Robbery under Arms / A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Australian Goldfields

aste in a day or two, if we'd like to wait. He was to meet him at the Hollow on purpose to help him out with the mob of fat bullocks we had looked at. Father, it appears, wa

en the three of us; that meant 50 Pounds a pi

month at a time, having great times of it as long as their grog lasted; and sometimes having the tribe of blacks that inhabited the district to make merry and carouse with them, like the buccaneers of the Spanish Main that I've read about, till the plunder was all gone. There were scrawls on the wall of the first cave we had been in that show

get rather sick of the life, when father, who used always

coming

coming-

. See that smoke? The half-caste always sends that

horses with t

. They'll be here about dinner-ti

hich father brought out. By and by we got sight of two men coming along on horseback on the top of the range the other side of the far

em at last, pretty clear, and n

rash. I can see the half-caste holding him on. If the police are on his

t were, then they stopped for a long while, t

now. It's a terrible steep, rough track, worse than the other. If Starlight's h

bers (boulders). There was a path, but it looked as if cattle could never be driven or forced up it. We found afterwards that they had an old pa

e one man, with a couple of guns and a pistol or two, could ha

p, kicking the stones down before them. Then we could hear a man groaning, as if he couldn't bear the pain, and partl

nding against one another every step of this inf

hold on a bit longer a

e had a good look at him and his rider. I never forgot them. It was a

came stepping down that beastly rocky goat-track, he, a clean thoroughbred that ought never to have trod upon anything rougher than a rolled training track, or the sound bush turf. And here

rolled round and strapped in front of the saddle, and his arms round the horse's neck. He was as pale as a ghost. His eyes-gre

that was what the half-caste was waiting for at the top of the gully). When we laid him d

ere was blood on his shirt, and the

'he's a dead man. What pluck he m

is hand on his pulse. 'Hold his head up one of you whi

his horse when he see he couldn't catch us, and very near drop Starlight. My word, he very nearly fall off-just like that' (here he imitated a man reeling in his saddle); 'but the old horse stop steady with him, my word, till he come to. Then the sergeant fire at him again; hit him in the s

a dead faint, as the women call it, not the real thing. And after he had tasted a pannikin full

aid. 'That--fellow shot like a prize-winn

bullet had passed through the muscle, narrowly missing the bone of the joint. We washed it, and relieved the wounded man by discovering that the o

ouldn't be fool enough to bring them here. Why didn't you leave them at home with their moth

led father; 'what's good enough for me isn't too bad for

g to burn a hole in him with a burning-glass; 'but if I'd a brace of fine boys lik

turn parson? You'll be just in time, for we'll all be shopped if you run against the police like

, with a big chestnut well-bred horse, that gave old Rainbow here all he knew to lose him. Now, once for all, no more of that, Marston, and mind

d see plainly that the stranger was or had been far above our rank,

d rest, it soon healed. He was pleasant enough, too, when the pain went away.

e to such a life. Unknown to father, too, he gave us good advice, warned us that what we were in was the r

his own way. That yellow whelp was never intended for anything better. But for you lads'-and here he looked kindly in poor old Jim's honest face (and an honest face and heart Jim's was, and that I'll live and die on)-'my advice to you is, to clear off ho

un in for father and Mr. Starlight and Warriga

good look-and if I'd been a fellow that painted pictures, and tha

do believe; and many another Currency chap can say the same-a horse or a woman-that's about the size of it, one or t'other

so much more than you'd think. He had a short back, and his ribs went out like a cask, long quarter, great thighs and hocks, wonderful legs, and feet of course to do the work he did. His head was plainish, but clean and bony, and his eye was big and well opened, with no

by a poor man. I afterwards found out that he was stolen before he was foaled, like many another plum, and his dam killed as soon as she had weaned him. So, of co

ht had some terrible long talks, and o

think they'

n ewes to take up a run with? They seem to be game for anything. T

ook in his eye (I didn't think then how near the

matter. But what's one horse

ing about. Don't you remember the imported entire that they had his

e? Why, you don't mean to

y'll have him here, and twenty blood

e after us like a pack of dingoes after an old man kangaroo when the ground's boggy, and they'

ught him round bit by bit-said he knew a squatter in Queensland he could pass him on to; that they'd keep h

say Windhall keeps him locked up at ni

to have one or two everywhere. It's wonderful,

get a few colts by him out of thoroughbred mares we might win h

f it, there wouldn't be anything like the cross-work that there is in Australia. It lies partly between that and the dry weather. There's the long spells of drought when nothing can be done by young or old. Sometimes for months you can't work in the garden, nor plough, nor sow, nor do anything useful to keep

l ramblin' about and mixed up, and there's a temptation to collar somebody's calves or foals, like we did that first red heifer. I shall remember her to my dying day.

e'd been. Of course they couldn't be off knowin' that we'd been with him; but we were to stall them off by saying we'd been helping him with a bit of bush-work or anything we co

or once. And I was near sayin', 'Why don't ye cut the whole blessed lot, then, and come home and work steady and make us all comfortable and happy?' But when

yard where we had been catching our h

up, foot by foot, and hard work it was-like climbing up the roof of

tracks of the cows all round about it, but nothi

m; 'I wonder how in the world they e

s at first. Then, by degrees, they used to crawl out by moonlight and collar a horse or two or a few cattle. They managed to live there years and years; one died, one was kille

lack