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

hell tried to stop us, I wouldn’t break my word. But we’ll come to the Hollow on Boxing Day, won’t we, Dick?”

“All right! It’s only two or three days. The day after tomorrow’s Chris’mas Eve. We’ll chance that, as it’s gone so far.”

“Take your own way,” growls father. “Fetch me my saddle. The old mare’s close by the yard.”

Jim fetches the saddle and bridle, and Crib comes after him, out of the verandah, where he had been lying. Bless you! he knew something was up. Just like a Christian he was, and nothing never happened that dad was in as he wasn’t down to.

“May as well stop till morning, dad,” says Jim, as we walked up to the yard.

“Not another minute,” says the old man, and he whips the bridle out of Jim’s hand and walks over to the old mare. She lifts up her head from the dry grass and stands as steady as a rock.

“Goodbye,” he says, and he shook hands with both of us; “if I don’t see you again I’ll send you word if I hear anything fresh.”

In another minute we heard the old mare’s hoofs proceeding away among the rocks up the gully, and gradually getting fainter in the distance.

Then we went in. Mother and Aileen had been in bed an hour ago, and all the better for them. Next morning we told mother and Aileen that father had gone. They didn’t say much. They were used to his ways. They never expected him till they saw him, and had got out of the fashion of asking why he did this or that. He had reasons of his own, which he never told them, for going or coming, and they’d left off troubling their heads about it. Mother was always in dread while he was there, and they were far easier in their minds when he was away off the place.

As for us, we had made up our minds to enjoy ourselves while we could, and we had come to his way of thinking, that most likely nothing was known of our being in the cattle affair that Starlight and the boy had been arrested for. We knew nothing would drag it out of Starlight about his pals in this or any other job. Now they’d got him, it would content them for a bit, and maybe take off their attention from us and the others that were in it.

There were two days to Christmas. Next day George and his sister would be over, and we all looked forward to that for a good reminder of old times. We were going to have a merry Christmas at home for once in a way. After that we would clear out and get away to some of the far out stations, where chaps like ourselves always made to when they wanted to keep dark. We might have the luck of other men that we had known of, and never be traced till the whole thing had died out and been half-forgotten. Though we didn’t say much to each other we had pretty well made up our minds to go straight from this out. We might take up a bit of back country, and put stock on it with some of the money we had left. Lots of men had begun that way that had things against them as bad as us, and had kept steady, and worked through in course of time. Why shouldn’t we as well as others? We wanted to see what the papers said of us, so we rode over to a little post town we knew of and got a copy of the Evening Times. There it all was in full:⁠—

Cattle-Lifting Extraordinary

We have heard from time to time of cattle being stolen in lots of reasonable size, say from ten to one hundred, or even as high as two hundred head at the outside. But we never expected to have to record the erecting of a substantial stockyard and the carrying off and disposing of a whole herd, estimated at a thousand or eleven hundred head, chiefly the property of one proprietor. Yet this has been done in New South Wales, and done, we regret to say, cleverly and successfully. It has just transpired, beyond all possibility of mistake, that Mr. Hood’s Outer Back Momberah run has suffered to that extent in the past winter. The stolen herd was driven to Adelaide, and there sold openly. The money was received by the robbers, who were permitted to decamp at their leisure.

When we mention the name of the notorious “Starlight,” no one will be surprised that the deed was planned, carried out, and executed with consummate address and completeness. It seems matter of regret that we cannot persuade this illustrious depredator to take the command of our police force, that body of life-assurers and property-protectors which has proved so singularly ineffective as a preventive service in the present case. On the well-known proverbial principle we might hope for the best results under Mr. Starlight’s intelligent supervision. We must not withhold our approval as to one item of success which the force has scored. Starlight himself and a half-caste henchman have been cleverly captured by Detective Stillbrook, just as the former, who has been ruffling it among the aristocratic settlers of Christchurch, was about to sail for Honolulu. The names of his other accomplices, six in number, it is said, have not as yet transpired.

This last part gave us confidence, but all the same we kept everything ready for a bolt in case of need. We got up our horses every evening and kept them in the yard all night. The feed was good by the creek now⁠—a little dried up but plenty of bite, and better for horses that had been ridden far and fast than if it was green. We had enough of last year’s hay to give them a feed at night, and that was all they wanted. They were two pretty good