Robbery Under Arms

R >> Rolf Boldrewood >> Robbery Under Arms

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It wasn't long before I was in the saddle and off again.
I'd made a bit of a bargain with Jonathan, who sold me a pair of riding boots,
butcher's, and a big tweed poncho. The boots were easier
to take a long rough ride in than trousers, and I wanted the poncho
to keep the Ballard rifle under. It wouldn't do to have it in your hand
all the time.

As we rode along I settled upon the way I'd try and set poor Jim free.
Bad off as I was myself I couldn't bear to see him chained up, and knew
that he was going for years and years to a place more wicked and miserable
than he'd ever heard of.

After riding twenty miles the sun was getting low, when Billy pointed
to a trail which came broad ways across the road, and which then followed it.

`Here they are -- p'leece, and no mistake. Here's their horses' tracks
right enough. Here's the prisoner's horse, see how he stumbled?
and this road they're bound to go till they cross the Stony point,
and get into Bargo Brush, near a creek.'

We had plenty of time by crossing a range and running a blind creek down
to be near the place where the troopers must pass as they crossed
the main creek. We tied up the horses a hundred yards' distance behind us
in the forest, and I made ready to rescue Jim, if it could be managed anyhow.

How was it to be done? I could depend on the rifle carrying true
at short ranges; but I didn't like the notion of firing at a man
behind his back, like. I hardly knew what to do, when all of a sudden
two policemen showed up at the end of the track nearest the creek.

One man was a bit in front -- riding a fine horse, too. The next one
had a led horse, on which rode poor old Jim, looking as if he was going
to be hanged that day, as Billy said, though I knew well he wasn't thinking
about himself. I don't believe Jim ever looked miserable for so long
since he was born. Whatever happened to him before he'd have
a cry or a fight, and it would be over. But now his poor old face
looked that wretched and miserable, as if he'd never smile again
as long as he lived. He didn't seem to care where they took him;
and when the old horse stumbled and close upon fell down
he didn't take notice.

When I saw that, my mind was made up. I couldn't let them
take him away to his death. I could see he wouldn't live a month.
He'd go fretting his life about Jeanie, and after the free life
he'd always led he'd fall sick like the blacks when they're shut up,
and die without any reason but because a wild bird won't live in a cage.

So I took aim and waited till they were just crossing the creek
into the forest. The leading man was just riding up the bank,
and the one that led Jim's horse was on the bit of a sand bed that the water
had brought down. He was the least bit ahead of Jim, when I pulled trigger,
and sent a ball into him, just under the collar-bone. I fired high
on purpose. He drops off his saddle like a dead man. The next minute
Billy the Boy raises the most awful corroboree of screams and howls,
enough for a whole gang of bush-rangers, if they went in
for that sort of thing. He emptied four chambers of his revolver
at the leading trooper right away, and I fired at his horse.
The constable never doubted -- the attack was so sudden and savage like --
but there was a party of men hid in the brush. Billy's shots
had whistled round him, and mine had nearly dropped his horse,
so he thought it no shame to make a bolt and leave his mate,
as seemed very bad hit, in our hands.

His horse's hand-gallop growed fainter and fainter in the distance,
and then we unbound poor Jim, set his feet at liberty, and managed
to dispose of the handcuffs. Jim's face began to look more cheerful,
but he was down in the mouth again when he saw the wounded man.
He began at once to do all he could for him. We stopped a short distance
behind the brush, which had already helped us well.

Jim propped up the poor chap, whose life-blood was flowing red
through the bullet-hole, and made him as comfortable as he could.
`I must take your horse, mate,' he says; `but you know
it's only the fortune of war. A man must look after himself.
Some one'll come along the road soon.' He mounted the trooper's horse,
and we slipped through the trees -- it was getting dark now --
till we came to our horses. Then we all rode off together.
We took Billy the Boy with us until he put us on to a road that led us
into the country that we knew. We could make our own way from there,
and so we sent off our scout, telling him to ride to the nearest township
and say he'd seen a trooper lying badly wounded by the Bargo Brush roadside.
The sooner he was seen to, the better chance he'd have.

Jim brightened up considerably after this. He told me how he'd gone back
to say good-bye to Jeanie -- how the poor girl went into fits,
and he couldn't leave her. By the time she got better
the cottage was surrounded by police; there was no use being shot down
without a chance, so he gave himself up.

`My word, Dick,' he said, `I wished for a bare-backed horse,
and a deep gully, then; but it wasn't to be. There was no horse handy,
and I'd only have been carried into my own place a dead man
and frightened the life out of poor Jeanie as well.'

`You're worth a dozen dead men yet, Jim,' I said. `Keep up your pecker,
old man. We'll get across to the Hollow some time within
the next twenty-four hours, and there we'll be safe anyhow.
They can't touch Jeanie, you know; and you're not short of what cash
she'll want to keep her till this blows over a bit.'

`And what am I to do all the time?' he says so pitiful like.
`We're that fond of one another, Dick, that I couldn't hardly bear her
out of my sight, and now I'll be months and months and months
without a look at her pretty face, where I've never seen anything yet
but love and kindness. Too good for me she always was;
and what have I brought her to? My God! Dick, I wish you'd shot me
instead of the constable, poor devil!'

`Well, you wasn't very far apart,' I says, chaffing like.
`If that old horse they put you on had bobbed forward level with him
you'd have got plugged instead. But it's no use giving in, Jim.
We must stand up to our fight now, or throw up the sponge.
There's no two ways about it.'

We rattled on then without speaking, and never cried crack
till we got to Nulla Mountain, where we knew we were pretty safe
not to be followed up. We took it easier then, and stopped to eat
a bit of bread and meat the girls had put up for me at Jonathan's.
I'd never thought of it before. When I took the parcel
out of the pocket of my poncho I thought it felt deuced heavy,
and there, sure enough, was one of those shilling flasks of brandy
they sell for chaps to go on the road with.

Brandy ain't a good thing at all times and seasons, and I've seen
more than one man, or a dozen either, that might just as well
have sawed away at their throats with a blunt knife as put the first glass
to their lips. But we was both hungry, thirsty, tired, miserable,
and pretty well done and beaten, though we hadn't had time to think about it.
That drop of brandy seemed as if it had saved our lives. I never forgot it,
nor poor Maddie Barnes for thinking of it for me. And I did live
to do her a good turn back -- much as there's been said again me,
and true enough, too.

It was a long way into the night, and not far from daylight either,
when we stumbled up to the cave -- dead beat, horses and men both.
We'd two minds to camp on the mountain, but we might have been followed up,
hard as we'd ridden, and we didn't like to throw a chance away.
We didn't want the old man to laugh at us, and we didn't want to do
any more time in Berrima -- not now, anyhow. We'd been living
too gay and free a life to begin with the jug all over again.

So we thought we'd make one job of it, and get right through,
if we had to sleep for a week after it. It would be slow enough,
but anything was better than what we'd gone through lately.

After we'd got down the mountain and on the flat land of the valley
it rested our feet a bit, that was pretty nigh cut to pieces with the rocks.
Our horses were that done we dursn't ride 'em for hours before.
As we came close, out walks old Crib, and smells at us.
He knew us in a minute, and jumped up and began to try and lick Jim's hand:
the old story. He just gave one sort of sniff at me, as much as to say,
`Oh! it's you, is it?' Then he actually gave a kind of half-bark.
I don't believe he'd barked for years, such a queer noise it was. Anyhow,
it woke up dad, and he came out pretty sharp with a revolver in his hand.
As soon as he saw the old dog walking alongside of us he knew it was right,
and begins to feel for his pipe. First thing father always did as soon as
any work or fighting or talking was over was to get out his pipe and light it.
He didn't seem the same man without it.

`So you've found your way back again, have ye?' he says. `Why, I thought you
was all on your way to Californy by this time. Ain't this Christmas week?
Why, I was expecting to come over to Ameriky myself one of these days,
when all the derry was over ---- Why, what's up with the boy?'

Jim was standing by, sayin' nothing, while I was taking off
the saddles and bridles and letting the horses go, when all of a sudden
he gives a lurch forward, and if the old man hadn't laid hold of him
in his strong arms and propped him up he'd have gone down face foremost
like a girl in a dead faint.

`What's up with him, Dick?' says father, rather quick, almost as if he was
fond of him, and had some natural feeling -- sometimes I raly think he had --
`been any shooting?'

`Yes; not at him, though. Tell you all about it in the morning.
He's eaten nothing, and we've been travelling best part of twenty-four hours
right off the reel.'

`Hold him up while I fetch out the pannikin. There's plenty of grub inside.
He'll be all right after a sleep.'

A drop of rum and water brought him to, and after that
we made ourselves a cup of tea and turned in. The sun was pretty high
when I woke. When I looked out there was the old man sitting on the log
by the fire, smoking. What was a deal more curious, I saw the half-caste,
Warrigal, coming up from the flat, leading a horse and carrying
a pair of hobbles. Something made me look over to a particular corner
where Starlight always slept when he was at the Hollow.
Sure enough there was the figure of a man rolled up in a cloak.
I knew by the way his boots and things were thrown about
that it could be no other than Starlight.

Chapter 32

I'd settled in my mind that it couldn't be any one else, when he sat up,
yawned, and looked round as if he had not been away from the old place a week.

`Ha! Richard, here we are again! "Feeds the boar in the old frank?"
The governor told me you and Jim had made back. Dreadful bore, isn't it?
Just when we'd all rubbed off the rust of our bush life
and were getting civilised. I feel very seriously ill-treated, I assure you.
I have a great mind to apply to the Government for compensation.
That's the worst of these new inspectors, they are so infernally zealous.'

`You were too many for them, it seems. I half thought you might
have been nailed. How the deuce did you get the office in time?'

`The faithful Warrigal, as usual, gave me timely warning, and brought a horse,
of course. He will appear on the Judgment Day leading Rainbow,
I firmly believe. Why he should be so confoundedly anxious about my welfare
I can't make out -- I can't, really. It's his peculiar form of mania,
I suppose. We all suffer from some madness or other.'

`How the blazes did he know the police were laid on to the lot of us?' I said.

`I didn't know myself that your Kate had come the double on you.
I might have known she would, though. Well, it seems Warrigal
took it into his semi-barbaric head to ride into Turon and loaf about,
partly to see me, and partly about another matter that your father
laid him on about. He was standing about near the Prospectors' Arms,
late on Friday night, doing nothing and seeing everything, as usual,
when he noticed Mrs. Mullockson run out of the house like a Bedlamite.
"My word, that missis big one coolah!" was his expression, and made straight
for the camp. Now Warrigal had seen you come out just before.
He doesn't like you and Jim over much -- bad taste, I tell him, on his part --
but I suppose he looks upon you as belonging to the family.
So he stalked the fair and furious Kate.'

`That was how it was, then?'

`Yes, much in that way. I must say, Dick, that if you are
so extremely fond of -- well -- studying the female character,
you should carry on the pursuit more discreetly. Just see
what this miscalculation has cost your friends!'

`Confound her! She's a heartless wretch, and I hope she'll die in a ditch.'

`Exactly. Well, she knocked, and a constable opened the outer door.

`"I want to see Sir Ferdinand," she says.

`"He's in bed and can't be disturbed," says the bobby.
"Any message I can deliver?"

`"I have important information," says she. "Rouse him up,
or you'll be sorry for it."

`"Won't it do to-morrow morning?" says he.

`"No, it won't," says she, stamping her foot. "Do what I tell you,
and don't stand there like a fool."

`She waited a bit. Then, Warrigal says, out came Sir Ferdinand, very polite.
"What can I do for you," says he, "Mrs. Mullockson?"

`"Should you like to know where the Marstons are, Sir Ferdinand," says she,
"Dick and Jim?"

`"Know? Would I not?" says he. "No end of warrants out for them;
since that Ballabri Bank robbery they seem to have disappeared under ground.
And that fellow Starlight, too! Most remarkable man of his day.
I'd give my eyes to put the bracelets upon him."

`She whispered something into his ear.

`"Guard, turn out," he roars out first; then, dropping his voice,
says out, "My dear Mrs. Mullockson" (you should hear Warrigal imitate him),
"you have made my fortune -- officially, I mean, of course.
I shall never forget your kindness. Thanks, a thousand times."

`"Don't thank me," she says, and she burst out crying, and goes slowly
back to the hotel.

`Warrigal had heard quite enough. He rips over to Daly's mob,
borrows a horse, saddle, and bridle, and leads him straight down to our camp.
He roused me up about one o'clock, and I could hardly make any explanation
to my mates. Such stunning good fellows they were, too!
I wonder whether I shall ever associate with gentlemen again?
The chances are against it.

`I had all kinds of trouble to tell them I was going away with Warrigal,
and yet not to tell too much.

`"What the dickens," says Clifford, "can you want, going away
with this familiar of yours at this hour of the night?
You're like the fellow in Scott's novel (`Anne of Geierstein')
that I was reading over again yesterday -- the mysterious stranger
that's called for at midnight by the Avenger of Blood,
departs with him and is never seen more."

`"In case you never see me afterwards," I said, "we'd better say good-bye.
We've been good mates and true friends, haven't we?"

`"Never better," he said. "I don't know what we shall do without you.
But, of course, you're not going very far?"

`"Good-bye, in case," I said. "Anyhow, I'll write you a line,
and as I shook hands with them -- two regular trumps, if ever there were any
in the world -- I had a kind of notion I'd never see them again.
Hardly think I shall, either. Sir Ferdinand surrounded the hut
about an hour later, and made them come out one by one --
both of them and the wages man. I daresay they were surprised.

`"Where's the fourth man, Clifford?" says Sir Ferdinand.
"Just ask him to come out, will you?"

`"What, Frank Haughton?" says he.

`I heard most of this from that young devil, Billy the Boy.
He saw Sir Ferdinand ride up, so he hid close by, just for the fun of hearing
how he got on. He'd seen Warrigal and me ride away.

`"Frank Devil!" bangs out Sir Ferdinand, who'd begun to get his monkey up.
"How should I know his infernal purser's name? No man, it seems to me,
has his right name on this confounded goldfield. I mean Starlight --
Starlight the cattle stealer, the mail robber, the bush-ranger,
whose name is notorious over the three colonies, and New Zealand to boot --
your intimate friend and partner for the last nine months!'

`"You perfectly amaze me," says Clifford. "But can't you be mistaken?
Is your information to be depended upon?"

`"Mine came from a jealous woman," says Sir Ferdinand. "They may generally
be depended upon for a straight tip. But we're losing time.
When did he leave the claim, and which way did he go?"

`"I have no idea which way he went," says Clifford. "He did not say,
but he left about an hour since."

`"On foot or on horseback?"

`"On horseback."

`"Any one with him?"

`"Yes, another horseman."

`"What was he like?"

`"Slight, dark man, youngish, good-looking."

`"Warrigal the half-caste! By George! warrants out for him also,"
says Sir Ferdinand. "On a good horse, of course, with an hour's start.
We may give up the idea of catching him this time. Follow him up
as a matter of form. Good-bye, Clifford. You'll hear news of your friend
before long, or I'm much mistaken."

`"Stop, Sir Ferdinand, you must pardon me; but I don't exactly understand
your tone. The man that we knew by the name of Frank Haughton may be,
as you say, an escaped criminal. All I know is that he lived with us
since we came here, and that no fellow could have behaved
more truly like a man and a gentleman. As far as we are concerned,
I have a material guarantee that he has been scrupulously honest.
Do you mean to hint for one moment that we were aware of his previous history,
or in any way mixed up with his acts?"

`"If I do, what then?" says Sir Ferdinand, laughing.

`"The affair is in no way ludicrous," says Clifford, very stiff and dignified.
"I hold myself to have received an insult, and must ask you to refer me
to a friend."

`"Do you know that I could arrest you and Hastings now and lock you up
on suspicion of being concerned with him in the Ballabri Bank robbery?"
says Sir Ferdinand in a stern voice. "Don't look so indignant.
I only say I could. I am not going to do so, of course.
As to fighting you, my dear fellow, I am perfectly at your service
at all times and seasons whenever I resign my appointment
as Inspector of Police for the colony of New South Wales.
The Civil Service regulations do not permit of duelling at present,
and I found it so deuced hard to work up to the billet
that I am not going to imperil my continuance therein. After all,
I had no intention of hurting your feelings, and apologise if I did.
As for that rascal Starlight, he would deceive the very devil himself."

`And so Sir Ferdinand rode off.'

`How did you come; by Jonathan's?'

`We called nowhere. Warrigal, as usual, made a short cut of his own
across the bush -- scrubs, gullies, mountains, all manner of desert paths.
We made the Hollow yesterday afternoon, and went to sleep in a nook
known to us of old. We dropped in to breakfast here at daylight,
and I felt sleepy enough for another snooze.'

`We're all here again, it seems,' I said, sour enough.
`I suppose we'll have to go on the old lay; they won't let us alone
when we're doing fair work and behaving ourselves like men.
They must take the consequences, d--n them!'

`Ha! very true,' says Starlight in his dreamy kind of way.
`Most true, Richard. Society should make a truce occasionally,
or proclaim an amnesty with offenders of our stamp. It would pay better
than driving us to desperation. How is Jim? He's worse off
than either of us, poor fellow.'

`Jim's very bad. He can't get over being away from Jeanie.
I never saw him so down in the mouth this years.'

`Poor old Jim, he's a deal too good for the place. Sad mistake
this getting married. People should either keep straight or have no relatives
to bear the brunt of their villainies. "But, soft," as they say in the play,
"where am I?" I thought I was a virtuous miner again. Here we are
at this devil-discovered, demon-haunted old Hollow again --
first cousin to the pit of Acheron. There's no help for it, Dick.
We must play our parts gallantly, as demons of this lower world,
or get hissed off the stage.'

. . . . .

We didn't do much for a few days, you may be sure. There was nothing to do,
for one thing; and we hadn't made up our mind what our line was to be.
One thing was certain: there would be more row made about us than ever.
We should have all the police in the country worried and barked at
by the press, the people, the Government, and their superior officers
till they got something to show about us. Living at the diggings
under the nose of the police, without their having the least suspicion
who we were, was bad enough; but the rescue of Jim and the shooting of
a policeman in charge of him was more serious -- the worst thing
that had happened yet.

There would be the devil to pay if they couldn't find a track of us.
No doubt money would be spent like water in bribing any one who might give
information about us. Every one would be tried that we had ever been known
to be friendly with. A special body of men could be told off to make a dart
to any spot they might get wind of near where we had been last seen.

We had long talks and barneys over the whole thing -- sometimes by ourselves
with Starlight, sometimes with father. A long time it was before we settled
upon any regular put-up bit of work to do.

Sooner or later we began to see the secret of the Hollow would be found out.
There was no great chance in the old times with only a few
shepherds and stock-riders wandering through the bush, once in a way
straggling over the country. But now the whole colony swarmed with miners,
who were always prospecting, as they called it -- that is, looking out
for fresh patches of gold. Now, small parties of these men -- bold, hardy,
experienced chaps -- would take a pick and shovel, a bucket, and a tin dish,
with a few weeks' rations, and scour the whole countryside.
They would try every creek, gully, hillside, and river bed. If they found
the colour of gold, the least trace of it in a dish of wash-dirt,
they would at once settle down themselves. If it went rich
the news would soon spread, and a thousand men might be gathered in one spot
-- the bank of a small creek, the side of a steep range -- within a fortnight,
with ten thousand more sure to follow within a month.

That might happen at any time on one of the spurs of Nulla Mountain;
and the finding out of the track down to the Hollow by some one of the dozens
of rambling, shooting, fishing diggers would be as certain to happen
as the sun to rise.

Well, the country had changed, and we were bound to change with it.
We couldn't stop boxed up in the Hollow day after day, and month after month,
shooting and horse-breaking, doing nothing and earning nothing.

If we went outside there were ten times more men looking out for us than ever,
ten times more chance of our being tracked or run down than ever.
That we knew from the newspapers. How did we see them? Oh, the old way.
We sent out our scout, Warrigal, and he got our letters and papers too,
from a `sure hand', as Starlight said the old people in the English wars
used to say.

The papers were something to see. First he brought us in a handbill
that was posted in Bargo, like this: --

FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD.

The above reward will be paid to any one giving information
as to the whereabouts of Richard Marston, James Marston, and a man whose name
is unknown, but who can be identified chiefly by the appellation of Starlight.

`Pleasing way of drawing attention to a gentleman's private residence,'
says Starlight, smiling first and looking rather grim afterwards.
`Never mind, boys, they'll increase that reward yet, by Jove!
It will have to be a thousand a piece if they don't look a little sharper.'

We laughed, and dad growled out --

`Don't seem to have the pluck, any on ye, to tackle a big touch again.
I expect they'll send a summons for us next, and get old Bill Barkis,
the bailiff at Bargo, to serve it.'

`Come, come, governor,' says Starlight, `none of that.
We've got quite enough devil in us yet, without your stirring him up.
You must give us time, you know. Let's see what this paper says.
"Turon Star"! What a godsend to it!

`BUSH-RANGERS!

`STARLIGHT AND THE MARSTONS AGAIN.

`The announcement will strike our readers, if not with
the most profound astonishment, certainly with considerable surprise,
that these celebrated desperadoes, for whose apprehension
such large sums have been offered, for whom the police in all the colonies
have made such unremitting search, should have been discovered in our midst.
Yet such is the case. On this very morning, from information received,
our respected and efficient Inspector of Police, Sir Ferdinand Morringer,
proceeded soon after midnight to the camp of Messrs. Clifford and Hastings.
He had every reason to believe that he would have had no difficulty
in arresting the famous Starlight, who, under the cognomen of
the Honourable Frank Haughton, has been for months a partner in this claim.
The shareholders were popularly known as "the three Honourables",
it being rumoured that both Mr. Clifford and Mr. Hastings were entitled
to that prefix, if not to a more exalted one.