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

taken, and perhaps Jim. The odds were he might be smashed against a tree, perhaps killed, at the pace he was going on a horse he could not guide.

They searched the house, but the money they didn’t get. Jim and I had taken care of that, in case of accidents. Mother sat rocking herself backwards and forwards, every now and then crying out in a pitiful way, like the women in her country do, I’ve heard tell, when someone of their people is dead; “keening,” I think they call it. Well, Jim and I were as good as dead. If the troopers had shot the pair of us there and then, same as bushmen told us the black police did their prisoners when they gave ’em any trouble, it would have been better for everybody. However, people don’t die all at once when they go to the bad, and take to stealing or drinking, or any of the devil’s favourite traps. Pity they don’t, and have done with it once and for all.

I know I thought so when I was forced to stand there with my hands chained together for the first time in my life (though I’d worked for it, I know that); and to see Aileen walking about laying the cloth for breakfast like a dead woman, and know what was in her mind.

The troopers were civil enough, and Goring, the senior constable, tried to comfort them as much as he could. He knew it was no fault of theirs; and though he said he meant to have Jim if mortal men and horses could do it he thought he had a fair chance of getting away. “He’s sure to be caught in the long run, though,” he went on to say. “There’s a warrant out for him, and a description in every Police Gazette in the colonies. My advice to him would be to come back and give himself up. It’s not a hanging matter, and as it’s the first time you’ve been fitted, Dick, the judge, as like as not, will let you off with a light sentence.”

So they talked away until they had finished their breakfast. I couldn’t touch a mouthful for the life of me, and as soon as it was all over they ran up my horse and put the saddle on. But I wasn’t to ride him. No fear! Goring put me on an old screw of a troop horse, with one leg like a gatepost. I was helped up and my legs tied under his belly. Then one of the men took the bridle and led me away. Goring rode in front and the other men behind.

As we rose the hill above the place I looked back and saw mother drop down on the ground in a kind of fit, while Aileen bent over her and seemed to be loosening her dress. Just at that moment George Storefield and his sister rode up to the door. George jumped off and rushed over to Aileen and mother. I knew Gracey had seen me, for she sat on her horse as if she had been turned to stone, and let her reins drop on his neck. Strange things have happened to me since, but I shall never forget that to the last day of my miserable life.

XVII

I wasn’t in the humour for talking, but sometimes anything’s better than one’s own thoughts. Goring threw in a word from time to time. He’d only lately come into our district, and was sure to be promoted, everybody said. Like Starlight himself, he’d seen better days at home in England; but when he got pinched he’d taken the right turn and not the wrong one, which makes all the difference. He was earning his bread honest, anyway, and he was a chap as liked the fun and dash of a mounted policeman’s life. As for the risk⁠—and there is some danger, more than people thinks, now and then⁠—he liked that the best of it. He was put out at losing Jim; but he believed he couldn’t escape, and told me so in a friendly way. “He’s inside a circle and he can’t get away, you mark my words,” he said, two or three times. “We have every police-station warned by wire, within a hundred miles of here, three days ago. There’s not a man in the colony sharper looked after than Master Jim is this minute.”

“Then you only heard about us three days ago?” I said.

“That’s as it may be,” he answered, biting his lip. “Anyhow, there isn’t a shepherd’s hut within miles that he can get to without our knowing it. The country’s rough, but there’s word gone for a black tracker to go down. You’ll see him in Bargo before the week’s out.”

I had a good guess where Jim would make for, and he knew enough to hide his tracks for the last few miles if there was a whole tribe of trackers after him.

That night we rode into Bargo. A long day too we’d had⁠—we were all tired enough when we got in. I was locked up, of course, and as soon as we were in the cell Goring said, “Listen to me,” and put on his official face⁠—devilish stern and hard-looking he was then, in spite of all the talking and nonsense we’d had coming along.

“Richard Marston, I charge you with unlawfully taking, stealing, and carrying away, in company with others, one thousand head of mixed cattle, more or less the property of one Walter Hood, of Outer Back, Momberah, in or about the month of June last.”

“All right; why don’t you make it a few more while you’re about it?”

“That’ll do,” he said, nodding his head, “you decline to say anything. Well, I can’t exactly wish you a merry Christmas⁠—fancy this being Christmas Eve, by Jove!⁠—but you’ll be cool enough this deuced hot weather till the sessions in February, which is more than some