Robbery Under Arms

R >> Rolf Boldrewood >> Robbery Under Arms

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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.'