Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Boldrewood (epub read online books TXT) 📕

do all the work she did, for ten times as much. But all the farmers, little and great, were finding the benefit of the gold and the thousands of new people it brought into the country with ready money in their pockets. That made their regular business a sort of goldmine for them.

Butter and cheese, corn and chaff, beef and mutton, bacon, horses, and cows, everything they had to sell in a small way, were doubled and trebled in price. They hadn’t much labour to pay. The carriage of all kinds of goods rose and rose till it was a hundred pounds a ton⁠—even more. What a chance a man had then who had a middling farm, a couple of teams, and sons able to work. That was how we stood in one way. And what had we made of it? And worse might come yet!

I couldn’t stand these kind of thoughts long, so I said goodbye to mother and Aileen, and pushed away off. I was just in time, for I hadn’t gone half-a-mile from the house when two troopers rode at me from different sides and called on me to stand.

I wasn’t going to do that, so I rammed the spurs info the old horse, lay down well on his neck, and went away as if I’d just caught sight of a mob of wild cattle in the old days. One of them let drive at me; the other raced as hard as he could lick to see if he could overhaul me. The old horse I rode wasn’t a slow one; and when I was riding for my life, there wasn’t that man in the whole force, then, that could see the way I went, if the timber was thick. It was a little too open at first, but it got thicker as we got up the gully. I was making good headway when one of the men pulled up, dismounted, and took a steady aim with his rifle; it was a long shot, but be was a cool card, and nearly had me. I felt something sharp strike my shoulder, more like a stone a bullet feels than anything else, and down dropped my bridle arm. I reeled for a second or two, but gathered myself up and shifted my hand. It didn’t much matter to us which hand we rode with or whether we had a bridle at all if the horse didn’t run against anything. Another and another shot came, it was a repeating rifle, I heard afterwards, a weapon we didn’t know much about then. They came close enough, but didn’t ring the bell either of them. I got well into tho mountain after a bit and all the sounds died away. It was hard and rough for hours after, but I never drew rein till I got to the tableland above the Hollow. The old horse had had pretty well enough of it by that time, but he was game and had a dash of blood in him and knew he was going home, and he wasn’t likely to give in. By this time my arm, which had been broken near the shoulder, began to be awfully painful. I was nearly as bad as Starlight must have been the first day we saw him come down the track on the other side of the valley with Warrigal. But I had no half-caste to help me; what I was afraid of was that I might faint and fall off. Then if they followed up the tracks they might have me and find out the Hollow, which was worse than all.

They hadn’t a black tracker with them, that was one thing, and as none of the police.at that time were natives of the colony, or had been brought up in it, it wasn’t likely that they’d be able to run a single horse’s tracks through such a country. I’d got off once or twice too in the rockiest places and led the old horse, so that it was pretty likely they’d be thrown bodily off the tracks after a few miles, and, not knowing which way I was heading, never find ’em again. Anyhow, I was too stiff to get off now; so I rode right down the mountainside track, and every step the old horse took I thought my arm would come right off, and my head burst in two with the pain. When the old horse pulled up at the cave (they’d often used him as a packhorse, and he knew it like a book) I dropped slap off, and never knew anything more about anything till I found myself in my blankets, and Jim sitting smoking alongside of me. My arm and shoulder were all bound up, and I felt as stiff as if the whole of me was made of wood, and had been broken and fresh mended again.

“You’ve been and done it this time, old man,” says he; “looks as if you’d been in the hands of the Philistines. Starlight says dad was awful wild, cursed, and swore terrible, till we had to shut him up. Tell us all about it. You seen ’em at home, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I said; “had a good yarn with Ailie and mother. I’m glad it wasn’t going there, when those thundering police dropped across me. By Jove! I’ll be quits with them some day.”

“They’re only doing their duty, Dick. It’s all in the day’s work. It’s no use growling at them. We should do the same in their place.”

“I suppose so, but its enough to make a fellow savage to think be can’t ride home for a yarn with his own people, not thinking of doing harm to any living soul, but he must be hunted down and potted at as if he was a wild bullock in George-street.”

“They ought to let us have a week now and then,” Jim said, with a kind of smile on his face. “What do they call