Robbery Under Arms - Rolf Boldrewood (most important books of all time .TXT) 📗

do, my word. And Starlight said, ‘Tell ’em to be here today if they can.’ I know he’s afraid of someone follerin’ up our tracks, as it is.”

“That’s all right, Warrigal; but you ride steady all the same, and don’t be tearing away through thick timber, like a mallee scrubber that’s got into the open and sees the devil behind him until he can get cover again. We shall be there tonight if it’s not a hundred miles, and that’s time enough.”

We did drop in for a long day, and no mistake. We only pulled up for a short halt in the middle, and Warrigal’s cast-iron pony was off again, as if he was bound right away for the other side of the continent. However, though we were not going slow either, but kept up a reasonable fast pace, it must have been past midnight when we rode into Starlight’s camp; very glad Jim and I were to see the fire⁠—not a big one either. We had been taking it pretty easy, you see, for a month or two, and were not quite so ready for an eighty-mile ride as if we had been in something like training. The horses had had enough of it, too, though neither of them would give in, not if we’d ridden ’em twenty mile farther. As for Warrigal’s Bilbah he was near as fresh as when he started, and kept tossin’ his head an’ amblin’ and pacin’ away as if he was walkin’ for a wager round a ring in a show-yard.

As we rode up we could see a gunyah made out of boughs, and a longish wing of dogleg fence, made light but well put together. As soon as we got near enough a dog ran out and looked as if he was going to worry us; didn’t bark either, but turned round and waited for us to get off.

“It’s old Crib,” said Jim, with a big laugh; “blest if it ain’t. Father’s somewhere handy. They’re going to take up a back block and do the thing regular: Marston, Starlight, and Company⁠—that’s the fakement. They want us out to make dams or put up a woolshed or something. I don’t see why they shouldn’t, as well as Crossman and Fakesley. It’s six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, as far as being on the square goes. Depend upon it, dad’s turned over a new leaf.”

“Do you fellows want anything to eat?” said a voice that I knew to be Starlight’s. “If you do there’s tea near the fire, and some grub in that flour bag. Help yourselves and hobble out your horses. We’ll settle matters a bit in the morning. Your respected parent’s abed in his own camp, and it’s just as well not to wake him, unless you want his blessing ere you sleep.”

We went with Starlight to his gunyah. A path led through a clump of pines, so thick that a man might ride round it and never dream there was anything but more pines inside. A clear place had been made in the sandhill, and a snug crib enough rigged with saplings and a few sheets of bark. It was neat and tidy, like everything he had to do with. “I was at sea when I was young,” he once said to Jim, when he was a bit “on,” “and a man learns to be neat there.” There was a big chimney outside, and a lot of leaves and rushes out of a swamp which he had made Warrigal gather.

“Put your blankets down there, boys, and turn in. You’ll see how the land lies in the morning.” We didn’t want asking twice, Jim’s eyes were nigh shut as it was. The sun was up when we woke.

Outside the first thing we saw was father and Starlight talking. Both of these seemed a bit cranky. “It’s a d⁠⸺ shame,” we heard Starlight say, as he turned and walked off. “We could have done it well enough by ourselves.”

“I know what I’m about,” says father, “it’s all or none. What’s the use of crying after being in it up to our neck?”

“Some day you’ll think different,” says Starlight, looking back at him.

I often remembered it afterwards.

“Well, lads,” says father, looking straight at us, “I wasn’t sure as you’d come. Starlight has been barneying with me about sending for you. But we’ve got a big thing on now, and I thought you’d like to be in it.”

“We have come,” says I, pretty short. “Now we’re here what’s the play called, and when does the curtain rise? We’re on.” I was riled, vexed at Starlight talking as if we were children, and thought I’d show as we were men, like a young fool as I was.

“All right,” says father, and he sat down on a log, and began to tell us how there was any quantity of cattle running at the back where they were camped⁠—a good lot strayed and mixed up, from the last dry season, and had never been mustered for years. The stockmen hardly ever came out till the autumn musters. One of the chaps that was in it knew all this side and had told them. They were going to muster for a month or so, and drive the mob right through to Adelaide. Store cattle were dear then, and we could get them off easy there and come back by sea. No one was to know we were not regular overlanders; and when we’d got the notes in our pockets it would be a hard matter to trace the cattle or prove that we were the men that sold ’em.

“How many head do you expect to get?” says Jim.

“A thousand or twelve hundred; half of ’em fat, and two-thirds of them young cattle.”

“By George! that’s something like a haul; but you can’t muster such a lot as that without a yard.”

“I know that,” says father. “We’re putting up a yard on a little plain about a mile from