the more notice of her crying and whimpering this time
because it was so strange for her.

If any one could have seen straight into my heart just then I was regularly
knocked over, and had two minds to go inside to Jim and tell him
we'd take George's splitting job, and start to tackle it first thing
to-morrow morning; but just then one of those confounded night-hawks
flitted on a dead tree before us and began his `hoo-ho',
as if it was laughing at me. I can see the place now --
the mountain black and dismal, the moon low and strange-looking,
the little waterhole glittering in the half-light, and this dark bird
hooting away in the night. An odd feeling seemed to come over my mind,
and if it had been the devil himself standing on the dead limb
it could not have had a worse effect on me as I stopped there,
uncertain whether to turn to the right or the left.

We don't often know in this world sometimes whether we are turning off
along a road where we shall never come back from, or whether we can go
just a little way and look at the far-off hills and new rivers,
and come home safe.

I remember the whole lot of bad-meaning thoughts coming with a rush
over my heart, and I laughed at myself for being so soft as to choose
a hard-working, pokey kind of life at the word of a slow fellow like George,
when I might be riding about the country on a fine horse,
eating and drinking of the best, and only doing what people said
half the old settlers had made their money by.

Poor Aileen told me afterwards that if she'd thought for a moment
I could be turned she'd have gone down on her knees and never got up
till I promised to keep straight and begin to work at honest daily labour
like a man -- like a man who hoped to end his days in a good house,
on a good farm, with a good wife and nice children round him,
and not in a prison cell. Some people would call the first,
after years of honest work, and being always able to look every one
in the face, being more of a man than the other. But people have
different ways and different ideas.

`Come, Ailie,' I said, `are you going to whine and cry all night?
I shall be afraid to come home if you're going to be like this.
What's the message from father?'

She wiped away her tears, and, putting her hand on my shoulder,
looked steadily into my face.

`Poor boy -- poor, dear Dick,' she said, `I feel as if I should see
that fresh face of yours looking very different some day or other.
Something tells me that there's bad luck before you. But never mind,
you'll never lose your sister if the luck's ever so bad. Father sent word
you and Jim were to meet him at Broken Creek and bring your whips with you.'

`What in the world's that for?' I said, half speaking to myself.
`It looks as if there was a big mob to drive, and where's he to get a big mob
there in that mountainous, beastly place, where the cattle all bolt
like wallabies, and where I never saw twenty head together?'

`He's got some reason for it,' said Aileen sorrowfully. `If I were you
I wouldn't go. It's no good, and father's trying now to drag you and Jim
into the bad ways he's been following these years.'

`How do you know it's so bad?' said I. `How can a girl like you know?'

`I know very well,' she said. `Do you think I've lived here all these years
and don't know things? What makes him always come home after dark,
and be that nervous every time he sees a stranger coming up
you'd think he was come out of gaol? Why has he always got money,
and why does mother look so miserable when he's at home,
and cheer up when he goes away?'

`He may get jobs of droving or something,' I said. `You have no right
to say that he's robbing, or something of that sort, because he doesn't care
about tying himself to mother's apron-string.'

Aileen laughed, but it was more like crying.

`You told me just now,' she said -- oh! so sorrowfully --
`that you and Jim were old enough to take a line of your own.
Why don't you do it now?'

`And tell father we'll have nothing more to do with him!'

`Why not?' she said, standing up straight before me, and facing me
just as I saw father face the big bullock-driver before he knocked him down.
`Why not? You need never ask him for another meal; you can earn
an easy living in half-a-dozen ways, you and Jim. Why should you let him
spoil your life and ruin your soul for evermore?'

`The priest put that into your head,' I said sneeringly;
`Father Doyle -- of course he knows what they'll do with a fellow
after he's dead.'

`No!' she said, `Father Doyle never said a word about you
that wasn't good and kind. He says mother's a good Catholic,
and he takes an interest in you boys and me because of her.'

`He can persuade you women to do anything,' I said, not that I had
any grudge against poor old Father Doyle, who used to come riding
up the rough mountain track on his white horse, and tiring his old bones,
just `to look after his flock,' as he said -- and nice lambs
some of them were -- but I wanted to tease her and make her break off
with this fancy of hers.

`He never does, and couldn't persuade me, except for my good,' said she,
getting more and more roused, and her black eyes glowed again,
`and I'll tell you what I'll do to prove it. It's a sin,
but if it is I'll stand by it, and now I'll swear it (here she knelt down),
as Almighty God shall help me at the last day, if you and Jim
will promise me to start straight off up the country and take bush-work
till shearing comes on, and never to have any truck with cross chaps
and their ways, I'll turn Protestant. I'll go to church with you,
and keep to it till I die.'

Wasn't she a trump? I've known women that would give up a lot
for a man they were sweet on, and wives that would follow their husbands about
like spaniels, and women that would lie and deceive and all but rob and murder
for men they were fond of, and sometimes do nearly as much
to spite other women. But I don't think I ever knew a woman
that would give up her religion for any one before, and it's not
as if she wasn't staunch to her own faith. She was as regular
in her prayers and crossings and beads and all the rest of it
as mother herself, and if there ever was a good girl in the whole world
she was one. She turned faint as she said this, and I thought she was going
to drop down. If anything could have turned me then it would have been this.
It was almost like giving her life for ours, and I don't think
she'd have valued hers two straws if she could have saved us.
There's a great deal said about different kinds of love in this world,
but I can't help thinking that the love between brothers and sisters
that have been brought up together and have had very few other people
to care about is a higher, better sort than any other in the world.
There's less selfishness about it -- no thought but for the other's good.
If that can be made safe, death and pain and poverty and misery
are all little things. And wasn't I fond of Aileen, in spite of all
my hardness and cross-grained obstinacy? -- so fond that I was just going
to hug her to me and say, `Take it all your own way, Ailie dear,'
when Jim came tearing out of the hut, bareheaded, and stood listening
to a far-off sound that caught all our ears at once. We made out
the source of it too well -- far too well.

What was the noise at that hour of the night?

It was a hollow, faint, distant roaring that gradually kept getting louder.
It was the strange mournful bellowing that comes from a drove of cattle
forced along an unknown track. As we listened the sound came clearly
on the night wind, faint, yet still clearly coming nearer.

`Cattle being driven,' Jim cried out; `and a big mob too. It's father --
for a note. Let's get our horses and meet him.'

Chapter 4

`All right,' said I, `he must have got there a day before his time.
It is a big mob and no mistake. I wonder where they're taking them to.'
Aileen shrugged her shoulders and walked in to mother with a look
of misery and despair on her face such as I never saw there before.

She knew it was no use talking to me now. The idea of going out
to meet a large lot of unknown cattle had strongly excited us,
as would have been the case with every bush-bred lad. All sorts of wonders
passed through our minds as we walked down the creek bank,
with our bridles in our hands, towards where our horses usually fed.
One was easy to catch, the other with a little management was secured.
In ten minutes we were riding fast through the dark trees and fallen timber
towards the wild gullies and rock-strewed hills of Broken Creek.

It was not more than an hour when we got up to the cattle.
We could hear them a good while before we saw them. `My word,' said Jim,
`ain't they restless. They can't have come far, or they wouldn't roar so.
Where can the old man have "touched" for them?'

`How should I know?' I said roughly. I had a kind of idea,
but I thought he would never be so rash.

When we got up I could see the cattle had been rounded up in a flat with
stony ridges all round. There must have been three or four hundred of them,
only a man and a boy riding round and wheeling them every now and then.
Their horses were pretty well knocked up. I knew father at once,
and the old chestnut mare he used to ride -- an animal with legs like timbers
and a mule rump; but you couldn't tire her, and no beast that ever was calved
could get away from her. The boy was a half-caste that father
had picked up somewhere; he was as good as two men any day.

`So you've come at last,' growled father, `and a good thing too.
I didn't expect to be here till to-morrow morning. The dog came home,
I suppose -- that's what brought you here, wasn't it?
I thought the infernal cattle would beat Warrigal and me,
and we'd have all our trouble for nothing.'

`Whose cattle are they, and what are you going to do with them?'

`Never you mind; ask no questions, and you'll see all about it to-morrow.
I'll go and take a snooze now; I've had no sleep for three nights.'

With our fresh horses and riding round so we kept the cattle easily enough.
We did not tell Warrigal he might go to rest, not thinking
a half-caste brat like him wanted any. He didn't say anything,
but went to sleep on his horse, which walked in and out among the angry cattle
as he sat on the saddle with his head down on the horse's neck.
They sniffed at him once or twice, some of the old cows,
but none of them horned him; and daylight came rather quicker
than one would think.

Then we saw whose cattle they were; they had all Hunter's and Falkland's
brands on, which showed that they belonged to Banda and Elingamah stations.

`By George!' says Jim, `they're Mr. Hunter's cattle, and all these circle dots
belong to Banda. What a mob of calves! not one of them branded!
What in the world does father intend to do with them?'

Father was up, and came over where we stood with our horses in our hands
before we had time to say more. He wasn't one of those
that slept after daylight, whether he had work to do or not.
He certainly COULD work; daylight or dark, wet or dry, cold or hot,
it was all one to father. It seems a pity what he did was no use to him,
as it turned out; for he was a man, was old dad, every inch of him.

`Now, boys,' he said, quite brisk and almost good-natured for him,
`look alive and we'll start the cattle; we've been long enough here;
let 'em head up that gully, and I'll show you something
you've never seen before for as long as you've known Broken Creek Ranges.'

`But where are you going to take 'em to?' I said. `They're all
Mr. Hunter's and Mr. Falkland's; the brands are plain enough.'

`Are the calves branded, you blasted fool?' he said, while the black look
came over his face that had so often frightened me when I was a child.
`You do what I tell you if you've any pluck and gumption about you;
or else you and your brother can ride over to Dargo Police Station
and "give me away" if you like; only don't come home again, I warn you,
sons or no sons.'

If I had done what I had two minds to do -- for I wasn't afraid of him then,
savage as he looked -- told him to do his own duffing and ridden away with Jim
there and then -- poor Jim, who sat on his horse staring at both of us,
and saying nothing -- how much better it would have been for all of us,
the old man as well as ourselves; but it seemed as if it wasn't to be.
Partly from use, and partly from a love of danger and something new,
which is at the bottom of half the crime in the bush districts,
I turned my horse's head after the cattle, which were now beginning
to straggle. Jim did the same on his side. How easy is it for chaps
to take the road to hell! for that was about the size of it,
and we were soon too busy to think about much else.

The track we were driving on led along a narrow rocky gully
which looked as if it had been split up or made out of a crack in the earth
thousands of years ago by an earthquake or something of that kind.
The hills were that steep that every now and then some of the young cattle
that were not used to that sort of country would come sliding down and bellow
as if they thought they were going to break their necks.

The water rushed down it like a torrent in wet winters,
and formed a sort of creek, and the bed of it made what track there was.
There were overhanging rocks and places that made you giddy to look at,
and some of these must have fallen down and blocked up the creek
at one time or other. We had to scramble round them the best way we could.

When we got nearly up to the head of the gully -- and great work it was
to force the footsore cattle along, as we couldn't use our whips overmuch --
Jim called out --

`Why, here comes old Crib. Who'd have thought he'd have seen the track?
Well done, old man. Now we're right.'

Father never took any notice of the poor brute as he came limping
along the stones. Woman or child, horse or dog, it's the same old thing --
the more any creature loves a man in this world the worse they're treated.
It looks like it, at any rate. I saw how it was; father had given Crib
a cruel beating the night before, when he was put out for some
trifling matter, and the dog had left him and run home. But now
he had thought better of it, and seen our tracks and come to work and slave,
with his bleeding feet -- for they were cut all to pieces --
and got the whip across his back now and then for his pains.
It's a queer world!

When we got right to the top of this confounded gully, nearly dead-beat
all of us, and only for the dog heeling them up every now and then,
and making his teeth nearly meet in them, without a whimper,
I believe the cattle would have charged back and beat us.
There was a sort of rough table-land -- scrubby and stony and thick it was,
but still the grass wasn't bad in summer, when the country below
was all dried up. There were wild horses in troops there,
and a few wild cattle, so Jim and I knew the place well;
but it was too far and too much of a journey for our own horses to go often.

`Do you see that sugar-loaf hill with the bald top, across the range?'
said father, riding up just then, as we were taking it easy a little.
`Don't let the cattle straggle, and make straight for that.'

`Why, it's miles away,' said Jim, looking rather dismal.
`We could never get 'em there.'

`We're not going there, stupid,' says father; `that's only the line to keep.
I'll show you something about dinner-time that'll open your eyes a bit.'

Poor Jim brightened up at the mention of dinner-time, for, boylike,
he was getting very hungry, and as he wasn't done growing
he had no end of an appetite. I was hungry enough for the matter of that,
but I wouldn't own to it.

`Well, we shall come to somewhere, I suppose,' says Jim, when father was gone.
`Blest if I didn't think he was going to keep us wandering
in this blessed Nulla Mountain all day. I wish I'd never seen
the blessed cattle. I was only waiting for you to hook it
when we first seen the brands by daylight, and I'd ha' been off
like a brindle "Mickey" down a range.'

`Better for us if we had,' I said; `but it's too late now.
We must stick to it, I suppose.'

We had kept the cattle going for three or four miles
through the thickest of the country, every now and then steering our course
by the clear round top of Sugarloaf, that could be seen for miles round,
but never seemed to get any nearer, when we came on a rough sort of log-fence,
which ran the way we were going.

`I didn't think there were any farms up here,' I said to Jim.

`It's a "break",' he said, almost in a whisper. `There's a "duffing-yard"
somewhere handy; that's what's the matter.'

`Keep the cattle along it, anyway. We'll soon see what it leads to.'

The cattle ran along the fence, as if they expected to get
to the end of their troubles soon. The scrub was terribly thick in places,
and every now and then there was a break in the fence,
when one of us had to go outside and hunt them until we came to the next bit.
At last we came to a little open kind of flat, with the scrub
that thick round it as you couldn't hardly ride through it,
and, just as Jim said, there was the yard.

It was a `duffing-yard' sure enough. No one but people who had cattle to hide
and young stock they didn't want other people to see branded
would have made a place there.

Just on the south side of the yard, which was built of great heavy
stringy-bark trees cut down in the line of the fence, and made up
with limbs and logs, the range went up as steep as the side of a house.
The cattle were that tired and footsore -- half their feet were bleeding,
poor devils -- that they ran in through the sliprails and began to lay down.

`Light a fire, one of you boys,' says father, putting up the heavy sliprails
and fastening them. `We must brand these calves before dark. One of you
can go to that gunyah, just under the range where that big white rock is,
and you'll find tea and sugar and something to eat.'

Jim rushed off at once, while I sulkily began to put
some bark and twigs together and build a fire.

`What's the use of all this cross work?' I said to father; `we're bound
to be caught some day if we keep on at it. Then there'll be no one left
to take care of mother and Aileen.'

He looked rather struck at this, and then said quietly --

`You and your brother can go back now. Never say I kept you
against your will. You may as well lend a hand to brand these calves;
then you may clear out as soon as you like.'

Well, I didn't quite like leaving the old chap in the middle of the work
like that. I remember thinking, like many another young fool, I suppose,
that I could draw back in time, just after I'd tackled this job.

Draw back, indeed! When does a man ever get the chance of doing that,
once he's regularly gone in for any of the devil's work and wages?
He takes care there isn't much drawing back afterwards. So I said --

`We may as well give you a hand with this lot; but we'll go home then,
and drop all this duffing work. It don't pay. I'm old enough to know that,
and you'll find it out yet, I expect, father, yourself.'

`The fox lives long, and gives the hounds many a long chase
before he's run into,' he said, with a grim chuckle. `I swore I'd be
revenged on 'em all when they locked me up and sent me out here
for a paltry hare; broke my old mother's heart, so it did. I've had a pound
for every hair in her skin, and I shall go on till I die. After all,
if a man goes to work cautious and runs mute it's not so easy to catch him
in this country, at any rate.'

Jim at this came running out of the cave with a face of joy,
a bag of ship-biscuit, and a lot of other things.

`Here's tea and sugar,' he said; `and there's biscuits and jam,
and a big lump of cheese. Get the fire right, Dick, while I get some water.
We'll soon have some tea, and these biscuits are jolly.'

The tea was made, and we all had a good meal. Father found
a bottle of rum, too; he took a good drink himself, and gave Jim and me
a sip each. I felt less inclined to quarrel with father after that.
So we drafted all the calves into a small pen-yard, and began to put
our brand on them as quick as we could catch 'em.

A hundred and sixty of 'em altogether -- all ages, from a month old
to nearly a year. Fine strong calves, and in rare condition, too.
We could see they were all belonging to Mr. Hunter and Mr. Falkland.
How they came to leave them all so long unbranded I can't say.
Very careless they often are on these large cattle-stations,
so that sharp people like father and the Dalys, and a lot more,
get an easy chance at them.

Whatever father was going to do with them all when he had branded 'em,
we couldn't make out.

`There's no place to tail or wean 'em,' whispered Jim. `We're not above
thirty miles from Banda in a straight line. These cows are dead sure
to make straight back the very minute they're let out,
and very nice work it'll look with all these calves with our brand on
sucking these cows.'

Father happened to come round for a hot brand just as Jim finished.

`Never you mind about the weaning,' he snarled. `I shan't ask you
to tail them either. It wouldn't be a nice job here, would it?'
and father actually laughed. It wasn't a very gay kind of a laugh,
and he shut up his mouth with a sort of snap again.
Jim and I hadn't seen him laugh for I don't know how long,
and it almost frightened us.

As Jim said, it wouldn't do to let the cattle out again.
If calves are weaned, and have only one brand on, it is very hard for any man
to swear that they are not the property of the man to whom that brand belongs.
He may believe them to be his, but may never have seen them in his life;
and if he has seen them on a camp or on the run, it's very hard to swear
to any one particular red or spotted calf as you would to a horse.

The great dart is to keep the young stock away from their mothers
until they forget one another, and then most of the danger is past.
But if calves with one man's brand on are seen sucking another man's cows,
it is pretty plain that the brand on the calves has been put on
without the consent of the owner of the cows -- which is cattle-stealing;
a felony, according to the Act 7 and 8 George IV, No. 29,
punishable with three years' imprisonment, with hard labour
on the roads of the colony or other place, as the Judge may direct.

There's a lot of law! How did I learn it? I had plenty of time
in Berrima Gaol -- worse luck -- my first stretch. But it was
after I'd done the foolishness, and not before.

Chapter 5

`Now then, you boys!' says father, coming up all of a sudden like,
and bringing out his words as if it was old times with us,
when we didn't know whether he'd hit first and talk afterwards,
or the other way on, `get out the lot we've just branded,
and drive 'em straight for that peak, where the water shines
dripping over the stones, right again the sun, and look slippy;
we're burning daylight, and these cows are making row enough, blast 'em!
to be heard all the way to Banda. I'll go on and steady the lead;
you keep 'em close up to me.'

Father mounted the old mare. The dog stopped behind; he knew
he'd have to mind the tail -- that is the hindmost cattle -- and stop 'em
from breaking or running clear away from the others. We threw down the rails.
Away the cattle rushed out, all in a long string. You'd 'a thought
no mortal men could 'a kept 'em in that blind hole of a place.
But father headed 'em, and turned 'em towards the peak.
The dog worried those that wanted to stay by the yard or turn another way.
We dropped our whip on 'em, and kept 'em going. In five minutes
they were all a-moving along in one mob at a pretty sharpish trot
like a lot of store cattle. Father knew his way about,
whether the country was thick or open. It was all as one to him.
What a slashing stockman he would have made in new country,
if he only could have kept straight.

It took us an hour's hard dinkum to get near the peak. Sometimes it was
awful rocky, as well as scrubby, and the poor devils of cattle
got as sore-footed as babies -- blood up to the knee, some of 'em;
but we crowded 'em on; there was no help for it.

At last we rounded up on a flat, rocky, open kind of a place;
and here father held up his hand.

`Let 'em ring a bit; some of their tongues are out. These young things
is generally soft. Come here, Dick.'  I rode up, and he told me
to follow him.

We walked our horses up to the edge of the mountain and looked over.
It was like the end of the world. Far down there was a dark, dreadful drop
into a sort of deep valley below. You couldn't see the bottom of it.
The trees on the mountain side looked like bushes, and they were
big ironbarks and messmates too. On three sides of us was this awful,
desolate-looking precipice -- a dreary, gloomy, God-forsaken kind of spot.
The sky got cloudy, and the breeze turned cold and began to murmur and whistle
in an odd, unnatural kind of way, while father, seeing how scared and puzzled
I was, began to laugh. I shuddered. A thought crossed my mind
that it might be the Enemy of Souls, in his shape, going to carry us off
for doing such a piece of wickedness.

`Looks queer, doesn't it?' says father, going to the brink and kicking down
a boulder, that rolled and crashed down the steep mountain side,
tearing its way through scrub and heath till it settled down
in the glen below. `It won't do for a man's horse to slip, will it, boy?
And yet there's a track here into a fine large paddock, open and clear, too,
where I'm going to put these cattle into.'

I stared at him, without speaking, thinking was he mad.

`No! the old man isn't mad, youngster,' he said; `not yet, at least.
I'm going to show you a trick that none of you native boys are up to,
smart as you think yourselves.'  Here he got off the old mare,
and began to lead her to the edge of the mountain.

`Now, you rally the cattle well after me,' he said; `they'll follow
the old mare after a bit. I left a few cows among 'em on purpose,
and when they "draw" keep 'em going well up, but not too fast.'

He had lengthened the bridle of the mare, and tied the end
of a light tether rope that he had round her neck to it.
I saw her follow him slowly, and turn down a rocky track that seemed to lead
straight over a bluff of the precipice.

However, I gave the word to `head on'. The dog had started rounding 'em up
as soon as he saw the old mare walk towards the mountain side,
and the cattle were soon crushed up pretty close to the mare's heels.

Mind this, that they were so footsore and tender about the hoofs
that they could not have run away from us on foot if they had tried.

After `ringing' a bit, one of the quiet cows followed up the old mare
that was walking step by step forward, and all the rest followed her
like sheep. Cattle will do that. I've seen a stockrider,
when all the horses were dead beat, trying to get fat cattle
to take a river in flood, jump off and turn his horse loose into the stream.
If he went straight, and swam across, all the cattle would follow him
like sheep.

Well, when the old mare got to the bluff she turned short round to the right,
and then I saw that she had struck a narrow path down a gully
that got deeper and deeper every yard we went. There was just room
for a couple or three calves to go abreast, and by and by all of 'em
was walking down it like as if they was the beasts agoing into Noah's Ark.
It wound and wound and got deeper and deeper till the walls of rock
were ever so far above our heads. Our work was done then; the cattle
had to walk on like sheep in a race. We led our horses behind them,
and the dog walked along, saving his sore feet as well as he could,
and never tried to bite a beast once he got within the walls.
He looked quite satisfied, and kept chuckling almost to himself.
I really believe I've seen dogs laugh. Once upon a time I've read of
they'd have taken poor Crib for a familiar spirit, and hanged or burnt him.
Well, he knew a lot, and no mistake. I've seen plenty of Christians
as he could buy and sell, and no trouble to him. I'm dashed if the old mare,
too, didn't take a pleasure in working cattle on the cross.
She was the laziest old wretch bringing up the cows at home,
or running in the horses. Many a time Jim and I took a turn out of her
when father didn't know. But put her after a big mob of cattle
-- she must have known they couldn't be ours -- and she'd clatter down a range
like the wall of a house, and bite and kick the tail cattle if they didn't get
out of her way. They say dogs and horses are all honest, and it's only us
as teaches 'em to do wrong. My notion's they're a deal like ourselves,
and some of 'em fancies the square racket dull and safe, while some takes
a deal kindlier to the other. Anyhow, no cattle-duffer in the colonies
could have had a better pair of mates than old Sally and Crib,
if the devil himself had broken 'em in special for the trade.

It was child's play now, as far as the driving went. Jim and I walked along,
leading our horses and yarning away as we used to do when we were little chaps
bringing in the milkers.

`My word, Dick, dad's dropped into a fine road through
this thundering mountain, hasn't he? I wonder where it leads to?
How high the rock-walls are getting above us!' he says. `I know now.
I think I heard long ago from one of the Crosbies of a place in the ranges
down towards behind the Nulla Mountain, "Terrible Hollow".
He didn't know about it himself, but said an old stockman told him about it
when he was drunk. He said the Government men used to hide
the cattle and horses there in old times, and that it was never found out.'

`Why wasn't it found out, Jim? If the old fellow "split" about it
some one else would get to know.'

`Well, old Dan said that they killed one man that talked of telling;
the rest were too frightened after that, and they all swore a big oath
never to tell any one except he was on the cross.'

`That's how dad come to know, I suppose,' said Jim. `I wish he never had.
I don't care about those cross doings. I never did. I never seen any good
come out of them yet.'

`Well, we must go through with it now, I suppose. It won't do
to leave old dad in the lurch. You won't, will you, Jim?'

`You know very well I won't,' says Jim, very soberlike. `I don't like it
any the more for that. But I wish father had broke his leg,
and was lying up at home, with mother nursing him, before he found out
this hell-hole of a place.'

`Well, we're going to get out of it, and soon too. The gully seems
getting wider, and I can see a bit of open country through the trees.'

`Thank God for that!' says Jim. `My boots'll part company soon,
and the poor devils of calves won't have any hoofs either,
if there's much more of this.'

`They're drawing faster now. The leading cattle are beginning to run.
We're at the end of the drive.'

So it was. The deep, rocky gully gradually widened into
an open and pretty smooth flat; this, again, into a splendid little plain,
up to the knees in grass; a big natural park, closed round on every side
with sandstone rockwalls, as upright as if they were built,
and a couple of thousand feet above the place where we stood.

This scrub country was crossed by two good creeks; it was
several miles across, and a trifle more in length. Our hungry weaners
spread out and began to feed, without a notion of their mothers
they'd left behind; but they were not the only ones there.
We could see other mobs of cattle, some near, some farther off;
horses, too; and the well-worn track in several ways showed
that this was no new grazing ground.

Father came riding back quite comfortable and hearty-like for him.

`Welcome to Terrible Hollow, lads,' says he. `You're the youngest chaps
it has ever been shown to, and if I didn't know you were the right stuff,
you'd never have seen it, though you're my own flesh and blood.
Jump off, and let your horses go. They can't get away, even if they tried;
they don't look much like that.'

Our poor nags were something like the cattle, pretty hungry and stiff.
They put their heads down to the thick green grass, and went in at it
with a will.

`Bring your saddles along with you,' father said, `and come after me.
I'll show you a good camping place. You deserve a treat
after last night's work.'

We turned back towards the rocky wall, near to where we had come in,
and there, behind a bush and a big piece of sandstone that had fallen down,
was the entrance to a cave. The walls of it were quite clean
and white-looking, the floor was smooth, and the roof was pretty high,
well blackened with smoke, too, from the fires which had been lighted in it
for many a year gone by.

A kind of natural cellar had been made by scooping out the soft sandstone
behind a ledge. From this father took a bag of flour and corn-meal.
We very soon made some cakes in the pan, that tasted well, I can tell you.
Tea and sugar too, and quart pots, some bacon in a flour-bag;
and that rasher fried in the pan was the sweetest meat I ever ate
in all my born days.

Then father brought out a keg and poured some rum into a pint pot.
He took a pretty stiff pull, and then handed it to us. `A little of it
won't hurt you, boys,' he said, `after a night's work.'

I took some -- not much; we hadn't learned to drink then --
to keep down the fear of something hanging over us. A dreadful fear it is.
It makes a coward of every man who doesn't lead a square life,
let him be as game as he may.

Jim wouldn't touch it. `No,' he said, when I laughed at him,
`I promised mother last time I had more than was good for me at Dargo Races
that I wouldn't touch it again for two years; and I won't either.
I can stand what any other man can, and without the hard stuff, either.'

`Please yourself,' said father. `When you're ready we'll have a ride
through the stock.'

We finished our meal, and a first-rate one it was. A man never has
the same appetite for his meals anywhere else that he has in the bush,
specially if he has been up half the night. It's so fresh,
and the air makes him feel as if he'd ate nothing for a week.
Sitting on a log, or in the cave, as we were, I've had the best meal
I've ever tasted since I was born. Not like the close-feeling,
close-smelling, dirty-clean graveyard they call a gaol.
But it's no use beginning on that. We were young men, and free, too. Free!
By all the devils in hell, if there are devils -- and there must be
to tempt a man, or how could he be so great a fool, so blind a born idiot,
as to do anything in this world that would put his freedom in jeopardy?
And what for? For folly and nonsense. For a few pounds he could earn
with a month's honest work and be all the better man for it.
For a false woman's smile that he could buy, and ten like her,
if he only kept straight and saving. For a bit of sudden pride
or vanity or passion. A short bit of what looks like pleasure,
against months and years of weariness, and cold and heat, and dull half-death,
with maybe a dog's death at the end!

I could cry like a child when I think of it now. I have cried
many's the time and often since I have been shut up here,
and dashed my head against the stones till I pretty nigh knocked
all sense and feeling out of it, not so much in repentance, though I don't say
I feel sorry, but to think what a fool, fool, fool I'd been. Yes, fool,
three times over -- a hundred times -- to put my liberty and life
against such a miserable stake -- a stake the devil that deals the pack
is so safe to win at the end.

I may as well go on. But I can't help breaking out sometimes
when I hear the birds calling to one another as they fly over the yard,
and know it's fresh air and sun and green grass outside
that I never shall see again. Never see the river rippling under
the big drooping trees, or the cattle coming down in the twilight
to drink after the long hot day. Never, never more! And whose fault is it?
Who have I to blame? Perhaps father helped a bit; but I knew better,
and no one is half as much to blame as myself.

Where were we? Oh, at the cave-mouth, coming out with our bridles
in our hands to catch our horses. We soon did that, and then we rode away
to the other cattle. They were a queer lot, in fine condition,
but all sorts of ages and breeds, with every kind of brand and ear-mark.

Lots of the brands we didn't know, and had never heard of.
Some had no brands at all -- full-grown beasts, too;
that was a thing we had very seldom seen. Some of the best cattle
and some of the finest horses -- and there were some real plums
among the horses -- had a strange brand, JJ.

`Who does the JJ brand belong to?' I said to father.
`They're the pick of the lot, whose ever they are.'

Father looked black for a bit, and then he growled out, `Don't you ask
too many questions, lad. There's only four living men besides yourselves
knows about this place; so take care and don't act foolishly,
or you'll lose a plant that may save your life, as well as keep you in cash
for many a year to come. That brand belongs to Starlight,
and he was the only man left alive of the men that first found it and used it
to put away stock in. He wanted help, and told me five years ago.
He took in a half-caste chap, too, against my will. He helped him
with that last lot of cattle that you noticed.'

`But where did those horses come from?' Jim said. `I never hardly saw
such a lot before. All got the JJ brand on, too, and nothing else;
all about three year old.'

`They were brought here as foals,' says father, `following their mothers.
Some of them was foaled here; and, of course, as they've only the one brand on
they never can be claimed or sworn to. They're from some of Mr. Maxwell's
best thoroughbred mares, and their sire was Earl of Atheling, imported.
He was here for a year.'

`Well, they might look the real thing,' said Jim, his eyes brightening
as he gazed at them. `I'd like to have that dark bay colt with the star.
My word, what a forehand he's got; and what quarters, too. If he can't gallop
I'll never say I know a horse from a poley cow.'

`You shall have him, or as good, never fear, if you stick to your work,'
says father. `You mustn't cross Starlight, for he's a born devil
when he's taken the wrong way, though he talks so soft. The half-caste
is an out-and-out chap with cattle, and the horse doesn't stand on four legs
that he can't ride -- and make follow him, for the matter of that.
But he's worth watching. I don't believe in him myself.
And now ye have the lot.'

`And a d----d fine lot they are,' I said, for I was vexed with Jim
for taking so easy to the bait father held out to him about the horse.
`A very smart crowd to be on the roads inside of five years,
and drag us in with 'em.'

`How do you make that out?' says father. `Are you going to turn dog,
now you know the way in? Isn't it as easy to carry on for a few years more
as it was twenty years ago?'

`Not by a long chalk,' I said, for my blood was up, and I felt as if
I could talk back to father and give him as good as he sent,
and all for Jim's sake. Poor Jim! He'd always go to the mischief
for the sake of a good horse, and many another `Currency' chap
has gone the same way. It's a pity for some of 'em that a blood horse
was ever foaled.

`You think you can't be tracked,' says I, `but you must bear in mind
you haven't got to do with the old-fashioned mounted police
as was potterin' about when this "bot" was first hit on.
There's chaps in the police getting now, natives or all the same,
as can ride and track every bit as well as the half-caste
you're talking about. Some day they'll drop on the track of a mob
coming in or getting out, and then the game will be all up.'

`You can cut it if you like now,' said father, looking at me curious like.
`Don't say I dragged you in. You and your brother can go home,
and no one will ever know where you were; no more than if you'd gone
to the moon.'

Jim looked at the brown colt that just came trotting up as dad
finished speaking -- trotting up with his head high and his tail stuck out
like a circus horse. If he'd been the devil in a horsehide
he couldn't have chosen a better moment. Then his eyes began to glitter.

We all three looked at each other. No one spoke. The colt stopped,
turned, and galloped back to his mates like a red flyer with the dogs
close behind him.

It was not long. We all began to speak at once. But in that time
the die was cast, the stakes were down, and in the pool
were three men's lives.

`I don't care whether we go back or not,' says Jim; `I'll do either way
that Dick likes. But that colt I must have.'

`I never intended to go back,' I said. `But we're three d----d fools
all the same -- father and sons. It'll be the dearest horse you ever bought,
Jim, old man, and so I tell you.'

`Well, I suppose it's settled now,' says father; `so let's have no more chat.
We're like a pack of old women, blessed if we ain't.'

After that we got on more sociably. Father took us all over the place,
and a splendid paddock it was -- walled all round but where we had come in,
and a narrow gash in the far side that not one man in a thousand
could ever hit on, except he was put up to it; a wild country for miles
when you did get out -- all scrub and rock, that few people ever had call
to ride over. There was splendid grass everywhere, water, and shelter.
It was warmer, too, than the country above, as you could see
by the coats of the cattle and horses.

`If it had only been honestly come by,' Jim said, `what a jolly place
it would have been!'

Towards the north end of the paddock was a narrow gully
with great sandstone walls all round, and where it narrowed
the first discoverers had built a stockyard, partly with dry stone walls
and partly with logs and rails.

There was no trouble in getting the cattle or horses into this,
and there were all kinds of narrow yards and pens for branding the stock
if they were clearskins, and altering or `faking' the brands
if they were plain. This led into another yard, which opened into
the narrowest part of the gully. Once in this, like the one they came down,
and the cattle or horses had no chance but to walk slowly up,
one behind the other, till they got on the tableland above.
Here, of course, every kind of work that can be done to help disguise cattle
was done. Ear-marks were cut out and altered in shape,
or else the whole ear was cropped off; every letter in the alphabet
was altered by means of straight bars or half-circles, figures, crosses,
everything you could think of.

`Mr. Starlight is an edicated man,' said father. `This is all his notion;
and many a man has looked at his own beast, with the ears altered
and the brand faked, and never dreamed he ever owned it.
He's a great card is Starlight. It's a pity he ever took
to this kind of life.'

Father said this with a kind of real sorrow that made me look at him
to see if the grog had got into his head; just as if his life, mine, and Jim's
didn't matter a straw compared to this man's, whoever he was, that had had
so many better chances than we had and had chucked 'em all away.

But it's a strange thing that I don't think there's any place in the world
where men feel a more real out-and-out respect for a gentleman
than in Australia. Everybody's supposed to be free and equal now;
of course, they couldn't be in the convict days. But somehow a man
that's born and bred a gentleman will always be different from other men
to the end of the world. What's the most surprising part of it
is that men like father, who have hated the breed and suffered by them, too,
can't help having a curious liking and admiration for them.
They'll follow them like dogs, fight for them, shed their blood,
and die for them; must be some sort of a natural feeling.
Whatever it is, it's there safe enough, and nothing can knock it out of
nine-tenths of all the men and women you meet. I began to be uneasy
to see this wonderful mate of father's, who was so many things at once --
a cattle-stealer, a bush-ranger, and a gentleman.

Chapter 6

After we'd fairly settled to stay, father began to be more pleasant
than he'd ever been before. We were pretty likely, he said,
to have a visit from Starlight and the half-caste in a day or two,
if we'd like to wait. He was to meet him at the Hollow
on purpose to help him out with the mob of fat bullocks we had looked at.
Father, it appears, was coming here by himself when he met
this outlying lot of Mr. Hunter's cattle, and thought he and old Crib
could bring them in by themselves. And a mighty good haul it was.
Father said we should share the weaners between the three of us;
that meant 50 Pounds a piece at least. The devil always helps beginners.

We put through a couple of days pleasantly enough, after our
hardish bit of work. Jim found some fish-hooks and a line,
and we caught plenty of mullet and eels in the deep, clear waterholes.
We found a couple of double-barrelled guns, and shot ducks enough
to last us a week. No wonder the old frequenters of the Hollow
used to live here for a month at a time, having great times of it
as long as their grog lasted; and sometimes having the tribe of blacks
that inhabited the district to make merry and carouse with them,
like the buccaneers of the Spanish Main that I've read about, till the plunder
was all gone. There were scrawls on the wall of the first cave we had been in
that showed all the visitors had not been rude, untaught people;
and Jim picked up part of a woman's dress splashed with blood,
and in one place, among some smouldering packages and boxes,
a long lock of woman's hair, fair, bright-brown, that looked
as if the name of Terrible Hollow might not have been given
to this lonely, wonderful glen for nothing.

We spent nearly a week in this way, and were beginning to get
rather sick of the life, when father, who used always to be looking
at a bare patch in the scrub above us, said --

`They're coming at last.'

`Who are coming -- friends?'

`Why, friends, of course. That's Starlight's signal. See that smoke?
The half-caste always sends that up -- like the blacks in his mother's tribe,
I suppose.'

`Any cattle or horses with them?' said Jim.

`No, or they'd send up two smokes. They'll be here about dinner-time,
so we must get ready for them.'

We had plenty of time to get ourselves or anything else ready.
In about four hours we began to look at them through a strong spyglass
which father brought out. By and by we got sight of two men coming along
on horseback on the top of the range the other side of the far wall.
They wasn't particularly easy to see, and every now and then
we'd lose sight of 'em as they got into thick timber or behind rocks.

Father got the spyglass on to 'em at last, pretty clear,
and nearly threw it down with an oath.

`By ----!' he says, `I believe Starlight's hurt somehow.
He's so infernal rash. I can see the half-caste holding him on.
If the police are on his tracks they'll spring the plant here,
and the whole thing'll be blown.'

We saw them come to the top of the wall, as it were, then they stopped
for a long while, then all of a sudden they seemed to disappear.

`Let's go over to the other side,' says father; `they're coming
down the gully now. It's a terrible steep, rough track,
worse than the other. If Starlight's hurt bad he'll never ride down.
But he has the pluck of the devil, sure enough.'

We rode over to the other side, where there was a kind of gully
that came in, something like the one we came in by, but rougher,
and full of gibbers (boulders). There was a path, but it looked as if cattle
could never be driven or forced up it. We found afterwards that they had
an old pack bullock that they'd trained to walk up this, and down, too,
when they wanted him, and the other cattle followed in his track,
as cattle will.

Father showed us a sort of cave by the side of the track,
where one man, with a couple of guns and a pistol or two,
could have shot down a small regiment as they came down one at a time.

We stayed in there by the track, and after about half-an-hour
we heard the two horses coming down slowly, step by step,
kicking the stones down before them. Then we could hear a man groaning,
as if he couldn't bear the pain, and partly as if he was trying to smother it.
Then another man's voice, very soft and soothing like,
trying to comfort another.

`My head's a-fire, and these cursed ribs are grinding against one another
every step of this infernal ladder. Is it far now?'  How he groaned then!

`Just got the bottom; hold on a bit longer and you'll be all right.'

Just then the leading horse came out into the open before the cave.
We had a good look at him and his rider. I never forgot them.
It was a bad day I ever saw either, and many a man had cause to say the same.

The horse held up his head and snorted as he came abreast of us,
and we showed out. He was one of the grandest animals I'd ever seen,
and I afterwards found he was better than he looked. He came stepping
down that beastly rocky goat-track, he, a clean thoroughbred that ought
never to have trod upon anything rougher than a rolled training track,
or the sound bush turf. And here he was with a heavy weight on his back
-- a half-dead, fainting man, that couldn't hold the reins --
and him walking down as steady as an old mountain bull or a wallaroo
on the side of a creek bank.

I hadn't much time to look him over. I was too much taken up with the rider,
who was lying forward on his chest across a coat rolled round and strapped
in front of the saddle, and his arms round the horse's neck.
He was as pale as a ghost. His eyes -- great dark ones they were, too --
were staring out of his head. I thought he was dead, and called out
to father and Jim that he was.

They ran up, and we lifted him off after undoing some straps and a rope.
He was tied on (that was what the half-caste was waiting for
at the top of the gully). When we laid him down his head fell back,
and he looked as much like a corpse as if he had been dead a day.

Then we saw he had been wounded. There was blood on his shirt,
and the upper part of his arm was bandaged.

`It's too late, father,' said I; `he's a dead man. What pluck
he must have had to ride down there!'

`He's worth two dead 'uns yet,' said father, who had his hand on his pulse.
`Hold his head up one of you while I go for the brandy.
How did he get hit, Warrigal?'

`That ---- Sergeant Goring,' said the boy, a slight, active-looking chap,
about sixteen, that looked as if he could jump into a gum tree and back again,
and I believe he could. `Sergeant Goring, he very near grab us at Dilligah.
We got a lot of old Jobson's cattle when he came on us. He jump off his horse
when he see he couldn't catch us, and very near drop Starlight.
My word, he very nearly fall off -- just like that' (here he imitated a man
reeling in his saddle); `but the old horse stop steady with him, my word,
till he come to. Then the sergeant fire at him again; hit him in the shoulder
with his pistol. Then Starlight come to his senses, and we clear.
My word, he couldn't see the way the old horse went. Ha, ha!' --
here the young devil laughed till the trees and rocks rang again.
`Gallop different ways, too, and met at the old needle-rock.
But they was miles away then.'

Before the wild boy had come to the end of his story
the wounded man had proved that it was only a dead faint,
as the women call it, not the real thing. And after he had tasted
a pannikin full of brandy and water, which father brought him,
he sat up and looked like a living man once more.

`Better have a look at my shoulder,' he said. `That ---- fellow shot
like a prize-winner at Wimbledon. I've had a squeak for it.'

`Puts me in mind of our old poaching rows,' said father, while he carefully
cut the shirt off, that was stiffened with blood and showed where the bullet
had passed through the muscle, narrowly missing the bone of the joint.
We washed it, and relieved the wounded man by discovering
that the other bullet had only been spent, after striking a tree most like,
when it had knocked the wind out of him and nearly unhorsed him,
as Warrigal said.

`Fill my pipe, one of you. Who the devil are these lads?
Yours, I suppose, Marston, or you wouldn't be fool enough to bring them here.
Why didn't you leave them at home with their mother?
Don't you think you and I and this devil's limb enough
for this precious trade of ours?'

`They'll take their luck as it comes, like others,' growled father;
`what's good enough for me isn't too bad for them. We want
another hand or two to work things right.'

`Oh! we do, do we?' said the stranger, fixing his eyes on father
as if he was going to burn a hole in him with a burning-glass;
`but if I'd a brace of fine boys like those of my own I'd hang myself
before I'd drag them into the pit after myself.'

`That's all very fine,' said father, looking very dark and dangerous.
`Is Mr. Starlight going to turn parson? You'll be just in time,
for we'll all be shopped if you run against the police like this,
and next thing to lay them on to the Hollow by making for it
when you're too weak to ride.'

`What would you have me do? Pull up and hold up my hands?
There was nowhere else to go; and that new sergeant rode devilish well,
I can tell you, with a big chestnut well-bred horse,
that gave old Rainbow here all he knew to lose him. Now, once for all,
no more of that, Marston, and mind your own business.
I'm the superior officer in this ship's company -- you know that very well --
your business is to obey me, and take second place.'

Father growled out something, but did not offer to deny it.
We could see plainly that the stranger was or had been far above our rank,
whatever were the reasons which had led to his present kind of life.

We stayed for about ten days, while the stranger's arm got well.
With care and rest, it soon healed. He was pleasant enough, too,
when the pain went away. He had been in other countries,
and told us all kinds of stories about them.

He said nothing, though, about his own former ways, and we often wondered
whatever could have made him take to such a life. Unknown to father, too,
he gave us good advice, warned us that what we were in was the road
to imprisonment or death in due course, and not to flatter ourselves
that any other ending was possible.

`I have my own reasons for leading the life I do,' he said,
`and must run my own course, of which I foresee the end as plainly
as if it was written in a book before me. Your father had a long account
to square with society, and he has a right to settle it his own way.
That yellow whelp was never intended for anything better.
But for you lads' -- and here he looked kindly in poor old Jim's honest face
(and an honest face and heart Jim's was, and that I'll live and die on) --
`my advice to you is, to clear off home, when we go, and never
come back here again. Tell your father you won't come; cut loose from him,
once and for all. You'd better drown yourselves comfortably at once
than take to this cursed trade. Now, mind what I tell you,
and keep your own counsel.'

By and by, the day came when the horses were run in
for father and Mr. Starlight and Warrigal, who packed up to be off
for some other part.

When they were in the yard we had a good look at his own horse
-- a good look -- and if I'd been a fellow that painted pictures,
and that kind of thing, I could draw a middlin' good likeness of him now.

By George! how fond I am of a good horse -- a real well-bred clinker.
I'd never have been here if it hadn't been for that, I do believe;
and many another Currency chap can say the same -- a horse or a woman --
that's about the size of it, one or t'other generally fetches us.
I shall never put foot in stirrup again, but I'll try and scratch out
a sort of likeness of Rainbow.

He was a dark bay horse, nearly brown, without a white hair on him.
He wasn't above 15 hands and an inch high, but looked a deal bigger
than he was, for the way he held his head up and carried himself.
He was deep and thick through behind the shoulders, and girthed
ever so much more than you'd think. He had a short back,
and his ribs went out like a cask, long quarter, great thighs and hocks,
wonderful legs, and feet of course to do the work he did. His head
was plainish, but clean and bony, and his eye was big and well opened,
with no white showing. His shoulder was sloped back that much
that he couldn't fall, no matter what happened his fore legs.
All his paces were good too. I believe he could jump -- jump anything
he was ridden at, and very few horses could get the better of him
for one mile or three.

Where he'd come from, of course, we were not to know then.
He had a small private sort of brand that didn't belong
to any of the big studs; but he was never bred by a poor man.
I afterwards found out that he was stolen before he was foaled,
like many another plum, and his dam killed as soon as she had weaned him.
So, of course, no one could swear to him, and Starlight could have ridden
past the Supreme Court, at the assizes, and never been stopped,
as far as this horse was concerned.

Before we went away father and Starlight had some terrible long talks,
and one evening Jim came to me, and says he --

`What do you think they're up to now?'

`How should I know? Sticking up a bank, or boning a flock of maiden ewes
to take up a run with? They seem to be game for anything.
There'll be a hanging match in the family if us boys don't look out.'

`There's no knowing,' says Jim, with a roguish look in his eye
(I didn't think then how near the truth I was), `but it's about a horse
this time.'

`Oh! a horse; that alters the matter. But what's one horse
to make such a shine about?'

`Ah, that's the point,' says poor old Jim, `it's a horse worth talking about.
Don't you remember the imported entire that they had his picture
in the papers -- him that Mr. Windhall gave 2000 Pounds for?'

`What! the Marquis of Lorne? Why, you don't mean to say
they're going for him?'

`By George, I do!' says Jim; `and they'll have him here,
and twenty blood mares to put to him, before September.'

`They're all gone mad -- they'll raise the country on us.
Every police trooper in the colony'll be after us like a pack of dingoes after
an old man kangaroo when the ground's boggy, and they'll run us down, too;
they can't be off it. Whatever made 'em think of such a big touch as that?'

`That Starlight's the devil, I think,' said Jim slowly. `Father didn't seem
to like it at first, but he brought him round bit by bit --
said he knew a squatter in Queensland he could pass him on to;
that they'd keep him there for a year and get a crop of foals by him,
and when the "derry" was off he'd take him over himself.'

`But how's he going to nail him? People say Windhall keeps him
locked up at night, and his box is close to his house.'

`Starlight says he has a friend handy; he seems to have one or two everywhere.
It's wonderful, as father told him, where he gets information.'

`By George! it would be a touch, and no mistake. And if we could get
a few colts by him out of thoroughbred mares we might win half the races
every year on our side and no one a bit the wiser.'

It did seem a grand sort of thing -- young fools that we were --
to get hold of this wonderful stallion that we'd heard so much of,
as thoroughbred as Eclipse; good as anything England could turn out.
I say again, if it weren't for the horse-flesh part of it,
the fun and hard-riding and tracking, and all the rest of it,
there wouldn't be anything like the cross-work that there is in Australia.
It lies partly between that and the dry weather. There's the long spells
of drought when nothing can be done by young or old. Sometimes for months
you can't work in the garden, nor plough, nor sow, nor do anything useful
to keep the devil out of your heart. Only sit at home and do nothing,
or else go out and watch the grass witherin' and the water dryin' up,
and the stock dyin' by inches before your eyes. And no change, maybe,
for months. The ground like iron and the sky like brass, as the parson said,
and very true, too, last Sunday.

Then the youngsters, havin' so much idle time on their hands,
take to gaffin' and flash talk; and money must be got to sport and pay up
if they lose; and the stock all ramblin' about and mixed up,
and there's a temptation to collar somebody's calves or foals,
like we did that first red heifer. I shall remember her to my dying day.
It seems as if I had put that brand on my own heart when I jammed it down
on her soft skin. Anyhow, I never forgot it, and there's many another
like me, I'll be bound.

The next morning Jim and I started off home. Father said
he should stay in the Hollow till Starlight got round a bit.
He told us not to tell mother or Ailie a word about where we'd been.
Of course they couldn't be off knowin' that we'd been with him;
but we were to stall them off by saying we'd been helping him with
a bit of bush-work or anything we could think off. `It'll do no good,
and your mother's quite miserable enough as it is, boys,' he said.
`She'll know time enough, and maybe break her heart over it, too.
Poor Norah!'

Dashed if I ever heard father say a soft thing before.
I couldn't 'a believed it. I always thought he was ironbark outside and in.
But he seemed real sorry for once. And I was near sayin', `Why don't ye cut
the whole blessed lot, then, and come home and work steady and make us all
comfortable and happy?'  But when I looked again his face was all changed
and hard-like. `Off you go,' he says, with his old voice. `Next time
I want either of you I'll send Warrigal for you.'

And with that he walked off from the yard where we had been
catching our horses, and never looked nigh us again.

We rode away to the low end of the gully, and then we led the horses up,
foot by foot, and hard work it was -- like climbing up the roof of a house.
We were almost done when we got to the tableland at the top.

We made our way to the yard, where there were the tracks of the cows
all round about it, but nothing but the wild horses had ever been there since.

`What a scrubby hole it is!' said Jim; `I wonder how in the world
they ever found out the way to the Hollow?'

`Some runaway Government men, I believe, so that half-caste chap told me,
and a gin* showed 'em the track down, and where to get water and everything.
They lived on kangaroos at first. Then, by degrees, they used to
crawl out by moonlight and collar a horse or two or a few cattle.
They managed to live there years and years; one died,
one was killed by the blacks; the last man showed it to the chaps
that passed it on to Starlight. Warrigal's mother, or aunt or something,
was the gin that showed it to the first white men.'

--
* A black woman.
--

Chapter 7

It was pretty late that night when we got home, and poor mother and Aileen
were that glad to see us that they didn't ask too many questions.
Mother would sit and look at the pair of us for ever so long without speaking,
and then the tears would come into her eyes and she'd turn away her head.

The old place looked very snug, clean, and comfortable, too,
after all the camping-out, and it was first-rate to have our own beds again.
Then the milk and fresh butter, and the eggs and bacon -- my word!
how Jim did lay in; you'd have thought he was goin' on all night.

`By George! home's a jolly place after all,' he said. `I am going to stay
ever so long this time, and work like an old near-side poler --
see if I don't. Let's look at your hands, Aileen; my word,
you've been doin' your share.'

`Indeed, has she,' said mother. `It's a shame, so it is,
and her with two big brothers, too.'

`Poor Ailie,' said Jim, `she had to take an axe, had she,
in her pretty little hands; but she didn't cut all that wood
that's outside the door and I nearly broke my neck over, I'll go bail.'

`How do you know?' says she, smiling roguish-like. `All the world
might have been here for what you'd been the wiser -- going away
nobody knows where, and coming home at night like -- like ----'

`Bush-rangers,' says I. `Say it out; but we haven't turned out yet,
if that's what you mean, Miss Marston.'

`I don't mean anything but what's kind and loving, you naughty boy,' says she,
throwing her arms about my neck; `but why will you break our hearts,
poor mother's and mine, by going off in such a wild way and staying away,
as if you were doing something that you were ashamed of?'

`Women shouldn't ask questions,' I said roughly. `You'll know time enough,
and if you never know, perhaps it's all the better.'

Jim was alongside of mother by this time, lying down like a child
on the old native dogskin rug that we tanned ourselves with wattle bark.
She had her hand on his hair -- thick and curly it was always from a child.
She didn't say anything, but I could see the tears drip, drip down
from her face; her head was on Jim's shoulder, and by and by
he put his arms round her neck. I went off to bed, I remember,
and left them to it.

Next morning Jim and I were up at sunrise and got in the milkers,
as we always did when we were at home. Aileen was up too. She had done
all the dairying lately by herself. There were about a dozen cows to milk,
and she had managed it all herself every day that we were away;
put up the calves every afternoon, drove up the cows in the cold mornings,
made the butter, which she used to salt and put into a keg,
and feed the pigs with the skim milk. It was rather hard work for her,
but I never saw her equal for farm work -- rough or smooth.
And she used to manage to dress neat and look pretty all the time;
not like some small settlers' daughters that I have seen,
slouching about with a pair of Blucher boots on, no bonnet, a dirty frock,
and a petticoat like a blanket rag -- not bad-looking girls either --
and their hair like a dry mop. No, Aileen was always neat and tidy,
with a good pair of thick boots outside and a thin pair for the house
when she'd done her work.

She could frighten a wildish cow and bail up anything that would stay
in a yard with her. She could ride like a bird and drive bullocks on a pinch
in a dray or at plough, chop wood, too, as well as here and there a one.
But when she was in the house and regularly set down to her sewing
she'd look that quiet and steady-going you'd think she was only fit
to teach in a school or sell laces and gloves.

And so she was when she was let work in her own way,
but if she was crossed or put upon, or saw anything going wrong,
she'd hold up her head and talk as straight as any man I ever saw.
She'd a look just like father when he'd made up his mind, only her way
was always the right way. What a difference it makes, doesn't it?
And she was so handsome with it. I've seen a goodish lot of women
since I left the old place, let alone her that's helped to put me where I am,
but I don't think I ever saw a girl that was a patch on Aileen for looks.
She had a wonderful fair skin, and her eyes were large and soft
like poor mother's. When she was a little raised-like you'd see
a pink flush come on her cheeks like a peach blossom in September,
and her eyes had a bright startled look like a doe kangaroo
when she jumps up and looks round. Her teeth were as white and even
as a black gin's. The mouth was something like father's,
and when she shut it up we boys always knew she'd made up her mind,
and wasn't going to be turned from it. But her heart was that good
that she was always thinking of others and not of herself.
I believe -- I know -- she'd have died for any one she loved.
She had more sense than all the rest of us put together.
I've often thought if she'd been the oldest boy instead of me
she'd have kept Jim straight, and managed to drive father
out of his cross ways -- that is, if any one living could have done it.
As for riding, I have never seen any one that could sit a horse or handle him
through rough, thick country like her. She could ride barebacked,
or next to it, sitting sideways on nothing but a gunny-bag,
and send a young horse flying through scrub and rocks,
or down ranges where you'd think a horse could hardly keep his feet.
We could all ride a bit out of the common, if it comes to that.
Better if we'd learned nothing but how to walk behind a plough,
year in year out, like some of the folks in father's village in England,
as he used to tell us about when he was in a good humour. But that's all
as people are reared, I suppose. We'd been used to the outside of a horse
ever since we could walk almost, and it came natural to us.
Anyhow, I think Aileen was about the best of the lot of us at that,
as in everything else.

Well, for a bit all went on pretty well at home. Jim and I
worked away steady, got in a tidy bit of crop, and did everything
that lay in our way right and regular. We milked the cows in the morning,
and brought in a big stack of firewood and chopped as much as would last
for a month or two. We mended up the paddock fence, and tidied the garden.
The old place hadn't looked so smart for many a day.

When we came in at night old mother used to look that pleased and happy
we couldn't help feeling better in our hearts. Aileen used to read
something out of the paper that she thought might amuse us.
I could read pretty fair, and so could Jim; but we were both lazy at it,
and after working pretty hard all day didn't so much care about spelling out
the long words in the farming news or the stories they put in.
All the same, it would have paid us better if we'd read a little more
and put the `bullocking' on one side, at odd times. A man can learn
as much out of a book or a paper sometimes in an hour as will save his work
for a week, or put him up to working to better purpose. I can see that now --
too late, and more's the pity.

Anyhow, Aileen could read pretty near as fast as any one I ever saw,
and she used to reel it out for us, as we sat smoking over the fire,
in a way that kept us jolly and laughing till it was nearly turning-in time.
Now and then George Storefield would come and stay an hour or two.
He could read well; nearly as well as she could. Then he had
always something to show her that she'd been asking about.
His place was eight miles off, but he'd always get his horse and go home,
whatever the night was like.

`I must be at my work in the morning,' he'd say; `it's more
than half a day gone if you lose that, and I've no half-days to spare,
or quarter-days either.'

     .   .   .   .   .

So we all got on first-rate, and anybody would have thought
that there wasn't a more steady-going, hard-working, happy family
in the colony. No more there wasn't, while it lasted. After all,
what is there that's half as good as being all right and square,
working hard for the food you eat, and the sleep you enjoy,
able to look all the world in the face, and afraid of nothing and nobody!

We were so quiet and comfortable till the winter was over and the spring
coming on, till about September, that I almost began to believe
we'd never done anything in our lives we could be made to suffer for.

Now and then, of course, I used to wake up in the night,
and my thoughts would go back to `Terrible Hollow', that wonderful place;
and one night with the unbranded cattle, and Starlight,
with the blood dripping on to his horse's shoulder,
and the half-caste, with his hawk's eye and glittering teeth --
father, with his gloomy face and dark words. I wondered whether
it was all a dream; whether I and Jim had been in at all;
whether any of the `cross-work' had been found out; and, if so,
what would be done to me and Jim; most of all, though,
whether father and Starlight were away after some `big touch';
and, if so, where and what it was, and how soon we should hear of it.

As for Jim, he was one of those happy-go-lucky fellows
that didn't bother himself about anything he didn't see or run against.
I don't think it ever troubled him. It was the only bad thing
he'd ever been in. He'd been drawn in against his will,
and I think he had made up his mind -- pretty nearly --
not to go in for any more.

I have often seen Aileen talking to him, and they'd walk along in the evening
when the work was done -- he with his arm round her waist,
and she looking at him with that quiet, pleased face of hers,
seeming so proud and fond of him, as if he'd been the little chap
she used to lead about and put on the old pony, and bring into the calf-pen
when she was milking. I remember he had a fight with a little bull-calf,
about a week old, that came in with a wild heifer, and Aileen
made as much of his pluck as if it had been a mallee scrubber.
The calf baaed and butted at Jim, as even the youngest of them will,
if they've the wild blood in 'em, and nearly upset him; he was only
a bit of a toddler. But Jim picked up a loose leg of a milking-stool,
and the two went at it hammer and tongs. I could hardly stand for laughing,
till the calf gave him best and walked.

Aileen pulled him out, and carried him in to mother, telling her
that he was the bravest little chap in the world; and I remember I got scolded
for not going to help him. How these little things come back!

`I'm beginning to be afraid,' says George, one evening,
`that it's going to be a dry season.'

`There's plenty of time yet,' says Jim, who always took
the bright side of things; `it might rain towards the end of the month.'

`I was thinking the same thing,' I said. `We haven't had any rain to speak of
for a couple of months, and that bit of wheat of ours is beginning to go back.
The oats look better.'

`Now I think of it,' put in Jim, `Dick Dawson came in from outside,
and he said things are shocking bad; all the frontage bare already,
and the water drying up.'

`It's always the way,' I said, bitter-like. `As soon as a poor man's
got a chance of a decent crop, the season turns against him or prices go down,
so that he never gets a chance.'

`It's as bad for the rich man, isn't it?' said George. `It's God's will,
and we can't make or mend things by complaining.'

`I don't know so much about that,' I said sullenly. `But it's not as bad
for the rich man. Even if the squatters suffer by a drought
and lose their stock, they've more stock and money in the bank, or else credit
to fall back on; while the like of us lose all we have in the world,
and no one would lend us a pound afterwards to save our lives.'

`It's not quite so bad as that,' said George. `I shall lose my year's work
unless rain comes, and most of the cattle and horses besides;
but I shall be able to get a few pounds to go on with,
however the season goes.'

`Oh! if you like to bow and scrape to rich people, well and good,' I said;
`but that's not my way. We have as good a right to our share of the land
and some other good things as they have, and why should we be done out of it?'

`If we pay for the land as they do, certainly,' said George.

`But why should we pay? God Almighty, I suppose, made the land
and the people too, one to live on the other. Why should we pay
for what is our own? I believe in getting my share somehow.'

`That's a sort of argument that doesn't come out right,' said George.
`How would you like another man to come and want to halve the farm with you?'

`I shouldn't mind; I should go halves with some one else
who had a bigger one,' I said. `More money too, more horses, more sheep,
a bigger house! Why should he have it and not me?'

`That's a lazy man's argument, and -- well, not an honest man's,' said George,
getting up and putting on his cabbage-tree. `I can't sit and hear you
talk such rot. Nobody can work better than you and Jim, when you like.
I wonder you don't leave such talk to fellows like Frowser,
that's always spouting at the Shearers' Arms.'

`Nonsense or not, if a dry season comes and knocks all our work over,
I shall help myself to some one's stuff that has more than he knows
what to do with.'

`Why can't we all go shearing, and make as much as will keep us
for six months?' said George. `I don't know what we'd do
without the squatters.'

`Nor I either; more ways than one; but Jim and I are going shearing next week.
So perhaps there won't be any need for "duffing" after all.'

`Oh, Dick!' said Aileen, `I can't bear to hear you make a joke
of that kind of thing. Don't we all know what it leads to!
Wouldn't it be better to live on dry bread and be honest than to be
full of money and never know the day when you'd be dragged to gaol?'

`I've heard all that before; but ain't there lots of people
that have made their money by all sorts of villainy, that look as well
as the best, and never see a gaol?'

`They're always caught some day,' says poor Aileen, sobbing,
`and what a dreadful life of anxiety they must lead!'

`Not at all,' I said. `Look at Lucksly, Squeezer, and Frying-pan Jack.
Everybody knows how they got their stock and their money.
See how they live. They've got stations, and public-house and town property,
and they get richer every year. I don't think it pays to be too honest
in a dry country.'

`You're a naughty boy, Dick; isn't he, Jim?' she said, smiling through
her tears. `But he doesn't mean half what he says, does he?'

`Not he,' says Jim; `and very likely we'll have lots of rain after all.'

Chapter 8

The `big squatter', as he was called on our side of the country,
was Mr. Falkland. He was an Englishman that had come young to the colony,
and worked his way up by degrees. He had had no money when he first came,
people said; indeed, he often said so himself. He was not proud,
at any rate in that way, for he was not above telling a young fellow
that he should never be downhearted because he hadn't a coat to his back
or a shilling in his pocket, because he, Herbert Falkland,
had known what it was to be without either. `This was the best country
in the whole world,' he used to say, `for a gentleman who was poor
or a working man.'  The first sort could always make an independence
if they were moderately strong, liked work, and did not drink.
There were very few countries where idle, unsteady people got rich.
`As for the poor man, he was the real rich man in Australia;
high wages, cheap food, lodging, clothing, travelling.
What more did he want? He could save money, live happily, and die rich,
if he wasn't a fool or a rogue. Unfortunately, these last
were highly popular professions; and many people, high and low,
belonged to them here -- and everywhere else.'

We were all well up in this kind of talk, because for the last
two or three years, since we had begun to shear pretty well, we had always
shorn at his shed. He was one of those gentlemen -- and he was a gentleman,
if ever there was one -- that takes a deal of notice of his working hands,
particularly if they were young. Jim he took a great fancy to
the first moment he saw him. He didn't care so much about me.

`You're a sulky young dog, Richard Marston,' he used to say.
`I'm not sure that you'll come to any good; and though I don't like to say
all I hear about your father before you, I'm afraid he doesn't teach you
anything worth knowing. But Jim there's a grand fellow;
if he'd been caught young and weaned from all of your lot,
he'd have been an honour to the land he was born in. He's too good
for you all.'

`Every one of you gentlemen wants to be a small God Almighty,'
I said impudently. `You'd like to break us all in and put us
in yokes and bows, like a lot of working bullocks.'

`You mistake me, my boy, and all the rest of us who are worth calling men,
let alone gentlemen. We are your best friends, and would help you
in every way if you'd only let us.'

`I don't see so much of that.'

`Because you often fight against your own good. We should like to see you all
have farms of your own -- to be all well taught and able to make
the best of your lives -- not driven to drink, as many of you are,
because you have no notion of any rational amusement, and anything between
hard work and idle dissipation.'

`And suppose you had all this power,' I said -- for if I was afraid of father
there wasn't another man living that could overcrow me -- `don't you think
you'd know the way to keep all the good things for yourselves?
Hasn't it always been so?'

`I see your argument,' he said, quite quiet and reasonable,
just as if I had been a swell like himself -- that was why he was unlike
any other man I ever knew -- `and it is a perfectly fair way of putting it.
But your class might, I think, always rely upon there being enough
kindness and wisdom in ours to prevent that state of things. Unfortunately,
neither side trusts the other enough. And now the bell is going to ring,
I think.'

Jim and I stopped at Boree shed till all the sheep were cut out.
It pays well if the weather is pretty fair, and it isn't bad fun
when there's twenty or thirty chaps of the right sort in the shearers' hut;
there's always some fun going on. Shearers work pretty hard,
and as they buy their own rations generally, they can afford to live well.
After a hard day's shearing -- that is, from five o'clock in the morning
to seven at night, going best pace all the time, every man working
as hard as if he was at it for his life -- one would think a man
would be too tired to do anything. But we were mostly strong and hearty,
and at that age a man takes a deal of killing; so we used to have
a little card-playing at night to pass away the time.

Very few of the fellows had any money to spend. They couldn't get any either
until shearing was over and they were paid off; but they'd get some one
who could write to scribble a lot of I O U's, and they did as well.

We used to play `all-fours' and `loo', and now and then an American game
which some of the fellows had picked up. It was strange how soon we managed
to get into big stakes. I won at first, and then Jim and I began to lose,
and had such a lot of I O U's out that I was afraid we'd have no money
to take home after shearing. Then I began to think what a fool I'd been
to play myself and drag Jim into it, for he didn't want to play at first.

One day I got a couple of letters from home -- one from Aileen
and another in a strange hand. It had come to our little post-office,
and Aileen had sent it on to Boree.

When I opened it there were a few lines, with father's name at the bottom.
He couldn't write, so I made sure that Starlight had written it for him.
He was quite well, it said; and to look out for him about Christmas time;
he might come home then, or send for us; to stop at Boree
if we could get work, and keep a couple of horses in good trim,
as he might want us. A couple of five-pound notes fell out of the letter
as I opened it.

When I looked at them first I felt a kind of fear. I knew what they
came from. And I had a sort of feeling that we should be better without them.
However, the devil was too strong for me. Money's a tempting thing,
whether it's notes or gold, especially when a man's in debt.
I had begun to think the fellows looked a little cool on us
the last three or four nights, as our losses were growing big.

So I gave Jim his share; and after tea, when we sat down again,
there weren't more than a dozen of us that were in the card racket.
I flung down my note, and Jim did his, and told them that we owed to take
the change out of that and hand us over their paper for the balance.

They all stared, for such a thing hadn't been seen since the shearing began.
Shearers, as a rule, come from their homes in the settled districts
very bare. They are not very well supplied with clothes;
their horses are poor and done up; and they very seldom have a note
in their pockets, unless they have managed to sell a spare horse
on the journey.

So we were great men for the time, looked at by the others
with wonder and respect. We were fools enough to be pleased with it.
Strangely, too, our luck turned from that minute, and it ended in our winning
not only our own back, but more than as much more from the other men.

I don't think Mr. Falkland liked these goings on. He wouldn't
have allowed cards at all if he could have helped it. He was a man
that hated what was wrong, and didn't value his own interest a pin
when it came in the way. However, the shearing hut was our own,
in a manner of speaking, and as long as we shore clean and kept the shed going
the overseer, Mr. M`Intyre, didn't trouble his head much
about our doings in the hut. He was anxious to get done with the shearing,
to get the wool into the bales before the dust came in,
and the grass seed ripened, and the clover burrs began to fall.

`Why should ye fash yoursel',' I heard him say once to Mr. Falkland,
`aboot these young deevils like the Marstons? They're as good's ready money
in auld Nick's purse. It's bred and born and welded in them.
Ye'll just have the burrs and seeds amang the wool if ye keep losing
a smart shearer for the sake o' a wheen cards and dice;
and ye'll mak' nae heed of convairtin' thae young caterans ony mair
than ye'll change a Norroway falcon into a barn-door chuckie.'

I wonder if what he said was true -- if we couldn't help it;
if it was in our blood? It seems like it; and yet it's hard lines to think
a fellow must grow up and get on the cross in spite of himself,
and come to the gallows-foot at last, whether he likes it or not.
The parson here isn't bad at all. He's a man and a gentleman, too;
and he's talked and read to me by the hour. I suppose some of us chaps
are like the poor stupid tribes that the Israelites found in Canaan,
only meant to live for a bit and then to be rubbed out to make room
for better people.

When the shearing was nearly over we had a Saturday afternoon to ourselves.
We had finished all the sheep that were in the shed, and old M`Intyre
didn't like to begin a fresh flock. So we got on our horses and took a ride
into the township just for the fun of the thing, and for a little change.
The horses had got quite fresh with the rest and the spring grass.
Their coats were shining, and they all looked very different
from what they did when we first came. Our two were not so poor
when they came, so they looked the best of the lot, and jumped about in style
when we mounted. Ah! only to think of a good horse.

All the men washed themselves and put on clean clothes.
Then we had our dinner and about a dozen of us started off for the town.

Poor old Jim, how well he looked that day! I don't think you could pick
a young fellow anywhere in the countryside that was a patch on him
for good looks and manliness, somewhere about six foot or a little over,
as straight as a rush, with a bright blue eye that was always
laughing and twinkling, and curly dark brown hair. No wonder all the girls
used to think so much of him. He could do anything and everything
that a man could do. He was as strong as a young bull,
and as active as a rock wallaby -- and ride! Well, he sat on his horse
as if he was born on one. With his broad shoulders and upright easy seat
he was a regular picture on a good horse.

And he had a good one under him to-day; a big, brown, resolute,
well-bred horse he had got in a swap because the man that had him
was afraid of him. Now that he had got a little flesh on his bones
he looked something quite out of the common. `A deal too good for a poor man,
and him honest,' as old M`Intyre said.

But Jim turned on him pretty sharp, and said he had got the horse
in a fair deal, and had as much right to a good mount as any one else --
super or squatter, he didn't care who he was.

And Mr. Falkland took Jim's part, and rather made Mr. M`Intyre out
in the wrong for saying what he did. The old man didn't say much more,
only shook his head, saying --

`Ah, ye're a grand laddie, and buirdly, and no that thrawn, either --
like ye, Dick, ye born deevil,' looking at me. `But I misdoot sair
ye'll die wi' your boots on. There's a smack o' Johnnie Armstrong
in the glint o' yer e'e. Ye'll be to dree yer weird, there's nae help for't.'

`What's all that lingo, Mr. M`Intyre?' called out Jim,
all good-natured again. `Is it French or Queensland blacks' yabber?
Blest if I understand a word of it. But I didn't want to be nasty,
only I am regular shook on this old moke, I believe, and he's as square
as Mr. Falkland's dogcart horse.'

`Maybe ye bocht him fair eneugh. I'll no deny you. I saw the receipt mysel'.
But where did yon lang-leggit, long-lockit, Fish River moss-trooping callant
win haud o' him? Answer me that, Jeems.'

`That says nothing,' answered Jim. `I'm not supposed to trace back
every horse in the country and find out all the people that owned him
since he was a foal. He's mine now, and mine he'll be
till I get a better one.'

`A contuma-acious and stiff-necked generation,' said the old man,
walking off and shaking his head. `And yet he's a fine laddie;
a gra-and laddie wad he be with good guidance. It's the Lord's doing,
nae doot, and we daurna fault it; it's wondrous in our een.'

That was the way old Mac always talked. Droll lingo, wasn't it?

Chapter 9

Well, away we went to this township. Bundah was the name of it;
not that there was anything to do or see when we got there.
It was the regular up-country village, with a public-house, a store, a pound,
and a blacksmith's shop. However, a public-house is not such a bad place --
at any rate it's better than nothing when a fellow's young and red-hot
for anything like a bit of fun, or even a change. Some people can work away
day after day, and year after year, like a bullock in a team or a horse
in a chaff-cutting machine. It's all the better for them if they can,
though I suppose they never enjoy themselves except in a cold-blooded
sort of way. But there's other men that can't do that sort of thing,
and it's no use talking. They must have life and liberty and a free range.
There's some birds, and animals too, that either pine in a cage
or kill themselves, and I suppose it's the same way with some men.
They can't stand the cage of what's called honest labour,
which means working for some one else for twenty or thirty years,
never having a day to yourself, or doing anything you like,
and saving up a trifle for your old age when you can't enjoy it.
I don't wonder youngsters break traces and gallop off like a colt
out of a team.

Besides, sometimes there's a good-looking girl even at a bush public,
the daughter or the barmaid, and it's odd, now, what a difference that makes.
There's a few glasses of grog going, a little noisy, rattling talk,
a few smiles and a saucy answer or two from the girl,
a look at the last newspaper, or a bit of the town news from the landlord;
he's always time to read. Hang him -- I mean confound him --
for he's generally a sly old spider who sucks us fellows pretty dry,
and then don't care what becomes of us. Well, it don't amount to much,
but it's life -- the only taste of it that chaps like us are likely to get.
And people may talk as much as they like; boys, and men too, will like it,
and take to it, and hanker after it, as long as the world lasts.
There's danger in it, and misery, and death often enough comes of it,
but what of that? If a man wants a swim on the seashore he won't stand
all day on the beach because he may be drowned or snapped up by a shark,
or knocked against a rock, or tired out and drawn under by the surf.
No, if he's a man he'll jump in and enjoy himself all the more because
the waves are high and the waters deep. So it was very good fun to us,
simple as it might sound to some people. It was pleasant to be bowling along
over the firm green turf, along the plain, through the forest, gully,
and over the creek. Our horses were fresh, and we had a scurry or two,
of course; but there wasn't one that could hold a candle to Jim's brown horse.
He was a long-striding, smooth goer, but he got over the ground
in wonderful style. He could jump, too, for Jim put him over
a big log fence or two, and he sailed over them like a forester buck
over the head of a fallen wattle.

Well, we'd had our lark at the Bundah Royal Hotel, and were coming home
to tea at the station, all in good spirits, but sober enough,
when, just as we were crossing one of the roads that came through the run
-- over the `Pretty Plain', as they called it -- we heard a horse
coming along best pace. When we looked who should it be but Miss Falkland,
the owner's only daughter.

She was an only child, and the very apple of her father's eye,
you may be sure. The shearers mostly knew her by sight,
because she had taken a fancy to come down with her father a couple of times
to see the shed when we were all in full work.

A shed's not exactly the best place for a young lady to come into.
Shearers are rough in their language now and then. But every man
liked and respected Mr. Falkland, so we all put ourselves
on our best behaviour, and the two or three flash fellows
who had no sense or decent feeling were warned that if they broke out at all
they would get something to remember it by.

But when we saw that beautiful, delicate-looking creature
stepping down the boards between the two rows of shearers,
most of them stripped to their jerseys and working like steam-engines,
looking curiously and pitifully at the tired men and the patient sheep,
with her great, soft, dark eyes and fair white face like a lily,
we began to think we'd heard of angels from heaven, but never seen one before.

Just as she came opposite Jim, who was trying to shear sheep and sheep
with the `ringer' of the shed, who was next on our right,
the wether he was holding kicked, and knocking the shears out of his hand,
sent them point down against his wrist. One of the points went right in,
and though it didn't cut the sinews, as luck would have it,
the point stuck out at the other side; out spurted the blood,
and Jim was just going to let out when he looked up and saw Miss Falkland
looking at him, with her beautiful eyes so full of pity and surprise
that he could have had his hand chopped off, so he told me afterwards,
rather than vex her for a moment. So he shut up his mouth
and ground his teeth together, for it was no joke in the way of pain,
and the blood began to run like a blind creek after a thunderstorm.

`Oh! poor fellow. What a dreadful cut! Look, papa!' she cried out.
`Hadn't something better be bound round it? How it bleeds!
Does it pain much?'

`Not a bit, miss!' said Jim, standing up like a schoolboy going to say
his lesson. `That is, it doesn't matter if it don't stop my shearing.'

`Tar!' sings out my next-door neighbour. `Here, boy; tar wanted for No. 36.
That'll put it all right, Jim; it's only a scratch.'

`You mind your shearing, my man,' said Mr. Falkland quietly. `I don't know
whether Mr. M`Intyre will quite approve of that last sheep of yours.
This is rather a serious wound. The best thing is to bind it up at once.'

Before any one could say another word Miss Falkland had whipped out
her soft fine cambric handkerchief and torn it in two.

`Hold up your hand,' she said. `Now, papa, lend me yours.'  With the last
she cleared the wound of the flowing blood, and then neatly and skilfully
bound up the wrist firmly with the strips of cambric.
This she further protected by her father's handkerchief,
which she helped herself to and finally stopped the blood with.

Jim kept looking at her small white hands all the time she was doing it.
Neither of us had ever seen such before -- the dainty skin, the pink nails,
the glittering rings.

`There,' she said, `I don't think you ought to shear any more to-day;
it might bring on inflammation. I'll send to know how it gets on to-morrow.'

`No, miss; my grateful thanks, miss,' said Jim, opening his eyes
and looking as if he'd like to drop down on his knees and pray to her.
`I shall never forget your goodness, Miss Falkland, if I live
till I'm a hundred.'  Then Jim bent his head a bit -- I don't suppose
he ever made a bow in his life before -- and then drew himself up as straight
as a soldier, and Miss Falkland made a kind of bow and smile to us all
and passed out.

Jim did shear all the same that afternoon, though the tally wasn't any
great things. `I can't go and lie down in a bunk in the men's hut,' he said;
`I must chance it,' and he did. Next day it was worse and very painful,
but Jim stuck to the shears, though he used to turn white with the pain
at times, and I thought he'd faint. However, it gradually got better,
and, except a scar, Jim's hand was as good as ever.

Jim sent back Mr. Falkland's handkerchief after getting the cook
to wash it and iron it out with a bit of a broken axletree;
but the strips of white handkerchief -- one had C. F. in the corner --
he put away in his swag, and made some foolish excuse when I laughed at him
about it.

She sent down a boy from the house next day to ask how Jim's hand was,
and the day after that, but she never came to the shed any more.
So we didn't see her again.

So it was this young lady that we saw coming tearing down the back road,
as they called it, that led over the Pretty Plain. A good way behind
we saw Mr. Falkland, but he had as much chance of coming up with her
as a cattle dog of catching a `brush flyer'.

The stable boy, Billy Donnellan, had told us (of course,
like all those sort of youngsters, he was fond of getting among the men
and listening to them talk) all about Miss Falkland's new mare.

She was a great beauty and thoroughbred. The stud groom had bought her
out of a travelling mob from New England when she was dog-poor and hardly able
to drag herself along. Everybody thought she was going to be
the best lady's horse in the district; but though she was
as quiet as a lamb at first she had begun to show a nasty temper lately,
and to get very touchy. `I don't care about chestnuts myself,'
says Master Billy, smoking a short pipe as if he was thirty;
`they've a deal of temper, and she's got too much white in her eye
for my money. I'm afeard she'll do some mischief afore we've done with her;
and Miss Falkland's that game as she won't have nothing done to her.
I'd ride the tail off her but what I'd bring her to, if I had my way.'

So this was the brute that had got away with Miss Falkland,
the day we were coming back from Bundah. Some horses,
and a good many men and women, are all pretty right
as long as they're well kept under and starved a bit at odd times.
But give them an easy life and four feeds of corn a day,
and they're troublesome brutes, and mischievous too.

It seems this mare came of a strain that had turned out more devils
and killed more grooms and breakers than any other in the country.
She was a Troubadour, it seems; there never was a Troubadour yet
that wouldn't buck and bolt, and smash himself and his rider,
if he got a fright, or his temper was roused. Men and women, horses and dogs,
are very much alike. I know which can talk best. As to the rest,
I don't know whether there's so much for us to be proud of.

It seems that this cranky wretch of a mare had been sideling and fidgeting
when Mr. Falkland and his daughter started for their ride;
but had gone pretty fairly -- Miss Falkland, like my sister Aileen,
could ride anything in reason -- when suddenly a dead limb dropped off a tree
close to the side of the road.

I believe she made one wild plunge, and set to; she propped and reared,
but Miss Falkland sat her splendidly and got her head up.
When she saw she could do nothing that way, she stretched out her head
and went off as hard as she could lay legs to the ground.

She had one of those mouths that are not so bad when horses are going easy,
but get quite callous when they are over-eager and excited.
Anyhow, it was like trying to stop a mail-coach going down Mount Victoria
with the brake off.

So what we saw was the wretch of a mare coming along as if the devil
was after her, and heading straight across the plain at its narrowest part;
it wasn't more than half-a-mile wide there, in fact, it was more like a flat
than a plain. The people about Boree didn't see much open country,
so they made a lot out of what they had.

The mare, like some women when they get their monkey up,
was clean out of her senses, and I don't believe anything could have held her
under a hide rope with a turn round a stockyard post.
This was what she wanted, and if it had broken her infernal neck
so much the better.

Miss Falkland was sitting straight and square, with her hands down,
leaning a bit back, and doing her level best to stop the brute.
Her hat was off and her hair had fallen down and hung down her back --
plenty of it there was, too. The mare's neck was stretched straight out;
her mouth was like a deal board, I expect, by that time.

We didn't sit staring at her all the time, you bet. We could see the boy
ever so far off. We gathered up our reins and went after her, not in a hurry,
but just collecting ourselves a bit to see what would be the best way
to wheel the brute and stop her.

Jim's horse was far and away the fastest, and he let out to head the mare off
from a creek that was just in front and at the end of the plain.

`By George!' said one of the men -- a young fellow who lived near the place --
`the mare's turning off her course, and she's heading straight
for the Trooper's Downfall, where the policeman was killed.
If she goes over that, they'll be smashed up like a matchbox,
horse and rider.'

`What's that?' I said, closing up alongside of him. We were all doing
our best, and were just in the line to back up Jim, who looked as if
he was overhauling the mare fast.

`Why, it's a bluff a hundred feet deep -- a straight drop --
and rocks at the bottom. She's making as straight as a bee-line for it now,
blast her!'

`And Jim don't know it,' I said; `he's closing up to her,
but he doesn't calculate to do it for a quarter of a mile more;
he's letting her take it out of herself.'

`He'll never catch her in time,' said the young chap. `My God!
it's an awful thing, isn't it? and a fine young lady like her --
so kind to us chaps as she was.'

`I'll see if I can make Jim hear,' I said, for though I looked cool
I was as nearly mad as I could be to think of such a girl being lost
before our eyes. `No, I can't do that, but I'll TELEGRAPH.'

Chapter 10

Now Jim and I had had many a long talk together about what we should do
in case we wanted to signal to each other very pressing. We thought the time
might come some day when we might be near enough to sign, but not to speak.
So we hit upon one or two things a little out of the common.

The first idea was, in case of one wanting to give the other the office
that he was to look out his very brightest for danger,
and not to trust to what appeared to be the state of affairs,
the sign was to hold up your hat or cap straight over your head.
If the danger threatened on the left, to shift to that side.
If it was very pressing and on the jump, as it were, quite unexpected,
and as bad as bad could be, the signalman was to get up on the saddle
with his knees and turn half round.

We could do this easy enough and a lot of circus tricks besides.
How had we learned them? Why, in the long days we had spent in the saddle
tailing the milkers and searching after lost horses for many a night.

As luck would have it Jim looked round to see how we were getting on,
and up went my cap. I could see him turn his head and keep watching me
when I put on the whole box and dice of the telegraph business.
He `dropped', I could see. He took up the brown horse,
and made such a rush to collar the mare that showed he intended
to see for himself what the danger was. The cross-grained jade!
She was a well-bred wretch, and be hanged to her! Went as if
she wanted to win the Derby and gave Jim all he knew to challenge her.
We could see a line of timber just ahead of her, and that Jim was riding
for his life.

`By ----! they'll both be over it,' said the young shearer.
`They can't stop themselves at that pace, and they must be close up now.'

`He's neck and neck,' I said. `Stick to her, Jim, old man!'

We were all close together now. Several of the men knew the place,
and the word had been passed round.

No one spoke for a few seconds. We saw the two horses rush up at top speed
to the very edge of the timber.

`By Jove! they're over. No! he's reaching for her rein. It's no use.
Now -- now! She's saved! Oh, my God! they're both right. By the Lord,
well done! Hurrah! One cheer more for Jim Marston!'

     .   .   .   .   .

It was all right. We saw Jim suddenly reach over as the horses were going
stride and stride; saw him lift Miss Falkland from her saddle
as if she had been a child and place her before him; saw the brown horse prop,
and swing round on his haunches in a way that showed he had not been called
the crack `cutting-out' horse on a big cattle run for nothing.
We saw Jim jump to the ground and lift the young lady down.
We saw only one horse.

Three minutes after Mr. Falkland overtook us, and we rode up together.
His face was white, and his dry lips couldn't find words at first.
But he managed to say to Jim, when we got up --

`You have saved my child's life, James Marston, and if I forget the service
may God in that hour forget me. You are a noble fellow. You must allow me
to show my gratitude in some way.'

`You needn't thank me so out and out as all that, Mr. Falkland,' said Jim,
standing up very straight and looking at the father first,
and then at Miss Falkland, who was pale and trembling,
not altogether from fear, but excitement, and trying to choke back the sobs
that would come out now and then. `I'd risk life and limb any day
before Miss Falkland's finger should be scratched, let alone see her killed
before my eyes. I wonder if there's anything left of the mare, poor thing;
not that she don't deserve it all, and more.'

Here we all walked forward to the deep creek bank. A yard or two farther
and the brown horse and his burden must have gone over the terrible drop,
as straight as a plumb-line, on to the awful rocks below.
We could see where the brown had torn up the turf as he struck all four hoofs
deep into it at once. Indeed, he had been newly shod, a freak of Jim's
about a bet with a travelling blacksmith. Then the other tracks,
the long score on the brink -- over the brink -- where the frightened,
maddened animal had made an attempt to alter her speed, all in vain,
and had plunged over the bank and the hundred feet of fall.

We peered over, and saw a bright-coloured mass among the rocks below --
very still. Just at the time one of the ration-carriers came by
with a spring cart. Mr. Falkland lifted his daughter in and took the reins,
leaving his horse to be ridden home by the ration-carrier.
As for us we rode back to the shearers' hut, not quite so fast as we came,
with Jim in the middle. He did not seem inclined to talk much.

`It's lucky I turned round when I did, Dick,' he said at last,
`and saw you making the "danger-look-out-sharp" signal. I couldn't think
what the dickens it was. I was so cocksure of catching the mare
in half-a-mile farther that I couldn't help wondering what it was all about.
Anyhow, I knew we agreed it was never to be worked for nothing,
so thought the best thing I could do was to call in the mare,
and see if I could find out anything then. When I got alongside, I could see
that Miss Falkland's face was that white that something must be up.
It weren't the mare she was afraid of. She was coming back to her.
It took something to frighten her, I knew. So it must be something
I did not know, or didn't see.

`"What is it, Miss Falkland?" I said.

`"Oh!" she cried out, "don't you know? Another fifty yards and we'll be over
the downfall where the trooper was killed. Oh, my poor father!"

`"Don't be afraid," I said. "We'll not go over if I can help it."

`So I reached over and got hold of the reins. I pulled and jerked.
She said her hands were cramped, and no wonder. Pulling double
for a four-mile heat is no joke, even if a man's in training.
Fancy a woman, a young girl, having to sit still and drag at a runaway horse
all the time. I couldn't stop the brute; she was boring like a wild bull.
So just as we came pretty close I lifted Miss Falkland off the saddle
and yelled at old Brownie as if I had been on a cattle camp, swinging round
to the near side at the same time. Round he came like one o'clock.
I could see the mare make one prop to stop herself, and then go flying
right through the air, till I heard a beastly "thud" at the bottom.

`Miss Falkland didn't faint, though she turned white and then red,
and trembled like a leaf when I lifted her down, and looked up at me
with a sweet smile, and said --

`"Jim, you have paid me for binding up your wrist, haven't you?
You have saved me from a horrible death, and I shall think of you
as a brave and noble fellow all the days of my life."

`What could I say?' said Jim. `I stared at her like a fool.
"I'd have gone over the bank with you, Miss Falkland," I said,
"if I could not have saved you."

`"Well, I'm afraid some of my admirers would have stopped short of that,
James," she said. She did indeed. And then Mr. Falkland and all of you
came up.'

`I say, Jim,' said one of the young fellows, `your fortune's made.
Mr. Falkland 'll stand a farm, you may be sure, for this little fakement.'

`And I say, Jack,' says old Jim, very quiet like, `I've told you all the yarn,
and if there's any chaff about it after this the cove will have to see
whether he's best man or me; so don't make any mistake now.'

There was no more chaff. They weren't afraid. There were
two or three of them pretty smart with their hands, and not likely
to take much from anybody. But Jim was a heavy weight
and could hit like a horse kicking; so they thought it wasn't good enough,
and left him alone.

Next day Mr. Falkland came down and wanted to give Jim a cheque for a hundred;
but he wouldn't hear of so much as a note. Then he said he'd give him
a billet on the run -- make him under overseer; after a bit
buy a farm for him and stock it. No! Jim wouldn't touch nothing
or take a billet on the place. He wouldn't leave his family, he said.
And as for taking money or anything else for saving Miss Falkland's life,
it was ridiculous to think of it. There wasn't a man of the lot in the shed,
down to the tarboy, that wouldn't have done the same, or tried to.
All that was in it was that his horse was the fastest.

`It's not a bad thing for a poor man to have a fast horse now and then,
is it, Mr. Falkland?' he said, looking up and smiling, just like a boy.
He was very shy, was poor Jim.

`I don't grudge a poor man a good horse or anything else he likes
to have or enjoy. You know that, all of you. It's the fear I have
of the effect of the dishonest way that horses of value are come by,
and the net of roguery that often entangles fine young fellows
like you and your brother; that's what I fear,' said Mr. Falkland,
looking at the pair of us so kind and pitiful like.

I looked him in the face, though I felt I could not say he was wrong.
I felt, too, just then, as if I could have given all the world
to be afraid of no man's opinion.

What a thing it is to be perfectly honest and straight --
to be able to look the whole world in the face!

But if more gentlemen were like Mr. Falkland I do really believe
no one would rob them for very shame's sake. When shearing was over we were
all paid up -- shearers, washers, knock-about men, cooks, and extra shepherds.
Every soul about the place except Mr. M`Intyre and Mr. Falkland
seemed to have got a cheque and a walking-ticket at the same time.
Away they went, like a lot of boys out of school; and half of 'em
didn't show as much sense either. As for me and Jim we had no particular wish
to go home before Christmas. So as there's always contracts to be let
about a big run like Banda we took a contract for some bush work,
and went at it. Mr. M`Intyre looked quite surprised. But Mr. Falkland
praised us up, and was proud we were going to turn over a new leaf.

Nobody could say at that time we didn't work. Fencing, dam-making,
horse-breaking, stock-riding, from making hay to building a shed, all bushwork
came easy enough to us, Jim in particular; he took a pleasure in it,
and was never happier than when he'd had a real tearing day's work
and was settling himself after his tea to a good steady smoke.
A great smoker he'd come to be. He never was much for drinking
except now and again, and then he could knock it off as easy as any man
I ever seen. Poor old Jim! He was born good and intended to be so,
like mother. Like her, his luck was dead out in being mixed up
with a lot like ours.

One day we were out at the back making some lambing yards. We were
about twenty miles from the head station and had about finished the job.
We were going in the next day. We had been camping in an old shepherd's hut
and had been pretty jolly all by ourselves. There was first-rate feed
for our horses, as the grass was being saved for the lambing season.
Jim was in fine spirits, and as we had plenty of good rations
and first-rate tobacco we made ourselves pretty comfortable.

`What a jolly thing it is to have nothing on your mind!' Jim used to say.
`I hadn't once, and what a fine time it was! Now I'm always waking up
with a start and expecting to see a policeman or that infernal half-caste.
He's never far off when there's villainy on. Some fine day he'll sell us all,
I really do believe.'

`If he don't somebody else will; but why do you pitch upon him?
You don't like him somehow; I don't see that he's worse than any other.
Besides, we haven't done anything much to have a reward put on us.'

`No! that's to come,' answered Jim, very dismally for him.
`I don't see what else is to come of it. Hist! isn't that a horse's step
coming this way? Yes, and a man on him, too.'

It was a bright night, though only the stars were out; but the weather
was that clear that you could see ever so well and hear ever so far also.
Jim had a blackfellow's hearing; his eyes were like a hawk's;
he could see in about any light, and read tracks like a printed book.

I could hear nothing at first; then I heard a slight noise a good way off,
and a stick breaking every now and then.

`Talk of the devil!' growled Jim, `and here he comes.
I believe that's Master Warrigal, infernal scoundrel that he is.
Of course he's got a message from our respectable old dad or Starlight,
asking us to put our heads in a noose for them again.'

`How do you know?'

`I know it's that ambling horse he used to ride,' says Jim.
`I can make out his sideling kind of way of using his legs.
All amblers do that.'

`You're right,' I said, after listening for a minute. `I can hear
the regular pace, different from a horse's walk.'

`How does he know we're here, I wonder?' says Jim.

`Some of the telegraphs piped us, I suppose,' I answered. `I begin to wish
they forgot us altogether.'

`No such luck,' says Jim. `Let's keep dark and see what
this black snake of a Warrigal will be up to. I don't expect he'll ride
straight up to the door.'

He was right. The horse hoofs stopped just inside a thick bit of scrub,
just outside the open ground on which the hut stood. After a few seconds
we heard the cry of the mopoke. It's not a cheerful sound
at the dead of night, and now, for some reason or other,
it affected Jim and me in much the same manner. I remembered the last time
I had heard the bird at home, just before we started over for Terrible Hollow,
and it seemed unlucky. Perhaps we were both a little nervous; we hadn't
drunk anything but tea for weeks. We drank it awfully black and strong,
and a great lot of it.

Anyhow, as we heard the quick light tread of the horse pacing in
his two-feet-on-one-side way over the sandy, thin-grassed soil, every moment
coming nearer and nearer, and this queer dismal-voiced bird hooting
its hoarse deep notes out of the dark tree that swished and sighed-like
in front of the sandhill, a queer feeling came over both of us
that something unlucky was on the boards for us. We felt quite relieved
when the horse's footsteps stopped. After a minute or so we could see
a dark form creeping towards the hut.

Chapter 11

Warrigal left his horse at the edge of the timber, for fear he might want him
in a hurry, I suppose. He was pretty `fly', and never threw away a chance
as long as he was sober. He could drink a bit, like the rest of us,
now and then -- not often -- but when he did it made a regular devil of him --
that is, it brought the devil out that lives low down in most people's hearts.
He was a worse one than usual, Jim said. He saw him once
in one of his break-outs, and heard him boast of something he'd done.
Jim never liked him afterwards. For the matter of that
he hated Jim and me too. The only living things he cared about
were Starlight and the three-cornered weed he rode, that had been a `brumbee',
and wouldn't let any one touch him, much less ride him, but himself.
How he used to snort if a stranger came near him! He could kick the eye
out of a mosquito, and bite too, if he got the chance.

As for Warrigal, Starlight used to knock him down like a log
if he didn't please him, but he never offered to turn upon him.
He seemed to like it, and looked regular put out once
when Starlight hurt his knuckles against his hard skull.

Us he didn't like, as I said before -- why, I don't know -- nor we him.
Likes and dislikes are curious things. People hardly know the rights of them.
But if you take a regular strong down upon a man or woman
when you first see 'em it's ten to one that you'll find some day
as you've good reason for it. We couldn't say what grounds we had
for hating the sight of Warrigal neither, for he was as good a tracker
as ever followed man or beasts. He could read all the signs of the bush
like a printed book. He could ride any horse in the world, and find his way,
day or night, to any place he'd ever once been to in his life.

Sometimes we should have been hard pushed when we were making
across country at night only for him. Hour after hour
he'd ride ahead through scrub or forest, up hill or down dale,
with that brute of a horse of his -- he called him `Bilbah' -- ambling away,
till our horses, except Rainbow, used to shake the lives out of us jogging.
I believe he did it on purpose.

He was a fine shot, and could catch fish and game in all sorts of ways
that came in handy when we had to keep dark. He had pluck enough, and could
fight a pretty sharp battle with his fists if he wasn't overweighted.
There were white men that didn't at all find him a good thing
if they went to bully him. He tried it on with Jim once, but he knocked
the seven senses out of him inside of three rounds, and that satisfied him.
He pretended to make up, but I was always expecting him
to play us some dog's trick yet. Anyway, so far he was all right,
and as long as Starlight and us were mixed up together, he couldn't hurt one
without the other. He came gliding up to the old hut in the dull light
by bits of moves, just as if he'd been a bush that had changed its place.
We pretended to be asleep near the fire.

He peeped in through a chink. He could see us by the firelight,
and didn't suppose we were watching him.

`Hullo, Warrigal!' sung out Jim suddenly, `what's up now?
Some devil's work, I suppose, or you wouldn't be in it.
Why don't you knock at a gentleman's door when you come a visiting?'

`Wasn't sure it was you,' he answered, showing his teeth;
`it don't do to get sold. Might been troopers, for all I know.'

`Pity we wasn't,' said Jim; `I'd have the hobbles on you by this time,
and you'd have got "fitted" to rights. I wish I'd gone
into the police sometimes. It isn't a bad game for a chap
that can ride and track, and likes a bit of rough-and-tumble now and then.'

`If I'd been a police tracker I'd have had as good a chance of nailing you,
Jim Marston,' spoke up Warrigal. `Perhaps I will some day.
Mr. Garton wanted me bad once, and said they'd never go agin me for old times.
But that says nothin'. Starlight's out at the back and the old man, too.
They want you to go to them -- sharp.'

`What for?'

`Dunno. I was to tell you, and show the camp; and now gimme some grub,
for I've had nothing since sunrise but the leg of a 'possum.'

`All right,' said Jim, putting the billy on; `here's some damper and mutton
to go on with while the tea warms.'

`Wait till I hobble out Bilbah; he's as hungry as I am, and thirsty too,
my word.'

`Take some out of the barrel; we shan't want it to-morrow,' said Jim.

Hungry as Warrigal was -- and when he began to eat I thought
he never would stop -- he went and looked after his horse first,
and got him a couple of buckets of water out of the cask
they used to send us out every week. There was no surface water near the hut.
Then he hobbled him out of a bit of old sheep-yard, and came in.

The more I know of men the more I see what curious lumps of good and bad
they're made up of. People that won't stick at anything in some ways
will be that soft and good-feeling in others -- ten times more so
than your regular good people. Any one that thinks all mankind's divided
into good, bad, and middlin', and that they can draft 'em like a lot of cattle
-- some to one yard, some to another -- don't know much.
There's a mob in most towns though, I think, that wants boilin' down bad.
Some day they'll do it, maybe; they'll have to when all the good country's
stocked up. After Warrigal had his supper he went out again to see his horse,
and then coiled himself up before the fire and wouldn't hardly say
another word.

`How far was it to where Starlight was?'

`Long way. Took me all day to come.'

`Had he been there long?'

`Yes; had a camp there.'

`Anybody else with him?'

`Three more men from this side.'

`Did the old man say we were to come at once?'

`Yes, or leave it alone -- which you liked.'

Then he shut his eyes, and his mouth too, and was soon as fast asleep
as if he never intended to wake under a week.

`What shall we do, Jim?' I said; `go or not?'

`If you leave it to me,' says Jim, `I say, don't go. It's only some other
cross cattle or horse racket. We're bound to be nobbled some day.
Why not cut it now, and stick to the square thing? We couldn't do better
than we're doing now. It's rather slow, but we'll have a good cheque
by Christmas.'

`I'm half a mind to tell Warrigal to go back and say we're not on,' I said.
`Lots of other chaps would join without making any bones about it.'

`Hoo -- hoo -- hoo -- hoo,' sounded once more the night-bird
from the black tree outside.

`D---- the bird! I believe he's the devil in the shape of a mopoke!
And yet I don't like Starlight to think we're afraid. He and the old man
might be in a fix and want help. Suppose we toss up?'

`All right,' says Jim, speaking rather slowly.

You couldn't tell from his face or voice how he felt about it;
but I believe now -- more than that, he let on once to me --
that he was awfully cut up about my changing, and thought we were just in
for a spell of straightforward work, and would stash the other thing
for good and all.

We put the fire together. It burnt up bright for a bit.
I pulled out a shilling.

`If it's head we go, Jim; if it's woman, we stay here.'

I sent up the coin; we both bent over near the fire to look at it.

The head was uppermost.

`Hoo -- hoo -- hoo -- hoo,' came the night-bird's harsh croak.

There was a heavyish stake on that throw, if we'd only known.
Only ruin -- only death. Four men's lives lost, and three women
made miserable for life.

Jim and I looked at one another. He smiled and opened the door.

`It's all the fault of that cursed owl, I believe,' he said;
`I'll have his life if he waits till it's daylight.
We must be off early and get up our horses. I know what a long day
for Warrigal and that ambling three-cornered devil of his means --
seventy or eighty miles, if it's a yard.'

We slept sound enough till daybreak, and COULD SLEEP then,
whatever was on the card. As for Jim, he slept like a baby always
once he turned in. When I woke I got up at once. It was half dark;
there was a little light in the east. But Warrigal had been out before me,
and was leading his horse up to the hut with the hobbles in his hand.

Our horses were not far off; one of them had a bell on.
Jim had his old brown, and I had a chestnut that I thought nearly as good.
We weren't likely to have anything to ride that wasn't
middlin' fast and plucky. Them that overhauled us would have to ride for it.
We saddled up and took our blankets and what few things
we couldn't do without. The rest stopped in the hut for any one
that came after us. We left our wages, too, and never asked for 'em
from that day to this. A trifle like that didn't matter
after what we were going in for. More's the pity.

As we moved off my horse propped once or twice, and Warrigal looked at us
in a queer side sort of way and showed his teeth a bit -- smile nor laugh
it wasn't, only a way he had when he thought he knew more than we did.

`My word! your horse's been where the feed's good. We're goin'
a good way to-day. I wonder if they'll be as flash as they are now.'

`They'll carry us wherever that three-cornered mule of yours
will shuffle to to-night,' said Jim. `Never you mind about them.
You ride straight, and don't get up to any monkey tricks, or, by George,
I'll straighten you, so as you'll know better next time.'

`You know a lot, Jim Marston,' said the half-caste, looking at him
with his long dark sleepy eyes which I always thought were like
a half-roused snake's. `Never mind, you'll know more one of these days.
We'd better push on.'

He went off at a hand-gallop, and then pulled back into a long darting
kind of canter, which Bilbah thought was quite the thing for a journey
-- anyhow, he never seemed to think of stopping it -- went on mile after mile
as if he was not going to pull up this side of sundown. A wiry brute,
always in condition, was this said Bilbah, and just at this time
as hard as nails. Our horses had been doing nothing lately,
and being on good young feed had, of course, got fat, and were rather soft.

After four or five miles they began to blow. We couldn't well pull up;
the ground was hard in places and bad for tracking. If we went on at the pace
we should cook our horses. As soon as we got into a bit of open
I raced up to him.

`Now, look here, Warrigal,' I said, `you know why you're doing this,
and so do I. Our horses are not up to galloping fifty or sixty miles on end
just off a spell and with no work for months. If you don't pull up
and go our pace I'll knock you off your horse.'

`Oh! you're riled!' he said, looking as impudent as he dared,
but slackening all the same. `Pulled up before if I knowed your horses
were getting baked. Thought they were up to anything, same as you and Jim.'

`So they are. You'll find that one of these days. If there's work ahead
you ought to have sense enough not to knock smoke out of fresh horses
before we begin.'

`All right. Plenty of work to do, my word. And Starlight said,
"Tell 'em to be here to-day if they can."  I know he's afraid of some one
follerin' up our tracks, as it is.'

`That's all right, Warrigal; but you ride steady all the same,
and don't be tearing away through thick timber, like a mallee scrubber
that's got into the open and sees the devil behind him
until he can get cover again. We shall be there to-night
if it's not a hundred miles, and that's time enough.'

We did drop in for a long day, and no mistake. We only pulled up
for a short halt in the middle, and Warrigal's cast-iron pony was off again,
as if he was bound right away for the other side of the continent. However,
though we were not going slow either, but kept up a reasonable fast pace,
it must have been past midnight when we rode into Starlight's camp;
very glad Jim and I were to see the fire -- not a big one either.
We had been taking it pretty easy, you see, for a month or two,
and were not quite so ready for an eighty-mile ride as if we had been
in something like training. The horses had had enough of it, too,
though neither of them would give in, not if we'd ridden 'em
twenty mile farther. As for Warrigal's Bilbah he was near as fresh
as when he started, and kept tossin' his head an' amblin' and pacin' away
as if he was walkin' for a wager round a ring in a show-yard.

As we rode up we could see a gunyah made out of boughs,
and a longish wing of dogleg fence, made light but well put together.
As soon as we got near enough a dog ran out and looked as if he was going
to worry us; didn't bark either, but turned round and waited for us
to get off.

`It's old Crib,' said Jim, with a big laugh; `blest if it ain't.
Father's somewhere handy. They're going to take up a back block
and do the thing regular: Marston, Starlight, and Company --
that's the fakement. They want us out to make dams or put up
a woolshed or something. I don't see why they shouldn't, as well as
Crossman and Fakesley. It's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other,
as far as being on the square goes. Depend upon it, dad's turned over
a new leaf.'

`Do you fellows want anything to eat?' said a voice that I knew
to be Starlight's. `If you do there's tea near the fire,
and some grub in that flour bag. Help yourselves and hobble out your horses.
We'll settle matters a bit in the morning. Your respected parent's abed
in his own camp, and it's just as well not to wake him, unless you want
his blessing ere you sleep.'

We went with Starlight to his gunyah. A path led through a clump of pines,
so thick that a man might ride round it and never dream there was anything
but more pines inside. A clear place had been made in the sandhill,
and a snug crib enough rigged with saplings and a few sheets of bark.
It was neat and tidy, like everything he had to do with. `I was at sea
when I was young,' he once said to Jim, when he was a bit `on',
`and a man learns to be neat there.'  There was a big chimney outside,
and a lot of leaves and rushes out of a swamp which he
had made Warrigal gather.

`Put your blankets down there, boys, and turn in. You'll see
how the land lies in the morning.'  We didn't want asking twice,
Jim's eyes were nigh shut as it was. The sun was up when we woke.

Outside the first thing we saw was father and Starlight talking.
Both of these seemed a bit cranky. `It's a d---- shame,'
we heard Starlight say, as he turned and walked off. `We could have done it
well enough by ourselves.'

`I know what I'm about,' says father, `it's all or none.
What's the use of crying after being in it up to our neck?'

`Some day you'll think different,' says Starlight, looking back at him.

I often remembered it afterwards.

`Well, lads,' says father, looking straight at us, `I wasn't sure
as you'd come. Starlight has been barneying with me about sending for you.
But we've got a big thing on now, and I thought you'd like to be in it.'

`We have come,' says I, pretty short. `Now we're here
what's the play called, and when does the curtain rise? We're on.'
I was riled, vexed at Starlight talking as if we were children,
and thought I'd show as we were men, like a young fool as I was.

`All right,' says father, and he sat down on a log, and began to tell us
how there was any quantity of cattle running at the back
where they were camped -- a good lot strayed and mixed up,
from the last dry season, and had never been mustered for years.
The stockmen hardly ever came out till the autumn musters.
One of the chaps that was in it knew all this side and had told them.
They were going to muster for a month or so, and drive the mob
right through to Adelaide. Store cattle were dear then,
and we could get them off easy there and come back by sea. No one was to know
we were not regular overlanders; and when we'd got the notes in our pockets
it would be a hard matter to trace the cattle or prove that we were the men
that sold 'em.

`How many head do you expect to get?' says Jim.

`A thousand or twelve hundred; half of 'em fat, and two-thirds of them
young cattle.'

`By George! that's something like a haul; but you can't muster
such a lot as that without a yard.'

`I know that,' says father. `We're putting up a yard on a little plain
about a mile from here. When they find it, it'll be an old nest,
and the birds flown.'

`Well, if that ain't the cheekiest thing I ever heard tell of,'
says I laughingly. `To put up a yard at the back of a man's run,
and muster his cattle for him! I never heard the like before,
nor any one else. But suppose the cove or his men come across it?'

`'Tain't no ways likely,' says father. `They're the sleepiest lot of chaps
in this frontage I ever saw. It's hardly worth while "touching" them.
There's no fun in it. It's like shooting pheasants when they ain't preserved.
There's no risk, and when there's no risk there's no pleasure.
Anyway that's my notion.'

`Talking about risks, why didn't you work that Marquis of Lorne racket better?
We saw in the papers that the troopers hunted you so close you had to kill him
in the ranges.'

Father looked over at us and then began to laugh -- not long,
and he broke off short. Laughing wasn't much in his line.

`Killed him, did we? And a horse worth nigh on to two thousand pounds.
You ought to have known your old father better than that.
We did kill A chestnut horse, one we picked out a purpose;
white legs, white knee, short under lip, everything quite regular.
We even fed him for a week on prairie grass, just like the Marquis
had been eating. Bless you, we knew how to work all that.
We deceived Windhall his own self, and he thinks he's pretty smart.
No! the Marquis is all safe -- you know where.'

I opened my eyes and stared at father.

`You've some call to crow if you can work things like that.
How you ever got him away beats me; but not more than how you managed
to keep him hid with a ring of troopers all round you
from every side of the district.'

`We had friends,' father said. `Me and Warrigal done all the travelling
by night. No one but him could have gone afoot, I believe, much less
led a blood horse through the beastly scrub and ranges he showed us.
But the devil himself could not beat him and that little brute Bilbah
in rough country.'

`I believe you,' I said, thinking of our ride yesterday.
`It's quite bad enough to follow him on level ground. But don't you think
our tracks will be easy to follow with a thousand head of cattle before us?
Any fool could do that.'

`It ain't that as I'm looking at,' said father; `of course an old woman
could do it, and knit stockings all the time; but our dart is to be off
and have a month's start before anybody knows they are off the run.
They won't think of mustering before fat cattle takes a bit of a turn.
That won't be for a couple of months yet. Then they may catch us
if they can.'

We had a long talk with Starlight, and what he said came to much the same.
One stockman they had `squared', and he was to stand in.
They had got two or three flash chaps to help muster and drive,
who were to swear they thought we were dealers, and had bought cattle
all right. One or two more were to meet us farther on.
If we could get the cattle together and clear off before
anything was suspected the rest was easy. The yard was nearly up,
and Jim and I wired in and soon finished it. It didn't want
very grand work putting into it as long as it would last our time.
So we put it up roughly, but pretty strong, with pine saplings.
The drawing in was the worst, for we had to `hump' the most of them ourselves.
Jim couldn't help bursting out laughing from time to time.

`It does seem such a jolly cheeky thing,' he said. `Driving off
a mob of cattle on the quiet I've known happen once or twice; but I'm dashed
if ever I heard tell of putting up duffing improvements of a superior class
on a cove's run and clearing off with a thousand drafted cattle,
all quiet and regular, and him pottering about his home-station
and never "dropping" to it no more than if he was in Sydney.'

`People ought to look after their stock closer than they do,' I said.
`It is their fault almost as much as ours. But they are too lazy
to look after their own work, and too miserable to pay a good man
to do it for them. They just get a half-and-half sort of fellow
that'll take low wages and make it up with duffing, and of course
he's not likely to look very sharp after the back country.'

`You're not far away,' says Jim; `but don't you think
they'd have to look precious sharp and get up very early in the morning
to be level with chaps like father and Starlight, let alone Warrigal,
who's as good by night as day? Then there's you and me.
Don't try and make us out better than we are, Dick;
we're all d---- scoundrels, that's the truth of it, and honest men
haven't a chance with us, except in the long run -- except in the long run.
That's where they'll have us, Dick Marston.'

`That's quite a long speech for you, Jim,' I said; `but it don't matter much
that I know of whose fault it is that we're in this duffing racket.
It seems to be our fate, as the chap says in the book.
We'll have a jolly spree in Adelaide if this journey comes out right.
And now let's finish this evening off. To-morrow they're going to yard
the first mob.'

After that we didn't talk much except about the work. Starlight and Warrigal
were out every day and all day. The three new hands were some chaps
who formed part of a gang that did most of the horse-stealing
in that neighbourhood, though they never showed up. The way they managed it
was this. They picked up any good-looking nag or second-class racehorse
that they fell across, and took them to a certain place. There they met
another lot of fellows, who took the horses from them and cleared out
to another colony; at the same time they left the horses they had brought.
So each lot travelled different ways, and were sold in places
where they were quite strange and no one was likely to claim them.

After a man had had a year or two at this kind of work, he was good,
or rather bad, for anything. These young chaps, like us, had done pretty well
at these games, and one of them, falling in with Starlight, had proposed
to him to put up a couple of hundred head of cattle on Outer Back Momberah,
as the run was called; then father and he had seen that a thousand
were as easy to get as a hundred. Of course there was a risky feeling,
but it wasn't such bad fun while it lasted. We were out all day
running in the cattle. The horses were in good wind and condition now;
we had plenty of rations -- flour, tea, and sugar. There was no cart,
but some good packhorses, just the same as if we were a regular station party
on our own run. Father had worked all that before we came.
We had the best of fresh beef and veal too -- you may be sure of that --
there was no stint in that line; and at night we were always sure of a yarn
from Starlight -- that is, if he was in a good humour. Sometimes he wasn't,
and then nobody dared speak to him, not even father.

He was an astonishing man, certainly. Jim and I used to wonder, by the hour,
what he'd been in the old country. He'd been all over the world --
in the Islands and New Zealand; in America, and among Malays
and other strange people that we'd hardly ever heard of.
Such stories as he'd tell us, too, about slaves and wild chiefs
that he'd lived with and gone out to fight with against their enemy.
`People think a great deal of a dead man now and then
in this innocent country,' he said once when the grog was uppermost;
`why, I've seen fifty men killed before breakfast, and in cold blood, too,
chopped up alive, or next thing to it; and a drove of slaves
-- men, women, and children -- as big nearly as our mob,
handed over to a slave-dealer, and driven off in chains
just as you'd start a lot of station cattle. They didn't like it,
going off their run either, poor devils. The women would try
and run back after their pickaninnies when they dropped,
just like that heifer when Warrigal knocked her calf on the head to-day.'
What a man he was! This was something like life, Jim and I thought.
When we'd sold the cattle, if we got 'em down to Adelaide all right,
we'd take a voyage to some foreign country, perhaps, and see sights too.
What a paltry thing working for a pound a week seemed when a rise like this
was to be made!

Well, the long and short of it is that we mustered the cattle
quite comfortably, nobody coming anext or anigh us any more
than if we'd taken the thing by contract. You wouldn't have thought
there was anybody nearer than Bathurst. Everything seemed to be
in our favour. So it was, just at the start. We drafted out
all the worst and weediest of the cattle, besides all the old cows,
and when we counted the mob out we had nearly eleven hundred
first-rate store cattle; lots of fine young bullocks and heifers,
more than half fat -- altogether a prime well-bred mob
that no squatter or dealer could fault in any way if the price was right.
We could afford to sell them for a shade under market price for cash.
Ready money, of course, we were bound to have.

Just as we were starting there was a fine roan bull came running up
with a small mob.

`Cut him out, and beat him back,' says father; `we don't want to be bothered
with the likes of him.'

`Why, I'm dashed if that ain't Hood's imported bull,' says Billy the Boy,
a Monaro native that we had with us. `I know him well. How's he come
to get back? Why, the cove gave two hundred and fifty notes for him
afore he left England, I've heard 'em say.'

`Bring him along,' said Starlight, who came up just then.
`In for a penny, in for a pound. They'll never think of looking for him
on the Coorong, and we'll be there before they miss any cattle
worth talking about.'

So we took `Fifteenth Duke of Cambridge' along with us; a red roan he was,
with a little white about the flank. He wasn't more than four year old.
He'd been brought out from England as a yearling. How he'd worked his way out
to this back part of the run, where a bull of his quality ain't often seen,
nobody could say. But he was a lively active beast, and he'd got
into fine hard fettle with living on saltbush, dry grass, and scrub
for the last few months, so he could travel as well as the others.
I took particular notice of him, from his little waxy horns
to his straight locks and long square quarters. And so I'd need to --
but that came after. He had only a little bit of a private brand
on the shoulder. That was easily faked, and would come out quite different.

Chapter 12

We didn't go straight ahead along any main track to the Lower Murray
and Adelaide exactly. That would have been a little too open and barefaced.
No; we divided the mob into three, and settled where to meet
in about a fortnight. Three men to each mob. Father and Warrigal
took one lot; they had the dog, old Crib, to help them.
He was worth about two men and a boy. Starlight, Jim, and I had another;
and the three stranger chaps another. We'd had a couple of knockabouts
to help with the cooking and stockyard work. They were paid by the job.
They were to stay at the camp for a week, to burn the gunyahs,
knock down the yard, and blind the track as much as they could.

Some of the cattle we'd left behind they drove back and forward
across the track every day for a week. If rain came they were to drop it,
and make their way into the frontage by another road.
If they heard about the job being blown or the police set on our track,
they were to wire to one of the border townships we had to pass.
Weren't we afraid of their selling us? No, not much; they were well paid,
and had often given father and Starlight information before, though they
took care never to show out in the cattle or horse-stealing way themselves.
As long as chaps in our line have money to spend, they can always get
good information and other things, too. It is when the money runs short
that the danger comes in. I don't know whether cattle-duffing
was ever done in New South Wales before on such a large scale,
or whether it will ever be done again. Perhaps not. These wire fences
stop a deal of cross-work; but it was done then, you take my word for it
-- a man's word as hasn't that long to live that it's worth while to lie --
and it all came out right; that is as far as our getting safe over,
selling the cattle, and having the money in our pockets.

We kept on working by all sorts of outside tracks on the main line of road
-- a good deal by night, too -- for the first two or three hundred miles.
After we crossed the Adelaide border we followed the Darling
down to the Murray. We thought we were all right, and got bolder.
Starlight had changed his clothes, and was dressed like a swell --
away on a roughish trip, but still like a swell.

`They were his cattle; he had brought them from one of his stations
on the Narran. He was going to take up country in the Northern Territory.
He expected a friend out from England with a lot more capital.'

Jim and I used to hear him talking like this to some of the squatters
whose runs we passed through, as grave as you please. They used to ask him
to stay all night, but he always said `he didn't like to leave his men.
He made it a practice on the road.'  When we got within a fortnight's drive
of Adelaide, he rode in and lived at one of the best hotels.
He gave out that he expected a lot of cattle to arrive, and got a friend
that he'd met in the billiard-room (and couldn't he play surprisin'?)
to introduce him to one of the leading stock agents there.
So he had it all cut and dry, when one day Warrigal and I rode in,
and the boy handed him a letter, touching his hat respectfully,
as he had been learned to do, before a lot of young squatters and other swells
that he was going out to a picnic with.

`My confounded cattle come at last,' he says. `Excuse me
for mentioning business. I began to hope they'd never come;
'pon my soul I did. The time passes so deuced pleasantly here.
Well, they'll all be at the yards to-morrow. You fellows
had all better come and see them sold. There'll be a little lunch,
and perhaps some fizz. You go to the stock agents, Runnimall and Co.;
here's their address, Jack,' he says to me, looking me straight in the eyes.
`They'll send a man to pilot you to the yards; and now off with you,
and don't let me see your face till to-morrow.'

How he carried it off! He cantered away with the rest of the party, as if
he hadn't a thought in the world except about pleasure and honest business.
Nobody couldn't have told that he wasn't just like them other young gentlemen
with only their stock and station to think about, and a little fun
at the races now and then. And what a risk he was running
every minute of his life, he and all the rest of us. I wasn't sorry
to be out of the town again. There were lots of police, too.
Suppose one of them was to say, `Richard Marston, I arrest you for ----'
It hardly mattered what. I felt as if I should have tumbled down
with sheer fright and cowardliness. It's a queer thing you feel like that
off and on. Other times a man has as much pluck in him as if his life
was worth fighting for -- which it isn't.

The agent knew all about us (or thought he did), and sent a chap
to show Mr. Carisforth's cattle (Charles Carisforth, Esq., of Sturton,
Yorkshire and Banda, Waroona, and Ebor Downs, New South Wales;
that was the name he went by) the way to the yards. We were to draft them
all next morning into separate pens -- cows and bullocks,
steers and heifers, and so on. He expected to sell them all
to a lot of farmers and small settlers that had taken up a new district lately
and were very short of stock.

`You couldn't have come into a better market, young fellow,'
says the agent's man to me. `Our boss he's advertised 'em that well
as there'll be smart bidding between the farmers and some of the squatters.
Good store cattle's been scarce, and these is in such rattling condition.
That's what'll sell 'em. Your master seems a regular free-handed
sort of chap. He's the jolliest squatter there's been in town these years,
I hear folk say. Puts 'em in mind of Hawdon and Evelyn Sturt
in the old overlander days.'

Next day we were at the yards early, you bet. We wanted to have time
to draft them into pens of twenty to fifty each, so that
the farmers and small settlers might have a chance to buy. Besides,
it was the last day of our work. Driving all day and watching half the night
is pretty stiffish work, good weather and bad, when you've got to keep it up
for months at a time, and we'd been three months and a week on the road.

The other chaps were wild for a spree. Jim and I had made up our minds
to be careful; still, we had a lot to see in a big town like Adelaide;
for we'd never been to Sydney even in our lives, and we'd never seen the sea.
That was something to look at for the first time, wasn't it?

Well, we got the cattle drafted to rights, every sort and size and age
by itself, as near as could be. That's the way to draft stock,
whether they're cattle, sheep, or horses; then every man can buy
what he likes best, and isn't obliged to lump up one sort with another.
We had time to have a bit of dinner. None of us had touched a mouthful
since before daylight. Then we began to see the buyers come.

There'd been a big tent rigged, as big as a small woolshed, too.
It came out in a cart, and then another cart came with a couple of waiters,
and they laid out a long table of boards on trestles with a real
first-class feed on it, such as we'd never seen in our lives before.
Fowls and turkeys and tongues and rounds of beef, beer and wine in bottles
with gilt labels on. Such a set-out it was. Father began to growl a bit.
`If he's going to feed the whole country this way, he'll spend half the stuff
before we get it, let alone drawing a down on the whole thing.'
But Jim and me could see how Starlight had been working the thing to rights
while he was swelling it in the town among the big bugs.
We told him the cattle would fetch that much more money
on account of the lunch and the blowing the auctioneer was able to do.
These would pay for the feed and the rest of the fal-lals ten times over.
`When he gets in with men like his old pals he loses his head, I believe,'
father says, `and fancies he's what he used to be. He'll get "fitted"
quite simple some day if he doesn't keep a better look-out.'

That might be, but it wasn't to come about this time.
Starlight came riding out by and by, dressed up like a real gentleman,
and lookin' so different that Jim and I hardly dared speak to him --
on a splendid horse too (not Rainbow, he'd been left behind;
he was always left within a hundred miles of The Hollow, and he could do it
in one day if he was wanted to), and a lot of fine dressed chaps with him --
young squatters and officers, and what not. I shouldn't have been surprised
if he'd had the Governor out with him. They told us afterwards he did dine
at Government House reg'lar, and was made quite free and welcome there.

Well, he jumps down and shakes hands with us before them all.
`Well, Jack! Well, Bill!' and so on, calls us his good faithful fellows,
and how well we'd brought the cattle over; nods to father,
who didn't seem able to take it all in; says he'll back us against
any stockmen in Australia; has up Warrigal and shows him off to the company.
`Most intelligent lad.'  Warrigal grinned and showed his white teeth.
It was as good as a play.

Then everybody goes to lunch -- swells and selectors, Germans and Paddies,
natives and immigrants, a good many of them, too, and there was
eating and drinking and speechifying till all was blue. By and by
the auctioneer looks at his watch. He'd had a pretty good tuck-in himself,
and they must get to business.

Father opened his eyes at the price the first pen brought,
all prime young bullocks, half fat most of them. Then they all went off
like wildfire; the big men and the little men bidding, quite jealous,
sometimes one getting the lot, sometimes another. One chap made a remark
about there being such a lot of different brands; but Starlight said
they'd come from a sort of depot station of his, and were the odds and ends
of all the mobs of store cattle that he'd purchased the last four years.
That satisfied 'em, particularly as he said it in a careless, fierce way
which he could put on, as if it was like a man's ---- impudence
to ask him anything. It made the people laugh; I could see that.

By and by we comes to the imported bull. He was in a pen by himself,
looking first-rate. His brand had been faked, and the hair had grown
pretty well. It would have took a sharp hand to know him again.

`Well, gentlemen,' says the auctioneer, `here is the imported bull
"Duke of Brunswick". It ain't often an animal of his quality comes in
with a mob of store cattle; but I am informed by Mr. Carisforth
that he left orders for the whole of the cattle to be cleared off the run,
and this valuable animal was brought away in mistake. He was to return
by sea; but as he happens to be here to-day, why, sooner than disappoint
any intending buyer, Mr. Carisforth has given me instructions to put him up,
and if he realises anything near his value he will be sold.'

`Yes!' drawls Starlight, as if a dozen imported bulls, more or less,
made no odds to him, `put him up, by all means, Mr. Runnimall.
Expectin' rather large shipment of Bates's "Duchess" tribe next month.
Rather prefer them on the whole. The "Duke" here is full of Booth blood,
so he may just as well go with the others. I shall never get
what he cost, though; I know that. He's been a most expensive animal to me.'

Many a true word spoken in jest. He had good call to know him,
as well as the rest of us, for a most expensive animal, before all
was said and done. What he cost us all round it would be hard indeed
to cipher up.

Anyhow, there was a great laugh at Starlight's easy way of taking it.
First one and then another of the squatters that was going in for breeding
began to bid, thinking he'd go cheap, until they got warm,
and the bull went up to a price that we never dreamed he'd fetch.
Everything seemed to turn out lucky that day. One would have thought
they'd never seen an imported bull before. The young squatters
got running one another, as I said before, and he went up to 270 Pounds!
Then the auctioneer squared off the accounts as sharp as he could;
an' it took him all his time, what with the German and the small farmers,
who took their time about it, paying in greasy notes and silver and copper,
out of canvas bags, and the squatters, who were too busy chaffing and talking
among themselves to pay at all. It was dark before everything was settled up,
and all the lots of cattle delivered. Starlight told the auctioneer
he'd see him at his office, in a deuced high and mighty kind of way,
and rode off with his new friend.

All of us went back to our camp. Our work was over, but we had to settle up
among ourselves and divide shares. I could hardly believe my eyes
when I saw the cattle all sold and gone, and nothing left at the camp
but the horses and the swags.

When we got there that night it was late enough. After tea
father and I and Jim had a long yarn, settling over what we should do
and wondering whether we were going to get clean away
with our share of the money after all.

`By George!' says Jim, `it's a big touch, and no mistake.
To think of our getting over all right, and selling out so easy,
just as if they was our own cattle. Won't there be a jolly row
when it's all out, and the Momberah people miss their cattle?'
(more than half 'em was theirs). `And when they muster
they can't be off seein' they're some hundreds short.'

`That's what's botherin' me,' says father. `I wish Starlight hadn't been
so thundering flash with it all. It'll draw more notice on us,
and every one 'll be gassin' about this big sale, and all that,
till people's set on to ask where the cattle come from, and what not.'

`I don't see as it makes any difference,' I said. `Somebody was bound
to buy 'em, and we'd have had to give the brands and receipts just the same.
Only if we'd sold to any one that thought there was a cross look about it,
we'd have had to take half money, that's all. They've fetched
a rattling price, through Starlight's working the oracle with those swells,
and no mistake.'

`Yes, but that ain't all of it,' says the old man, filling his pipe.
`We've got to look at what comes after. I never liked that imported bull
being took. They'll rake all the colonies to get hold of him again,
partic'ler as he sold for near three hundred pound.'

`We must take our share of the risk along with the money,' said Jim.
`We shall have our whack of that according to what they fetched to-day.
It'll be a short life and a merry one, though, dad, if we go on big licks
like this. What'll we tackle next -- a bank or Government House?'

`Nothing at all for a good spell, if you've any sense,' growled father.
`It'll give us all we know to keep dark when this thing gets into the papers,
and the police in three colonies are all in full cry like a pack of beagles.
The thing is, what'll be our best dart now?'

`I'll go back overland,' says he. `Starlight's going to take Warrigal
with him, and they'll be off to the islands for a turn.
If he knows what's best for him, he'll never come back.
These other chaps say they'll separate and sell their horses
when they get over to the Murray low down, and work their way up by degrees.
Which way are you boys going?'

`Jim and I to Melbourne by next steamer,' I said. `May as well
see a bit of life now we're in it. We'll come back overland
when we're tired of strange faces.'

`All right,' says father, `they won't know where I'm lyin' by for a bit,
I'll go bail, and the sooner you clear out of Adelaide the better.
News like ours don't take long to travel, and you might be nabbed very simple.
One of ye write a line to your mother and tell her where you're off to,
or she'll be frettin' herself and the gal too -- frettin' over
what can't be helped. But I suppose it's the natur' o' some women.'

We done our settling-up next day. All the sale money was paid over
to Starlight. He cashed the cheques and drew the lot in notes and gold --
such a bundle of 'em there was. He brought them out to us at the camp,
and then we `whacked' the lot. There were eight of us
that had to share and share alike. How much do you think we had to divide?
Why, not a penny under four thousand pounds. It had to be divided
among the eight of us. That came to five hundred a man. A lot of money
to carry about, that was the worst of it.

Next day there was a regular split and squander. We didn't wait long
after daylight, you bet. Father was off and well on his way
before the stars were out of the sky. He took Warrigal's horse, Bilbah,
back with him; he and Starlight was going off to the islands together,
and couldn't take horses with them. But he was real sorry
to part with the cross-grained varmint; I thought he was going to blubber
when he saw father leading him off. Bilbah wouldn't go neither at first;
pulled back, and snorted and went on as if he'd never seen only one man afore
in his life. Father got vexed at last and makes a sign to old Crib;
he fetches him such a `heeler' as gave him something else to think of
for a few miles. He didn't hang back much after that.

The three other chaps went their own road. They kept very dark all through.
I know their names well enough, but there's no use in bringing them up now.

Jim and I cuts off into the town, thinking we was due for a little fun.
We'd never been in a big town before, and it was something new to us.
Adelaide ain't as grand quite as Melbourne or Sydney, but there's something
quiet and homelike about it to my thinking -- great wide streets,
planted with trees; lots of steady-going German farmers,
with their vineyards and orchards and droll little waggons. The women work
as hard as the men, harder perhaps, and get brown and scorched up
in no time -- not that they've got much good looks to lose;
leastways none we ever saw.

We could always tell the German farmers' places along the road
from one of our people by looking outside the door. If it was
an Englishman or an Australian, you'd see where they'd throwed out
the teapot leavings; if it was a German, you wouldn't see nothing.
They drink their own sour wine, if their vines are old enough
to make any, or else hop beer; but they won't lay out their money
in the tea chest or sugar bag; no fear, or the grog either,
and not far wrong. Then the sea! I can see poor old Jim's face now
the day we went down to the port and he seen it for the first time.

`So we've got to the big waterhole at last,' he said. `Don't it make a man
feel queer and small to think of its going away right from here where we stand
to the other side of the world? It's a long way across.'

`Jim,' says I, `and to think we've lived all our lives up to this time
and never set eyes on it before. Don't it seem as if one was shut up
in the bush, or tied to a gum tree, so as one can never have a chance
to see anything? I wonder we stayed in it so long.'

`It's not a bad place, though it is rather slow and wired in sometimes,'
says Jim. `We might be sorry we ever left it yet. When does the steamer
go to Melbourne?'

`The day after to-morrow.'

`I'll be glad to be clear off; won't you?'

We went to the theatre that night, and amused ourselves pretty well
next day and till the time came for our boat to start for Melbourne.
We had altered ourselves a bit, had our hair cut and our beards trimmed
by the hairdresser. We bought fresh clothes, and what with this,
and the feeling of being in a new place and having more money in our pockets
than we'd ever dreamed about before, we looked so transmogrified
when we saw ourselves in the glass that we hardly knew ourselves.
We had to change our names, too, for the first time in our lives;
and it went harder against the grain than you'd think, for all we were
a couple of cattle-duffers, with a warrant apiece sure to be after us
before the year was out.

`It sounds ugly,' says Jim, after we had given our names
as John Simmons and Henry Smith at the hotel where we put up at
till the steamer was ready to start. `I never thought that Jim Marston
was to come to this -- to be afraid to tell a fat, greasy-looking fellow
like that innkeeper what his real name was. Seems such a pitiful mean lie,
don't it, Dick?'

`It isn't so bad as being called No. 14, No. 221, as they sing out
for the fellows in Berrima Gaol. How would you like that, Jim?'

`I'd blow my brains out first,' cried out Jim, `or let some other fellow
do it for me. It wouldn't matter which.'

It was very pleasant, those two or three days in Adelaide,
if they'd only lasted. We used to stroll about the lighted streets
till all hours, watching the people and the shops and everything that makes
a large city different from the country. The different sorts of people,
the carts and carriages, buggies and drays, pony-carriages and spring-carts,
all jumbled up together; even the fruit and flowers and oysters and fish
under the gas-lights seemed strange and wonderful to us. We felt as if
we would have given all the world to have got mother and Aileen down
to see it all. Then Jim gave a groan.

`Only to think,' says he, `that we might have had all this fun some day,
and bought and paid for it honest. Now it isn't paid for.
It's out of some other man's pocket. There's a curse on it;
it will have to be paid in blood or prison time before all's done.
I could shoot myself for being such a cursed fool.'

`Too late to think of that,' I said; `we'll have some fun in Melbourne
for a bit, anyhow. For what comes after we must "chance it",
as we've done before, more than once or twice, either.'

     .   .   .   .   .

Next day our steamer was to sail. We got Starlight to come down with us
and show us how to take our passage. We'd never done it before,
and felt awkward at it. He'd made up his mind to go to New Zealand,
and after that to Honolulu, perhaps to America.

`I'm not sure that I'll ever come back, boys,' he said, `and if I were you
I don't think I would either. If you get over to San Francisco
you'd find the Pacific Slope a very pleasant country to live in.
The people and the place would suit you all to pieces. At any rate
I'd stay away for a few years and wait till all this blows over.'

I wasn't sorry when the steamer cleared the port, and got out of sight
of land. There we were -- where we'd never been before -- in blue water.
There was a stiff breeze, and in half-an-hour we shouldn't have
turned our heads if we'd seen Hood and the rest of 'em come riding after us
on seahorses, with warrants as big as the mainsail. Jim made sure
he was going to die straight off, and the pair of us wished we'd never seen
Outer Back Momberah, nor Hood's cattle, nor Starlight, nor Warrigal.
We almost made up our minds to keep straight and square
to the last day of our lives. However, the wind died down a bit next day,
and we both felt a lot better -- better in body and worse in mind --
as often happens. Before we got to Melbourne we could eat and drink,
smoke and gamble, and were quite ourselves again. We'd laid it out
to have a reg'lar good month of it in town, takin' it easy,
and stopping nice and quiet at a good hotel, havin' some reasonable pleasure.
Why shouldn't we see a little life? We'd got the cash, and we'd earned that
pretty hard. It's the hardest earned money of all, that's got on the cross,
if fellows only knew, but they never do till it's too late.

When we got tired of doing nothing, and being in a strange place, we'd get
across the border, above Albury somewhere, and work on the mountain runs
till shearing came round again; and we could earn a fairish bit of money.
Then we'd go home for Christmas after it was all over,
and see mother and Aileen again. How glad and frightened they'd be to see us.
It wouldn't be safe altogether, but go we would.

Chapter 13

We got to Melbourne all right, and though it's a different sort of a place
from Sydney, it's a jolly enough town for a couple of young chaps
with money in their pockets. Most towns are, for the matter of that.
We took it easy, and didn't go on the spree or do anything foolish.
No, we weren't altogether so green as that. We looked out
for a quiet place to lodge, near the sea -- St. Kilda they call it,
in front of the beach -- and we went about and saw all the sights,
and for a time managed to keep down the thought that perhaps sooner or later
we'd be caught, and have to stand our trial for this last affair of ours,
and maybe one or two others. It wasn't a nice thing to think of;
and now and then it used to make both of us take an extra drop of grog
by way of driving the thoughts of it out of our heads. That's the worst
of not being straight and square. A man's almost driven to drink
when he can't keep from thinking of all sorts of miserable things
day and night. We used to go to the horse-yards now and then,
and the cattle-yards too. It was like old times to see
the fat cattle and sheep penned up at Flemington, and the butchers
riding out on their spicy nags or driving trotters. But their cattle-yards
was twice as good as ours, and me and Jim used often to wonder
why the Sydney people hadn't managed to have something like them
all these years, instead of the miserable cockatoo things at Homebush
that we'd often heard the drovers and squatters grumble about.

However, one day, as we was sitting on the rails, talking away
quite comfortable, we heard one butcher say to another, `My word,
this is a smart bit of cattle-duffing -- a thousand head too!'  `What's that?'
says the other man. `Why, haven't you heard of it?' says the first one,
and he pulls a paper out of his pocket, with this in big letters:
`Great Cattle Robbery. --  A thousand head of Mr. Hood's cattle were
driven off and sold in Adelaide. Warrants are out for the suspected parties,
who are supposed to have left the colony.'  Here was a bit of news!
We felt as if we could hardly help falling off the rails;
but we didn't show it, of course, and sat there for half-an-hour,
talking to the buyers and sellers and cracking jokes like the others.
But we got away home as soon as we could, and then we began to settle
what we should do.

Warrants were out, of course, for Starlight, and us too. He was known,
and so were we. Our descriptions were sure to be ready to send out
all over the country. Warrigal they mightn't have noticed.
It was common enough to have a black boy or a half-caste
with a lot of travelling cattle. Father had not shown up much.
He had an old pea-jacket on, and they mightn't have dropped down to him
or the three other chaps that were in it with us; they were just like
any other road hands. But about there being warrants out,
with descriptions, in all the colonies, for a man to be identified,
but generally known as Starlight, and for Richard and James Marston,
we were as certain as that we were in St. Kilda, in a nice quiet little inn,
overlooking the beach; and what a murder it was to have to leave it at all.

Leave the place we had to do at once. It wouldn't do
to be strollin' about Melbourne with the chance of every policeman we met
taking a look at us to see if we tallied with a full description they had
at the office: `Richard and James Marston are twenty-five and twenty-two,
respectively; both tall and strongly built; having the appearance of bushmen.
Richard Marston has a scar on left temple. James Marston has lost
a front tooth,' and so on. When we came to think of it,
they couldn't be off knowing us, if they took it into their heads
to bail us up any day. They had our height and make. We couldn't help
looking like bushmen -- like men that had been in the open air
all their lives, and that had a look as if saddle and bridle rein
were more in our way than the spade and plough-handle.
We couldn't wash the tan off our skins; faces, necks, arms,
all showed pretty well that we'd come from where the sun was hot,
and that we'd had our share of it. They had my scar, got in a row,
and Jim's front tooth, knocked out by a fall from a horse when he was a boy;
there was nothing for it but to cut and run.

`It was time for us to go, my boys,' as the song the Yankee sailor
sung us one night runs, and then, which way to go? Every ship was watched
that close a strange rat couldn't get a passage, and, besides,
we had that feeling we didn't like to clear away altogether
out of the old country; there was mother and Aileen still in it,
and every man, woman, and child that we'd known ever since we were born.
A chap feels that, even if he ain't much good other ways.
We couldn't stand the thought of clearin' out for America,
as Starlight advised us. It was like death to us, so we thought
we'd chance it somewhere in Australia for a bit longer.

Now where we put up a good many drovers from Gippsland used to stay,
as they brought in cattle from there. The cattle had to be brought
over Swanston Street Bridge and right through the town
after twelve o'clock at night. We'd once or twice, when we'd been out late,
stopped to look at them, and watched the big heavy bullocks and fat cows
staring and starting and slipping all among the lamps and pavements,
with the street all so strange and quiet, and laughed at the notion of
some of the shopkeepers waking up and seeing a couple of hundred wild cattle,
with three or four men behind 'em, shouldering and horning one another,
then rushing past their doors at a hard trot, or breaking into a gallop
for a bit.

Some of these chaps, seeing we was cattle-men and knew most things
in that line, used to open out about where they'd come from,
and what a grand place Gippsland was -- splendid grass country,
rivers that run all the year round, great fattening country;
and snowy mountains at the back, keeping everything cool in the summer.
Some of the mountain country, like Omeo, that they talked a lot of,
seemed about one of the most out-of-the-way places in the world.
More than that, you could get back to old New South Wales
by way of the Snowy River, and then on to Monaro. After that
we knew where we were.

Going away was easy enough, in a manner of speaking; but we'd been a month
in Melbourne, and when you mind that we were not bad-looking chaps,
fairishly dressed, and with our pockets full of money,
it was only what might be looked for if we had made another friend or two
besides Mrs. Morrison, the landlady of our inn, and Gippsland drovers.
When we had time to turn round a bit in Melbourne of course we began
to make a few friends. Wherever a man goes, unless he keeps himself
that close that he won't talk to any one or let any one talk to him,
he's sure to find some one he likes to be with better than another.
If he's old and done with most of his fancies, except smokin' and drinkin'
it's a man. If he's young and got his life before him it's a woman.
So Jim and I hadn't been a week in Melbourne before we fell across
a couple of -- well, friends -- that we were hard set to leave.
It was a way of mine to walk down to the beach every evening and have a look
at the boats in the bay and the fishermen, if there were any --
anything that might be going on. Sometimes a big steamer would be coming in,
churning the water under her paddles and tearing up the bay
like a hundred bunyips. The first screw-boat Jim and I saw
we couldn't make out for the life of us what she moved by.
We thought all steamers had paddles. Then the sailing boats,
flying before the breeze like seagulls, and the waves,
if it was a rough day, rolling and beating and thundering on the beach.
I generally stayed till the stars came out before I went back to the hotel.
Everything was so strange and new to a man who'd seen so little else
except green trees that I was never tired of watching, and wondering,
and thinking what a little bit of a shabby world chaps like us lived in
that never seen anything but a slab hut, maybe, all the year round,
and a bush public on high days and holidays.

Sometimes I used to feel as if we hadn't done such a bad stroke
in cutting loose from all this. But then the horrible feeling would come back
of never being safe, even for a day, of being dragged off and put in the dock,
and maybe shut up for years and years. Sometimes I used to throw myself
down upon the sand and curse the day when I ever did anything
that I had any call to be ashamed of and put myself in the power
of everything bad and evil in all my life through.

Well, one day I was strolling along, thinking about these things,
and wondering whether there was any other country where a man could go
and feel himself safe from being hounded down for the rest of his life,
when I saw a woman walking on the beach ahead of me. I came up with her
before long, and as I passed her she turned her head and I saw
she was one of two girls that we had seen in the landlady's parlour
one afternoon. The landlady was a good, decent Scotch woman,
and had taken a fancy to both of us (particularly to Jim -- as usual).
She thought -- she was that simple -- that we were up-country squatters
from some far-back place, or overseers. Something in the sheep or cattle line
everybody could see that we were. There was no hiding that.
But we didn't talk about ourselves overmuch, for very good reasons.
The less people say the more others will wonder and guess about you.
So we began to be looked upon as bosses of some sort, and to be treated
with a lot of respect that we hadn't been used to much before.
So we began to talk a bit -- natural enough -- this girl and I.
She was a good-looking girl, with a wonderful fresh clear skin,
full of life and spirits, and pretty well taught. She and her sister
had not been a long time in the country; their father was dead,
and they had to live by keeping a very small shop and by dressmaking.
They were some kind of cousins of the landlady and the same name,
so they used to come and see her of evenings and Sundays.
Her name was Kate Morrison and her sister's was Jeanie. This and a lot more
she told me before we got back to the hotel, where she said she was going
to stay that night and keep Mrs. Morrison company.

After this we began to be a deal better acquainted. It all came easy enough.
The landlady thought she was doing the girls a good turn by putting them
in the way of a couple of hard-working well-to-do fellows like us;
and as Jim and the younger one, Jeanie, seemed to take a fancy to each other,
Mrs. Morrison used to make up boating parties, and we soon got
to know each other well enough to be joked about falling in love
and all the rest of it.

After a bit we got quite into the way of calling for Kate and Jeanie
after their day's work was done, and taking them out for a walk.
I don't know that I cared so much for Kate in those days anyhow,
but by degrees we got to think that we were what people call
in love with each other. It went deeper with her than me, I think.
It mostly does with women. I never really cared for any woman in the world
except Gracey Storefield, but she was far away, and I didn't see
much likelihood of my being able to live in that part of the world,
much less to settle down and marry there. So, though we'd broken
a six-pence together and I had my half, I looked upon her as ever so much
beyond me and out of my reach, and didn't see any harm in amusing myself
with any woman that I might happen to fall across.

So, partly from idleness, partly from liking, and partly seeing that the girl
had made up her mind to throw in her lot with me for good and all,
I just took it as it came; but it meant a deal more than that,
if I could have foreseen the end.

I hadn't seen a great many women, and had made up my mind that,
except a few bad ones, they was mostly of one sort -- good to lead,
not hard to drive, and, above all, easy to see through and understand.

I often wonder what there was about this Kate Morrison to make her
so different from other women; but she was born unlike them, I expect.
Anyway, I never met another woman like her. She wasn't out-and-out handsome,
but there was something very taking about her. Her figure was pretty near
as good as a woman's could be; her step was light and active;
her feet and hands were small, and she took a pride in showing them.
I never thought she had any temper different from other women;
but if I'd noticed her eyes, surely I'd have seen it there.
There was something very strange and out of the way about them.
They hardly seemed so bright when you looked at them first; but by degrees,
if she got roused and set up about anything, they'd begin to burn
with a steady sort of glitter that got fiercer and brighter
till you'd think they'd burn everything they looked at.
The light in them didn't go out again in a hurry, either.
It seemed as if those wonderful eyes would keep on shining,
whether their owner wished it or not.

I didn't find out all about her nature at once -- trust a woman for that.
Vain and fond of pleasure I could see she was; and from having been
always poor, in a worrying, miserable, ill-contented way,
she had got to be hungry for money and jewels and fine clothes;
just like a person that's been starved and shivering with cold
longs for a fire and a full meal and a warm bed. Some people
like these things when they can get them; but others never seem to think
about anything else, and would sell their souls or do anything
in the whole world to get what their hearts are set on.
When men are like this they're dangerous, but they hardly hurt anybody,
only themselves. When women are born with hearts of this sort
it's a bad look-out for everybody they come near. Kate Morrison could see
that I had money. She thought I was rich, and she made up her mind
to attract me, and go shares in my property, whatever it might be.
She won over her younger sister, Jeanie, to her plans, and our acquaintance
was part of a regular put-up scheme. Jeanie was a soft, good-tempered,
good-hearted girl, with beautiful fair hair, blue eyes,
and the prettiest mouth in the world. She was as good as she was pretty,
and would have worked away without grumbling in that dismal little shop
from that day to this, if she'd been let alone. She was only just
turned seventeen. She soon got to like Jim a deal too well for her own good,
and used to listen to his talk about the country across the border,
and such simple yarns as he could tell her, poor old Jim! until she said
she'd go and live with him under a salt-bush if he'd come back and marry her
after Christmas. And of course he did promise. He didn't see
any harm in that. He intended to come back if he could,
and so did I for that matter. Well, the long and short of it was
that we were both regularly engaged and had made all kinds of plans
to be married at Christmas and go over to Tasmania or New Zealand,
when this terrible blow fell upon us like a shell. I did see one explode
at a review in Melbourne -- and, my word! what a scatteration it made.

Well, we had to let Kate and Jeanie know the best way we could
that our business required us to leave Melbourne at once,
and that we shouldn't be back till after Christmas, if then.

It was terrible hard work to make out any kind of a story that would do.
Kate questioned and cross-questioned me about the particular kind of business
that called us away like a lawyer (I've seen plenty of that since)
until at last I was obliged to get a bit cross and refuse to answer
any more questions.

Jeanie took it easier, and was that down-hearted and miserable
at parting with Jim that she hadn't the heart to ask any questions of any one,
and Jim looked about as dismal as she did. They sat with their hands
in each other's till it was nearly twelve o'clock, when the old mother came
and carried the girls off to bed. We had to start at daylight next morning;
but we made up our minds to leave them a hundred pounds apiece to keep for us
until we came back, and promised if we were alive to be at St. Kilda
next January, which they had to be contented with.

Jeanie did not want to take the money; but Jim said he'd very likely lose it,
and so persuaded her.

We were miserable and low-spirited enough ourselves at the idea of going away
all in a hurry. We had come to like Melbourne, and had bit by bit
cheated ourselves into thinking that we might live comfortably
and settle down in Victoria, out of reach of our enemies,
and perhaps live and die unsuspected.

From this dream we were roused up by the confounded advertisement.
Detectives and constables would be seen to be pretty thick
in all the colonies, and we could not reasonably expect not to be taken
some time or other, most likely before another week.

We thought it over and over again, in every way. The more we thought over it
the more dangerous it seemed to stop in Melbourne. There was only one thing
for it, that was to go straight out of the country. The Gippsland men
were the only bushmen we knew at all well, and perhaps that door
might shut soon.

So we paid our bill. They thought us a pair of quiet, respectable chaps
at that hotel, and never would believe otherwise. People may say
what they like, but it's a great thing to have some friends
that can say of you --

`Well, I never knew no harm of him; a better tempered chap couldn't be;
and all the time we knowed him he was that particular about
his bills and money matters that a banker couldn't have been more regular.
He may have had his faults, but we never seen 'em. I believe
a deal that was said of him wasn't true, and nothing won't ever make me
believe it.'

These kind of people will stand up for you all the days of your life,
and stick to you till the very last moment, no matter what you turn out to be.
Well, there's something pleasant in it; and it makes you think human nature
ain't quite such a low and paltry thing as some people tries to make out.
Anyhow, when we went away our good little landlady and her sister
was that sorry to lose us, as you'd have thought they was our blood relations.
As for Jim, every one in the house was fit to cry when he went off,
from the dogs and cats upwards. Jim never was in no house where everybody
didn't seem to take naturally to him. Poor old Jim!

We bought a couple of horses, and rode away down to Sale with these chaps
that had sold their cattle in Melbourne and was going home.
It rained all the way, and it was the worst road by chalks
we'd ever seen in our lives; but the soil was wonderful,
and the grass was something to talk about; we'd hardly ever seen
anything like it. A few thousand acres there would keep more stock
than half the country we'd been used to.

We didn't stay more than a day or so in Sale. Every morning at breakfast
some one was sure to turn up the paper and begin jabbering about
the same old infernal business, Hood's cattle, and what a lot were taken,
and whether they'll catch Starlight and the other men, and so on.

We heard of a job at Omeo while we were in Sale, which we thought
would just about suit us. All the cattle on a run there were to be
mustered and delivered to a firm of stock agents that had bought them;
they wanted people to do it by contract at so much a head.
Anybody who took it must have money enough to buy stock horses.
The price per head was pretty fair, what would pay well,
and we made up our minds to go in for it.

So we made a bargain; bought two more horses each, and started away for Omeo.
It was near 200 miles from where we were. We got up there all right,
and found a great rich country with a big lake, I don't know how many feet
above the sea. The cattle were as wild as hares, but the country
was pretty good to ride over. We were able to keep our horses
in good condition in the paddocks, and when we had mustered the whole lot
we found we had a handsome cheque to get.

It was a little bit strange buckling to after the easy life we'd led
for the last few months; but after a day or two we found ourselves
as good men as ever, and could spin over the limestone boulders
and through the thick mountain timber as well as ever we did.
A man soon gets right again in the fresh air of the bush;
and as it used to snow there every now and then the air was pretty fresh,
you bet, particularly in the mornings and evenings.

After we'd settled up we made up our minds to get as far as Monaro,
and wait there for a month or two. After that we might go in for the shearing
till Christmas, and then whatever happened we would both make a strike
back for home, and have one happy week, at any rate, with mother and Aileen.

We tried as well as we could to keep away from the large towns
and the regular mail coach road. We worked on runs where the snow came down
every now and then in such a way as to make us think that we might be
snowed up alive some fine morning. It was very slow and tedious work,
but the newspapers seldom came there, and we were not worried
day after day with telegrams about our Adelaide stroke,
and descriptions of Starlight's own look and way of speaking.
We got into the old way of working hard all day and sleeping well at night.
We could eat and drink well; the corned beef and the damper were good,
and Jim, like when we were at the back of Boree when Warrigal came,
wished that we could stick to this kind of thing always, and never have
any fret or crooked dealings again as long as we lived.

But it couldn't be done. We had to leave and go shearing
when the spring came on. We did go, and went from one big station
to the other when the spring was regularly on and shearers were scarce.
By and by the weather gets warmer, and we had cut our last shed
before the first week in December.

Then we couldn't stand it any longer.

`I don't care,' says Jim, `if there's a policeman standing
at every corner of the street, I must make a start for home.
They may catch us, but our chance is a pretty good one; and I'd just as soon
be lagged outright as have to hide and keep dark and moulder away life
in some of these God-forsaken spots.'

So we made up to start for home and chance it. We worked our way by degrees
up the Snowy River, by Buchan and Galantapee, and gradually made
towards Balooka and Buckley's Crossing. On the way we crossed
some of the roughest country we had ever seen or ridden over.

`My word, Dick,' said Jim one day, as we were walking along
and leading our horses, `we could find a place here if we were hard pushed
near as good for hiding in as the Hollow. Look at that bit of tableland
that runs up towards Black Mountain, any man that could find a track up to it
might live there for a year and all the police of the country be after him.'

`What would he get to eat if he was there?'

`That long chap we stayed with at Wargulmerang told us
that there were wild cattle on all those tablelands.
Often they get snowed up in winter and die, making a circle in the snow.
Then fish in all the creeks, besides the old Snowy, and there are places
on the south side of him that people didn't see once in five years.
I believe I shall make a camp for myself on the way, and live in it
till they've forgot all about these cursed cattle. Rot their hides,
I wish we'd never have set eyes on one of them.'

`So do I; but like many things in the world it's too late -- too late, Jim!'

Chapter 14

One blazing hot day in the Christmas week Jim and I rode up the `gap' that led
from the Southern road towards Rocky Creek and the little flat near the water
where our hut stood. The horses were tired, for we'd ridden a long way,
and not very slow either, to get to the old place. How small and queer
the old homestead looked, and everything about it after all we had seen.
The trees in the garden were in full leaf, and we could see
that it was not let go to waste. Mother was sitting in the verandah sewing,
pretty near the same as we went away, and a girl was walking slowly
up from the creek carrying a bucket of water. It was Aileen.
We knew her at once. She was always as straight as a rush,
and held her head high, as she used to do; but she walked very slow,
and looked as if she was dull and weary of everything.
All of a sudden Jim jumped off, dropped his horse's bridle on the ground,
and started to run towards her. She didn't see him till he was pretty close;
then she looked up astonished-like, and put her bucket down.
She gave a sudden cry and rushed over to him; the next minute
she was in his arms, sobbing as if her heart would break.

I came along quiet. I knew she'd be glad to see me --
but, bless you, she and mother cared more for Jim's little finger
than for my whole body. Some people have a way of gettin'
the biggest share of nearly everybody's liking that comes next or anigh 'em.
I don't know how it's done, or what works it. But so it is;
and Jim could always count on every man, woman, and child, wherever he lived,
wearing his colours and backing him right out, through thick and thin.

When I came up Aileen was saying --

`Oh, Jim, my dear old Jim! now I'll die happy; mother and I were only
talking of you to-day, and wondering whether we should see you at Christmas --
and now you have come. Oh, Dick! and you too. But we shall be frightened
every time we hear a horse's tread or dog's bark.'

`Well, we're here now, Aileen, and that's something.
I had a great notion of clearing out for San Francisco and turning Yankee.
What would you have done then?'

We walked up to the house, leading our horses, Jim and Aileen hand in hand.
Mother looked up and gave a scream; she nearly fell down;
when we got in her face was as white as a sheet.

`Mother of Mercy! I vowed to you for this,' she said;
`sure she hears our prayers. I wanted to see ye both before I died,
and I didn't think you'd come. I was afraid ye'd be dreadin' the police,
and maybe stay away for good and all. The Lord be thanked
for all His mercies!'

We went in and enjoyed our tea. We had had nothing to eat that day
since breakfast; but better than all was Aileen's pleasant, clever tongue,
though she said it was getting stiff for want of exercise. She wanted to know
all about our travels, and was never tired of listening to Jim's stories
of the wonders we had seen in the great cities and the strange places
we had been to.

`Oh! how happy you must have been!' she would say, `while we have been
pining and wearying here, all through last spring and summer,
and then winter again -- cold and miserable it was last year;
and now Christmas has come again. Don't go away again for a good while,
or mother and I'll die straight out.'

Well, what could we say? Tell her we'd never go away at all if we
could help it -- only she must be a good girl and make the best of things,
for mother's sake? When had she seen father last?

`Oh! he was away a good while once; that time you and Jim
were at Mr. Falkland's back country. You must have had a long job then;
no wonder you've got such good clothes and look so smartened up like.
He comes every now and then, just like he used. We never know
what's become of him.'

`When was he here last?'

`Oh! about a month ago. He said he might be here about Christmas;
but he wasn't sure. And so you saved Miss Falkland from being killed
off her horse, Jim? Tell me all about it, like a good boy,
and what sort of a looking young lady is she?'

`All right,' said Jim. `I'll unload the story bag before we get through;
there's a lot in there yet; but I want to look at you and hear you talk
just now. How's George Storefield?'

`Oh! he's just the same good, kind, steady-going fellow he always was,'
says she. `I don't know what we should do without him when you're away.
He comes and helps with the cows now and then. Two of the horses
got into Bargo pound, and he went and released them for us.
Then a storm blew off best part of the roof of the barn,
and the bit of wheat would have been spoiled only for him.
He's the best friend we have.'

`You'd better make sure of him for good and all,' I said.
`I suppose he's pretty well-to-do now with that new farm he bought
the other day.'

`Oh! you saw that,' she said. `Yes; he bought out the Cumberers.
They never did any good with Honeysuckle Flat, though the land was so good.
He's going to lay it all down in lucerne, he says.'

`And then he'll smarten up the cottage, and sister Aileen 'll go over,
and live in it,' says Jim; `and a better thing she couldn't do.'

`I don't know,' she said. `Poor George, I wish I was fonder of him.
There never was a better man, I believe; but I cannot leave mother yet,
so it's no use talking.'  Then she got up and went in.

`That's the way of the world,' says Jim. `George worships the ground
she treads on, and she can't make herself care two straws about him.
Perhaps she will in time. She'll have the best home and the best chap
in the whole district if she does.'

`There's a deal of "if" in this world,' I said; `and "if" we're "copped"
on account of that last job, I'd like to think she and mother had some one
to look after them, good weather and bad.'

`We might have done that, and not killed ourselves with work either,'
said Jim, rather sulkily for him; and he lit his pipe and walked off
into the bush without saying another word.

I thought, too, how we might have been ten times, twenty times, as happy
if we'd only kept on steady ding-dong work, like George Storefield,
having patience and seeing ourselves get better off -- even a little --
year by year. What had he come to? And what lay before us?
And though we were that fond of poor mother and Aileen that we would have done
anything in the world for them -- that is, we would have given
our lives for them any day -- yet we had left them -- father, Jim, and I --
to lead this miserable, lonesome life, looked down upon by a lot of people
not half good enough to tie their shoes, and obliged to a neighbour for help
in every little distress.

Jim and I thought we'd chance a few days at home, no matter what risk we ran;
but still we knew that if warrants were out the old home would be
well watched, and that it was the first place the police would come to.
So we made up our minds not to sleep at home, but to go away every night
to an old deserted shepherd's hut, a couple of miles up the gully,
that we used to play in when we were boys. It had been strongly built
at first; time was not much matter then, and there were no wages to speak of,
so that it was a good shelter. The weather was that hot, too,
it was just as pleasant sleeping under a tree as anywhere else.
So we didn't show at home more than one at a time, and took care
to be ready for a bolt at any time, day or night, when the police
might show themselves. Our place was middling clear all round now,
and it was hard for any one on horseback to get near it without warning;
and if we could once reach the gully we knew we could run
faster than any man could ride.

One night, latish, just as we were walking off to our hut
there was a scratching at the door; when we opened it there was old Crib!
He ran up to both of us and smelt round our legs for a minute
to satisfy himself; then jumped up once to each of us as if he thought
he ought to do the civil thing, wagged his stump of a tail,
and laid himself down. He was tired, and had come a long way.
We could see that, and that he was footsore too. We knew that father
wasn't so very far off, and would soon be in. If there'd been
anybody strange there Crib would have run back fast enough;
then father'd have dropped there was something up and not shown.
No fear of the dog not knowing who was right and who wasn't.
He could tell every sort of a man a mile off, I believe.
He knew the very walk of the police troopers' horses, and would growl,
father said, if he heard their hoofs rattle on the stones of the road.

About a quarter of an hour after father walks in, quiet as usual.
Nothing never made no difference to him, except he thought it was worth while.
He was middlin' glad to see us, and behaved kind enough to mother,
so the poor soul looked quite happy for her. It was little enough of that
she had for her share. By and by father walks outside with us,
and we had a long private talk.

It was a brightish kind of starlight night. As we walked down to the creek
I thought how often Jim and I had come out on just such a night
'possum hunting, and came home so tired that we were hardly able
to pull our boots off. Then we had nothing to think about
when we woke in the morning but to get in the cows; and didn't we enjoy
the fresh butter and the damper and bacon and eggs at breakfast time!
It seems to me the older people get the more miserable they get in this world.
If they don't make misery for themselves other people do it for 'em;
or just when everything's going straight, and they're doing their duty
first-rate and all that, some accident happens 'em just as if they was
the worst people in the world. I can't make it out at all.

`Well, boys,' says dad, `you've been lucky so far; suppose you had
a pretty good spree in Melbourne? You seen the game was up by the papers,
didn't you? But why didn't you stay where you were?'

`Why, of course, that brought us away,' says Jim; `we didn't want
to be fetched back in irons, and thought there was more show for it
in the bush here.'

`But even if they'd grabbed Starlight,' says the old man,
`you'd no call to be afeard. Not much chance of his peaching,
if it had been a hanging matter.'

`You don't mean to say there ain't warrants against us
and the rest of the lot?' I said.

`There's never a warrant out agin any one but Starlight,' said the old man.
`I've had the papers read to me regular, and I rode over to Bargo
and saw the reward of 200 Pounds (a chap alongside of me read it)
as is offered for a man generally known as Starlight, supposed to have left
the country; but not a word about you two and me, or the boy,
or them other coves.'

`So we might as well have stayed where we were, Jim.'  Jim gave
a kind of groan. `Still, when you look at it, isn't it queer,' I went on,
`that they should only spot Starlight and leave us out? It looks as if
they was keepin' dark for fear of frightening us out of the country,
but watching all the same.'

`It's this way I worked it,' says father, rubbing his tobacco in his hands
the old way, and bringing out his pipe: `they couldn't be off
marking down Starlight along of his carryin' on so. Of course
he drawed notice to himself all roads. But the rest of us only come in
with the mob, and soon as they was sold stashed the camp and cleared out
different ways. Them three fellers is in Queensland long ago,
and nobody was to know them from any other road hands. I was back
with the old mare and Bilbah in mighty short time. I rode 'em night and day,
turn about, and they can both travel. You kept pretty quiet, as luck had it,
and was off to Melbourne quick. I don't really believe they dropped
to any of us, bar Starlight; and if they don't nab him
we might get shut of it altogether. I've known worse things
as never turned up in this world, and never will now.'
Here the old man showed his teeth as if he were going to laugh,
but thought better of it.

`Anyhow, we'd made it up to come home at Christmas,' says Jim;
`but it's all one. It would have saved us a deal of trouble in our minds
all the same if we'd known there was no warrants out after us two.
I wonder if they'll nail Starlight.'

`They can't be well off it,' says father. `He's gone off his head,
and stopped in some swell town in New Zealand -- Canterbury,
I think it's called -- livin' tiptop among a lot of young English swells,
instead of makin' off for the Islands, as he laid out to do.'

`How do you know he's there?' I said.

`I know, and that's enough,' snarls father. `I hear a lot in many ways
about things and people that no one guesses on, and I know this --
that he's pretty well marked down by old Stillbrook the detective
as went down there a month ago.'

`But didn't you warn him?'

`Yes, of course, as soon as I heard tell; but it's too late, I'm thinking.
He has the devil's luck as well as his own, but I always used to tell him
it would fail him yet.'

`I believe you're the smartest man of the crowd, dad,' says Jim,
laying his hand on father's shoulder. He could pretty nigh
get round the old chap once in a way, could Jim, surly as he was.
`What do you think we'd better do? What's our best dart?'

Father shook off his hand, but not roughly, and his voice wasn't so hard
when he said --

`Why, stop at home quiet, of course, and sleep in your beds at night.
Don't go planting in the gully, or some one 'll think you're wanted,
and let on to the police. Ride about the country till I give you the office.
Never fear but I'll have word quick enough. Go about and see
the neighbours round just as usual.'

Jim and I was quite stunned by this bit of news; no doubt we was pretty sorry
as ever we left Melbourne, but there was nothing for it now
but to follow it out. After all, we were at home, and it was pleasant
to think we wouldn't be hunted for a bit and might ride about the old place
and enjoy ourselves a bit. Aileen was as happy as the day was long,
and poor mother used to lay her head on Jim's neck and cry for joy
to have him with her. Even father used to sit in the front,
under the quinces, and smoke his pipe, with old Crib at his feet,
most as if he thought he was happy. I wonder if he ever looked back
to the days when he was a farmin' boy and hadn't took to poaching?
He must have been a smart, handy kind of lad, and what a different look
his face must have had then!

We had our own horses in pretty good trim, so we foraged up Aileen's mare,
and made it up to ride over to George Storefield's, and gave him a look-up.
He'd been away when we came, and now we heard he was home.

`George has been doing well all this time, of course,' I said.
`I expect he'll turn squatter some day and be made a magistrate.'

`Like enough,' says Jim. `More than one we could pick began lower down
than him, and sits on the Bench and gives coves like us a turn
when we're brought up before 'em. Fancy old George sayin',
"Is anything known, constable, of this prisoner's anterseedents?"
as I heard old Higgler say one day at Bargo.'

`Why do you make fun of these things, Jim, dear?' says Aileen,
looking so solemn and mournful like. `Oughtn't a steady worker
to rise in life, and isn't it sad to see cleverer men and better workers
-- if they liked -- kept down by their own fault?'

`Why wasn't your roan mare born black or chestnut?' says Jim, laughing,
and pretending to touch her up. `Come along, and let's see if she can trot
as well as she used to do?'

`Poor Lowan,' says she, patting the mare's smooth neck
(she was a wonderful neat, well-bred, dark roan, with black points --
one of dad's, perhaps, that he'd brought her home one time
he was in special good humour about something. Where she was bred or how,
nobody ever knew); `she was born pretty and good. How little trouble
her life gives her. It's a pity we can't all say as much,
or have as little on our minds.'

`Whose fault's that?' says Jim. `The dingo must live as well as the collie
or the sheep either. One's been made just the same as the other.
I've often watched a dingo turn round twice, and then pitch himself down
in the long grass like as if he was dead. He's not a bad sort, old dingo,
and has a good time of it as long as it lasts.'

`Yes, till he's trapped or shot or poisoned some day, which he always is,'
said Aileen bitterly. `I wonder any man should be content
with a wicked life and a shameful death.'  And she struck Lowan with a switch,
and spun down the slope of the hill between the trees like a forester-doe
with the hunter-hound behind her.

When we came up with her she was all right again, and tried to smile.
Whatever put her out for the time she always worked things by kindness,
and would lead us straight if she could. Driven, she knew we couldn't be;
and I believe she did us about ten times as much good that way
as if she had scolded and raged, or even sneered at us.

When we rode up to Mr. Storefield's farm we were quite agreeable
and pleasant again, Jim makin' believe his horse could walk fastest,
and saying that her mare's pace was only a double shuffle of an amble
like Bilbah's, and she declaring that the mare's was a true walk --
and so it was. The mare could do pretty well everything but talk,
and all her paces were first-class.

Old Mrs. Storefield was pottering about in the garden
with a big sun-bonnet on. She was a great woman for flowers.

`Come along in, Aileen, my dear,' she said. `Gracey's in the dairy;
she'll be out directly. George only came home yesterday.
Who be these you've got with ye? Why, Dick!' she says,
lookin' again with her sharp, old, gray eyes, `it's you, boy, is it?
Well, you've changed a deal too; and Jim too. Is he as full of mischief
as ever? Well, God bless you, boys, I wish you well! I wish you well.
Come in out of the sun, Aileen; and one of you take the horses
up to the stable. You'll find George there somewhere.'

Aileen had jumped down by this time, and had thrown her rein to Jim,
so we rode up to the stable, and a very good one it was,
not long put up, that we could see. How the place had changed,
and how different it was from ours! We remembered the time
when their hut wasn't a patch on ours, when old Isaac Storefield,
that had been gardener at Mulgoa to some of the big gentlemen
in the old days, had saved a bit of money and taken up a farm;
but bit by bit their place had been getting better and bigger every year,
while ours had stood still and now was going back.

Chapter 15

George Storefield's place, for the old man was dead and all the place
belonged to him and Gracey, quite stunned Jim and me. We'd been away
more than a year, and he'd pulled down the old fences and put up new ones --
first-rate work it was too; he was always a dead hand at splitting.
Then there was a big hay-shed, chock-full of good sweet hay and wheat sheaves,
and, last of all, the new stable, with six stalls and a loft above, and racks,
all built of ironbark slabs, as solid and reg'lar as a church, Jim said.

They'd a good six-roomed cottage and a new garden fence ever so long.
There were more fruit trees in the garden and a lot of good draught horses
standing about, that looked well, but as if they'd come off a journey.

The stable door opens, and out comes old George as hearty as ever,
but looking full of business.

`Glad to see you, boys,' he says; `what a time you've been away!
Been away myself these three months with a lot of teams carrying.
I've taken greatly to the business lately. I'm just settling up
with my drivers, but put the horses in, there's chaff and corn in the mangers,
and I'll be down in a few minutes. It's well on to dinner-time, I see.'

We took the bridles off and tied up the horses -- there was any amount of feed
for them -- and strolled down to the cottage again.

`Wonder whether Gracey's as nice as she used to be,' says Jim.
`Next to Aileen I used to think she wasn't to be beat.
When I was a little chap I believed you and she must be married for certain.
And old George and Aileen. I never laid out any one for myself, I remember.'

`The first two don't look like coming off,' I said. `You're the likeliest man
to marry and settle if Jeanie sticks to you.'

`She'd better go down to the pier and drown herself comfortably,' said Jim.
`If she knew what was before us all, perhaps she would. Poor little Jeanie!
We'd no right to drag other people into our troubles. I believe we're getting
worse and worse. The sooner we're shot or locked up the better.'

`You won't think so when it comes, old man,' I said. `Don't bother your head
-- it ain't the best part of you -- about things that can't be helped.
We're not the only horses that can't be kept on the course --
with a good turn of speed too.'

`"They want shooting like the dingoes," as Aileen said.
They're never no good, except to ruin those that back 'em
and disgrace their owners and the stable they come out of.
That's our sort, all to pieces. Well, we'd better come in.
Gracey 'll think we're afraid to face her.'

When we went away last Grace Storefield was a little over seventeen,
so now she was nineteen all out, and a fine girl she'd grown.
Though I never used to think her a beauty, now I almost began to think
she must be. She wasn't tall, and Aileen looked slight alongside of her;
but she was wonderful fair and fresh coloured for an Australian girl,
with a lot of soft brown hair and a pair of clear blue eyes
that always looked kindly and honestly into everybody's face.
Every look of her seemed to wish to do you good and make you think
that nothing that wasn't square and right and honest and true
could live in the same place with her.

She held out both hands to me and said --

`Well, Dick, so you're back again. You must have been
to the end of the world, and Jim, too. I'm very glad to see you both.'

She looked into my face with that pleased look that put me in mind of her
when she was a little child and used to come toddling up to me,
staring and smiling all over her face the moment she saw me.
Now she was a grown woman, and a sweet-looking one too.
I couldn't lift her up and kiss her as I used to do, but I felt as if
I should like to do it all the same. She was the only creature
in the whole world, I think, that liked me better than Jim.
I'd been trying to drive all thoughts of her out of my heart,
seeing the tangle I'd got into in more ways than one; but now the old feeling
which had been a part of me ever since I'd grown up came rushing back
stronger than ever. I was surprised at myself, and looked queer I daresay.

Then Aileen laughed, and Jim comes to the rescue and says --

`Dick doesn't remember you, Gracey. You've grown such a swell, too.
You can't be the little girl we used to carry on our backs.'

`Dick remembers very well,' she says, and her very voice was ever so much
fuller and softer, `don't you, Dick?' and she looked into my face
as innocent as a child. `I don't think he could pull me out of the water
and carry me up to the cottage now.'

`You tumble in and we'll try,' says Jim; `first man to keep you for good --
eh, Gracey? It's fine hot weather, and Aileen shall see fair play.'

`You're just as saucy as ever, Jim,' says she, blushing and smiling.
`I see George coming, so I must go and fetch in dinner. Aileen's going
to help me instead of mother. You must tell us all about your travels
when we sit down.'

When George came in he began to talk to make up for lost time,
and told us where he had been -- a long way out in some new back country,
just taken up with sheep. He had got a first-rate paying price
for his carriage out, and had brought back and delivered a full load of wool.

`I intend to do it every year for a bit,' he said. `I can breed and feed
a good stamp of draught horse here. I pay drivers for three waggons
and drive the fourth myself. It pays first-rate so far,
and we had very fair feed all the way there and back.'

`Suppose you get a dry season,' I said, `how will that be?'

`We shall have to carry forage, of course; but then carriage will be higher,
and it will come to the same thing. I don't like being so long
away from home; but it pays first-rate, and I think I see a way
to its paying better still.'

`So you've ridden over to show them the way, Aileen,' he said,
as the girls came in; `very good of you it was. I was afraid
you'd forgotten the way.'

`I never forget the way to a friend's place, George,' she said,
`and you've been our best friend while these naughty boys have left
mother and me so long by ourselves. But you've been away yourself.'

`Only four months,' he said; `and after a few more trips
I shan't want to go away any more.'

`That will be a good day for all of us,' she said. `You know, Gracey,
we can't do without George, can we? I felt quite deserted, I can tell you.'

`He wouldn't have gone away at all if you'd held up your little finger,
you know that, you hard-hearted girl,' said Grace, trying to frown.
`It's all your fault.'

`Oh! I couldn't interfere with Mr. Storefield's business,' said Aileen,
looking very grave. `What kind of a country was it you were out in?'

`Not a bad place for sheep and cattle and blacks,' said poor George,
looking rather glum; `and not a bad country to make money or do anything
but live in, but that hot and dry and full of flies and mosquitoes
that I'd sooner live on a pound a week down here than take a good station
as a present there. That is, if I was contented,' he went on to say,
with a sort of a groan.

There never was a greater mistake in the world, I believe,
than for a man to let a woman know how much he cares for her.
It's right enough if she's made up her mind to take him, no odds what happens.
But if there's any half-and-half feeling in her mind about him,
and she's uncertain and doubtful whether she likes him well enough,
all this down-on-your-knees business works against you,
more than your worst enemy could do. I didn't know so much about it then.
I've found it out since, worse luck. And I really believe
if George had had the savey to crack himself up a little,
and say he'd met a nice girl or two in the back country and hid his hand,
Aileen would have made it up with him that very Christmas,
and been a happy woman all her life.

When old Mrs. Storefield came in she put us through our facings pretty brisk
-- where we'd been, what we'd done? What took us to Melbourne, --
how we liked it? What kind of people they were? and so on.
We had to tell her a good lot, part of it truth, of course, but pretty mixed.
It made rather a good yarn, and I could see Grace was listening with her heart
as well as her ears. Jim said generally we met some very nice people
in Melbourne named Jackson, and they were very kind to us.

`Were there any daughters in the family, Jim?' asked Grace.

`Oh! yes, three.'

`Were they good-looking?'

`No, rather homely, particularly the youngest.'

`What did they do?'

`Oh! their mother kept a boarding-house. We stayed there.'

I don't think I ever knew Jim do so much lying before; but after he'd begun
he had to stick to it. He told me afterwards he nearly broke down
about the three daughters; but was rather proud of making the youngest
the ugliest.

`I can see Gracey's as fond of you as ever she was, Dick,' says he;
`that's why she made me tell all those crammers. It's an awful pity
we can't all square it, and get spliced this Christmas.
Aileen would take George if she wasn't a fool, as most women are.
I'd like to bring Jeanie up here, and join George in the carrying business.
It's going to be a big thing, I can see. You might marry Gracey,
and look after both places while we were away.'

`And how about Kate?'

`The devil take her! and then he'd have a bargain. I wish you'd never
dropped across her, and that she wasn't Jeanie's sister,' blurts out Jim.
`She'll bring bad luck among us before she's done, I feel,
as sure as we're standing here.'

`It's all a toss up -- like our lives; married or lagged,
bushwork or roadwork (in irons), free or bond. We can't tell
how it will be with us this day year.'

`I've half a mind to shoot myself,' says Jim, `and end it all. I would, too,
only for mother and Aileen. What's the use of life that isn't life,
but fear and misery, from one day's end to another, and we only just grown up?
It's d----d hard that a chap's brains don't grow along with
his legs and arms.'

We didn't ride home till quite the evening. Grace would have us stay for tea;
it was a pretty hot day, so there was no use riding in the sun.
George saddled his horse, and he and Grace rode part of the way home with us.
He'd got regular sunburnt like us, and, as he could ride a bit,
like most natives, he looked better outside of a horse than on his own legs,
being rather thick-set and shortish; but his heart was in the right place,
like his sister's, and his head was screwed on right, too.
I think more of old George now than I ever did before,
and wish I'd had the sense to value his independent straight-ahead nature,
and the track it led him, as he deserved.

Jim and I rode in front, with Gracey between us. She had on a neat habit
and a better hat and gloves than Aileen, but nothing could ever give her
the seat and hand and light, easy, graceful way with her in the saddle
that our girl had. All the same she could ride and drive too,
and as we rode side by side in the twilight, talking about the places
I'd been to, and she wanting to know everything (Jim drew off a bit
when the road got narrow), I felt what a fool I'd been to let things slide,
and would have given my right hand to have been able to put them as they were
three short years before.

At last we got to the Gap; it was the shortest halt from their home.
George shook hands with Aileen, and turned back.

`We'll come and see you next ----' he said.

`Christmas Eve!' said Aileen.

`Christmas Eve let it be,' says George.

`All right,' I said, holding Grace's hand for a bit. And so we parted --
for how long, do you think?

Chapter 16

When we got home it was pretty late, and the air was beginning to cool
after the hot day. There was a low moon, and everything showed out clear,
so that you could see the smallest branches of the trees on Nulla Mountain,
where it stood like a dark cloud-bank against the western sky.
There wasn't the smallest breeze. The air was that still and quiet
you could have heard anything stir in the grass, or almost a 'possum
digging his claws into the smooth bark of the white gum trees.
The curlews set up a cry from time to time; but they didn't sound
so queer and shrill as they mostly do at night. I don't know how it was,
but everything seemed quiet and pleasant and homelike,
as if a chap might live a hundred years, if it was all like this,
and keep growing better and happier every day. I remember all this
so particular because it was the only time I'd felt like it for years,
and I never had the same feeling afterwards -- nor likely to.

`Oh! what a happy day I've had,' Aileen said, on a sudden.
Jim and I and her had been riding a long spell without speaking.
`I don't know when I've enjoyed myself so much; I've got quite
out of the way of being happy lately, and hardly know the taste of it.
How lovely it would be if you and Jim could always stay at home like this,
and we could do our work happy and comfortable together, without separating,
and all this deadly fear of something terrible happening,
that's never out of my mind. Oh! Dick, won't you promise me
to stop quiet and work steady at home, if you -- if you and Jim
haven't anything brought against you?'

She bent forward and looked into my face as she said this.
I could see her eyes shine, and every word she said seemed to come
straight from her heart. How sad and pitiful she looked,
and we felt for a moment just as we did when we were boys,
and she used to come and persuade us to go on with our work
and not grieve mother, and run the risk of a licking from father
when he came home.

Her mare, Lowan, was close alongside of my horse, stepping along
at her fast tearing walk, throwing up her head and snorting
every now and then, but Aileen sat in her saddle better than some people
can sit in a chair; she held the rein and whip together
and kept her hand on mine till I spoke.

`We'll do all we can, Aileen dear, for you and poor mother, won't we, Jim?'
I felt soft and down-hearted then, if ever I did. `But it's too late --
too late! You'll see us now and then; but we can't stop at home quiet,
nor work about here all the time as we used to do. That day's gone.
Jim knows it as well as me. There's no help for it now.
We'll have to do like the rest -- enjoy ourselves a bit while we can,
and stand up to our fight when the trouble comes.'

She took her hand away, and rode on with her rein loose and her head down.
I could see the tears falling down her face, but after a bit
she put herself to rights, and we rode quietly up to the door.
Mother was working away in her chair, and father walking up and down
before the door smoking.

When we were letting go the horses, father comes up and says --

`I've got a bit of news for you, boys; Starlight's been took,
and the darkie with him.'

`Where?' I said. Somehow I felt struck all of a heap by hearing this.
I'd got out of the way of thinking they'd drop on him.
As for Jim, he heard it straight enough, but he went on whistling
and patting the mare's neck, teasing her like, because she was so uneasy
to get her head-stall off and run after the others.

`Why, in New Zealand, to be sure. The blamed fool stuck there all this time,
just because he found himself comfortably situated among people as he liked.
I wonder how he'll fancy Berrima after it all? Sarves him well right.'

`But how did you come to hear about it?'  We knew father
couldn't read nor write.

`I have a chap as is paid to read the papers reg'lar, and to put me on
when there's anything in 'em as I want to know. He's bin over here to-day
and give me the office. Here's the paper he left.'

Father pulls out a crumpled-up dirty-lookin' bit of newspaper.
It wasn't much to look at; but there was enough to keep us in readin',
and thinkin', too, for a good while, as soon as we made it out.
In pretty big letters, too.

   IMPORTANT CAPTURE BY DETECTIVE STILLBROOK, OF THE NEW SOUTH WALES POLICE.

That was atop of the page, then comes this: --

Our readers may remember the description given in this journal,
some months since, of a cattle robbery on the largest scale,
when upwards of a thousand head were stolen from one of Mr. Hood's stations,
driven to Adelaide, and then sold, by a party of men whose names
have not as yet transpired. It is satisfactory to find
that the leader of the gang, who is well known to the police
by the assumed name of `Starlight', with a half-caste lad
recognised as an accomplice, has been arrested by this active officer.
It appears that, from information received, Detective Stillbrook went
to New Zealand, and, after several months' patient search, took his passage
in the boat which left that colony, in order to meet the mail steamer,
outward bound, for San Francisco. As the passengers were landing
he arrested a gentlemanlike and well-dressed personage, who, with his servant,
was about to proceed to Menzies's Hotel. Considerable surprise was manifested
by the other passengers, with whom the prisoner had become
universally popular. He indignantly denied all knowledge of the charge;
but we have reason to believe that there will be no difficulty
as to identification. A large sum of money in gold and notes
was found upon him. Other arrests are likely to follow.

This looked bad; for a bit we didn't know what to think.
While Jim and I was makin' it all out, with the help of a bit of candle
we smuggled out -- we dursn't take it inside -- father was smokin' his pipe
-- in the old fashion -- and saying nothing. When we'd done
he put up his pipe in his pouch and begins to talk.

`It's come just as I said, and knowed it would, through Starlight's
cussed flashness and carryin's on in fine company. If he'd cleared out
and made for the Islands as I warned him to do, and he settled to,
or as good, afore he left us that day at the camp, he'd been safe
in some o' them 'Merikin places he was always gassin' about,
and all this wouldn't 'a happened.'

`He couldn't help that,' says Jim; `he thought they'd never know him
from any other swell in Canterbury or wherever he was. He's been took in
like many another man. What I look at is this: he won't squeak.
How are they to find out that we had any hand in it?'

`That's what I'm dubersome about,' says father, lightin' his pipe again.
`Nobody down there got much of a look at me, and I let my beard grow
on the road and shaved clean soon's I got back, same as I always do.
Now the thing is, does any one know that you boys was in the fakement?'

`Nobody's likely to know but him and Warrigal. The knockabouts
and those other three chaps won't come it on us for their own sakes.
We may as well stop here till Christmas is over and then make down
to the Barwon, or somewhere thereabouts. We could take a long job at droving
till the derry's off a bit.'

`If you'll be said by me,' the old man growls out, `you'll make tracks
for the Hollow afore daylight and keep dark till we hear how the play goes.
I know Starlight's as close as a spring-lock; but that chap Warrigal
don't cotton to either of you, and he's likely to give you away
if he's pinched himself -- that's my notion of him.'

`Starlight 'll keep him from doing that,' Jim says; `the boy 'll do nothing
his master don't agree to, and he'd break his neck if he found him out
in any dog's trick like that.'

`Starlight and he ain't in the same cell, you take your oath.
I don't trust no man except him. I'll be off now, and if you'll take
a fool's advice, though he is your father, you'll go too;
we can be there by daylight.'

Jim and I looked at each other.

`We promised to stay Chris'mas with mother and Aileen,' says he,
`and if all the devils in hell tried to stop us, I wouldn't break my word.
But we'll come to the Hollow on Boxing Day, won't we, Dick?'

`All right! It's only two or three days. The day after to-morrow's
Chris'mas Eve. We'll chance that, as it's gone so far.'

`Take your own way,' growls father. `Fetch me my saddle.
The old mare's close by the yard.'

Jim fetches the saddle and bridle, and Crib comes after him,
out of the verandah, where he had been lying. Bless you! he knew
something was up. Just like a Christian he was, and nothing never happened
that dad was in as he wasn't down to.

`May as well stop till morning, dad,' says Jim, as we walked up to the yard.

`Not another minute,' says the old man, and he whips the bridle
out of Jim's hand and walks over to the old mare. She lifts up her head
from the dry grass and stands as steady as a rock.

`Good-bye,' he says, and he shook hands with both of us;
`if I don't see you again I'll send you word if I hear anything fresh.'

In another minute we heard the old mare's hoofs proceeding away
among the rocks up the gully, and gradually getting fainter in the distance.

Then we went in. Mother and Aileen had been in bed an hour ago,
and all the better for them. Next morning we told mother and Aileen
that father had gone. They didn't say much. They were used to his ways.
They never expected him till they saw him, and had got out of the fashion
of asking why he did this or that. He had reasons of his own,
which he never told them, for going or coming, and they'd left off
troubling their heads about it. Mother was always in dread
while he was there, and they were far easier in their minds
when he was away off the place.

As for us, we had made up our minds to enjoy ourselves while we could,
and we had come to his way of thinking, that most likely
nothing was known of our being in the cattle affair that Starlight and the boy
had been arrested for. We knew nothing would drag it out of Starlight
about his pals in this or any other job. Now they'd got him,
it would content them for a bit, and maybe take off their attention
from us and the others that were in it.

There were two days to Christmas. Next day George and his sister would
be over, and we all looked forward to that for a good reminder of old times.
We were going to have a merry Christmas at home for once in a way.
After that we would clear out and get away to some of the far out stations,
where chaps like ourselves always made to when they wanted to keep dark.
We might have the luck of other men that we had known of, and never be traced
till the whole thing had died out and been half-forgotten. Though we didn't
say much to each other we had pretty well made up our minds to go straight
from this out. We might take up a bit of back country, and put stock on it
with some of the money we had left. Lots of men had begun that way
that had things against them as bad as us, and had kept steady,
and worked through in course of time. Why shouldn't we as well as others?
We wanted to see what the papers said of us, so we rode over
to a little post town we knew of and got a copy of the `Evening Times'.
There it all was in full: --

                         CATTLE-LIFTING EXTRAORDINARY.

We have heard from time to time of cattle being stolen
in lots of reasonable size, say from ten to one hundred, or even as high
as two hundred head at the outside. But we never expected to have to record
the erecting of a substantial stockyard and the carrying off and disposing of
a whole herd, estimated at a thousand or eleven hundred head,
chiefly the property of one proprietor. Yet this has been done
in New South Wales, and done, we regret to say, cleverly and successfully.
It has just transpired, beyond all possibility of mistake,
that Mr. Hood's Outer Back Momberah run has suffered to that extent
in the past winter. The stolen herd was driven to Adelaide,
and there sold openly. The money was received by the robbers,
who were permitted to decamp at their leisure.

When we mention the name of the notorious `Starlight',
no one will be surprised that the deed was planned, carried out, and executed
with consummate address and completeness. It seems matter of regret
that we cannot persuade this illustrious depredator to take the command
of our police force, that body of life-assurers and property-protectors
which has proved so singularly ineffective as a preventive service
in the present case. On the well-known proverbial principle we might hope
for the best results under Mr. Starlight's intelligent supervision.
We must not withhold our approval as to one item of success
which the force has scored. Starlight himself and a half-caste henchman
have been cleverly captured by Detective Stillbrook, just as the former,
who has been ruffling it among the `aristocratic' settlers of Christchurch,
was about to sail for Honolulu. The names of his other accomplices,
six in number, it is said, have not as yet transpired.

This last part gave us confidence, but all the same we kept everything ready
for a bolt in case of need. We got up our horses every evening
and kept them in the yard all night. The feed was good by the creek now --
a little dried up but plenty of bite, and better for horses
that had been ridden far and fast than if it was green.
We had enough of last year's hay to give them a feed at night,
and that was all they wanted. They were two pretty good ones
and not slow either. We took care of that when we bought them.
Nobody ever saw us on bad ones since we were boys, and we had broken them in
to stand and be caught day or night, and to let us jump on and off
at a moment's notice.

All that day, being awful hot and close, we stayed in the house
and yarned away with mother and Aileen till they thought -- poor souls --
that we had turned over a new leaf and were going to stay at home
and be good boys for the future. When a man sees how little it takes
to make women happy -- them that's good and never thinks of anything
but doing their best for everybody belonging to 'em -- it's wonderful
how men ever make up their minds to go wrong and bring all that loves them
to shame and grief. When they've got nobody but themselves to think of
it don't so much matter as I know of; but to keep on breaking
the hearts of those as never did you anything but good,
and wouldn't if they lived for a hundred years, is cowardly and unmanly
any way you look at it. And yet we'd done very little else ourselves
these years and years.

We all sat up till nigh on to midnight with our hands in one another's --
Jim down at mother's feet; Aileen and I close beside them
on the old seat in the verandah that father made such a time ago.
At last mother gets up, and they both started for bed. Aileen seemed
as if she couldn't tear herself away. Twice she came back,
then she kissed us both, and the tears came into her eyes.
`I feel too happy,' she said; `I never thought I should feel like this again.
God bless you both, and keep us all from harm.'  `Amen,' said mother
from the next room. We turned out early, and had a bathe in the creek
before we went up to the yard to let out the horses. There wasn't a cloud
in the sky; it was safe to be a roasting hot day, but it was cool then.
The little waterhole where we learned to swim when we were boys
was deep on one side and had a rocky ledge to jump off. The birds just began
to give out a note or two; the sun was rising clear and bright,
and we could see the dark top of Nulla Mountain getting a sort of rose colour
against the sky.

`George and Gracey 'll be over soon after breakfast,' I said;
`we must have everything look ship-shape as well as we can
before they turn up.'

`The horses may as well go down to the flat,' Jim says;
`we can catch them easy enough in time to ride back part of the way with them.
I'll run up Lowan, and give her a bit of hay in the calf-pen.'

We went over to the yard, and Jim let down the rails and walked in.
I stopped outside. Jim had his horse by the mane, and was patting his neck
as mine came out, when three police troopers rose up from behind the bushes,
and covering us with their rifles called out, `Stand, in the Queen's name!'

Jim made one spring on to his horse's back, drove his heels into his flank,
and was out through the gate and half-way down the hill before you could wink.

Just as Jim cleared the gate a tall man rose up close behind me
and took a cool pot at him with a revolver. I saw Jim's hat fly off,
and another bullet grazed his horse's hip. I saw the hair fly,
and the horse make a plunge that would have unseated most men
with no saddle between their legs. But Jim sat close and steady
and only threw up his arm and gave a shout as the old horse tore down the hill
a few miles an hour faster.

`D--n those cartridges,' said the tall trooper; `they always put
too much powder in them for close shooting. Now, Dick Marston!' he went on,
putting his revolver to my head, `I'd rather not blow your brains out
before your people, but if you don't put up your hands by ---- I'll shoot you
where you stand.'  I had been staring after Jim all the time;
I believe I had never thought of myself till he was safe away.

`Get your horses, you d----d fools,' he shouts out to the men,
`and see if you can follow up that madman. He's most likely
knocked off against a tree by this time.'

There was nothing else for it but to do it and be handcuffed.
As the steel locks snapped I saw mother standing below wringing her hands,
and Aileen trying to get her into the house.

`Better come down and get your coat on, Dick,' said the senior constable.
`We want to search the place, too. By Jove! we shall get pepper
from Sir Ferdinand when we go in. I thought we had you both as safe
as chickens in a coop. Who would have thought of Jim givin' us the slip,
on a barebacked horse, without so much as a halter? I'm devilish sorry
for your family; but if nothing less than a thousand head of cattle
will satisfy people, they must expect trouble to come of it.'

`What are you talking about?' I said. `You've got the wrong story
and the wrong men.'

`All right; we'll see about that. I don't know whether you want
any breakfast, but I should like a cup of tea. It's deuced slow work
watching all night, though it isn't cold. We've got to be
in Bargo barracks to-night, so there's no time to lose.'

It was all over now -- the worst HAD come. What fools we had been
not to take the old man's advice, and clear out when he did. He was safe
in the Hollow, and would chuckle to himself -- and be sorry, too --
when he heard of my being taken, and perhaps Jim. The odds were
he might be smashed against a tree, perhaps killed, at the pace he was going
on a horse he could not guide.

They searched the house, but the money they didn't get.
Jim and I had taken care of that, in case of accidents.
Mother sat rocking herself backwards and forwards, every now and then
crying out in a pitiful way, like the women in her country do,
I've heard tell, when some one of their people is dead;
`keening', I think they call it. Well, Jim and I were as good as dead.
If the troopers had shot the pair of us there and then,
same as bushmen told us the black police did their prisoners
when they gave 'em any trouble, it would have been better for everybody.
However, people don't die all at once when they go to the bad,
and take to stealing or drinking, or any of the devil's favourite traps.
Pity they don't, and have done with it once and for all.

I know I thought so when I was forced to stand there with my hands
chained together for the first time in my life (though I'd worked for it,
I know that); and to see Aileen walking about laying the cloth for breakfast
like a dead woman, and know what was in her mind.

The troopers were civil enough, and Goring, the senior constable,
tried to comfort them as much as he could. He knew it was no fault of theirs;
and though he said he meant to have Jim if mortal men and horses could do it
he thought he had a fair chance of getting away. `He's sure to be caught
in the long run, though,' he went on to say. `There's a warrant out for him,
and a description in every "Police Gazette" in the colonies.
My advice to him would be to come back and give himself up.
It's not a hanging matter, and as it's the first time you've been fitted,
Dick, the judge, as like as not, will let you off with a light sentence.'

So they talked away until they had finished their breakfast.
I couldn't touch a mouthful for the life of me, and as soon as it was all over
they ran up my horse and put the saddle on. But I wasn't to ride him.
No fear! Goring put me on an old screw of a troop horse,
with one leg like a gate-post. I was helped up and my legs tied
under his belly. Then one of the men took the bridle and led me away.
Goring rode in front and the other men behind.

As we rose the hill above the place I looked back and saw mother
drop down on the ground in a kind of fit, while Aileen bent over her
and seemed to be loosening her dress. Just at that moment
George Storefield and his sister rode up to the door. George jumped off
and rushed over to Aileen and mother. I knew Gracey had seen me,
for she sat on her horse as if she had been turned to stone,
and let her reins drop on his neck. Strange things have happened to me since,
but I shall never forget that to the last day of my miserable life.

Chapter 17

I wasn't in the humour for talking, but sometimes anything's better
than one's own thoughts. Goring threw in a word from time to time.
He'd only lately come into our district, and was sure to be promoted,
everybody said. Like Starlight himself, he'd seen better days
at home in England; but when he got pinched he'd taken the right turn
and not the wrong one, which makes all the difference.
He was earning his bread honest, anyway, and he was a chap
as liked the fun and dash of a mounted policeman's life.
As for the risk -- and there is some danger, more than people thinks,
now and then -- he liked that the best of it. He was put out at losing Jim;
but he believed he couldn't escape, and told me so in a friendly way.
`He's inside a circle and he can't get away, you mark my words,' he said,
two or three times. `We have every police-station warned by wire,
within a hundred miles of here, three days ago. There's not a man
in the colony sharper looked after than Master Jim is this minute.'

`Then you only heard about us three days ago?' I said.

`That's as it may be,' he answered, biting his lip. `Anyhow, there isn't
a shepherd's hut within miles that he can get to without our knowing it.
The country's rough, but there's word gone for a black tracker to go down.
You'll see him in Bargo before the week's out.'

I had a good guess where Jim would make for, and he knew enough
to hide his tracks for the last few miles if there was a whole tribe
of trackers after him.

That night we rode into Bargo. A long day too we'd had --
we were all tired enough when we got in. I was locked up, of course,
and as soon as we were in the cell Goring said, `Listen to me,'
and put on his official face -- devilish stern and hard-looking he was then,
in spite of all the talking and nonsense we'd had coming along.

`Richard Marston, I charge you with unlawfully taking, stealing,
and carrying away, in company with others, one thousand head of mixed cattle,
more or less the property of one Walter Hood, of Outer Back, Momberah,
in or about the month of June last.'

`All right; why don't you make it a few more while you're about it?'

`That'll do,' he said, nodding his head, `you decline to say anything.
Well, I can't exactly wish you a merry Christmas -- fancy this being
Christmas Eve, by Jove! -- but you'll be cool enough this deuced hot weather
till the sessions in February, which is more than some of us can say.
Good-night.'  He went out and locked the door. I sat down on my blanket
on the floor and hid my head in my hands. I wonder it didn't burst
with what I felt then. Strange that I shouldn't have felt half as bad
when the judge, the other day, sentenced me to be a dead man
in a couple of months. But I was young then.

     .   .   .   .   .

Christmas Day! Christmas Day! So this is how I was to spend it after all,
I thought, as I woke up at dawn, and saw the gray light just beginning
to get through the bars of the window of the cell.

Here was I locked up, caged, ironed, disgraced, a felon and an outcast
for the rest of my life. Jim, flying for his life, hiding from
every honest man, every policeman in the country looking after him,
and authorised to catch him or shoot him down like a sheep-killing dog.
Father living in the Hollow, like a blackfellow in a cave,
afraid to spend the blessed Christmas with his wife and daughter,
like the poorest man in the land could do if he was only honest.
Mother half dead with grief, and Aileen ashamed to speak to the man
that loved and respected her from her childhood. Gracey Storefield not daring
to think of me or say my name, after seeing me carried off a prisoner
before her eyes. Here was a load of misery and disgrace heaped up together,
to be borne by the whole family, now and for the time to come --
by the innocent as well as the guilty. And for what? Because we had been
too idle and careless to work regularly and save our money,
though well able to do it, like honest men. Because, little by little,
we had let bad dishonest ways and flash manners grow upon us,
all running up an account that had to be paid some day.

And now the day of reckoning had come -- sharp and sudden with a vengeance!
Well, what call had we to look for anything else? We had been working for it;
now we had got it, and had to bear it. Not for want of warning, neither.
What had mother and Aileen been saying ever since we could remember?
Warning upon warning. Now the end had come just as they said.
Of course I knew in a general way that I couldn't be punished
or be done anything to right off. I knew law enough for that.
The next thing would be that I should have to be brought up
before the magistrates and committed for trial as soon as they could get
any evidence.

After breakfast, flour and water or hominy, I forget which,
the warder told me that there wasn't much chance of my being brought up
before Christmas was over. The police magistrate was away on a month's leave,
and the other magistrates would not be likely to attend
before the end of the week, anyway. So I must make myself comfortable
where I was. Comfortable!

`Had they caught Jim?'

`Well, not that he'd heard of; but Goring said it was impossible for him
to get away. At twelve he'd bring me some dinner.'

I was pretty certain they wouldn't catch Jim, in spite of Goring
being so cocksure about it. If he wasn't knocked off the first mile or so,
he'd find ways of stopping or steadying his horse, and facing him up
to where we had gone to join father at the tableland of the Nulla Mountain.
Once he got near there he could let go his horse. They'd be following
his track, while he made the best of his way on foot to the path
that led to the Hollow. If he had five miles start of them there,
as was most likely, all the blacks in the country would never track
where he got to. He and father could live there for a month or so,
and take it easy until they could slip out and do a bit of father's old trade.
That was about what I expected Jim to do, and as it turned out
I was as nearly right as could be. They ran his track for ten miles.
Then they followed his horse-tracks till late the second day, and found that
the horse had slued round and was making for home again with nobody on him.
Jim was nowhere to be seen, and they'd lost all that time,
never expecting that he was going to dismount and leave the horse
to go his own way.

They searched Nulla Mountain from top to bottom; but some of the smartest men
of the old Mounted Police and the best of the stockmen in the old days
-- men not easy to beat -- had tried the same country many years before,
and never found the path to the Hollow. So it wasn't likely
any one else would. They had to come back and own that they were beat,
which put Goring in a rage and made the inspector, Sir Ferdinand Morringer,
blow them all up for a lot of duffers and old women. Altogether they had
a bad time of it, not that it made any difference to me.

After the holidays a magistrate was fished up somehow,
and I was brought before him and the apprehending constable's evidence taken.
Then I was remanded to the Bench at Nomah, where Mr. Hood
and some of the other witnesses were to appear. So away we started
for another journey. Goring and a trooper went with me,
and all sorts of care was taken that I didn't give them the slip on the road.
Goring used to put one of my handcuffs on his own wrist at night,
so there wasn't much chance of moving without waking him.
I had an old horse to ride that couldn't go much faster than I could run,
for fear of accident. It was even betting that he'd fall and kill me
on the road. If I'd had a laugh in me, I should have had a joke
against the Police Department for not keeping safer horses
for their prisoners to ride. They keep them till they haven't a leg
to stand upon, and long after they can't go a hundred yards
without trying to walk on their heads they're thought good enough to carry
packs and prisoners.

`Some day,' Goring said, `one of those old screws will be
the death of a prisoner before he's committed for trial,
and then there'll be a row over it, I suppose.'

We hadn't a bad journey of it on the whole. The troopers were civil enough,
and gave me a glass of grog now and then when they had one themselves.
They'd done their duty in catching me, and that was all they thought about.
What came afterwards wasn't their look-out. I've no call to have any
bad feeling against the police, and I don't think most men of my sort have.
They've got their work to do, like other people, and as long as they do
what they're paid for, and don't go out of their way to harass men for spite,
we don't bear them any malice. If one's hit in fair fight
it's the fortune of war. What our side don't like is men going in
for police duty that's not in their line. That's interfering,
according to our notions, and if they fall into a trap or are met with
when they don't expect it they get it pretty hot. They've only themselves
to thank for it.

Goring, I could see by his ways, had been a swell, something like Starlight.
A good many young fellows that don't drop into fortunes
when they come out here take to the police in Australia, and very good men
they make. They like the half-soldiering kind of life, and if they stick
steady at their work, and show pluck and gumption, they mostly get promoted.
Goring was a real smart, dashing chap, a good rider for an Englishman;
that is, he could set most horses, and hold his own with us natives
anywhere but through scrub and mountain country. No man can ride there,
I don't care who he is, the same as we can, unless he's been at it
all his life. There we have the pull -- not that it is so much after all.
But give a native a good horse and thick country, and he'll lose
any man living that's tackled the work after he's grown up.

By and by we got to Nomah, a regular hot hole of a place, with a log lock-up.
I was stuck in, of course, and had leg-irons put on for fear I should get out,
as another fellow had done a few weeks back. Starlight and Warrigal
hadn't reached yet; they had farther to come. The trial couldn't come
till the Quarter Sessions. January, and February too, passed over,
and all this time I was mewed up in a bit of a place enough to stifle a man
in the burning weather we had.

I heard afterwards that they wanted to bring some of the cattle over,
so as Mr. Hood could swear to 'em being his property. But he said
he could only swear to its being his brand; that he most likely had
never set eyes on them in his life, and couldn't swear on his own knowledge
that they hadn't been sold, like lots of others, by his manager.
So this looked like a hitch, as juries won't bring a man in
guilty of cattle-stealing unless there's clear swearing
that the animals he sold were the property of the prosecutor,
and known by him to be such.

Mr. Hood had to go all the way to Adelaide himself, and they told me
we might likely have got out of it all, only for the imported bull.
When he saw him he said he could swear to him point blank, brand or no brand.
He'd no brand on him, of course, when he left England;
but Hood happened to be in Sydney when he came out, and at the station
when he came up. He was stabled for the first six months,
so he used to go and look him over every day, and tell visitors
what a pot of money he'd cost, till he knew every hair in his tail,
as the saying is. As soon as he seen him in Adelaide he said
he could swear to him as positive as he could to his favourite riding horse.
So he was brought over in a steamer from Adelaide, and then drove all the way
up to Nomah. I wished he'd broken his neck before we ever saw him.

Next thing I saw was Starlight being brought in, handcuffed,
between two troopers, and looking as if he'd ridden a long way.
He was just as easy-going and devil-may-care as ever.
He said to one of the troopers --

`Here we are at last, and I'm deuced glad of it. It's perfectly monstrous
you fellows haven't better horses. You ought to make me remount agent,
and I'd show you the sort of horses that ought to be bought
for police service. Let me have a glass of beer, that's a good fellow,
before I'm locked up. I suppose there's no tap worth speaking of inside.'

The constable laughed, and had one brought to him.

`It will be some time before you get another, captain.
Here's a long one for you; make the most of it.'

Where, in the devil's name, is that Warrigal? I thought to myself.
Has he given them the slip? He had, as it turned out.
He had slipped the handcuffs over his slight wrists and small hands,
bided his time, and then dashed into a scrub. There he was at home.
They rode and rode, but Warrigal was gone like a rock wallaby.
It was a good while before he was as near the gaol again.

All this time I'd been wondering how it was they came to drop
on our names so pat, and to find out that Jim and I had a share
in the Momberah cattle racket. All they could have known
was that we left the back of Boree at a certain day; and that was nothing,
seeing that for all they knew we might have gone away
to new country or anywhere. The more I looked at it the more I felt sure
that some one had given to the police information about us --
somebody who was in it and knew all about everything. It wasn't Starlight.
We could have depended our life on him. It might have been
one of the other chaps, but I couldn't think of any one, except Warrigal.
He would do anything in the world to spite me and Jim, I knew;
but then he couldn't hurt us without drawing the net tighter round Starlight.
Sooner than hurt a hair of his head he'd have put his hand into the fire
and kept it there. I knew that from things I'd seen him do.

Starlight and I hadn't much chance of a talk, but we managed to get news
from each other, a bit at a time; that can always be managed.
We were to be defended, and a lawyer fetched all the way from Sydney
to fight our case for us. The money was there. Father managed
the other part of it through people he had that did every kind of work
for him; so when the judge came up we should have a show for it.

The weary long summer days -- every one of them about twenty hours long --
came to an end somehow or other. It was so hot and close
and I was that miserable I had two minds to knock my brains out
and finish the whole thing. I couldn't settle to read, as I did afterwards.
I was always wishing and wondering when I'd hear some news from home,
and none ever came. Nomah was a bit of a place where hardly anybody
did anything but idle and drink, and spend money when they had it.
When they had none they went away. There wasn't even a place
to take exercise in, and the leg-irons I wore night and day
began to eat into my flesh. I wasn't used to them in those days.
I could feel them in my heart, too. Last of all I got ill,
and for a while was so weak and low they thought I was going
to get out of the trial altogether.

At last we heard that the judge and all his lot were on the road,
and would be up in a few days. We were almost as glad when the news came
as if we were sure of being let off. One day they did come,
and all the little town was turned upside down. The judge stopped
at one hotel (they told us); the lawyers at another. Then the witnesses
in ours and other cases came in from all parts, and made a great difference,
especially to the publicans. The jurors were summoned, and had to come,
unless they had a fancy for being fined. Most of this I heard
from the constables; they seemed to think it was the only thing
that made any difference in their lives. Last of all I heard
that Mr. Hood had come, and the imported bull, and some other witnesses.

There were some small cases first, and then we were brought out,
Starlight and I, and put in the dock. The court was crammed and crowded;
every soul within a hundred miles seemed to have come in;
there never were so many people in the little courthouse before.
Starlight was quietly dressed, and looked as if he was there by mistake.
Anybody would have thought so, the way he lounged and stared about,
as if he thought there was something very curious and hard to understand
about the whole thing. I was so weak and ill that I couldn't stand up,
and after a while the judge told me to sit down, and Starlight too.
Starlight made a most polite bow, and thanked his Honour, as he called him.
Then the jury were called up, and our lawyer began his work.
He stood alongside of Starlight, and whispered something to him, after which
Starlight stood up, and about every second man called out `Challenge';
then that juror had to go down. It took a good while to get our jury
all together. Our lawyer seemed very particular about the sort of jury
he was satisfied with; and when they did manage to get twelve at last
they were not the best-looking men in the court by a very long way.

The trial had to go on, and then the Crown Prosecutor made a speech,
in which he talked about the dishonesty which was creeping unchecked
over the land, and the atrocious villainy of criminals
who took a thousand head of cattle in one lot, and made out
the country was sure to go to destruction if we were not convicted.
He said that unfortunately they were not in a position
to bring many of the cattle back that had been taken to another colony;
but one remarkable animal was as good for purposes of evidence as a hundred.
Such an animal he would produce, and he would not trespass
on the patience of jurors and gentlemen in attendance any longer,
but call his first witness.

John Dawson, sworn: Was head stockman and cattle manager at Momberah;
knew the back country, and in a general way the cattle running there;
was not out much in the winter; the ground was boggy, and the cattle
were hardly ever mustered till spring; when he did go, with some
other stock-riders, he saw at once that a large number of the Momberah cattle,
branded HOD and other brands, were missing; went to Adelaide
a few months after; saw a large number of cattle of the HOD brand,
which he was told had been sold by the prisoner now before the court,
and known as Starlight, and others, to certain farmers;
he could swear that the cattle he saw bore Mr. Hood's brand;
could not swear that he recognised them as having been at Momberah
in his charge; believed so, but could not swear it; he had seen
a short-horn bull outside of the court this morning; he last saw the said bull
at the station of Messrs. Fordham Brothers, near Adelaide;
they made a communication to him concerning the bull; he would and could swear
to the identity of the animal with the Fifteenth Duke of Cambridge,
an imported short-horn bull, the property of Mr. Hood;
had seen him before that at Momberah; knew that Mr. Hood
had bought said bull in Sydney, and was at Momberah when he was sent up;
could not possibly be mistaken; when he saw the bull at Momberah,
nine months since, he had a small brand like H on the shoulder;
Mr. Hood put it on in witness's presence; it was a horse-brand,
now it resembled J-E; the brand had been `faked' or cleverly altered;
witness could see the original brand quite plain underneath;
as far as he knew Mr. Hood never sold or gave any one authority
to take the animal; he had missed him some months since,
and always believed he had strayed; knew the bull to be a valuable animal,
worth several hundred pounds.

We had one bit of luck in having to be tried in an out-of-the-way place
like Nomah. It was a regular outside bush township, and though the distance
oughtn't to have much to say to people's honesty, you'll mostly find
that these far-out back-of-beyond places have got men and women to match 'em.

Except the squatters and overseers, the other people's mostly a shady lot.
Some's run away from places that were too hot to hold 'em.
The women ain't the men's wives that they live with, but somebody else's --
who's well rid of 'em too if all was known. There's most likely
a bit of horse and cattle stealing done on the quiet,
and the publicans and storekeepers know who are their best customers,
the square people or the cross ones. It ain't so easy
to get a regular up-and-down straight-ahead jury in a place of this sort.
So Starlight and I knew that our chance was a lot better
than if we'd been tried at Bargo or Dutton Forest, or any steady-going places
of that sort.

If we'd made up our minds from the first that we were to get into it
it wouldn't have been so bad; we'd have known we had to bear it.
Now we might get out of it, and what a thing it would be to feel free again,
and walk about in the sun without any one having the right to stop you.
Almost, that is -- there were other things against us;
but there wasn't so much of a chance of their turning up.
This was the great stake. If we won we were as good as made.
I felt ready to swear I'd go home and never touch a shilling
that didn't come honest again. If we lost it seemed as if everything
was so much the worse, and blacker than it looked at first,
just for this bit of hope and comfort.

After the bull had been sworn to by Mr. Hood and another witness,
they brought up some more evidence, as they called it, about the other cattle
we had sold in Adelaide. They had fetched some of the farmers up
that had been at the sale. They swore straight enough to having bought cattle
with certain brands from Starlight. They didn't know, of course, at the time
whose they were, but they could describe the brands fast enough. There was
one fellow that couldn't read nor write, but he remembered all the brands,
about a dozen, in the pen of steers he bought, and described them one by one.
One brand, he said, was like a long-handled shovel. It turned out to be --D.*
TD -- Tom Dawson's, of Mungeree. About a hundred of his were in the mob.
They had drawn back for Mungeree, as was nearly all frontage and cold
in the winter. He was the worst witness for us of the lot, very near.
He'd noticed everything and forgot nothing.

`Do you recognise either of the prisoners in the dock?' he was asked.

`Yes; both of 'em,' says he. I wish I could have got at him.
`I see the swell chap first -- him as made out he was the owner,
and gammoned all the Adelaide gentlemen so neat. There was a half-caste chap
with him as followed him about everywhere; then there was another man
as didn't talk much, but seemed, by letting down sliprails and what not,
to be in it. I heard this Starlight, as he calls hisself now,
say to him, "You have everything ready to break camp by ten o'clock,
and I'll be there to-morrow and square up."  I thought he meant
to pay their wages. I never dropped but what they was his men
-- his hired servants -- as he was going to pay off or send back.'

`Will you swear,' our lawyer says, `that the younger prisoner is the man
you saw at Adelaide with the cattle?'

`Yes; I'll swear. I looked at him pretty sharp, and nothing ain't likely
to make me forget him. He's the man, and that I'll swear to.'

`Were there not other people there with the cattle?'

`Yes; there was an oldish, very quiet, but determined-like man
-- he had a stunnin' dorg with him -- and a young man something like
this gentleman -- I mean the prisoner. I didn't see the other young man
nor the half-caste in court.'

`That's all very well,' says our lawyer, very fierce; `but will you swear,
sir, that the prisoner Marston took any charge or ownership of the cattle?'

`No, I can't,' says the chap. `I see him a drafting 'em in the morning,
and he seemed to know all the brands, and so on; but he done no more
than I've seen hired servants do over and over again.'

The other witnesses had done, when some one called out, `Herbert Falkland,'
and Mr. Falkland steps into the court. He walks in quiet and a little proud;
he couldn't help feeling it, but he didn't show it in his ways and talk,
as little as any man I ever saw.

He's asked by the Crown Prosecutor if he's seen the bull outside of the court
this day.

`Yes; he has seen him.'

`Has he ever seen him before?'

`Never, to his knowledge.'

`He doesn't, then, know the name of his former owner?'

`Has heard generally that he belonged to Mr. Hood, of Momberah;
but does not know it of his own knowledge.'

`Has he ever seen, or does he know either of the prisoners?'

`Knows the younger prisoner, who has been in the habit of working for him
in various ways.'

`When was prisoner Marston working for him last?'

`He, with his brother James, who rendered his family a service
he shall never forget, was working for him, after last shearing,
for some months.'

`Where were they working?'

`At an out-station at the back of the run.'

`When did they leave?'

`About April or May last.'

`Was it known to you in what direction they proceeded after leaving
your service?'

`I have no personal knowledge; I should think it improper to quote hearsay.'

`Had they been settled up with for their former work?'

`No, there was a balance due to them.'

`To what amount?'

`About twenty pounds each was owing.'

`Did you not think it curious that ordinary labourers should leave
so large a sum in your hands?'

`It struck me as unusual, but I did not attach much weight
to the circumstance. I thought they would come back and ask for it
before the next shearing. I am heartily sorry that they did not do so,
and regret still more deeply that two young men worthy of a better fate
should have been arraigned on such a charge.'

`One moment, Mr. Falkland,' says our counsel, as they call them,
and a first-rate counsellor ours was. If we'd been as innocent
as two schoolgirls he couldn't have done more for us.
`Did the prisoner Marston work well and conduct himself properly
while in your employ?'

`No man better,' says Mr. Falkland, looking over to me
with that pitying kind of look in his eyes as made me feel
what a fool and rogue I'd been ten times worse than anything else.
`No man better; he and his brother were in many respects, according to
my overseer's report, the most hard-working and best-conducted labourers
in the establishment.'

Chapter 18

Mr. Runnimall, the auctioneer, swore that the older prisoner
placed certain cattle in his hands, to arrive, for sale in the usual way,
stating that his name was Mr. Charles Carisforth, and that he had
several stations in other colonies. Had no reason for doubting him.
Prisoner was then very well dressed, was gentlemanly in his manners,
and came to his office with a young gentleman of property whom he knew well.
The cattle were sold in the usual way for rather high prices,
as the market was good. The proceeds in cash were paid over to the prisoner,
whom he now knew by the name of Starlight. He accounted for there being
an unusual number of brands by saying publicly at the sale
that the station had been used as a depot for other runs of his,
and the remainder lots of store cattle kept there.

He had seen a short-horn bull outside of the court this day
branded `J-E' on the shoulder. He identified him as one of the cattle
placed in his hands for sale by the prisoner Starlight.
He sold and delivered him according to instructions. He subsequently
handed over the proceeds to the said prisoner. He included the purchase money
in a cheque given for the bull and other cattle sold on that day.
He could swear positively to the bull; he was a remarkable animal.
He had not the slightest doubt as to his identity.

`Had he seen the prisoner Marston when the cattle were sold
now alleged to belong to Mr. Hood?'

`Yes; he was confident that prisoner was there with some other men
whom he (witness) did not particularly remark. He helped to draft the cattle,
and to put them in pens on the morning of the sale.'

`Was he prepared to swear that prisoner Marston was not a hired servant
of prisoner Starlight?'

`No; he could not swear. He had no way of knowing what the relations were
between the two. They were both in the robbery; he could see that.'

`How could you see that?' said our lawyer. `Have you never seen
a paid stockman do all that you saw prisoner Marston do?'

`Well, I have; but somehow I fancy this man was different.'

`We have nothing to do with your fancies, sir,' says our man, mighty hot,
as he turns upon him; `you are here to give evidence as to facts,
not as to what you fancy. Have you any other grounds
for connecting prisoner Marston with the robbery in question?'

`No, he had not.'

`You can go down, sir, and I only wish you may live to experience
some of the feelings which fill the breasts of persons
who are unjustly convicted.'

     .   .   .   .   .

This about ended the trial. There was quite enough proved
for a moderate dose of transportation. A quiet, oldish-looking man got up now
and came forward to the witness-box. I didn't know who he was; but Starlight
nodded to him quite pleasant. He had a short, close-trimmed beard,
and was one of those nothing-particular-looking old chaps.
I'm blessed if I could have told what he was. He might have been a merchant,
or a squatter, or a head clerk, or a wine merchant, or a broker,
or lived in the town, or lived in the country; any of half-a-dozen trades
would suit him. The only thing that was out of the common was his eyes.
They had a sort of curious way of looking at you, as if he wondered
whether you was speaking true, and yet seein' nothing and tellin' nothing.
He regular took in Starlight (he told me afterwards) by always talking about
the China Seas; he'd been there, it seems; he'd been everywhere;
he'd last come from America; he didn't say he'd gone there
to collar a clerk that had run off with two or three thousand pounds,
and to be ready to meet him as he stepped ashore.

Anyhow he'd watched Starlight in Canterbury when he was
riding and flashing about, and had put such a lot of things together
that he took a passage in the same boat with him to Melbourne.
Why didn't he arrest him in New Zealand? Because he wasn't sure of his man.
It was from something Starlight let out on board ship. He told me
himself afterwards that he made sure of his being the man he wanted;
so he steps into the witness-box, very quiet and respectable-looking,
with his white waistcoat and silk coat -- it was hot enough to fry beefsteaks
on the roof of the courthouse that day -- and looks about him.
The Crown Prosecutor begins with him as civil as you please.

`My name is Stephen Stillbrook. I am a sergeant of detective police
in the service of the Government of New South Wales.
From information received, I proceeded to Canterbury, in New Zealand,
about the month of September last. I saw there the older prisoner,
who was living at a first-class hotel in Christchurch.
He was moving in good society, and was apparently possessed of ample means.
He frequently gave expensive entertainments, which were attended
by the leading inhabitants and high officials of the place.
I myself obtained an introduction to him, and partook of his hospitality
on several occasions. I attempted to draw him out in conversation
about New South Wales; but he was cautious, and gave me to understand
that he had been engaged in large squatting transactions in another colony.
From his general bearing and from the character of his associates,
I came to the belief that he was not the individual named in the warrant,
and determined to return to Sydney. I was informed that he had taken
his passage to Melbourne in a mail steamer. From something which
I one day heard his half-caste servant say, who, being intoxicated,
was speaking carelessly, I determined to accompany them to Melbourne.
My suspicions were confirmed on the voyage. As we went ashore
at the pier at Sandridge I accosted him. I said, "I arrest you on suspicion
of having stolen a herd of cattle, the property of Walter Hood, of Momberah."
Prisoner was very cool and polite, just as any other gentleman would be,
and asked me if I did not think I'd made a most ridiculous mistake.
The other passengers began to laugh, as if it was the best joke in the world.
Starlight never moved a muscle. I've seen a good many cool hands in my time,
but I never met any one like him. I had given notice to
one of the Melbourne police as he came aboard, and he arrested the half-caste,
known as Warrigal. I produced a warrant, the one now before the court,
which is signed by a magistrate of the territory of New South Wales.'

The witnessing part was all over. It took the best part of the day,
and there we were all the time standing up in the dock, with the court crammed
with people staring at us. I don't say that it felt as bad
as it might have done nigh home. Most of the Nomah people
looked upon fellows stealing cattle or horses, in small lots or big,
just like most people look at boys stealing fruit out of an orchard,
or as they used to talk of smugglers on the English coast,
as I've heard father tell of. Any man might take a turn
at that sort of thing, now and then, and not be such a bad chap after all.
It was the duty of the police to catch him. If they caught him,
well and good, it was so much the worse for him; if they didn't,
that was their look-out. It wasn't anybody else's business anyhow.
And a man that wasn't caught, or that got turned up at his trial,
was about as good as the general run of people; and there was no reason
for any one to look shy at him.

After the witnesses had said all they knew our lawyer got up and made
a stunning speech. He made us out such first-rate chaps that it looked as if
we ought to get off flying. He blew up the squatters in a general way
for taking all the country, and not giving the poor man a chance --
for neglecting their immense herds of cattle and suffering them to roam
all over the country, putting temptation in the way of poor people,
and causing confusion and recklessness of all kinds. Some of these cattle
are never seen from the time they are branded till they are mustered,
every two or three years apparently. They stray away hundreds of miles
-- probably a thousand -- who is to know? Possibly they are sold.
It was admitted by the prosecutor that he had sold 10,000 head of cattle
during the last six years, and none had been rebranded to his knowledge.
What means had he of knowing whether these cattle that so much was said about
had not been legally sold before? It was a most monstrous thing that men
like his clients -- men who were an honour to the land they lived in --
should be dragged up to the very centre of the continent upon a paltry charge
like this -- a charge which rested upon the flimsiest evidence
it had ever been his good fortune to demolish.

With regard to the so-called imported bull the case against his clients
was apparently stronger, but he placed no reliance upon
the statements of the witnesses, who averred that they knew him so thoroughly
that they could not be deceived in him. He distrusted their evidence
and believed the jury would distrust it too. The brand was as different
as possible from the brand seen to have been on the beast originally.
One short-horn was very like another. He would not undertake
to swear positively in any such case, and he implored the jury,
as men of the world, as men of experience in all transactions
relating to stock (here some of the people in the court grinned)
to dismiss from their minds everything of the nature of prejudice,
and looking solely at the miserable, incomplete, unsatisfactory nature
of the evidence, to acquit the prisoners.

It sounded all very pleasant after everything before had been so rough
on our feelings, and the jury looked as if they'd more than half
made up their minds to let us off.

Then the judge put on his glasses and began to go all over the evidence,
very grave and steady like, and read bits out of the notes which he'd taken
very careful all the time. Judges don't have such an easy time of it
as some people thinks they have. I've often wondered as they take
so much trouble, and works away so patient trying to find out
the rights and wrongs of things for people that they never saw before,
and won't see again. However, they try to do their best,
all as I've ever seen, and they generally get somewhere near
the right and justice of things. So the judge began and read --
went over the evidence bit by bit, and laid it all out before the jury,
so as they couldn't but see it where it told against us, and, again,
where it was a bit in our favour.

As for the main body of the cattle, he made out that there was strong grounds
for thinking as we'd taken and sold them at Adelaide, and had the money too.
The making of a stockyard at the back of Momberah was not the thing
honest men would do. But neither of us prisoners had been seen there.
There was no identification of the actual cattle, branded `HOD',
alleged to have been stolen, nor could Mr. Hood swear positively that
they were his cattle, had never been sold, and were a portion of his herd.
It was in the nature of these cases that identification of live stock,
roaming over the immense solitudes of the interior, should be difficult,
occasionally impossible. Yet he trusted that the jury would give
full weight to all the circumstances which went to show
a continuous possession of the animals alleged to be stolen.
The persons of both prisoners had been positively sworn to
by several witnesses as having been seen at the sale of the cattle
referred to. They were both remarkable-looking men, and such as if once seen
would be retained in the memory of the beholder.

But the most important piece of evidence (here the judge stopped
and took a pinch of snuff) was that afforded by the short-horn bull,
Fifteenth Duke of Cambridge -- he had been informed that was his name.
That animal, in the first place, was sworn to most positively by Mr. Hood,
and claimed as his property. Other credible witnesses testified also
to his identity, and corroborated the evidence of Mr. Hood in all respects;
the ownership and identity of the animal are thus established
beyond all doubt.

Then there was the auctioneer, Mr. Runnimall, who swore that this animal
had been, with other cattle, placed in his hands for sale
by the older prisoner. The bull is accordingly sold publicly by him,
and in the prisoner's presence. He subsequently receives from the witness
the price, about 270 Pounds, for which the bull was sold.
The younger prisoner was there at the same time, and witnessed
the sale of the bull and other cattle, giving such assistance
as would lead to the conclusion that he was concerned in the transaction.

He did not wish to reflect upon this or any other jury,
but he could not help recalling the fact that a jury in that town
once committed the unpardonable fault, the crime, he had almost said,
of refusing to find a prisoner guilty against whom well confirmed evidence
had been brought. It had been his advice to the Minister for Justice,
so glaring was the miscarriage of justice to which he referred,
that the whole of the jurymen who had sat upon that trial should be struck
off the roll. This was accordingly done.

He, the judge, was perfectly convinced in his own mind
that no impropriety of this sort was likely to be committed
by the intelligent, respectable jury whom he saw before him;
but it was his duty to warn them that, in his opinion, they could not bring in
any verdict but `Guilty' if they respected their oaths.
He should leave the case confidently in their hands,
again impressing upon them that they could only find one verdict
if they believed the evidence.

     .   .   .   .   .

The jury all went out. Then another case was called on, and a fresh jury
sworn in for to try it. We sat in the dock. The judge told Starlight
he might sit down, and we waited till they came back.
I really believe that waiting is the worst part of the whole thing,
the bitterest part of the punishment. I've seen men when they were being
tried for their lives -- haven't I done it, and gone through it myself? --
waiting there an hour -- two hours, half through the night,
not knowing whether they was to be brought in guilty or not.
What a hell they must have gone through in that time -- doubt and dread,
hope and fear, wretchedness and despair, over and over and over again.
No wonder some of 'em can't stand it, but keeps twitching and shifting
and getting paler and turning faint when the jury comes back,
and they think they see one thing or the other written in their faces.
I've seen a strong man drop down like a dead body when the judge
opened his mouth to pass sentence on him. I've seen 'em faint, too,
when the foreman of the jury said `Not guilty.'  One chap,
he was an innocent up-country fellow, in for his first bit of duffing,
like we was once, he covered his face with his hands when he found
he was let off, and cried like a child. All sorts and kinds of different ways
men takes it. I was in court once when the judge asked a man
who'd just been found guilty if he'd anything to say why he shouldn't pass
sentence of death upon him. He'd killed a woman, cut her throat,
and a regular right down cruel murder it was (only men 'll kill women
and one another, too, for some causes, as long as the world lasts);
and he just leaned over the dock rails, as if he'd been going
to get three months, and said, cool and quiet, `No, your Honour;
not as I know of.'  He'd made up his mind to it from the first, you see,
and that makes all the difference. He knew he hadn't the ghost of a chance
to get out of it, and when his time came he faced it. I remember seeing
his worst enemy come into the court, and sit and look at him then
just to see how he took it, but he didn't make the least sign.
That man couldn't have told whether he seen him or not.

Starlight and I wasn't likely to break down -- not much --
whatever the jury did or the judge said. All the same,
after an hour had passed, and we still waiting there, it began to be
a sickening kind of feeling. The day had been all taken up
with the evidence and the rest of the trial; all long, dragging hours
of a hot summer's day. The sun had been blazing away all day
on the iron roof of the courthouse and the red dust of the streets,
that lay inches deep for a mile all round the town. The flies buzzed
all over the courthouse, and round and round, while the lawyers
talked and wrangled with each other; and still the trial went on.
Witness after witness was called, and cross-examined and bullied,
and confused and contradicted till he was afraid to say
what he knew or what he didn't know. I began to think it must be
some kind of performance that would go on for ever and never stop,
and the day and it never could end.

At last the sun came shining level with the lower window,
and we knew it was getting late. After a while the twilight began
to get dimmer and grayer. There isn't much out there when the sun goes down.
Then the judge ordered the lamps to be lighted.

Just at that time the bailiff came forward.

`Your Honour, the jury has agreed.'  I felt my teeth shut hard;
but I made no move or sign. I looked over at Starlight. He yawned.
He did, as I'm alive.

`I wish to heaven they'd make more haste,' he said quietly;
`his Honour and we are both being done out of our dinners.'

I said nothing. I was looking at the foreman's face. I thought I knew
the word he was going to say, and that word was `Guilty.'  Sure enough
I didn't hear anything more for a bit. I don't mind owning that.
Most men feel that way the first time. There was a sound like rushing waters
in my ears, and the courthouse and the people all swam before my eyes.

The first I heard was Starlight's voice again, just as cool and leisurely
as ever. I never heard any difference in it, and I've known him speak
in a lot of different situations. If you shut your eyes you couldn't tell
from the tone of his voice whether he was fighting for his life or asking you
to hand him the salt. When he said the hardest and fiercest thing
-- and he could be hard and fierce -- he didn't raise his voice;
he only seemed to speak more distinct like. His eyes were worse
than his voice at such times. There weren't many men that liked
to look back at him, much less say anything.

Now he said, `That means five years of Berrima, Dick, if not seven.
It's cooler than these infernal logs, that's one comfort.'

I said nothing. I couldn't joke. My throat was dry,
and I felt hot and cold by turns. I thought of the old hut by the creek,
and could see mother sitting rocking herself, and crying out loud,
and Aileen with a set dull look on her face as if she'd never speak
or smile again. I thought of the days, months, years that were to pass
under lock and key, with irons and shame and solitude all for company.
I wondered if the place where they shut up mad people was like a gaol,
and why we were not sent there instead.

I heard part of what the judge said, but not all -- bits here and there.
The jury had brought in a most righteous verdict; just what
he should have expected from the effect of the evidence upon an intelligent,
well-principled Nomah jury. (We heard afterwards that they were six to six,
and then agreed to toss up how the verdict was to go.)
`The crime of cattle and horse stealing had assumed gigantic proportions.
Sheep, as yet, appeared to be safe; but then there were not very many
within a few hundred miles of Nomah. It appeared to him that the prisoner
known as Starlight, though from old police records his real name
appeared to be ----'

Here he drew himself up and faced the judge in defiance. Then like lightning
he seemed to change, and said --

`Your Honour, I submit that it can answer no good purpose to disclose
my alleged name. There are others -- I do not speak for myself.'

The judge stopped a bit; then hesitated. Starlight bowed.
`I do not -- a -- know whether there is any necessity to make public
a name which many years since was not better known than honoured.
I say the -- a -- prisoner known as Starlight has, from the evidence,
taken the principal part in this nefarious transaction.
It is not the first offence, as I observe from a paper I hold in my hand.
The younger prisoner, Marston, has very properly been found
guilty of criminal complicity with the same offence. It may be
that he has been concerned in other offences against the law,
but of that we have no proof before this court. He has not been
previously convicted. I do not offer advice to the elder criminal;
his own heart and conscience, the promptings of which I assume
to be dulled, not obliterated, I feel convinced, have said more to him
in the way of warning, condemnation, and remorse than could
the most impressive rebuke, the most solemn exhortation from a judicial bench.
But to the younger man, to him whose vigorous frame has but lately attained
the full development of early manhood, I feel compelled to appeal
with all the weight which age and experience may lend. I adjure him to accept
the warning which the sentence I am about to pass will convey to him,
to endure his confinement with submission and repentance, and to lead
during his remaining years, which may be long and comparatively peaceful,
the free and necessarily happy life of an honest man.
The prisoner Starlight is sentenced to seven years' imprisonment;
the prisoner Richard Marston to five years' imprisonment;
both in Berrima Gaol.'

I heard the door of the dock unclose with a snap. We were taken out;
I hardly knew how. I walked like a man in his sleep. `Five years,
Berrima Gaol! Berrima Gaol!' kept ringing in my ears.

The day was done, the stars were out, as we moved across from the courthouse
to the lock-up. The air was fresh and cool. The sun had gone down;
so had the sun of our lives, never to rise again.

Morning came. Why did it ever come again? I thought. What did we want
but night? -- black as our hearts -- dark as our fate -- dismal as the death
which likely would come quick as a living tomb, and the sooner the better.
Mind you, I only felt this way the first time. All men do, I suppose,
that haven't been born in gaols and workhouses. Afterwards they take
a more everyday view of things.

`You're young and soft, Dick,' Starlight said to me as we were rumbling along
in the coach next day, with hand and leg-irons on, and a trooper
opposite to us. `Why don't I feel like it? My good fellow,
I have felt it all before. But if you sear your flesh or your horse's
with a red-hot iron you'll find the flesh hard and callous ever after.
My heart was seared once -- ay, twice -- and deeply, too.
I have no heart now, or if I ever feel at all it's for a horse.
I wonder how old Rainbow gets on.'

`You were sorry father let us come in the first time,' I said.
`How do you account for that, if you've no heart?'

`Really! Well, listen, Richard. Did I? If you guillotine a man
-- cut off his head, as they do in France, with an axe that falls
like the monkey of a pile-driver -- the limbs quiver and stretch,
and move almost naturally for a good while afterwards.
I've seen the performance more than once. So I suppose
the internal arrangements immediately surrounding my heart
must have performed some kind of instinctive motion in your case and Jim's.
By the way, where the deuce has Jim been all this time? Clever James!'

`Better ask Evans here if the police knows. It is not for want of trying
if they don't.'

`By the Lord Harry, no!' said the trooper, a young man who saw no reason
not to be sociable. `It's the most surprisin' thing out where he's got to.
They've been all round him, reg'lar cordon-like, and he must have disappeared
into the earth or gone up in a balloon to get away.'

Chapter 19

It took us a week's travelling or more to get to Berrima.
Sometimes we were all night in the coach as well as all day.
There were other passengers in the coach with us. Two or three bushmen,
a station overseer with his wife and daughter, a Chinaman,
and a lunatic that had come from Nomah, too. I think it's rough on the public
to pack madmen and convicts in irons in the same coach with them.
But it saves the Government a good deal of money, and the people
don't seem to care. They stand it, anyhow.

We would have made a bolt of it if we'd had a