Robbery Under Arms - Rolf Boldrewood (the best books to read TXT) 📗

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.