Robbery Under Arms

R >> Rolf Boldrewood >> Robbery Under Arms

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All stock went up double and treble what they were before.
Cattle and sheep we didn't mind about. We could do without them now.
But the horse market rose wonderfully, and that made a deal of odds to us,
you may be sure.

It was this way. Every man that had a few pounds wanted a horse
to ride or drive; every miner wanted a wash-dirt cart and a horse to draw it.
The farmer wanted working horses, for wasn't hay sixty or seventy pounds
a ton, and corn what you liked to ask for it? Every kind of harness horse
was worth forty, fifty, a hundred pounds apiece, and only to ask it;
some of 'em weedy and bad enough, Heaven knows. So between
the horse trade and the road trade we could see a fortune sticking out,
ready for us to catch hold of whenever we were ready to collar.

Chapter 24

Our first try-on in the coach line was with the Goulburn mail.
We knew the road pretty well, and picked out a place
where they had to go slow and couldn't get off the road on either side.
There's always places like that in a coach road near the coast,
if you look sharp and lay it out beforehand. This wasn't on the track to
the diggings, but we meant to leave that alone till we got our hand in a bit.
There was a lot of money flying about the country in a general way
where there was no sign of gold. All the storekeepers began
to get up fresh goods, and to send money in notes and cheques to pay for them.
The price of stock kept dealers and fat cattle buyers moving,
who had their pockets full of notes as often as not.

Just as you got nearly through Bargo Brush on the old road
there was a stiffish hill that the coach passengers mostly walked up,
to save the horses -- fenced in, too, with a nearly new three-rail fence,
all ironbark, and not the sort of thing that you could
ride or drive over handy. We thought this would be as good a place
as we could pick, so we laid out the whole thing as careful
as we could beforehand.

The three of us started out from the Hollow as soon as we could see
in the morning; a Friday it was, I remember it pretty well --
good reason I had, too. Father and Warrigal went up the night before
with the horses we were to ride. They camped about twenty miles
on the line we were going, at a place where there was good feed and water,
but well out of the way and on a lonely road. There had been
an old sheep station there and a hut, but the old man had been murdered
by the hut-keeper for some money he had saved, and a story got up
that it was haunted by his ghost. It was known as the `Murdering Hut',
and no shepherd would ever live there after, so it was deserted.
We weren't afraid of shepherds alive or dead, so it came in handy for us,
as there was water and feed in an old lambing paddock. Besides,
the road to it was nearly all a lot of rock and scrub from the Hollow,
that made it an unlikely place to be tracked from.

Our dodge was to take three quiet horses from the Hollow
and ride them there, first thing; then pick up our own three
-- Rainbow and two other out-and-outers -- and ride bang across
the southern road. When things were over we were to start straight back
to the Hollow. We reckoned to be safe there before the police had time
to know which way we'd made.

It all fitted in first-rate. We cracked on for the Hollow
in the morning early, and found dad and Warrigal all ready for us.
The horses were in great buckle, and carried us over to Bargo easy enough
before dark. We camped about a mile away from the road, in as thick a place
as we could find, where we made ourselves as snug as things would allow.
We had brought some grub with us and a bottle of grog,
half of which we finished before we started out to spend the evening.
We hobbled the horses out and let them have an hour's picking.
They were likely to want all they could get before they saw the Hollow again.

It was near twelve o'clock when we mounted. Starlight said --

`By Jove, boys, it's a pity we didn't belong to a troop of irregular horse
instead of this rotten colonial Dick Turpin business,
that one can't help being ashamed of. They would have been delighted
to have recruited the three of us, as we ride, and our horses are worth
best part of ten thousand rupees. What a tent-pegger Rainbow would have made,
eh, old boy?' he said, patting the horse's neck. `But Fate won't have it,
and it's no use whining.'

The coach was to pass half-an-hour after midnight. An awful long time
to wait, it seemed. We finished the bottle of brandy, I know.
I thought they never would come, when all of a sudden we saw the lamp.

Up the hill they came slow enough. About half-way up they stopped,
and most of the passengers got out and walked up after her. As they came
closer to us we could hear them laughing and talking and skylarking,
like a lot of boys. They didn't think who was listening.
`You won't be so jolly in a minute or two,' I thinks to myself.

They were near the top when Starlight sings out, `Stand! Bail up!'
and the three of us, all masked, showed ourselves. You never saw a man
look so scared as the passenger on the box-seat, a stout, jolly commercial,
who'd been giving the coachman Havana cigars, and yarning and nipping with him
at every house they passed. Bill Webster, the driver, pulls up all standing
when he sees what was in Starlight's hand, and holds the reins so loose
for a minute I thought they'd drop out of his hands. I went up to the coach.
There was no one inside -- only an old woman and a young one.
They seemed struck all of a heap, and couldn't hardly speak for fright.

The best of the joke was that the passengers started running up full split
to warm themselves, and came bump against the coach before they found out
what was up. One of them had just opened out for a bit of blowing.
`Billy, old man,' he says, `I'll report you to the Company
if you crawl along this way,' when he catches sight of me and Starlight,
standing still and silent, with our revolvers pointing his way.
By George! I could hardly help laughing. His jaw dropped, and he couldn't
get a word out. His throat seemed quite dry.

`Now, gentlemen,' says Starlight, quite cool and cheerful-like,
`you understand her Majesty's mail is stuck up, to use a vulgar expression,
and there's no use resisting. I must ask you to stand in a row
there by the fence, and hand out all the loose cash, watches, or rings
you may have about you. Don't move; don't, I say, sir, or I must fire.'
(This was to a fidgety, nervous man who couldn't keep quiet.)
`Now, Number One, fetch down the mail bags; Number Two, close up here.'

Here Jim walked up, revolver in hand, and Starlight begins at the first man,
very stern --

`Hand out your cash; keep back nothing, if you value your life.'

You never saw a man in such a funk. He was a storekeeper,
we found afterwards. He nearly dropped on his knees.
Then he handed Starlight a bundle of notes, a gold watch,
and took a handsome diamond ring from his finger. This Starlight put
into his pocket. He handed the notes and watch to Jim,
who had a leather bag ready for them. The man sank down on the ground;
he had fainted.

He was left to pick himself up. No. 2 was told to shell out. They all
had something. Some had sovereigns, some had notes and small cheques,
which are as good in a country place. The squatters draw too many
to know the numbers of half that are out, so there's no great chance
of their being stopped. There were eighteen male passengers,
besides the chap on the box-seat. We made him come down. By the time
we'd got through them all it was best part of an hour.

I pulled the mail bags through the fence and put them under a tree.
Then Starlight went to the coach where the two women were.
He took off his hat and bowed.

`Unpleasant necessity, madam, most painful to my feelings altogether,
I assure you. I must really ask you -- ah -- is the young lady
your daughter, madam?'

`Not at all,' says the oldest, stout, middle-aged woman;
`I never set eyes on her before.'

`Indeed, madam,' says Starlight, bowing again; `excuse my curiosity,
I am desolated, I assure you, but may I trouble you for
your watches and purses?'

`As you're a gentleman,' said the fat lady, `I fully expected
you'd have let us off. I'm Mrs. Buxter, of Bobbrawobbra.'

`Indeed! I have no words to express my regret,' says Starlight;
`but, my dear lady, hard necessity compels me. Thanks, very much,'
he said to the young girl.

She handed over a small old Geneva watch and a little purse. The plump lady
had a gold watch with a chain and purse to match.

`Is that all?' says he, trying to speak stern.

`It's my very all,' says the girl, `five pounds. Mother gave me her watch,
and I shall have no money to take me to Bowning, where I am going
to a situation.'

Her lips shook and trembled and the tears came into her eyes.

Starlight carefully handed Mrs. Buxter's watch and purse to Jim.
I saw him turn round and open the other purse, and he put something in,
if I didn't mistake. Then he looked in again.

`I'm afraid I'm rather impertinent,' says he, `but your face,
Miss -- ah -- Elmsdale, thanks -- reminds me of some one in another world --
the one I once lived in. Allow me to enjoy the souvenir and to return
your effects. No thanks; that smile is ample payment. Ladies, I wish you
a pleasant journey.'

He bowed. Mrs. Buxter did not smile, but looked cross enough
at the young lady, who, poor thing, seemed pretty full up and inclined to cry
at the surprise.

`Now then, all aboard,' sings out Starlight; `get in, gentlemen,
our business matters are concluded for the night. Better luck next time.
William, you had better drive on. Send back from the next stage,
and you will find the mail bags under that tree. They shall not be injured
more than can be helped. Good-night!'

The driver gathered up his reins and shouted to his team,
that was pretty fresh after their spell, and went off like a shot.
We sat down by the roadside with one of the coach lamps that we had boned
and went through all the letters, putting them back after we'd opened them,
and popping all notes, cheques, and bills into Jim's leather sack.
We did not waste more time over our letter-sorting than we could help,
you bet; but we were pretty well paid for it -- better than
the post-office clerks are, by all accounts. We left all the mail bags
in a heap under the tree, as Starlight had told the driver;
and then, mounting our horses, rode as hard as we could lick
to where dad and Warrigal were camped.

When we overhauled the leather sack into which Jim had stowed
all the notes and cheques we found that we'd done better than we expected,
though we could see from the first it wasn't going to be a bad night's work.
We had 370 Pounds in notes and gold, a biggish bag of silver,
a lot of cheques -- some of which would be sure to be paid --
seven gold watches and a lot of silver ones, some pretty good.
Mrs. Buxter's watch was a real beauty, with a stunning chain.
Starlight said he should like to keep it himself, and then I knew
Bella Barnes was in for a present. Starlight was one of those chaps
that never forgot any kind of promise he'd once made. Once he said a thing
it would be done as sure as death -- if he was alive to do it;
and many a time I've known him take the greatest lot of trouble
no matter how pushed he might be, to carry out something which another man
would have never troubled his head about.

We got safe to the Murdering Hut, and a precious hard ride it was,
and tried our horses well, for, mind you, they'd been under saddle
best part of twenty-four hours when we got back, and had done a good deal
over a hundred miles. We made a short halt while the tea was boiling,
then we all separated for fear a black tracker might have been loosed
on our trail, and knowing well what bloodhounds they are sometimes.

Warrigal and Starlight went off together as usual; they were pretty safe
to be out of harm's way. Father made off on a line of his own.
We took the two horses we'd ridden out of the Hollow, and made for that place
the shortest way we knew. We could afford to hit out -- horse-flesh was
cheap to us -- but not to go slow. Time was more than money to us now --
it was blood, or next thing to it.

`I'll go anywhere you like,' says Jim, stretching himself.
`It makes no odds to me now where we go. What do you think of it, dad?'

`I think you've no call to leave here for another month anyhow;
but as I suppose some folks 'll play the fool some road or other
you may as well go there as anywhere else. If you must go
you'd better take some of these young horses with you and sell them
while prices keep up.'

`Capital idea,' says Starlight; `I was wondering how we'd get those colts off.
You've the best head amongst us, governor. We'll start out to-day
and muster the horses, and we can take Warrigal with us
as far as Jonathan Barnes's place.'

We didn't lose time once we'd made up our minds to anything.
So that night all the horses were in and drafted ready --
twenty-five upstanding colts, well bred, and in good condition.
We expected they'd fetch a lot of money. They were all quiet, too,
and well broken in by Warrigal, who used to get so much a head extra
for this sort of work, and liked it. He could do more with a horse
than any man I ever saw. They never seemed to play up with him
as young horses do with other people. Jim and I could ride 'em easy enough
when they was tackled, but for handling and catching and getting round them
we couldn't hold a candle to Warrigal.

The next thing was to settle how to work it when we got to the diggings.
We knew the auctioneers there and everywhere else would sell
a lot of likely stock and ask no questions; but there had been
such a lot of horse-stealing since the diggings broke out that a law
had been passed on purpose to check it. In this way: If any auctioneer
sold a stolen horse and the owner claimed it before six months the auctioneer
was held liable. He had to return the horse and stand the loss.
But they found a way to make themselves right. Men generally do
if a law's over sharp; they get round it somehow or other.
So the auctioneers made it up among themselves to charge ten per cent
on the price of all horses that they sold, and make the buyer pay it.
For every ten horses they sold they could afford to return one.
The proof of an animal being stolen didn't turn up above once
in fifty or a hundred times, so they could well afford the expense
when it did.

It wasn't an easy thing to drive horses out of the Hollow,
'specially those that had been bred or reared there. But they were up
to all that kind of thing, dad and Starlight. First there was a yard
at the lower end of the gully that led up where we'd first seen Starlight
come down, and a line of fence across the mountain walls on both sides,
so that stock once in there couldn't turn back. Then they picked out
a couple or three old mares that had been years and years in the Hollow,
and been used to be taken up this track and knew their way back again.
One they led up; dad went first with her, and another followed;
then the colts took the track after them, as stock will.
In half-an-hour we had them all up at the top, on the tableland,
and ready to be driven anywhere. The first day we meant to get
most of the way to Jonathan Barnes's place, and to stop there,
and have a bit of a spell the second. We should want to spell the horses
and make 'em up a bit, as it was a longish drive over rough country
to get there. Besides, we wanted all the information we could get
about the diggings and other matters, and we knew Jonathan
was just that open-mouthed, blatherskitin' sort of chap that would talk
to everybody he saw, and hear mostly all that was going on.

A long, hard day was that first one. The colts tried to make back
every now and then, or something would start them, and they'd make
a regular stampede for four or five miles as hard as they could lay leg
to ground. It wasn't easy to live with 'em across broken country,
well-bred 'uns like them, as fast as racehorses for a short distance;
but there were as good behind 'em, and Warrigal was pretty nearly always
near the lead, doubling and twisting and wheeling 'em
the first bit of open ground there was. He was A1 through timber,
and no mistake. We got to a place father knew, where there was a yard,
a little before dark; but we took care to watch them all night
for fear of accidents. It wouldn't do to let 'em out of our sight
about there. We should never have set eyes on 'em again,
and we knew a trick worth two of that.

Next day, pretty early, we got to Barnes's, where we thought we should
be welcome. It was all right. The old man laughed all over his face
when he saw us, and the girls couldn't do enough for us when they heard
we'd had scarce a morsel to eat or drink that day.

`Why, you're looking first-rate, Captain!' says Bella.
`Dick, I hardly knowed ye -- the mountain air seems to agree with you.
Maddie and I thought you was never going to look in no more. Thought you'd
clean forgot us -- didn't we, Mad? Why, Dick, what a grand beard
you've grown! I never thought you was so handsome before!'

`I promised you a trifling present when I was here last, didn't I, Bella?'
says Starlight. `There.' He handed her a small parcel carefully tied up.
`It will serve to remind you of a friend.'

`Oh, what a lovely, splendid duck of a watch!' says the girl, tearing open
the parcel. `And what a love of a chain! and lots of charms, too.
Where, in all the world, did you get this? I suppose you didn't buy it
in George Street.'

`It WAS bought in George Street,' says he; `and here's the receipt;
you needn't be afraid of wearing it to church or anywhere else.
Here's Mr. Flavelle's name, all straight and square. It's quite new,
as you can see.'

Jim and I stared. Dad was outside, seeing the horses fed, with Warrigal.
We made sure at first it was Mrs. Buxter's watch and chain; but he knew better
than to give the girl anything that she could be brought into trouble
for wearing, if it was identified on her; so he'd sent the cash
down to Sydney, and got the watch sent up to him by one of father's pals.
It was as right as the bank, and nobody could touch it or her either.
That was Starlight all over; he never seemed to care much for himself.
As to anything he told a woman, she'd no call to trouble herself
about whether it would be done or not.

`It'll be my turn next,' says Maddie. `I can't afford to wait till -- till --
the Captain leaves me that beauty horse of his. It's too long.
I might be married before that, and my old man cut up rough. Jim Marston,
what are you going to give me? I haven't got any earrings worth looking at,
except these gold hoops that everybody knows.'

`All right,' says Jim. `I'll give you and Bell a pair each,
if you're good girls, when we sell the horses, unless we're nailed
at the Turon. What sort of a shop is it? Are they getting much gold?'

`Digging it out like potatoes,' says Bella; `so a young chap told us
that come this way last week. My word! didn't he go on about
the coach being stuck up. Mad and I nearly choked ourselves laughing.
We made him tell it over twice. He said a friend of his was in it
-- in the coach, that is -- and we could have told him friends of ours
was in it too, couldn't we?'

`And what did he think of it all?'

`Oh, he was a new chum; hadn't been a year out. Not a bad cut
of a young feller. He was awful shook on Mad; but she wouldn't look at him.
He said if it was in England the whole countryside would rise up
and hunt such scoundrels down like mad dogs; but in a colony like this
people didn't seem to know right from wrong.'

`Did he, indeed?' says Starlight. `Ingenuous youth! When he lives
a little longer he'll find that people in England, and, indeed,
everywhere else, are very much like they are here. They'll wink
at a little robbery, or take a hand themselves if it's made worth their while.
And what became of your English friend?'

`Oh! he said he was going on to Port Phillip. There's a big diggings
broke out there too, he says; and he has some friends there,
and he thinks he'll like that side better.'

`I think we'd better cut the Sydney "side", too,' says Starlight.
`What do you say, Maddie? We'll be able to mix up with these new chum
Englishmen and Americans that are coming here in swarms,
and puzzle Sergeant Goring and his troopers more than ever.'

`Oh! come, now! that would be mean,' says Maddie. `I wouldn't be drove away
from my own part of the country, if I was a man, by anybody.
I'd stay and fight it out. Goring was here the other day,
and tried to pick out something from father and us about the lot of you.'

`Ha!' says Starlight, his face growing dark, and different-looking
about the eyes from what I'd ever seen him, `did he? He'd better beware.
He may follow up my trail once too often. And what did you tell him?'

`We told him a lot of things,' says the girl; `but I am afeared
they was none of 'em true. He didn't get much out of us,
nor wouldn't if he was to come once a week.'

`I expect not,' says Jim; `you girls are smart enough. There's no man
in the police or out of it that'll take much change out of you.
I'm most afraid of your father, though, letting the cat out of the bag;
he's such an old duffer to blow.'

`He was nearly telling the sergeant he'd seen a better horse lately here
than his famous chestnut Marlborough, only Bella trod on his toe,
and told him the cows was in the wheat. Of course Goring would have dropped
it was Rainbow, or some well-bred horse you chaps have been shaking lately.'

`You're a regular pearl of discretion, my dear,' says Starlight,
`and it's a pity, like some other folks, you haven't a better field
for the exercise of your talents. However, that's very often the way
in this world, as you'll perhaps find out when you're old and ugly,
and the knowledge can't do you any good. Tell us all you heard
about the coach accident.'

`My word! it was the greatest lark out,' says Maddie.
She'd twice the fun in her the other had, and was that good-tempered
nothing seemed to put her out. `Everybody as come here seemed to have
nothing else to talk about. Those that was going to the diggings, too,
took it much easier than those that was coming away.'

`How was that?'

`Well, the chaps that come away mostly have some gold.
They showed us some pretty fair lumps and nuggets, I can tell you.
They seemed awfully gallied about being stuck up and robbed of it,
and they'd heard yarns of men being tied to trees in the bush
and left there to die.'

`Tell them for me, my fair Madeline, that Starlight and Company
don't deal with single diggers; ours is a wholesale business -- eh, Dick?
We leave the retail robbery to meaner villains.'

We had the horses that quiet by this time that we could drive them
the rest of the way to the Turon by ourselves. We didn't want to be
too big a mob at Barnes's house. Any one might come in accidental,
and it might get spread about. So after supper Warrigal was sent back;
we didn't want his help any more, and he might draw attention.
The way we were to take in the horses, and sell them, was all put up.

Jim and I were to drive them the rest of the way across the ranges
to the Turon. Barnes was to put us on a track he knew
that would take us in all right, and yet keep away from the regular highway.
Starlight was to stay another day at Barnes's, keeping very quiet,
and making believe, if any one came, to be a gentleman from Port Phillip
that wasn't very well. He'd come in and see the horses sold,
but gammon to be a stranger, and never set eyes on us before.

`My word!' said Barnes, who just came in at the time, `you've made
talk enough for all the countryside with that mail coach racket of yours.
Every man, woman, and child that looks in here's sure to say,
"Did you hear about the Goulburn mail being stuck up?"
"Well, I did hear something," I says, and out it all comes.
They wonder first whether the bush-rangers will be caught;
where they're gone to that the police can't get 'em; how it was
that one of 'em was so kind to the young lady as to give her new watch back,
and whether Captain Starlight was as handsome as people say,
and if Mrs. Buxter will ever get her watch back with the big reward
the Government offered. More than that, whether they'll stick up more coaches
or fly the country.'

`I'd like to have been there and see how Bill Webster looked,' says Maddie.
`He was here one day since, and kept gassin' about it all
as if he wouldn't let none of you do only what he liked. I didn't think
he was that game, and told him so. He said I'd better take a seat some day
and see how I liked it. I asked him wasn't they all very good-looking chaps,
and he said Starlight was genteel-lookin', but there was one great, big,
rough-lookin' feller -- that was you, Jim -- as was ugly enough
to turn a cask of beer sour.'

`I'll give him a hammerin' for that yet,' grumbles old Jim.
`My word, he was that shaky and blue-lookin' he didn't know
whether I was white or black.'