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

people were drowned crossing them every day. The excitement about the gold kept up, and rose higher, too. There was plenty of it everywhere, it seemed. Many and many’s the time Jim and I repented in our hearts that we had not been ready to take advantage of it, like other men that we knew that were making their hundreds and hundreds of pounds at the Turon⁠—all honest and on the square. It was just the life that would have suited me and Jim; the excitement and fun and change that we’d been spoiling for all our lives, and now, when it did come, and helped lots of chaps like us, and made men of them, we were not able to touch it, because we’d shut ourselves out by our own fault and nothing else. It did make us mad at times, there’s no doubt, but it was, like a lot of other things, too late⁠—always too late!

It didn’t matter much to us at the Hollow what the season was like⁠—wet or dry, cold or hot. Our two creeks had a sort of outlet into a big limestone cave at the low end of the valley, when they went underground and disappeared. We did not trouble ourselves about what became of the waters afterwards; tho’ Starlight, who had read a lot, though he didn’t talk about books, said it flowed on in a kind of underground river, and came out at a lower level a long way off. Anyhow, it seemed to drain off easy enough whatever rain fell, and, though it boiled and bubbled going into the cavern, it never seemed to fill up and flood over; a power of water must have gone that way too. We got word now and then from Aileen to let us know how things were going on at home. She hadn’t the heart to write much, but she sent a few lines from time to time to where father told her to, and some of the chaps in his pay left it where Warrigal could get it and so it came round to us. She told us that the police came to our place early in the morning, the day after we had left, when Billy the Boy gave us the tip. They were there before daylight, and watched and waited about till near evening, when they came down to the house and searched, and then went away quite disappointed. They were very civil, and didn’t say anything to vex mother or her in any way. They saw the tracks, but they couldn’t make head or tail of them, and ran out Billy’s a good way. They had been back again, she said, a large party this time, with Sergeant Goring and a black tracker, after the mail robbery; but, of course, as there was no track except George Storefield’s, who had been over as usual to see them, they couldn’t find any. They didn’t stay long, just took a circle round and up the gully, and went away again.

George Storefield had been with a party at the diggings, and had made money⁠—a good deal, he told them⁠—but he said carriage was so high that he was making more money even by his teams, only he was pushed for drivers. He could hardly get them to stop, no matter what wages he gave them. He had bought another farm, the Doolans’: they had all gone away to the diggings, and intended to stop there. George said he meant to buy all the land he could, as he expected it to rise in value by-and-by. “He said he thought of you and Jim when he first saw the crowd at the Turon, and how you’d both have been quite at home there. Oh! Dick, Dick!”⁠—and here the letter left off short, and there was a big splash on the paper, as if the poor thing had started to cry and couldn’t write any more. I thought Jim was going to blubber too when we came to that part of it; anyway he turned away his head and walked off without saying a word more.

One day after we’d had a fortnight more on the quiet, and had got pretty well full up of nothing to do, Starlight says, all of a sudden, “What do you say if we take a ride over and have a look at the Turon? I should like to see these diggings, and we might pick up some useful information.”

“I’m there,” I said; “anything for a lark. I’m regularly done up for a bit of a change; but what about the chance of dropping on to the police?”

“There’s not so much risk in a place like that,” says he. “It’s walking into the lion’s mouth, of course; but that’s why they’re likely not to keep a sharp lookout. There must be such a crowd of all sorts there that we may pass muster. What do you say, Jim?”

“I’ll go anywhere you like,” says Jim, stretching himself. “It makes no odds to me now where we go. What do you think of it, dad?”

“I think you’ve no call to leave here for another month anyhow; but as I suppose some folks’ll play the fool some road or other you may as well go there as anywhere else. If you must go you’d better take some of these young horses with you and sell them while prices keep up.”

“Capital idea,” says Starlight; “I was wondering how we’d get those colts off. You’ve the best head amongst us, governor. We’ll start out today and muster the horses, and we can take Warrigal with us as far as Jonathan Barnes’s place.”

We didn’t lose time once we’d made up our minds to anything. So that night all the horses were in and drafted ready⁠—twenty-five upstanding colts, well bred, and in good condition. We expected they’d fetch a lot of money. They were all quiet, too, and well broken in by Warrigal, who used to get