'It's too late, Miss Falkland,' I said. 'We're all thankful to you for the way you've spoken. Jim and I would be proud to shed our blood for you any time, or Mr. Falkland either. We'll do what we can, but we'll have to fight it out to the end now, and take our chance of the bullet coming before the rope. Good-night, Miss Falkland, and good luck to you always.'

She shook hands heartily with me and Jim, but when she came to Starlight he raised her hand quite respectful like and just touched it with his lips. Then he bowed low to them all and walked slowly out.

When we got to the public-house, which wasn't far off, we found that Moran and the other two had stayed there a bit till Wall and Hulbert came; then they had a drink all round and rode away. The publican said Moran was in an awful temper, and he was afraid he'd have shot somebody before the others got him started and clear of the place.

'It's a mercy you went over, Captain,' says he; 'there'd have been the devil to pay else. He swore he'd burn the place down before he went from here.'

'He'll get caught one of these fine days,' says Starlight. 'There's more risk at one station than half-a-dozen road scrimmages, and that he'll find, clever as he thinks himself.'

'Where's Mr. Whitman, Jack?' says I to the landlord (he wasn't a bad sort, old Jack Jones). 'What made him leave his place to the mercy of the world, in a manner of speaking?'

'Well, it was this way. He heard that all the shepherds at the lower station had cut it to the diggings, ye see; so he thought he'd make a dart up to the Castlereagh and rig'late the place a bit. He'll be back afore morning.'

'How d'ye know that?'

'Well, he's ridin' that famous roan pony o' his, and he always comes back from the station in one day, though he takes two to go; eighty-five miles every yard of it. It's a big day, but that pony's a rum un, and can jump his own height easy. He'll be welcome home to-night.'

'I daresay he will, and no wonder. The missus must ha' been awful frightened, and the young ladies too. Good-night, Jack;' and we rattled off.

It wasn't so very late after all when we got back to Jonathan's; so, as the horses wanted a bit of a rest and a feed, we roused up the girls and had supper. A very jolly one it was, my word.

They were full of curiosity, you bet, to know how we got on when they heard Moran was there and the others. So bit by bit they picked it out of us. When they heard it all, Maddie got up and threw her arms round Jim's neck.

'I may kiss you now you're married,' she says, 'and I know there's only one woman in the world for you; but you deserve one from every woman in the country for smashing that wretch Moran. It's a pity you didn't break his neck. Never mind, old man; Miss Falkland won't forget you for that, you take my word. I'm proud of you, that I am.'

Jim just sat there and let her talk to him. He smiled in a serious kind of way when she ran over to him first; but, instead of a good-looking girl, it might have been his grandmother for all he seemed to care.

'You're a regular old image, Jim,' says she. 'I hope none of my other friends 'll get married if it knocks all the go out of them, same as it has from you. However, you can stand up for a friend, can't you? You wouldn't see me trod upon; d'ye think you would, now? I'd stand up for you, I know, if you was bested anywhere.'

'My dear Maddie,' says Starlight, 'James is in that particular stage of infatuation when a man only sees one woman in the whole world. I envy him, I assure you. When your day comes you will understand much of what puzzles you at present.'

'I suppose so,' said Maddie, going back to her seat with a wondering, queer kind of look. 'But it must be dreadful dull being shut in for weeks and weeks in one place, perhaps, and with only one man.'

'I have heard it asserted,' he says, 'that a slight flavour of monotony occasionally assails the honeymoon. Variety is the salt of life, I begin to think. Some of these fine days, Maddie, we'll both get married and compare notes.'

'You'll have to look out, then,' says Bella. 'All the girls about here are getting snapped up quick. There's such a lot of young bankers, Government officers, and swells of all sorts about the diggings now, not to reckon the golden-hole men, that we girls have double the pull we had before the gold. Why, there was my old schoolmate, Clara Mason, was married last week to such a fine young chap, a surveyor. She'd only known him six weeks.'

'Well, I'll come and dance at your wedding if you'll send me an invite,' says Starlight.

'Will you, though?' she said. 'Wouldn't it be fun? Unless Sir Ferdinand was there. He's a great friend of mine, you know.'

'I'll come if his Satanic Majesty himself was present (he occasionally does attend a wedding, I've heard), and bring you a present, too, Bella; mind, it's a bargain.'

'There's my hand on it,' says she. 'I wonder how you'll manage it, but I'll leave that to you. It mightn't be so long either. And now it's time for us all to go to bed. Jim's asleep, I believe, this half hour.'



Chapter 37



This bit of a barney, of course, made bad blood betwixt us and Moran's mob, so for a spell Starlight and father thought it handier for us to go our own road and let them go theirs. We never could agree with chaps like them, and that was the long and short of it. They were a deal too rough and ready for Starlight; and as for Jim and me, though we were none too good, we couldn't do some of the things these coves was up to, nor stand by and see 'em done, which was more. This time we made up our mind to go back to the Hollow and drop out of notice altogether for a bit, and take a rest like.

We hadn't heard anything of Aileen and the old mother for weeks and weeks, so we fixed it that we should sneak over to Rocky Flat, one at a time, and see how things were going, and hearten 'em up a bit. When we did get to the Hollow, instead of being able to take it easy, as we expected, we found things had gone wrong as far as the devil could send 'em that way if he tried his best. It seems father had taken a restless fit himself, and after we were gone had crossed Nulla Mountain to some place above Rocky Flat, to where he could see what went on with a strong glass.

Before I go further I might as well tell you that, along with the whacking big reward that was offered for all of us, a good many coves as fancied themselves a bit had turned amateur policemen, and had all kinds of plans and dodges for catching us dead or alive. Now, men that take to the bush like us don't mind the regular paid force much, or bear them any malice. It's their duty to catch us or shoot us if we bolt, and ours to take all sorts of good care that they shan't do either if we can help it.

Well, as I was sayin', we don't have it in for the regulars in the police; it's all fair pulling, 'pull devil pull baker', some one has to get the worst of it. Now it's us, now it's them, that gets took or rubbed out, and no more about it.

But what us cross coves can't stand and are mostly sure to turn nasty on is the notion of fellows going into the manhunting trade, with us for game, either for the fun of it or for the reward. That reward means the money paid for our blood. WE DON'T LIKE IT. It may seem curious, but we don't; and them as take up the line as a game to make money or fun out of, when they've no call to, find out their mistake, sometimes when it's a deal too late.

Now we'd heard that a party of four men—some of them had been gaol warders and some hadn't—had made it up to follow us up and get us one way or the other if it was to be done. They weren't in the police, but they thought they knew quite as much as the police did; and, besides, the reward, 5000 Pounds, if they got our lot and any one of the others, was no foolish money.

Well, nothing would knock it out of these chaps' heads but that we were safe to be grabbed in the long run trying to make into the old home. This was what made them gammon to be surveyors when they first came, as we heard about, and go measuring and tape-lining about, when there wasn't a child over eight years old on the whole creek that couldn't have told with half an eye they wasn't nothing of the sort.

Well, as bad luck would have it, just as father was getting down towards the place he meets Moran and Daly, who were making over to the Fish River on a cattle-duffing lay of their own. They were pretty hard up; and Moran after his rough and tumble with Jim, in which he had come off second best, was ready for anything—anything that was bad, that is.

After he'd a long yarn with them about cattle and horses and what not, he offered them a ten-pound note each if they'd do what he told them. Dad always carried money about with him; he said it came in handy. If the police didn't take him, they wouldn't get it; and if they did take him, why, nothing would matter much and it might go with the rest. It came in handy enough this time, anyhow, though it helped what had been far better left undone.

I remember what a blinded rage father got into when he first had Aileen's letter, and heard that these men were camped close to the old house, poking about there all day long, and worrying and frightening poor Aileen and mother.

Well, it seems on this particular day they'd been into the little township, and I suppose got an extra glass of grog. Anyhow, when they came back they began to be more venturesome than they generally were. One chap came into the house and began talking to Aileen, and after a bit mother goes into her bedroom, and Aileen comes out into the verandah and begins to wash some clothes in a tub, splashing the water pretty well about and making it a bit uncomfortable for any one to come near her.

What must this fool do but begin to talk about what white arms she'd got—not that they were like that much, she'd done too much hard work lately to have her arms, or hands either, look very grand; and at last he began to be saucy, telling her as no Marston girl ought to think so much of herself, considerin' who and what she was. Well, the end of it was father heard a scream, and he looked out from where he was hidden and saw Aileen running down the garden and the fellow after her. He jumps out, and fires his revolver slapbang at the chap; it didn't hit him, but it went that close that he stopped dead and turned round to see who it was.

'Ben Marston, by all that's lucky, boys!' says he, as two of the other chaps came running down at the shot. 'We've got the ould sarpint out of his hole at last.' With that they all fires at father as quick as they could draw; and Aileen gives one scream and starts running along the track up the hill that leads to George Storefield's place.

Father drops; one of the bullets had hit him, but not so bad as he couldn't run, so he ups again and starts running along the gully, with the whole four of them shouting and swearin' after him, making sure they got him to rights this time.

'Two hundred a man, boys,' the big fellow in the lead says; 'and maybe we'll take tay with the rest of 'em now.'

They didn't know the man they were after, or they'd have just as soon have gone to 'take tea', as they called it, with a tiger.

Father put on one of his old poacher dodges that he had borrowed from the lapwing in his own country, that he used to tell us about when we were boys (our wild duck 'll do just the same), and made himself out a deal worse than he was. Father could run a bit, too; he'd been fast for a mile when he was young, and though he was old now he never carried no flesh to signify, and was as hard as nails. So what with knowing the ground, and they being flat-country men, he kept just out of pistol-shot, and yet showed enough to keep 'em filled up with the notion that they'd run him down after a bit.

They fired a shot every now and then, thinking a chance one might wing him, but this only let Moran and Daly see that some one was after dad, and that the hunt was coming their way.

They held steady where they had been told to stop, and looked out for the men they'd been warned of by father. As he got near this place he kept lettin' 'em git a bit nearer and nearer to him, so as they'd follow him up just where he wanted. It gave them more chance of hitting him, but he didn't care about that, now his blood was up—not he. All he wanted was to get them. Dad was the coolest old cove, when shooting was going on, ever I see. You'd think he minded bullets no more than bottle-corks.

Well, he goes stumbling and dragging himself like up the gully, and they, cocksure of getting him, closing up and shooting quicker and quicker, when just as he jumps down the Black Gully steps a bullet did hit him in the shoulder under the right arm, and staggers him in good earnest. He'd just time to cut down the bank and turn to the left along the creek channel, throwing himself down on his face among the bushes, when the whole four of 'em jumps down the bank after him.

'Stand!' says Moran, and they looked up and saw him and Daly covering them with their revolvers. Before they'd time to draw, two of 'em rolls over as dead as door-nails.

The other two were dumbfoundered and knocked all of a heap by suddenly finding themselves face to face with the very men they'd been hunting after for weeks and weeks. They held up their pistols, but they didn't seem to have much notion of using them—particularly when they found father had rounded on 'em too, and was standing a bit away on the side looking very ugly and with his revolver held straight at 'em.

'Give in! Put down your irons,' says Moran, 'or by——, we'll drop ye where ye stand.'

'Come on,' says one, and I think he intended to make a fight for it.

He'd 'a been better off if he had. It couldn't have been worse for him; but the other one didn't see a chance, and so he says—

'Give in, what's the good? There's three to two.'

'All right,' says the other chap, the big one; and they put down their pistols.

It was curious now as these two were both men that father and Moran had a down on. They'd better have fought it out as long as they could stand up. There's no good got by givin' in that I ever seen. Men as does so always drop in for it worse in the end.

First thing, then, they tied 'em with their hands behind 'em, and let 'em stand up near their mates that were down—dead enough, both of them, one shot through the heart and one through the head.

Then Moran sits down and has a smoke, and looks over at 'em.

'You don't remember me, Mr. Hagan?' says he, in his drawling way.

'No,' says the poor chap, 'I don't think I do.'

'But I remember you devilish well,' says Moran; 'and so you'll find afore we leave this.' Then he took another smoke. 'Weren't you warder in Berrima Gaol,' says he, 'about seven year ago? Ah! now we're coming to it. You don't remember getting Daniel Moran—a prisoner serving a long sentence there—seven days' solitary on bread and water for what you called disobedience of orders and insolence?'

'Yes, I do remember now. I'd forgotten your face. I was only doing my duty, and I hope you won't bear any malice.'

'It was a little thing to you, maybe,' says Moran; 'but if you'd had to do seven long days and long cold nights in that devil's den, you'd 'a thought more about it. But you will now. My turn's come.'

'I didn't do it to you more than to the rest. I had to keep order in the gaol, and devilish hard work it was.'

'You're a liar,' says Moran, striking him across the face with his clenched hand. 'You had a down on me because I wouldn't knuckle down to you like some of them, and so you dropped it on to me every turn you could get. I was a youngster then, and might have grown into a man if I'd been let. But fellows like you are enough to turn any man into a devil if they've got him in their power.'

'Well, I'm in your power now,' says he. 'Let's see how you'll shape.'

'I don't like ye any the worse for being cheeky,' says Moran, 'and standing up to me, but it's too late. The last punishment I got, when I was kept in irons night and day for a month because I'd tried to get out, I swore I'd have your life if ever I came across ye.'

'You'll never shoot me in cold blood,' says the poor devil, beginning to look blue about the lips.

'I don't know what old Ben's going to do with the man he found chevying his daughter,' says Moran, looking at him with his deadly black-snake eyes, 'but I'm a-goin' to shoot you as soon as I've smoked out this pipe, so don't you make any mistake.'

'I don't mind a shot or two,' says Daly, 'but I'm dashed if I can stand by and see men killed in cold blood. You coves have your own reasons, I suppose, but I shall hook it over to the Fish River. You know where to find me.' And he walked away to where the horses were and rode off.

. . . . .

We got fresh horses and rode over quick to Rocky Flat. We took Warrigal with us, and followed our old track across Nulla Mountain till we got within a couple of miles of the place. Warrigal picked up the old mare's tracks, so we knew father had made over that way, and there was no call for us to lose time running his trail any longer. Better go straight on to the house and find out what had happened there. We sent Warrigal on ahead, and waited with our horses in our hands till he come back to us.

In about an hour he comes tearing back, with his eyes staring out of his head.

'I bin see old missis,' he says. 'She yabber that one make-believe constable bin there. Gammon-like it surveyor, and bimeby old man Ben gon' alonga hut, and that one pleeceman fire at him and all about, and him break back alonga gully.'

'Any of 'em come back?' says Jim.

'Bale! me see um tent-dog tied up. Cake alonga fireplace, all burn to pieces. No come home last night. I b'lieve shot 'em old man longa gully.'

'Come along, boys,' says Starlight, jumping into his saddle. 'The old man might have been hit. We must run the tracks and see what's come of the governor. Four to one's big odds.'

We skirted the hut and kept out wide till Warrigal cut the tracks, which he did easy enough. We couldn't see a blessed thing. Warrigal rode along with his head down, reading every tuft of grass, every little stone turned up, every foot of sand, like a book.

'Your old fader run likit Black Gully. Two fellow track here—bullet longa this one tree.' Here he pointed to a scratch on the side of a box tree, in which the rough bark had been shivered. 'Bimeby two fellow more come; 'nother one bullet; 'nother one here, too. This one blood drop longa white leaf.'

Here he picked up a dried gum leaf, which had on the upper side a dark red spot, slightly irregular.

We had it all now. We came to a place where two horses had been tied to a tree. They had been stamping and pawing, as if they had been there a goodish while and had time to get pretty sick of it.

'That near side one Moran's horse, pigeon-toes; me know 'em,' says Warrigal. 'Off side one Daly's roan horse, new shoes on. You see 'um hair, rub himself longa tree.'

'What the blazes were they doing hereabouts?' says Starlight. 'This begins to look complicated. Whatever the row was, Daly and he were in it. There's no one rich enough to rob hereabouts, is there? I don't like the look of it. Ride on, boys.'

We said nothing to each other, but rode along as fast as Warrigal could follow the line. The sky, which was bright enough when we started, clouded over, and in less than ten minutes the wind rose and rain began to pour down in buckets, with no end of thunder and lightning. Then it got that cold we could hardly sit on our horses for trembling. The sky grew blacker and blacker. The wind began to whistle and cry till I could almost swear I heard some one singing out for help. Nulla Mountain was as black as your hat, and a kind of curious feeling crept over me, I hardly knew why, as if something was going to happen, I didn't know what.

I fully expected to find father dead; and, though he wasn't altogether a good father to us, we both felt bad at the notion of his lyin' there cold and stiff. I began to think of him as he used to be when we were boys, and when he wasn't so out and out hard—and had a kind word for poor mother and a kiss for little Aileen.

But if he were shot or taken, why hadn't these other men come back? We had just ridden by their tents, and they looked as if they'd just been left for a bit by men who were coming back at night. The dog was howling and looked hungry. Their blankets were all thrown about. Anyhow, there was a kettle on the fire, which was gone out; and more than that, there was the damper that Warrigal had seen lying in the ashes all burnt to a cinder.

Everything looked as if they'd gone off in a hurry, and never come back at night or since. One of their horses was tied with a tether rope close to the tent poles, and he'd been walking round and trampling down the grass, as if he'd been there all night. We couldn't make it out.

We rode on, hardly looking at one another, but following Warrigal, who rattled on now, hardly looking at the ground at all, like a dog with a burning scent. All of a sudden he pulls up, and points to a dip into a cross gully, like an old river, which we all knew.

'You see um crow? I b'leeve longa Black Gully.'

Sure enough, just above the drop down, where we used to gallop our ponies in old times and laugh to see 'em throw up their tails, there were half-a-dozen crows and a couple of eagle-hawks high up in the sky, wheeling and circling over the same place.

'By George! they've got the old man,' says Jim. 'Come on, Dick. I never thought poor old dad would be run down like this.'

'Or he's got them!' says Starlight, curling his lip in a way he had. 'I don't believe your old governor's dead till I see him. The devil himself couldn't grab him on his own ground.'



Chapter 38



We all pulled up at the side of the gully or dry creek, whatever it was, and jumped off our horses, leaving Warrigal to look after them, and ran down the rocky sides of it.

'Great God!' Starlight cries out, 'what's that?' and he pointed to a small sloping bit of grass just underneath the bank. 'Who are they? Can they be asleep?'

They were asleep, never to wake. As we stood side by side by the dead men, for there were four of them, we shook so, Jim and I, that we leaned against one another for support. We had never seen a sight before that like it. I never want to do so again.

There they lay, four dead men. We didn't know them ourselves, but guessed they were Hagan and his lot. How else did they come there? and how could dad have shot them all by himself, and laid them out there? Were Daly and Moran with him? This looked like Moran's damnable work.

We looked and looked. I rubbed my eyes. Could it be real? The sky was dark, and the daylight going fast. The mountain hung over us black and dreadful-looking. The wind whimpered up and down the hillside with a sort of cry in it. Everything was dark and dismal and almost unnatural-looking.

All four men were lying on their backs side by side, with their eyes staring up to the sky—staring—staring! When we got close beside them we could see they had all been shot—one man through the head, the rest through the body. The two nearest to me had had their hands tied; the bit of rope was lying by one and his wrist was chafed.

One had been so close to the man that shot him that the powder had burnt his shirt. It wasn't for anything they had either, for every man's notes (and one had four fives and some ones) were pinned to them outside of their pockets, as if to show every one that those who killed them wanted their blood and not their money.

'This is a terrible affair, boys,' said Starlight; and his voice sounded strange and hoarse. 'I never thought we should be mixed up with a deed like this. I see how it was done. They have been led into a trap. Your father has made 'em think they could catch him; and had Daly and Moran waiting for them—one on each side of this hole here. Warrigal'—for he had tied up his horse and crept up—'how many bin here?'

Warrigal held up three fingers.

'That one ran down here—one after one. I see 'em boot. Moran stand here. Patsey Daly lie down behind that ole log. All about boot-nail mark. Old man Ben he stand here. Dog bite'm this one.'

Here he stooped and touched a dead man's ankle. Sure enough there was the mark of Crib's teeth, with the front one missing, that had been kicked down his throat by a wild mare.

'Two fellow tumble down fust-like; then two fellow bimeby. One—two—three fellow track go along a flat that way. Then that one get two horses and ridem likit Fish River. Penty blood tumble down here.'

This was the ciphering up of the whole thing. It was clear enough now. Moran and Daly had waited for them here, and had shot down the two first men. Of the others, it was hard to say whether they died in fair fight or had been taken prisoners and shot afterwards. Either way it was bad enough. What a noise it would make! The idea of four men, well known to the Government, and engaged in hunting down outlaws on whose head a price was set, to be deliberately shot—murdered in cold blood, as there was some ground for thinking to be the case. What would be the end of it all?

We had done things that were bad enough, but a deliberate, cold-blooded, shameful piece of bloodshed like this had never been heard of in New South Wales before.

There was nothing more to be done. We couldn't stay any longer looking at the dead men; it was no use burying them, even if we'd had the time. We hadn't done it, though we should be sure to be mixed up with it somehow.

'We must be moving, lads,' said Starlight. 'As soon as this gets wind there'll be another rush out this way, and every policeman and newspaper reporter in the country will be up at Black Gully. When they're found everybody will see that they've been killed for vengeance and not for plunder. But the sooner they're found the better.'

'Best send word to Billy the Boy,' I said; 'he'll manage to lay them on without hurting himself.'

'All right. Warrigal knows a way of communicating with him; I'll send him off at once. And now the sooner we're at the Hollow the better for everybody.'

We rode all night. Anything was better than stopping still with such thoughts as we were likely to have for companions. About daylight we got to the Hollow. Not far from the cave we found father's old mare with the saddle on and the reins trailing on the ground. There was a lot of blood on the saddle too, and the reins were smeared all about with it; red they were to the buckles, so was her mane.

We knew then something was wrong, and that the old man was hard hit, or he'd never have let her go loose like that. When we got to the cave the dog came out to meet us, and then walked back whining in a queer way towards the log at the mouth, where we used to sit in the evenings.

There was father, sure enough, lying on his face in a pool of blood, and to all appearances as dead as the men we'd just left.

We lifted him up, and Starlight looked close and careful at him by the light of the dawn, that was just showing up over the tree tops to the east.

'He's not dead; I can feel his heart beat,' he said. 'Carry him in, boys, and we'll soon see what's the matter with him.'

We took his waistcoat and shirt off—a coat he never wore unless it was raining. Hard work we had to do it, they was so stuck to his skin when the blood had dried.

'By gum! he's been hit bad enough,' says Jim. 'Look here, and here, poor old dad!'

'There's not much "poor" about it, Jim,' says Starlight. 'Men that play at bowls must expect to get rubbers. They've come off second best in this row, and I wish it had been different, for several reasons.'

Dad was hit right through the top of the left shoulder. The ball had gone through the muscle and lodged somewhere. We couldn't see anything of it. Another bullet had gone right through him, as far as we could make out, under the breast on the right-hand side.

'That looks like a good-bye shot,' says Starlight; 'see how the blood comes welling out still; but it hasn't touched the lungs. There's no blood on his lips, and his breathing is all right. What's this? Only through the muscle of the right arm. That's nothing; and this graze on the ribs, a mere scratch. Dash more water in his face, Jim. He's coming to.'

After a few minutes he did come to, sure enough, and looked round when he found himself in bed.

'Where am I?' says he.

'You're at home,' I said, 'in the Hollow.'

'Dashed if I ever thought I'd get here,' he says. 'I was that bad I nearly tumbled off the old mare miles away. She must have carried me in while I was unsensible. I don't remember nothing after we began to get down the track into the Hollow. Where is she?'

'Oh! we found her near the cave, with the saddle and bridle on.'

'That's all right. Bring me a taste of grog, will ye; I'm a'most dead with thirst. Where did I come from last, I wonder? Oh, I seem to know now. Settling accounts with that——dog that insulted my gal. Moran got square with t'other. That'll learn 'em to leave old Ben Marston alone when he's not meddling with them.'

'Never mind talking about that now,' I said. 'You had a near shave of it, and it will take you all your time to pull through now.'

'I wasn't hit bad till just as I was going to drop down into Black Gully,' he said. 'I stood one minute, and that cursed wretch Hagan had a steady shot at me. I had one at him afterwards, though, with his hands tied, too.'

'God forgive you!' says Jim, 'for shooting men in cold blood. I couldn't do it for all the gold in Turon, nor for no other reason. It'll bring us bad luck, too; see if it don't.'

'You're too soft, Jim,' says the old man. 'You ain't a bad chap; but any young fellow of ten years old can buy and sell you. Where's that brandy and water?'

'Here it is,' says Jim; 'and then you lie down and take a sleep. You'll have to be quiet and obey orders now—that is if a few more years' life's any good to you.'

The brandy and water fetched him to pretty well, but after that he began to talk, and we couldn't stop him. Towards night he got worse and worse and his head got hotter, and he kept on with all kinds of nonsense, screeching out that he was going to be hung and they were waiting to take him away, but if he could get the old mare he'd be all right; besides a lot of mixed-up things about cattle and horses that we didn't know the right of.

Starlight said he was delirious, and that if he hadn't some one to nurse him he'd die as sure as fate. We couldn't be always staying with him, and didn't understand what was to be done much. We didn't like to let him lie there and die, so at long last we made up our minds to see if we could get Aileen over to nurse him for a few weeks.

Well, we scribbled a bit of a letter and sent Warrigal off with it. Wasn't it dangerous for him? Not a bit of it. He could go anywhere all over the whole country, and no trooper of them all could manage to put the bracelets on him. The way he'd work it would be to leave his horse a good way the other side of George Storefield's, and to make up as a regular blackfellow. He could do that first-rate, and talk their lingo, too, just like one of themselves. Gin or blackfellow, it was all the same to Warrigal. He could make himself as black as soot, and go barefooted with a blanket or a 'possum rug round him and beg for siccapence, and nobody'd ever bowl him out. He took us in once at the diggings; Jim chucked him a shilling, and told him to go away and not come bothering near us.

So away Warrigal went, and we knew he'd get through somehow. He was one of those chaps that always does what they're told, and never comes back and says they can't do it, or they've lost their horse, or can't find the way, or they'd changed their mind, or something.

No; once he'd started there was no fear of him not scoring somehow or other. Whatever Starlight told him to do, day or night, foul weather or fair, afoot or on horseback, that thing was done if Warrigal was alive to do it.

What we'd written to Aileen was telling her that father was that bad we hardly thought he'd pull through, and that if she wanted to save his life she must come to the Hollow and nurse him.

How to get her over was not the easiest thing in the world, but she could ride away on her old pony without anybody thinking but she was going to fetch up the cows, and then cut straight up the gully to the old yard in the scrub on Nulla Mountain. One of us would meet her there with a fresh horse and bring her safe into the Hollow. If all went well she would be there in the afternoon on a certain day; anyhow we'd be there to meet her, come or no come.

She wouldn't fail us, we were dead sure. She had suffered a lot by him and us too; but, like most women, the very moment anything happened to any of us, even to dad, everything flew out of her head, except that we were sick or sorry and wanted her help. Help, of course; wasn't she willing to give that, and her rest and comfort, health, even life itself, to wear herself out, hand and foot, for any one of her own family?

So poor Aileen made her way up all alone to the old scrub stockyard. Jim and I had ridden up to it pretty early (he wouldn't stop behind) with a nice, well-bred little horse that had shone a bit at country races for her to ride on. We waited there a goodish while, we lying down and our horses hung up not far off for fear we might be 'jumped' by the police at any time.

At last we sees the old pony's head coming bobbing along through the scrub along the worn-out cattle track, grown up as it was, and sure enough there was Aileen on him, with her gray riding skirt and an old felt hat on. She'd nothing with her; she was afraid to bring a ha'porth of clothes or anything for fear they should any of 'em tumble that she was going a long way, and, perhaps, follow her up. So she had to hand that over to Warrigal, and trust to him to bring it on some way or other. We saw her before she saw us, and Jim gave a whistle just as he used to do when he was coming home late at night. She knew it at once, and a smile for a minute came over her pale face; such a sad sort of one it was too, as if she was wondering at herself that she could feel that pleased at anything.

Whatever thoughts was in her mind, she roused up the old pony, and came towards us quick as soon as she catches sight of us. In two seconds Jim had lifted her down in his strong arms, and was holding her off the ground and hugging her as if she'd been a child. How the tears ran down her cheeks, though all the time she was kissing him with her arms round his neck; and me too, when I came up, just as if we were boys and girls again.

After a bit she wiped her eyes, and said—

'How's father?'

'Very bad,' I said; 'off his head, and raving. It'll be a close thing with him. Here's your horse now, and a good one too. We must let the old pony go; he'll make home fast enough.'

She patted his neck and we turned him loose. He slued round and went away steady, picking a bit as he went. He'd be home next day easy enough, and nobody the wiser where he'd been to.

We'd brought a bit to eat and a glass of wine for the girl in case she was faint, but she wouldn't take anything but a crust of bread and a drink of water. There was a spring that ran all the year round near the cattle-yard; and off went we, old Lieutenant holding up his head and showing himself off. He didn't get such a rider on his back every day.

'What a dear horse,' she said, as she pulled him together a bit like and settled herself fair and square in the saddle. 'Oh, how I could enjoy all this if—if—— O my God! shall we ever know a moment's peace and happiness in this world again? Are we always to be sunk in wretchedness and misery as long as we live?'

We didn't lose much time after that, you be sure. Up and down, thick and open, rough or smooth, we made the pace good, and Aileen gave us all we knew to keep ahead of her. We had a good light when we got to the drop down into the Hollow. The sun was just setting, and if we'd had time or thought to give to the looks of things, no doubt it was a grand sight.

All the Hollow was lighted up, and looked like a green sea with islands of trees in it. The rock towers on the other side of the range were shining and glittering like as if they were made of crystallised quartz or diamonds—red and white. There was a sort of mist creeping up the valley at the lower end under the mountain that began to soften the fire colours, and mix them up like. Even the mountain, that mostly looked black and dreary, frowning at our ways, was of purple and gold, with pale shadows of green and gray.

Aileen pulled up as we did, and jumped off our horses.

'So this is the Hollow,' she said, half talking to herself, 'that I've heard and thought so much about. What a lovely, lovely place! Surely it ought to have a different effect on the people that lived there.'

'Better come off, Ailie, and lead your horse down here,' says Jim, 'unless you want to ride down, like Starlight did, the first time we saw him.'

'Starlight! is he here?' she said, in a surprised sort of way. 'I never thought of that.'

'Of course he is; where else should he be? Why don't you lead on, Dick?'

'Won't you get off? It's not altogether safe,' I said, 'though Lieutenant's all right on his old pins.'

'Safe!' she said, with a bitter sort of laugh. 'What does it matter if a Marston girl does break her neck, or her heart either?'

She never said another word, but sat upright with a set face on her, as the old horse picked his way down after ours, and except when he put his foot on a rolling stone, never made a slip or a stumble all the way down, though it was like going down the side of a house.

When we got to the valley we put on a spurt to the cave, and found Warrigal sitting on the log in front of us. He'd got home first, of course, and there was Aileen's bundle, a biggish one too, alongside of him. We could hear father raving and screaming out inside dreadful. Starlight wasn't nigh hand anywhere. He had walked off when Warrigal came home, and left him to watch the old man.

'He been like that all the time, Warrigal?'

'No! Captain say big one sleep. Him give him medicine like; then wake up and go on likit that. I believe him bad along a cobra.'

Aileen had jumped off her horse and gone in to the old man the moment we came up and she heard his voice.

All that long night we could hear him talking to himself, groaning, cursing, shouting, arguing. It was wonderful how a man who talked so little as father could have had so many thoughts in his mind. But then they all are boxed up together in every man's heart. At a time like this they come racing and tumbling out like a flock of sheep out of a yard when the hurdle's down. What a dashed queer thing human nature is when you come to think of it. That a man should be able to keep his tongue quiet, and shut the door on all the sounds and images and wishes that goes racing about inside of his mind like wild horses in a paddock!

One day he'll be smiling and sensible, looking so honest all the time. Next day a knock on the head or a little vein goes crack in the brain (as the doctor told me); then the rails are down, and everything comes out with a rush into the light of day—right and wrong, foul and fair, station brands and clearskins, it don't make no difference.

Father was always one of the closest men that ever lived. He never told us much about his old life at home or after he came out here. Now he was letting drop things here and there that helped us to a few secrets he'd never told to no man. They made poor Aileen a bit more miserable than she'd been before, if that was possible; but it didn't matter much to us. We were pretty tired ourselves that night, and so we got Aileen all she wanted, and left her alone with him.

While we were away to meet her some one had taken the trouble to put up a bit of a partition, separating that part of the cave from the other; it was built up of stone—there was plenty about—and not so roughly done either. It made Aileen feel a lot more comfortable. Of course there was only one man who could have done it; and that was Starlight.



Chapter 39



Towards morning father went into a heavy sleep; he didn't wake till the afternoon. Poor Aileen was able to get a doze and change her dress. After breakfast, while we were having a bit of a chat, in walks Starlight. He bowed to Aileen quite respectful, as he always did to a woman, and then shook hands with her.

'Welcome to the Hollow, Miss Marston,' he said. 'I can't say how charmed I am in one sense, though I regret the necessity which brought you here.'

'I'm glad to come, and only for poor father's being so bad I could delight in the life here.'

'How do you find your father?'

'He is asleep now, and perhaps the rest will do him good.'

'He may awake free from fever,' says Starlight. 'I took the risk of giving him an opiate before you came, and I think the result has been favourable.'

'Oh! I hope he will be better when he wakes,' says Aileen, 'and that I shall not have to watch through another dreadful night of raving. I can hardly bear it.'

'You must make your brothers take their share; it's not fair to you.'

'Thank you; but I feel as if I couldn't leave him to anybody but myself. He seems so weak now; a little neglect might kill him.'

'Pardon me, Miss Marston; you overrate the danger. Depend upon it, your respected parent will be quite a different man in a week, though it may be a month or more before he is fully recovered. You don't know what a constitution he has.'

'You have given me fresh hope,' she said. 'I feel quite cheered up—that is' (and she sighed) 'if I could be cheerful again about anything.'

Here she walked into the cave and sat down by father to watch till he awoke, and we all went out about our daily work, whatever it was—nothing very wonderful, I daresay, but it kept us from thinking.

Starlight was right. As luck would have it, father woke up a deal better than when he laid down. The fever had gone away, his head was right again, and he began to ask for something to eat—leastways to drink, first. But Aileen wouldn't give him any of that, and very little to eat. Starlight had told her what to do in case he wanted what wasn't good for him, and as she was pretty middling obstinate, like himself, she took her own ways.

After this he began to get right; it wasn't easy to kill old dad. He seemed to be put together with wire and whip-cord; not made of flesh and blood like other men. I don't wonder old England's done so much and gone so far with her soldiers and sailors if they was bred like him. It's my notion if they was caught young, kept well under command, and led by men they respected, a regiment or a man-of-war's crew like him would knock smoke out of any other thousand men the world could put up. More's the pity there ain't some better way of keeping 'em straight than there is.

He was weak for a bit—very weak; he'd lost a deal of blood; and, try how he would, he couldn't stand up long at a time, and had to give in and lie down in spite of himself. It fretted him a deal, of course; he'd never been on his back before, and he couldn't put up with it. Then his temper began to show again, and Aileen had a deal to bear and put up with.

We'd got a few books, and there was the papers, of course, so she used to read to him by the hour together. He was very fond of hearing about things, and, like a good many men that can't read and write, he was clever enough in his own way. When she'd done all the newspapers—they were old ones (we took care not to get any fresh ones, for fear she'd see about Hagan and the others)—she used to read about battles and sea-fights to him; he cared about them more than anything, and one night, after her reading to him about the battle of Trafalgar, he turned round to her and says, 'I ought to have been in that packet, Ailie, my girl. I was near going for a sailor once, on board a man-o'-war, too. I tried twice to get away to sea, that was before I'd snared my first hare, and something stopped me both times. Once I was fetched back and flogged, and pretty nigh starved. I never did no good afterwards. But it's came acrost me many and many a time that I'd been a different sort o' chap if I'd had my will then. I was allays fond o' work, and there couldn't be too much fightin' for me; so a man-o'-war in those days would have been just the thing to straighten me. That was the best chance I ever had. Well, I don't say as I haven't had others—plenty in this country, and good ones too; but it was too late—I'd got set. When a man's young, that's the time he can be turned right way or wrong. It's none so easy afterwards.'

He went to sleep then, and Aileen said that was the only time he ever spoke to her in that way. We never heard him talk like that, nor nobody else, I expect.

If we could have got some things out of our heads, that was the pleasantest time ever we spent in the Hollow. After father could be left by himself for a few hours we got out the horses, and used to take Aileen out for long rides all over the place, from one end to the other. It did her good, and we went to every hole and corner in it. She was never tired of looking at the great rock towers, as we used to call 'em, where the sandstone walls hung over, just like the pictures of castles, till, Starlight said, in the evenings you could fancy you saw flags waving and sentinels walking up and down on them.

One afternoon we went out to the place where the old hermit had lived and died. We walked over his old garden, and talked about the box we'd dug up, and all the rest of it. Starlight came with us, and he persuaded Aileen to ride Rainbow that day, and, my word, they made a splendid pair.

She'd dressed herself up that afternoon just a little bit more than common, poor thing, and put a bit of pink ribbon on and trimmed up her hat, and looked as if she began to see a little more interest in things. It didn't take much to make her look nice, particularly on horseback. Her habit fitted her out and out, and she had the sort of figure that, when a girl can ride well, and you see her swaying, graceful and easy-like, to every motion of a spirited horse, makes you think her handsomer than any woman can look on the ground. We rode pretty fast always, and it brought a bit of colour to her face. The old horse got pulling and prancing a bit, though he was that fine-tempered he'd carry a child almost, and Jim and I thought we hadn't seen her look like herself before this for years past.

It was a beautiful warm evening, though summer was over, and we were getting into the cold nights and sharp mornings again, just before the regular winter weather. There was going to be a change, and there were a few clouds coming up from the north-west; but for all that it had been quite like a spring day. The turf on all the flats in the Hollow was splendid and sound. The grass had never been cut up with too heavy stocking (which ruins half the country, I believe), and there was a good thick undergrowth underneath. We had two or three little creeks to cross, and they were pretty full, except at the crossing places, and rippled over the stones and sparkled in the sun like the brooks we'd heard tell of in the old country. Everything was so quiet, and bright and happy-looking, that we could hardly fancy we were the men we were; and that all this wild work had been going on outside of the valley that looked so peaceful and innocent.

There was Starlight riding alongside of Aileen on his second-best horse, and he was no commoner either (though he didn't come up to Rainbow, nor no other horse I ever saw), talking away in his pleasant, easy-going way. You'd think he hadn't got a thing to trouble him in the world. She, for a wonder, was smiling, and seemed to be enjoying herself for once in a way, with the old horse arching his neck, and spinning along under her as light as a greyhound, and as smooth as oil. It was something like a pleasant ride. I never forgot that evening, and I never shall.

We rode up to the ruined hut of the solitary man who had lived there so long, and watched the sun go down so often behind the rock towers from his seat under the big peach tree.

'What a wonderful thing to think of!' Aileen says, as she slipped down off her side-saddle.

We dismounted, too, and hung up our horses.

'Only to think that he was living here before we were born, or father came to Rocky Flat. Oh! if we could have come here when we were little how we should have enjoyed it! It would have seemed fairyland to us.'

'It always astonishes me,' said Starlight, 'how any human being can consent to live, year after year, the same life in the same place. I should go mad half-a-dozen times over. Change and adventure are the very breath of my nostrils.'

'He had the memory of his dead wife to keep him,' said Aileen. 'Her spirit soothed the restless heart that would have wandered far into the wilds again.'

'It may be so,' said Starlight dreamily. 'I have known no such influences. An outlaw I, by forest laws, almost since the days of my boyhood, I shall be so till the day of my death,' he added.

'If I were a man I should go everywhere,' said Aileen, her eyes sparkling and her face regular lighted up. 'I have never been anywhere or seen anything, hardly so much as a church, a soldier, a shop-window, or the sea, begging his pardon for putting him last. But oh! what a splendid thing to be rich; no, not that altogether, but to be able to go wherever you liked, and have enough not to be troubled about money.'

'To be free, and have a mind at ease; it doesn't seem so much,' said Starlight, talking almost to himself; 'and yet how we fools and madmen shut ourselves out of it for ever, for ever, sometimes by a single act of folly, hardly crime. That comes after.'

'The sun is going down behind the great rock tower,' Aileen says, as if she hadn't heard him. Perhaps she didn't. When people have a lot on their minds they're half their time thinking their own thoughts. 'How all the lovely colours are fading away. Life seems so much like that—a little brightness, then gray twilight, night and darkness so soon after.'

'Now and then there's a star; you must admit that, Miss Marston,' says he, cheerful and pleasant again; he was never down for long at a time. 'And there's that much-abused luminary, the moon; you'll see her before we get home. We're her sworn votaries and worshippers, you know.'

We had to ride a bit to get home with any kind of light, for we didn't want father to be growling or kicking up a row with Warrigal that we left to look after him. But a few miles didn't matter much on such a road, and with horses in such buckle as ours.

The stars came out after a while, and the sky was that clear, without a cloud in it, that it was a better light to ride by than the moon throws. Jim and I sometimes rode on one side and sometimes the other; but there was old Rainbow always in the lead, playing with his bit and arching his neck, and going with Aileen's light weight on him as if he could go on all night at the same pace and think nothing of it; and I believe he could.

When we got home dad was grumpy, and wondered what we wanted riding the horses about when there was nothing to do and nothing to see. But Warrigal had made him a pot of tea, and he was able to smoke now; so he wasn't so bad after all. We made ourselves pretty comfortable—Aileen said she'd got a good appetite, for a wonder—and we sat chatting round the fire and talking away quite like old days till the moon was pretty high.

Father didn't get well all at once. He went back twice because he would try to do too much, and wouldn't be said by Starlight or Aileen either when he took a thing into his head; then he'd have to be nursed and looked after day and night again just the same as ever. So it took near a month before he was regularly on his pins again, and going about as he did before he was hit. His right arm was a bit stiff, too; it used to pain and make him swear awful now and again. Anyhow, Aileen made us that comfortable and happy while she was there, we didn't care how long he took getting well.

Those were out and out the pleasantest days we ever spent in the Hollow—the best time almost Jim and I had had since we were boys. Nearly every day we rode out in the afternoon, and there wasn't a hole or corner, a spring or a creek inside the walls of the old Hollow that we didn't show Aileen. She was that sort of girl she took an interest in everything; she began to know all the horses and cattle as well as we did ourselves. Rainbow was regular given up to her, and the old horse after a bit knew her as well as his master. I never seen a decent horse that didn't like to have a woman on his back; that is, if she was young and lissom and could ride a bit. They seem to know, in a sort of way. I've seen horses that were no chop for a man to ride, and that wouldn't be particular about bucking you off if the least thing started them, but went as quiet as mice with a girl on their backs.

So Aileen used to make Rainbow walk and amble his best, so that all the rest of us, when she did it for fun, had to jog. Then she'd jump him over logs or the little trickling deep creeks that ran down to the main water; or she'd pretend to have a race and go off full gallop, riding him at his best for a quarter of a mile; then he'd pull up as easy as if he'd never gone out of a walk.

'How strange all this is,' she said one day; 'I feel as if I were living on an island. It's quite like playing at "Robinson Crusoe", only there's no sea. We don't seem to be able to get out all the same. It's a happy, peaceful life, too. Why can't we keep on for ever like this, and shut out the wicked, sorrowful world altogether?'

'Quite of your opinion, Miss Marston; why should we ever change?' says Starlight, who was sitting down with the rest of us by the side of our biggest river. We had been fishing all the afternoon and done well. 'Let us go home no more; I am quite contented. But what about poor Jim? He looks sadder every day.'

'He is fretting for his wife, poor fellow, and I don't wonder. You are one of those natures that never change, Jim; and if you don't get away soon, or see some chance of rejoining her, you will die. How you are to do it I don't know.'

'I am bound to make a try next month,' says Jim. 'If I don't do something towards it I shall go mad.'

'You could not do a wiser thing,' says Starlight, 'in one way, or more foolish thing in another. Meantime, why should we not make the best of the pleasant surroundings with which Nature provides us here—green turf, sparkling water, good sport, and how bright a day! Could we be more favoured by Fortune, slippery dame that she is? It is an Australian Decameron without the naughty stories.'

'Do you know, sometimes I really think I am enjoying myself,' said Aileen, half to herself, 'and then I feel that it must be a dream. Such dreadful things are waiting for me—for us all.' Then she shuddered and trembled.

She did not know the most dreadful thing of all yet. We had carefully kept it from her. We chanced its not reaching her ears until after she had got home safe and had time to grieve over it all by herself.

We had a kind of feeling somehow that us four might never meet again in the same way, or be able to enjoy one another's company for a month, without fear of interruption, again, as long as we lived.

So we all made up our minds, in spite of the shadow of evil that would crawl up now and then, to enjoy each other's company while it lasted, and make the best of it.

Starlight for all that seemed altered like, and every now and then he'd go off with Warrigal and stay away from daylight to dark. When he did come he'd sit for hours with his hands before him and never say a word to any one. I saw Aileen watch him when he looked like that, not that she ever said anything, but pretended to take it as a matter of course.

Other times he'd be just as much the other way. He'd read to her, and he had a good many books, poetry, and all kinds of things stowed away in the part of the cave he called his own. And he'd talk about other countries that he'd been in, and the strange people he'd seen, by the hour together, while she would sit listening and looking at him, hardly saying a thing, and regular bound up in his words. And he could talk once he was set agoing. I never saw a man that could come up to him.

Aileen wasn't one of those sort of girls that took a fancy to any good-looking sort of fellow that came across her. Quite the other way. She seemed to think so little about it that Jim and I always used to say she'd be an old maid, and never marry at all. And she used to say she didn't think she ever would. She never seemed to trouble her head about the thing at all, but I always knew that if ever she did set her fancy upon a man, and take a liking to him, it would not be for a year or two, but for ever. Though she'd mother's good heart and softness about her, she'd a dash of dad's obstinacy in her blood, and once she made up her mind about anything she wasn't easy turned.

Jim and I could see clear enough that she was taking to Starlight; but then so many women had done that, had fallen in love with him and had to fall out again—as far as we could see. He used to treat them all alike—very kind and respectful, but like a lot of children. What was the use of a wife to him? 'No,' he said, once or twice, 'I can bear my fate, because my blood does not run in the veins of a living soul in Australia. If it were otherwise I could not bear my reflections. As it is, the revolver has more than once nearly been asked to do me last service.'

Though both Aileen and he seemed to like each other, Jim and I never thought there was anything in it, and let them talk and ride and walk together just as they pleased. Aileen always had a good word for Starlight, and seemed to pity him so for having to lead such a life, and because he said he had no hope of ever getting free from it. Then, of course, there was a mystery about him. Nobody knew who he'd been, or almost where he had come from—next to nothing about him had ever come out. He was an Englishman—that was certain—but he must have come young to the colony. No one could look at him for a moment and see his pale, proud face, his dark eyes—half-scornful, half-gloomy, except when he was set up a bit (and then you didn't like to look at them at all)—without seeing that he was a gentleman to the tips of his delicate-looking fingers, no matter what he'd done, or where he'd been.

He was rather over the middle size; because he was slight made, he always looked rather tall than not. He was tremendous strong, too, though he didn't look that, and as active as a cat, though he moved as if walking was too much trouble altogether, and running not to be thought of.

We didn't expect it would do either of 'em much good. How could it, even if they did fall in love with one another and make it up to get married? But they were both able to take care of themselves, and it was no use interfering with 'em either. They weren't that sort.

Starlight had plenty of money, besides his share of the gold. If we could ever get away from this confounded rock-walled prison, good as it was in some ways; and if he and Aileen and the rest of us could make a clean dart of it and get to America, we could live there free and happy yet, in spite of all that had come and gone.

Aileen wasn't like to leave poor old mother as long as she wanted her, so it couldn't come off for a year or two at earliest, and many things were sure to happen in the meanwhile. So we let all the talking and walking and riding out in the evening go on as much as they pleased, and never said anything or seemed to take any notice at all about it.

All this time mother was at George Storefield's. When Aileen ran over that time, he said it wasn't fit for them to live at Rocky Flat by themselves. So he went over that very day—like a good fellow, as he was—and brought over the old woman, and made them both stay at his house, safe and comfortable. When Aileen said she had to go away to nurse dad he said he would take care of mother till she came back, and so she'd been there all the time. She knew Mrs. Storefield (George's mother) well in the old times; so they used to sit by the kitchen fire when they wanted to be extra comfortable, and knit stockings and talk over the good old times to their hearts' content.

If it hadn't been for old Mrs. Storefield I don't expect mother would have contented herself there—the cottage was got so grand, Aileen told us, and Gracey had to dress a bit now. George had kept on making more money in every way he tried it, and of course he began, bit by bit, to live according to his means.

He'd bought cattle-stations on the Lachlan just when the gold broke out first, and everybody thought station property was never going to be worth nothing again. Now, since cattle had risen and meat and all to such a price, he was making money hand over fist. More than that, as I said before, he'd been made a magistrate, and all the swells began to take notice of him—not altogether because he'd made money either; what I call the real swells, as far as I see, won't do that. If they don't care for a man—no matter how much money he's made—they hold shy of him. But if he's a straight-going good sort of fellow, that has his head screwed on the right way, and don't push himself forward too much, they'll meet him half-way, and a very good thing too.

We could see George was going upwards and out of our lot, beginning to mix with different people and get different notions—not but what he was always kind and friendly in his way to Aileen and mother, and would have been to us if he'd ever seen us. But all his new friends were different kind of people, and after a bit, Aileen said, we'd only be remembered as people he'd known when he was young, and soon, when the old lady died, we'd be asked into the kitchen and not into the parlour. Aileen used to laugh when she talked like this, and say she'd come and see George when he'd married a lady, and what fun it would be to remind Gracey of the time they threshed the oats out together at Rocky Flat. But still, laugh and all, I could see, though she talked that way, it made her feel wretched all the while, because she couldn't help thinking that we ought to have done just as well as George, and might have been nigh-hand as far forward if we'd kept straight. If we'd only kept straight! Ah, there was where the whole mistake lay.

It often seems to me as if men and women ought to have two lives—an old one and a new one—one to repent of the other; the first one to show men what they ought to keep clear of in the second. When you think how foolish-like and childish man or woman commits their first fault, not so bad in itself, but enough often to shut them out from nearly all their chances of good in this world, it does seem hardish that one life should end all under the sun. Of course, there's the other, and we don't know what's coming, but there's so many different notions about that a chap like me gets puzzled, and looks on it as out of his line altogether.

We weren't sorry to have a little excuse to stop quiet at home for this month. We couldn't have done no good by mooching about, and ten to one, while the chase was so hot after all that were supposed to have had a hand in rubbing out Hagan and his lot, we should have been dropped upon. The whole country was alive with scouting parties, as well as the regulars. You'd have thought the end of the world was come. Father couldn't have done a better thing for himself and all of us than get hit as he did. It kept him and us out of harm's way, and put them off the scent, while they hunted Moran and Burke and the rest of their lot for their lives. They could hardly get a bit of damper out of a shepherd's hut without it being known to the police, and many a time they got off by the skin of their teeth.



Chapter 40



At last father got well, and said he didn't see what good Aileen could do stopping any longer in the Hollow, unless she meant to follow up bush-ranging for a living. She'd better go back and stay along with her mother. If George Storefield liked to have 'em there, well and good; things looked as if it wasn't safe now for a man's wife and daughter, and if he'd got into trouble, to live peaceable and quiet in their own house. He didn't think they need be afraid of any one interfering with them for the future, though. Here dad looked so dark that Aileen began to think he was going to be ill again. We'd all start and go a bit of the way with her next day—to the old stockyard or a bit farther; she could ride from there, and take the horse back with her and keep him if she liked.

'You've been a good gal to me,' he says to her; 'you always was one; and your mother's been a good woman and a good wife; tell her I said so. I'd no call to have done the things I have, or left home because it wasn't tidy and clean and a welcome always when I came back. It's been rough on her, and on you too, my gal; and if it'll do her any good, tell her I'm dashed sorry. You can take this trifle of money. You needn't boggle at it; it's honest got and earned, long before this other racket. Now you can go. Kiss your old dad; like as not you won't see him again.'

We'd got the horses in. I lifted her up on to the saddle, and she rode out. Her horse was all on the square, so there was no harm in her taking him back with her, and off we went. Dad didn't go after all. We took it easy out to the old stockyard. We meant to camp there for half-an-hour, and then to send her on, with Warrigal to keep with her and show her the way home.

We didn't want to make the time too short. What a lovely day it was! The mountain sides were clogged up with mist for an hour after we started; still, any one that knew the climate would have said it was going to be a fine day. There wasn't a breath of air; everything was that still that not a leaf on any of the trees so much as stirred.

When we came to the pass out of the valley, we none of us got off; it was better going up than coming down, and it would have tired Aileen out at the start to walk up. So the horses had to do their climbing. It didn't matter much to them. We were all used to it, horses and riders. Jim and I went first, then Warrigal, then Aileen and Starlight. After we got up to the top we all stopped and halted a bit to look round.

Just then, as if he'd waited for us, the sun came out from behind the mountain; the mists lifted and rolled away as if they had been gray curtains. Everything showed clear out like a playhouse, the same Jim and I used to see in Melbourne. From where we stood you could see everything, the green valley flats with the big old trees in clumps, some of 'em just the same as they'd been planted. The two little river-like silver threads winding away among the trees, and far on the opposite side the tall gray rock-towers shining among the forest edges of the high green wall. Somehow the sun wasn't risen enough to light up the mountain. It looked as black and dismal as if it was nightfall coming on.

'Good-bye, old Hollow!' Aileen called out, waving her hand. 'Everything looks bright and beautiful except the mountain. How gloomy it appears, as if it held some dreadful secret—doesn't it? Ah! what a pleasant time it has been for me. Am I the same Aileen Marston that went in there a few weeks since? And now I suppose there will be more misery and anxiety waiting for all of us when I get back. Well, come what will, I have had a little happiness on this earth. In heaven there must be rest.'

We all rode on, but none of us seemed to care to say much. Every step we went seemed to be taking us away from the place where we'd all been so happy together. The next change was sure to be for the worse. What it would be, or when it would come, we none of us could tell.

Starlight and Aileen rode together most of the way, and talked a good deal, we could see. Before we got to the stockyard she rode over to Jim and cheered him up as much as she could about Jeanie. She said she'd write to her, and tell her all about him, and how happy we'd all been together lately; and tell her that Jim would find some way to get down to her this spring, if he could manage it any road.

'If I'm above ground, tell her I'll be with her,' says poor old Jim, 'before Christmas. If she don't see me then I'll be dead, and she may put on black and make sure she's a widow.'

'Oh, come, you mustn't talk like that, Jim, and look to the bright side a bit. There's a good chance yet, now the country's so full of diggers and foreigners. You try your luck, and you'll see your wife yet.'

Then she came to me, and talked away just like old times.

'You're the eldest, Dick,' she said, 'and so it's proper for me to say what I'm going to say.' Then she told me all that was in her heart about Starlight. He and she had made it up that if he could get away to a foreign country she would join him there, and take mother with her. There was to be no marrying or love-making unless they could carry out that plan. Then she told me that she had always had the same sort of feeling towards him. 'When I saw him first I thought I had never seen a man before—never one that I could care for or think of marrying. And now he has told me that he loves me—loves me, a poor ignorant girl that I am; and I will wait for him all my life, and follow him all round the world. I feel as if I could die for him, or wear out my life in trying to make him happy. And yet, and yet,' she said, and all her face grew sad, and put on the old look that I knew so well, so hopeless, so full of quiet bearing of pain, 'I have a kind of feeling at my heart that it will never be. Something will happen to me or to him. We are all doomed to sorrow and misfortune, and nothing can save us from our fate.'

'Aileen, dear,' I said, 'you are old enough to know what's best for yourself. I didn't think Starlight was on for marrying any woman, but he's far and away the best man we've ever known, so you can please yourself. But you know what the chances are. If he gets clear off, or any of us, after what's been done, you're right. But it's a hundred to one against it.'

'I'll take the odds,' says she, holding up her head. 'I'm willing to put my life and happiness, what little there's left of it, on the wager. Things can't well be worse.'

'I don't know,' I said. 'I ought to tell you—I must tell you something before we part, though I'd a deal rather not. But you'll bear it better now than in a surprise.'

'Not more blood, more wickedness,' she said, in a half-whisper, and then she looks up stern and angry-like. 'When is this list of horrible things to stop?'

'It was none of our doing. Moran and Daly were in it, and——'

'And none of you? Swear that,' she said, so quick and pitiful-like.

'None of us,' I said again; 'nor yet Warrigal.'

'Then who did it? Tell me all. I'm not a child. I will know.'

'You remember the man that was rude to you at Rocky Flat, and father and he fired at one another?'

'Of course I do, cowardly wretch that he was. Then Moran was waiting for them up the gully? I wondered that they did not come back next day.'

'They never came back,' I said.

'Why, you don't mean to tell me that they are all dead, all four?—those strong men! Oh, surely not, Dick?' and she caught hold of my arm, and looked up into my face.

'Yes, Aileen, all. We came after and followed up dad, when we got home; it's a wonder he did it by himself. But we saw them all four lying stretched out.'

She put down her head and never spoke more till we parted.

. . . . .

We turned back, miserable enough all of us, God knows. After having Aileen to make the place bright and pleasant and cheer us all up losing her was just as if all the little pleasure we had in our lives was dropped out of them—like the sun going out of the sky, and the wind rising; like the moon clouding over, and a fog burying up everything—dark and damp, the same as we'd had it many a time cattle-driving by night. We hardly spoke a word to one another all the way home, and no wonder.

Next day we all sat about, looking more down on our luck, dad said, than any day since we'd 'turned out'. Then Starlight told him about him and Aileen, how they'd made it up to be married some day or other. Not yet, of course; but if he could get away by Melbourne to some of these places—the islands on the Pacific coast, where vessels were always sailing for—he didn't see why his luck shouldn't change. 'I have always thought your daughter,' he says to father, 'one of the grandest women I ever met, in any degree, gentle or simple. She has had the imprudence to care for me; so, unless you have some well-grounded objection—and I don't say you haven't, mind you, I should if I were in your place—you may as well say you're contented, and wish us luck!'

Father was a long time before he said anything. He sat there, looking very sullen and set-like, while Starlight lit a cigar and walked quietly up and down a few paces off.

Dad answers at last. 'I don't say but what other lads would have suited better if they'd come off, but most things goes contrary in this world. The only thing as I'm doubtful of, Captain, is your luck. If that's bad, all the trying and crying won't set it right. And it's great odds as you'll be caught or shot afore the year's out. For that matter, every one of us is working for Government on the same road. But the gal's a good gal, and if she's set her fancy on you I won't block her. You're a pair of dashed fools, that's all, botherin' your heads with the like at a time like this, when you boys are all more likely to have a rope round your necks than any gal's arms, good or bad. Have your own way. You always managed to get it, somehow or other, ever since I knowed ye.'

After this father lit his pipe and went into the cave.

By and by he comes out again and catches the old mare.

'I ain't been out of this blessed hole,' he says, 'for a month of Sundays. I'm dead tired of seeing nothin' and doin' nothin'. I'll crawl over to old Davy's for our letters and papers. We ain't heard nothing for a year, seems to me.'

Dad was strong enough to get about in the saddle again, and we weren't sorry to get shut of him for a bit. He was that cranky at times there was no living with him. As for ourselves, we were regular wild for some sort of get away for a bit of a change; so we hadn't talked it over very long before we made up our minds to take a run over to Jonathan Barnes's and have a bit of fun, just to take the taste out of our mouths of Aileen's going away.

We had to dress ourselves very quiet and get fresh horses—nags that had nothing particular about them to make people look, at the same time with a bit of go in them in case we were pushed at any time.

No sooner said than done. We went to work and got everything ready, and by three o'clock we were off—all three of us, and never in better heart in our lives—for a bit of fun or devilment; it didn't matter which came first.

When we got to Jonathan's it was latish, but that didn't matter to us or to the girls neither; they were always ready for a bit of fun, night or day. However, just at first they pretended to be rather high and mighty about this business of Hagan's.

'Oh! it's you, is it?' says Bella, after we walked in. 'I don't know as it's safe for us to be knowing such dangerous characters. There's a new law against harbouring, father says. He's pretty frightened, I can tell you, and for two pins we'd be told to shut the door in your faces.'

'You can do that if you like now,' says I; 'we shan't want telling twice, I daresay. But what makes you so stiff to-night?'

'Why, Hagan's business, of course,' says Maddie; 'four men killed in cold blood. Only I know you couldn't and wouldn't be in it I'd not know any of ye from a crow. There now.'

'Quite right, most beauteous Madeline,' says Starlight; 'it was a very dreadful affair, though I believe there was some reason for old Ben being angry. Of course, you know we weren't within miles of the place when it was done. You remember the night we were here last?'

'Of course we do, Captain, quite well. Weren't you going to dance at Bella's wedding and all? You'll have to do that sooner than we expected, though.'

'Glad to hear it, but listen to me, my dear; I want you to know the truth. We rode straight back to the—to where we lived—and, of course, found the old man gone away from the place. We tracked him right enough, but came up when it was all over. Daly and Moran were the chief actors in that tragedy.'

'Oh, we said it was Moran's work from the first, didn't we, Bill? It's just the line he's cut out for. I always think he ought to have a bowl and dagger. He looks like the villain on the stage.'

'On or off the stage he can support the principal part in that line most naturally,' says Starlight; 'but I prophesy he will be cut off in the midst of his glorious career. He's beastly cunning, but he'll be trapped yet.'

'It's a pity Jim can't stay a few days with us,' says Maddie; 'I believe we'd find a way of passing him on to Victoria. I've known more than one or two, or half-a-dozen either, that has been put through the same way.'

'For God's sake, Mad, lay me on!' says poor Jim, 'and I'll go on my knees to you.'

'Oh! I daresay,' says Maddie, looking saucy, 'but I like a man to be fond of some woman in a proper way, even if it isn't me; so I'll do what I can to help you to your wife and pickaninny.'

'We must get you into the police force, Maddie,' says Starlight, 'or make you a sort of inspector, unattached, if you're so clever at managing these little affairs. But what's the idea?'

'Well,' says she, settling herself in a chair, spreading out her dress, and looking very knowing, 'there's an old gentleman being driven all the way overland in a sort of light Yankee trap, and the young fellow that's driving has to find horses and feed 'em, and get so much for the trip.'

'Who is it?' says I.

'Oh! you know him,' says Maddie, looking down, 'he's a great friend of mine, a steady-going, good-conducted chap, and he's a little—you understand—well, shook on me. I could persuade him a bit, that is——'

'I don't doubt that at all,' says I.

'Oh! you know him a little. He says he saw you at the Turon; he was working with some Americans. His name's Joe Moreton.'

'I remember him well enough; he used to wear a moustache and a chin beard, and talk Yankee. Only for that he was a good deal like Jim; we always said so.'

'Do you see anything now, Dick, you that's so sharp?' says Maddie.

'Bless my soul,' says Starlight, 'of course, it is as clear as your beautiful eyes. Jim is to shave his beard, talk like a Yankee, and go in Joe Moreton's place. I see it all. Maddie persuading Joe to consent to the exchange of duties.'

'But what will his employer say?'

'Oh! he's as bad as bad can be with the sandy blight,' says Maddie, 'wears green goggles, poor old gentleman. He'll never know nothing, and he'll be able to swear up for Jim if the police pull him anywhere this side of the Murray.'

We'd told Maddie that money needn't stand in the way, so she was to promise Joe the full sum that he was to get for his contract would be paid to him in cash that night—Jim to pay his own expenses as he went, the same as he was to do himself. Of course she could get the money from old Jonathan. A word from us then was worth a deal more than that'd come to. Money wasn't the worst thing we had to care about.

They would have to change clothes, and he'd tell Jim about the horses, the stages, and how to answer the old cove, and what to do to humour him as they went along. If he'd had his full eyesight he might have noticed some difference, but as it was, it was as much as the poor old chap, she believed, could see there was a driver at all. His eyes was bound up mostly; he had a big shade over 'em, and was half the night swabbing and poulticing, and putting lotion into 'em. He'd got sandy blight that bad it would take months to get right. Once you get a touch like that it's a terror, I can tell you. I've had it that bad myself I had to be led about.

After a lot of talking, that Jim was to try his luck as the Rev. Mr. Watson's coachman, he was mad to get away somehow, and such another chance might never turn up in a month of Sundays. He would have plenty of time to shave his beard and make himself look as like as ever he could to Joe Moreton. Maddie said she'd see after that, and it would be as good as a play. Lucky for old Jim we'd all taken a fancy at the Turon, for once in a way, to talk like Arizona Bill and his mates, just for the fun of the thing. There were so many Americans there at first, and they were such swells, with their silk sashes, bowie knives, and broad-leafed 'full-share' hats, that lots of the young native fellows took a pride in copying them, and could walk and talk and guess and calculate wonderful well considering. Besides, most of the natives have a sort of slow, sleepy way of talking, so it partly came natural to this chap, Joe Moreton, and Jim. There couldn't be a better chance, so we thought we'd stay a day and give Jim a send off all square and regular. It wasn't no ways too safe, but we wanted a bit of a jollification and we thought we'd chance it.

That night we had a regular good ball. The girls got some of the young fellows from round about to come over, and a couple or two other girls, and we had no end of fun. There was plenty of champagne, and even Jim picked up a bit; and what with being grateful to Maddie for giving him this lift, and better in spirits on the chance of seeing Jeanie again, he was more like his own self. Maddie said he looked so handsome she had half a mind to throw over Joe Moreton after all.

Joe came rather latish, and the old gentleman had a cup of tea and went to bed at once, leaving word for Joe that he wanted to start almost before daylight, or as soon as he could see to drive, so as to get half-way on their stage before the sun was hot.

After Joe had seen to his horses and put the trap away he came into the house and had a glass or two, and wired in with the rest of us like a good 'un. After a bit we see Maddie corner him off and have a long talk, very serious too. After that they went for a walk in the garden and was away a good while. When she came back she looked over at Jim and nodded, as much as to say, 'It's all right,' and I saw poor old Jim's face brighten up as if a light had passed over it.

By and by she came over and told us all about it. She'd had a hard matter to manage it, for Joe was a square sort of fellow, that had a place of his own, and at first didn't like the notion of being mixed up with our crowd at all. But he was regular shook on Maddie, and she went at him as only a woman can, and I daresay, though she didn't tell us, made it part of the bargain, if she was to marry him, to help Jim in this particular way. He was to be well paid for this journey by old Mr. Watson, and he wanted a bit of money before harvest or he wouldn't have taken the job at all.

The end of it was that Jim and Joe sat up ever so late, pretty well on to daylight, smoking and yarning, and Joe practising Jim in all the things he was to do and say, giving him a kind of chart of the stages, and telling him the sort of answers he was to give to the old chap. It was just before daylight when they knocked off, and then Joe goes and peels off his duds and hands 'em over to Jim, rough great-coat and all—up to his chin and down to his toes.

Joe takes Jim's togs. They fitted him all to pieces, and Jim hands him over his horse, saddle, revolver, and spurs, and tells him the old horse is a real plum, and he hopes he'll be good to him. Then Jim shakes hands with us all round. Blessed if the girls wasn't up too, and had some coffee smoking hot for us. 'We can sleep when you're all gone,' says Maddie, 'and perhaps we shan't see old Jim any more' (this was said when Joe was out of the room), 'so here's good luck; and when you've got your wife and child again don't forget Maddie Barnes.' Then she shook hands with him, and made a quick bolt to her own room. Queer things women are, my word.

When old Jim drove round to the front with the pair of horses, setting up square with his big coat and Joe's 'full-share' hat on him, we all bursted out laughing. He'd first of all gone to the old gentleman's room and sung out, 'All aboard, sir, time's up,' just to liven him up a bit. Joe kept away down at the stable.