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

Starlight’s saving his life when he was a little chap, but that couldn’t have been all of it. There’s a many people in this world as you might save their lives half-a-dozen times over and they wouldn’t so much as say thank you, let alone give up their own for you, as I believe this chap would, or let himself be cut up in little bits for him any day. There’s some things as can’t be made out, and this was one of ’em. I’ve seen dogs as would do that kind of thing, and a woman here and there; but I’m dashed if Warrigal wasn’t the only man I ever met as seemed to live his life in another’s. I believe he’d almost bleed to death if anyone had stuck a knife into Starlight deep enough to hurt him.

After this we began to talk more free and easy and pleasant like. We had to fix the place to do the sticking-up at, the number of men to meet each other at a particular hour, the time to make the rush, the men that were to ride, them that were to go on foot, them that were to lead the packhorses.

Then to settle where the gold was to be brought to and where it was to be divided, in case the gold escort robbery⁠—for that, of course, was the game we were after⁠—came off right.

The gold was to be divided into so many shares. If any man was shot dead, his share was to go to his friends. The next week was the end of the month. There had been some heavy washings-up, and we heard that the next escort was more likely to be twelve or fifteen thousand ounces than ten. There were some cakes of retorted gold, too; one of them nearly two thousand ounces. The Golden Gate claim had washed up just before. We knew it always made a deal of difference to the escort it was sent down with.

One thing went a lot against the grain with us⁠—that is, with Jim, and me, and Starlight. It was that some of the gold we were going to have, if we could, belonged to diggers⁠—working men like ourselves, and that we’d always been good friends and mates with all the time we’d been at Turon. They’d worked hard for it as we knew, and never done us any harm. Quite the other way.

Most of the small lots of gold had been bought by the banks. We didn’t mind them, thinking, like our class generally, that banks had lots of money, and could afford to lose it. But the Golden Gate and two or three other claims always sent down their own gold to Sydney in separate parcels. It would be hard upon them to lose it, but we supposed the Government would make it up to them, if it was taken while under their charge. This turned out to be all wrong; the Government did not hold themselves responsible. They charged so much an ounce for forwarding it, and took as good care as they could, but they did not run the risk of loss, as the diggers found afterwards to their cost.

Before we left it was all settled that the gold should be brought to a place in the mountains, and divided there, if we couldn’t do it on the spot. The other men didn’t know much about weights and measures, but they said they’d have a man there who did know, and we agreed. When we heard his name, it stunned us above a bit, but Dad only grinned. He knew about him before, and that he was ready enough to stand in with any robbery so long as he got paid, and his name was kept out of it. We were not to pay him anything, but they might if they liked, and he was to sell their share for them. Then there was the bail-up place to fix. There was nothing half so good, they all said, as Eugowra Rocks⁠—a narrow track, with a longish hill and great boulders of granite on each side of the road, where twenty men could lie in plant and no one have a chance of spotting them till it was too late. The escort drag was always obliged to go slow there. By falling a tree or two across the road they’d have to go slower. They didn’t reach the place till close up dark, and there would be quite light enough afterwards to do what we wanted.

It was settled where we were all to meet in the afternoon, seven or eight miles from Eugowra. Our lot, of course, would be together, and the rest would muster up by twos and threes, so as not to set people thinking we was bound for a regular put-up thing. They’d find out soon enough what we were after.

All the time we were there, Jim stood up against a tree, and hardly said a word to anyone. He just passed the time of day to those as gave it to him, and that’s all. Some of ’em tried to talk to him a bit, but it was no use, and they left off. He wasn’t a man most people liked to interfere with; besides, they’d heard he’d got married, and left his wife behind him when he had to cut from the Turon, and they thought it was natural enough he should feel bad about it. One or two of them would have liked to have left their wives there, and never heard tell of ’em again. It was all through Joe Wall’s wife that he turned out, and gave up a good little run and stock enough to keep him comfortable all his life; but that says nothing. They all heard Jim’s wife was one of the right sort, and good-looking into the bargain; so they knew how it was, and pitied him. He’d fight all the better for it,