A Final Reckoning: A Tale of Bush Life in Australia, G. A. Henty [best mystery novels of all time .TXT] 📗

the sentries, there was no stir among them until late in the afternoon. Then there was a general movement, and soon all were sitting up, and appeasing their appetite upon the cold meat and dampers they had brought with them.

"There is no harm in a pipe, I suppose, captain?" Dick Caister said laughingly.

"No, I think we can risk that," Reuben replied. "The eyes of the savages may be wonderfully keen, but they would be a great deal sharper than I can give them credit for, were they to notice the smoke of a dozen pipes, curling up among the bushes."

"I suppose, Mr. Blount," Reuben said as, after the meal was finished, the party lighted their pipes and drew closely round the fire, "you have heard of a good many bad businesses, with the blacks and bush rangers, in your time?"

"I have, indeed," Mr. Blount replied. "In the early days, the settlers had a hard time of it with the blacks; who were, of course, stronger than they are now and, after they had got over their first fear of firearms, more fearless of the whites. The bush rangers too were, when first they began to send convicts here, more numerous than at present. I do not know that they were as desperate as they are now—not so ready to take life, without provocation. You see, there was a very much larger run of country open to them; and many convicts who escaped, and took to the bush, were content to have gained their freedom. Some of them took black gins, and never troubled the colonists again; beyond, perhaps, coming down to a station and carrying off a sheep or two, or a bullock, when they got sick of kangaroo meat and wanted a change.

"You see, the first settlers were generally poor and hard-working men. Young men with a little capital had not as yet been attracted here, so there was but little inducement for the escaped convicts to meddle with them. There were, of course, some notorious scoundrels, who seemed to murder for the pure love of the thing. The worst of them, I think, was a fellow who went by the name of Cockeye. What his real name was, I never heard.

"That man was a perfect devil; and was, for a long time, the terror of the settlers. He never worked with other white men, but lived among the blacks. Of course, in those days the police system was in its infancy, and we had to rely upon ourselves. I had a narrow escape, once, of losing my life, from him and his blacks.

"When I was about seventeen, I lived with my father and mother in a station about fifty miles from Sydney, or as it was called then Port Jackson. It was at that time quite an outlying station. We had two convicts allotted to us, both of them honest fellows enough, who had been transported for poaching or something of that kind—anyhow, they were not old hands, and gave no trouble. My father was a kind master, and we always felt that, in case of need, we could rely upon them just as upon ourselves. In those days it was next to impossible to get hired hands for, as there was plenty of land for anyone to squat upon, comparatively close to the port, the men who came out generally set up for themselves, at once.

"One day I had been out on horseback, to look for a couple of bullocks which had strayed away; and was on my way back when, ahead of me, I heard the cooey of the blacks. I didn't think much of it, because they were common enough at that time, and a party had made a sort of encampment at a stream, about a mile from the house; but when, a minute later, I heard a gun fired, I guessed that there was mischief.

"The sound seemed to come from away towards the right, where I knew that one of our men was out, herding the bullocks; so I clapped spurs to my horse, and rode in that direction. When I got near, I saw the cattle running wildly about, and a mob of black fellows among them. I could see no signs of our man, and guessed that he must have gone down; and that I had best ride and warn them, at the house.

"The blacks saw me, and started at a run in my direction, but I soon left them behind. I was within a quarter of a mile of the house, when a native yell burst out ahead of me, followed by two shots. I rode on and, when I got near the house, saw a lot of black fellows round it.

"Then came a flash from one of the upper windows, and I saw one of them roll over. That was a satisfaction, for I knew they hadn't caught my father asleep. I knew the doors and shutters were strong, and that he could make a good fight of it. Still, there was only him and my mother at home, for both the men had gone out before I left in the morning; and one man hasn't much chance of holding a house, attacked on all sides. So I made up my mind to try to dash through them, when the shutter opened a little, and my father shouted out:

"'Ride for help, Bill. I will keep them off, till you get back.'

"So I turned; but when I had gone a few yards I looked over my shoulder, and I saw a man dash out from behind the house on horseback, and start at a gallop after me. It was a bay with a white leg, and I knew that Cockeye used to ride such a horse, and that there wasn't a better in the colony. Almost at the same moment I heard a shot again, but I didn't look round.

"I can tell you I felt pretty badly frightened, for there was no mercy to be expected from that scoundrel, and I knew that he was a good deal better mounted than I was. The next station was about four miles off, and I had about two hundred yards start, but before I had gone half a mile, he was within fifty yards of me. I could hear him, cursing and swearing and shouting to me to stop, but I had made up my mind I would not do that.

"I had got a brace of pistols with me, but I wasn't much of a shot. I had, soon after I started, pulled them out of the holsters and shoved them into my belt in front of me; so that, as he came up, he shouldn't see my hand go down for them. My hope was that he would ride straight up to the side of me, not knowing that I was armed; and that would give me a chance of suddenly letting fly at him.

"You would think the chance was a poor one; and that he would, to a certainty, shoot me down before he got up. I did not much think he would do that, for I guessed that the scoundrel would do with me as he had in some other cases; namely, take me and carry me back to the house, and there either threaten to shoot me, or hang me up over a fire, or some such devilry, to make those inside give in. I was determined this shouldn't be, and that if I could not shoot him I would be shot myself; for otherwise he would have got my father and mother, and it would have been three lives instead of one.

"Presently—crack!—came the sound of a pistol, and I heard the bullet whiz close by. I expect that it was only to frighten me into stopping; but in a second or two he fired again, and the shot just grazed my shoulder, so he was in earnest that time.

"I bent low on my saddle, got a pistol out of my belt, and prepared. There was another shot, the horse gave a spring and I knew he was hit, but for a time he went faster than ever; still, the last shot wasn't from more than twenty yards behind; and I expected, every minute, to see his horse's head coming up beside me. Then I heard a curse and a sudden fall and, looking round, saw his horse was down.

"Cockeye was on his feet in a moment, and drew another pistol from his holster; so I concluded to keep on as hard as I could go, without waiting to make inquiries. I guessed pretty well what had happened. The shot I had heard my father fire, as he started after me, had hit the horse; and the poor brute had kept on until he dropped. I understood the fellow's firing, now. He felt his horse was failing under him, and his only chance was to stop me.

"I kept on till I got safe to the station. The three men there started in different directions, to fetch assistance, and by the evening we had a score of men assembled there, and started back to our station. We heard a cooey when we were within a mile of the place, and guessed it was a fellow on the watch. By the time we got there they had all cleared off, but it was a close thing.

"My mother was a courageous woman, and had defended the back of the house, and my father the front. The blacks had made several attempts to burn the place down; but the roof, like the walls, was made of solid timber; which is the only safe way to build a house, when you are exposed to attacks of the blacks.

"As long as daylight lasted the old people had done very well, and had kept the blacks at a distance; and we saw, by the marks of blood in the morning, that they must have killed or wounded eight or ten of them; but if we hadn't come up before the blacks had darkness to cover them, it would have gone hard with them. Of course we knew that, and calculated so as to get there before nightfall."

"What became of the bush ranger?" Reuben asked.

"Well, curiously enough, that was the last time he ever troubled the settlements. We never knew exactly what became of him, but it was said that the blacks killed and eat him. I know that was very often the end of those fellows. As long as all went on well, the blacks were friendly enough with them, and were glad to follow their lead; but after a repulse like that they got at our station, or perhaps as a result of some quarrel about the division of the plunder, or their gins, or something of that sort, they would fall suddenly on their white friends, and make cooked meat of them."

"I suppose the blacks seldom spare any whites who fall into their hands?" Reuben asked.

"Scarcely ever," Mr. Blount replied. "That was why they were more dreaded than the bush rangers. The latter would kill, if they were in the humour for it; but if there was no serious resistance, and none of their number got hurt, more often than not they contented themselves by leaving everyone tied, hand and foot, till somebody came to unloose them.

"I remember one horrible case, in which they so tied up three white men at a lonely station, and nobody happened to go near it for three weeks afterwards. It struck someone that none of them had been seen, for some time; and a couple of men rode over and, to their horror, found the three men dead of hunger and thirst.

"Now the black fellows don't do that sort of thing. When they do attack a station and take it, they kill every soul; man, woman, and child."

"I suppose, in that affair you were telling us of," Reuben asked, "both of your ticket-of-leave men were killed?"

"Yes. One seemed to have been surprised and speared at once. The other had made a stout fight of it, for the bodies of three natives were found near him."

"I remember one case," one of the others said, "in which the blacks did spare one of the party, in a station which they attacked. It was a little girl of about three years old. Why they did so I don't know; perhaps the chief took a fancy to her. Maybe he had lost a child of the same age, and thought his gin would take to the little one. Anyhow, he carried her off.

"The father happened to be away at the time. He had gone down to Sydney with a waggon, for stores; and when he got back he found the house burned, and the bodies of his wife, two boys, and two men, but there was