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

to meet near Eugowra Rocks a good hour or two before the escort passed, so as to have everything ready. I remember the day as well as if it was yesterday. We were all in great buckle and very fit, certainly. I don’t think I ever felt better in my life. There must be something out-and-out spiriting in a real battle when a bit of a scrimmage like this sent our blood boiling through our veins; made us feel as if we weren’t plain Dick and Jim Marston, but regular grand fellows, in a manner of speaking. What fools men are when they’re young⁠—and sometimes after that itself⁠—to be sure.

We started at daylight, and only stopped once on the road for a bite for ourselves and to water the horses, so that we were in good time. We brought a little corn with us, just to give the horses something; they’d be tied up for hours and hours when we got to the place pitched on. They were all there before us; they hadn’t as good horses by a long chalk as we had, and two of their packers were poor enough. Jim and I were riding ahead with Starlight a little on the right of us. When the fellows saw Rainbow they all came crowding round him as if he’d been a show.

“By George!” says Burke, “that’s a horse worth calling a horse, Captain. I often heard tell of him, but never set eyes on him before. I’ve two minds to shake him and leave you my horse and a share of the gold to boot. I never saw his equal in my life, and I’ve seen some plums too.”

“Honour among⁠—well⁠—bushrangers, eh, Burke?” says Starlight cheerily. “He’s the right sort, isn’t he? We shall want good goers tonight. Are we all here now? We’d better get to business.”

Yes, they were all there, a lot of well-built, upstanding chaps, young and strong, and fit to do anything that a man could do in the way of work or play. It was a shame to see them there (and us too, for the matter of that), but there was no get away now. There will be fools and rogues to the end of the world, I expect. Even Moran looked a bit brighter than he did last time. He was one of those chaps that a bit of real danger smartens up. As for Burke, Daly, and Hulbert, they were like a lot of schoolboys, so full of their fun and larks.

Starlight just spoke a word to them all; he didn’t talk much, but looked hard and stern about the face, as a captain ought to do. He rode up to the gap and saw where the trees had been cut down to block up the road. It would be hard work getting the coach through there now⁠—for a bit to come.

After that our horses and the two packers were left behind with Warrigal and father, close enough for hearing, but well out of the way for seeing; it was behind a thick belt of timber. They tied up some to trees and short-hobbled others, keeping them all so as to be ready at a moment’s notice. Our men hid themselves behind rocks and stumps on the high side of the road so as they could see well, and had all the shadow on their side. Wall and Hulbert and their lot had their mob of horses, packers, and all planted away, and two young fellows belonging to their crowd minding them.

We’d been ready a good bit when a cove comes tearing up full bat. We were watching to see how he shaped, and whether he looked likely to lay on the police, when I saw it was Billy the Boy.

“Now I call this something like,” says he, pulling up short: “army in readiness, the enemy not far off. My word, it is a fine thing to turn out, ain’t it, Dick? Do you chaps feel shaky at all? Ain’t yer gallied the least little bit? They’re a-comin’!”

“How long will they be?” Starlight said. “Just remember that you’re not skylarking at a pound-yard, my boy.”

“All right, Captain,” he answered, quiet enough. “I started on ahead the moment I saw ’em leave the camp. They’re safe to be here in ten minutes now. You can see ’em when they come into the flat. I’ll clear out to the back for a bit. I want ’em to think I come up permiskus-like when it’s over.” So the young rascal galloped away till the trees hid him, and in a quarter of an hour more we saw the leaders of the four-horse drag that carried the escort gold turn round on the forest road and show out into the flat.

It gave me a queer feeling just at first. We hadn’t been used to firing on the Queen’s servants, not in cold blood, anyhow, but it was them or us for it now. There was no time to think about it. They came along at a steady trot up the hill. We knew the Turon sergeant of police that drove, a tall man with a big black beard down to his chest. He had been in an English dragoon regiment, and could handle the ribbons above a bit. He had a trooper alongside him on the box with his rifle between his knees. Two more were in the body of the drag. They had put their rifles down and were talking and laughing, not expecting anything sudden. Two more of the mounted men rode in front, but not far. The couple behind were a good way off. All of a sudden the men in front came on the trees lying across the road. They pulled up short, and one of them jumped down and looked to see if anything could be done to move them. The other man held his horse. The coach drove up close, so that they were bunched up pretty well together.

“Who