Robbery Under Arms

R >> Rolf Boldrewood >> Robbery Under Arms

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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.